VH1 takes a soapy look at life in Aspen on new show
Aspen is the playground of the glitterati, where Melanie Griffith, Antonio Banderas, Goldie Hawn, Martina Navratilova and Mariah Carey schuss and dodge papparazzi. It's a seasonal resort where the average second home costs $6.5 million and where those who serve the wealthy their pricey meals, clean their grand houses or teach them to ski must move down valley to find an affordable place to sleep.
It's a soap opera of haves and have-nots just waiting to be massaged into a TV series like VH1's new "Secrets of Aspen". That's how the stereotype plays out, anyway. The real Aspen isn't so easily labeled. But for reality TV purposes, the shorthand will do.
Viewers looking for that real Aspen within the televised one may occasionally spot a celebrity in the background of a street scene. Mostly, however, they will need a wide-screen TV to accommodate the collagen-enhanced lips that define this showcase for purposefully despicable personalities set against gorgeous mountain backdrops. The eight-part exposé on what the network calls "the most expensive ZIP code in America" makes its debut January 3 on VH1.
The series drags the historic Colorado town through the reality soap suds in the same way Bravo's "The Real Housewives of Orange County" painted the California coast as home to vapid and catty women in gated McMansions uniformly getting breast implants. Presumably the viewer is supposed to be at once aghast and disapproving, yet transfixed and loyal to the brand. (TwinCities)
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