Simple Life Essay

The Simple Life is a reality television series broadcast from December 2, 2003 to August 5, 2007. The comedic show depicts two wealthy young socialites (Paris Hilton and Nicole Ritchie) as they struggle to do manual, low-paying jobs such as cleaning rooms, doing farm work, serving meals in fast-food restaurants and working as camp counselors.

In the first season, Paris and Nicole agreed to leave behind their cell phones, credit cards and celebrity status to move in with the Leding family in Altus, Arkansas for a month.

What was supposed to be an experiment in learning how to adapt to doing chores and getting their hands dirty turned out to be a failure. In the process they would ruin a dairy farmer's milk supply, wreak havoc at a local Sonic Drive-In and take advantage of an employer's credit card, ultimately getting fired from every job they took up. This was greatly upsetting to the Leding family. Despite all of this, the two would often get a reality check from the family themselves.

A show which may have pushed the boundaries of reality TV too far. Under closer examination, some of the sequences on The Simple Life seem to be nothing more than improvisational comedy not much different to Who’s Line Is It Anyway.

An actual script would account for such weird, unrealistic events as the scene in the third episode when their "host," Albert Leding, claims that Paris and Nicole's bad behavior will reflect poorly on himself and his wife -- as if Paris and Nicole's "bad behavior" was unanticipated mischief instead of play-acting.

Overall I think that The Simple life is not a good example of a reality TV show as in some of the episodes it is clear that a rough scrip has been used to make the show more entertaining.