inner city life

The City Recap: Destiny Is Not an Express Train to an Office Where Everything Is Pink

Last night’s episode of The City may have been the series’ last. And some story lines were tied up, like the ridiculous one at Elle where we’ve been waiting to find out just WHO would be the “face” of Elle.com, which is ridiculous because we’re looking at the site right now and guess what? There ain’t no face of it anywhere. A dot com is a website, not a cosmetics line, and it doesn’t need or have faces.

Nonetheless, Joe decides to name Olivia the face of Elle.com, which should give us a welcome respite from Louise Roe if the series continues. Meanwhile, Roxy tries to enjoy her respite from living with Whitney, who is still acting delusional and mean. More thoughts on that in this week’s lessons.

Lesson 1: Choosing a PR company.
Do: Seek your mentor’s advice, especially if she’s a PR professional. Whitney begins the episode by telling Kelly that Alison Brod approached her about signing her. This is a little like a suburban 14-year-old going into eighth grade, flicking her hair, and telling her girlfriends she was scouted in the mall the other day by a big local modeling agent! The girlfriends will only be jealous and express doubt (it’s a local agent in suburbia, after all), but the tall, pretty girl will be on too much of an ego trip and too busy planning her next diet to realize that bringing out such jealous feelings won’t be good for her social life. So in Whitney’s mind, when Kelly Cutrone gets jealous, it’s like whatever. “She does a lot of beauty, right?” Kelly asks. “She wears, like, pink all the time?” Yes and yes, but Whitney didn’t want Kelly to think she was going behind her back. “Destiny’s a train but it’s not an express train,” Kelly adds. “Maybe she’s part of your destiny.” Pause for blank stares. “I’m gonna get back to work.”
Do: Decide what exactly it is you need representation for. Whitney is ostensibly interested in Brod’s services so she can promote her clothing line. But everyone on earth knows that’s not why she needs a PR person — she needs a PR person because she’s a celebrity— a low-ranking, reality-TV kind of a celebrity, but a celebrity nonetheless.

Lesson 2: Hosting an Internet fashion video.
Don’t: Be as annoying as the nightly celebrity news anchors. Keith from Elle has a point when he says Louise is too TV in her delivery, and too enthusiastically announce-y like an anchorwoman who glued her eyelids to her eye sockets with her fake eyelash glue. Thank you, Keith! She IS totally annoying!
Do: Enunciate. Where Louise succeeds and Olivia fails in doing these journalistically groundbreaking videos is speaking clearly. Olivia — after a whole two seasons on this godforsaken show — still can’t move her mouth or speak in full sentences. This is hardly a skill someone should have, but Olivia’s mind-boggling failure at it makes Louise seem so talented at … speaking.

Lesson 3: Greeting foreign fans.
Do: Smile! Why is everyone in Japan so excited to see Olivia? When she arrives at Japanese Elle, the Japanese Erin introduces her to the Japanese Robbie, who is positively giddy to have her. They decide Olivia will sit on the stage at the event that night and Akiko, the editor-in-chief, will interview her. “I have many questions for yoooouu about your fashion and your special secret,” she tells Olivia. It’s all pretty strange, but Olivia smiles in almost a non-fake way. Maybe she pulled her hair back so tightly to help hold her mouth up.
Don’t: Act like the foreigners are strange. Later at the event — to which, inexplicably, hundreds of young Japanese women showed up — Olivia politely thanks the ladies who tell her she has such a small face. ““Your face is so small so I don’t want to take a picture with you,” one enthuses. “Your face is so small! It’s amazing!” another exclaims. This is actually a huge compliment in Japan, and Olivia refrains from looking like she wants to punch them in the face, which we can tell she’s probably dying to do.

Lesson 4: Jumpsuits.
Don’t: Wear the jumpsuitiest jumpsuit you can find. Roxy and Zach go to the park to talk shit about Whitney, but we can hardly focus on all the wonderfully nasty things Roxy is saying about her because she’s wearing the scariest outfit to possibly ever appear on this show: a purple, floral-print, backless jumpsuit with flared pant legs and a brown leather belt. It’s obscene.

Lesson 5: Talking shit about somebody.
Do: Let out the emotions. Roxy tells Zach, about Whitney, “I’m just so ANGRY with her right now. She’s being a BITCH.” This is true. A lot of people think shit-talking is bad, and it might not be a very nice thing to do, but sometimes people need to emotionally vent so they don’t go around punching the Whitney Ports of the world in the face all the time.
Don’t: Forget who your friends are. And this can be a fine line, because sometimes friends who were once quite friendlike to you turn very un-friendlike, and sometimes the behavior is worth breaking up over. Zach reminds Roxy that Whitney took her in and got her a job when she came to New York and that Roxy shouldn’t forget that even if she’s rightfully furious at Whitney now. Roxy decides to rise above the drama and acknowledges that maybe Whitney is just stressed out about her clothing line.

Lesson 6: Meeting with a potential PR rep.
Don’t: Get distracted by the pink. Whitney goes to the Alison Brod offices to meet with Alison Brod. Everything in the office is pink, including the streamers hanging from the ceiling and the gumdrops sitting in a neat row of jars in the lobby. If children’s museums had exhibits where you could walk through a life-size replica of the inner organs of Hello Kitty, it would look like Alison Brod’s office. “Your offices are beautiful!” Whitney exclaims to the pink-clad Brod. Fine, they beat the People’s Revolution dungeon Kelly keeps her and her dress form in, but Whitney needs to keep her head on straight and approach this like she’s interviewing a potential employee rather than just looking desperate for Pink to sign her.
Don’t: Get distracted by the candy. Pink tells Whitney a bunch of things that sound kind of nice, about how she can get her clothes in boutiques in the Hamptons and get her profiled in Hamptons magazine. But no one reads Hamptons magazine. And no one with money in the Hamptons is going to spend it on Whitney Eve when there are $8.89 organic flaxseed croissants to be had with their $499 Balenciaga shades. Plus, doesn’t Whitney want to go national, then international? Not just to Long Island? None of this seems to cross her mind, especially when Pink forces Whitney to take some candy on the way out that may contain an evil brainwashing potion.

Lesson 7: Loyalty.
Don’t: Let your mentor think you don’t give a shit about her. Kelly calls Whitney into her office and says Pink is telling people she’s going to fire Kelly and hire her in her place. Kelly reminds Whitney that she doesn’t work for her and says she refuses to look a fool by having people think Whitney dumped her for pink Hello Kitty guts. Whitney tells Kelly she didn’t hire Pink, but of course it won’t make a difference. It’s like telling your best friend you missed her 15th-birthday party to audition for a background role in a Miley Cyrus video, but she shouldn’t be mad because you didn’t get the part. “It makes you look like an idiot,” Kelly says. “I don’t need to defend my agency against a girl who wears pink! It’s just a waste of my time.”
Don’t: Get distracted by the pink. Whitney calls Roxy to the fountain to talk about her dilemma: Does she turn down Alison Brod because Kelly gets so pissed off by her? “I feel so lost,” Whitney says. Roxy reminds Whitney, “Your loyalty is to Kelly because she’s invested a lot in you. She got you your first big fashion show in Bryant Park.” But Roxy doesn’t want to stay too long because Whitney has been so bitchy to her lately, so she goes back to work, leaving Whitney to look forlorn and contemplative by the fountain. As much as she loves Kelly, she can’t get all that pink wonderfulness and all those gumdrops and all that sticky lip gloss out of her head. MTV doesn’t tell us what she decides. Of course, we all know how the story ends up anyway.

The City Recap: Destiny Is Not an Express Train to an Office Where Everything Is Pink