Newport Harbor
I watched Newport Harbor, episode 8 online at MTV.ca.
The show, Newport Harbor, is considered the fourth season of the original Laguna Beach, both titled “The Real Orange Country” playing off of the popular television show The O.C.. The show was created by the same woman, Liz Gately, as The Hills. Newport Harbor is targeted at teenagers as it focuses on a group of privileged teens living in California. This can also be seen by the fact that the show airs on MTV which attends to a primarily younger audience.
This episode follows the teens as they prepare for some of them to go off to college, or in one case, Europe. One couple, Chrissy and Clay, have to face leaving each other as Chrissy leaves for college and Clay stays in high school. Meanwhile, Allie and her friend Samantha prepare to go to Europe for the summer. The entire show, no matter whether they discuss college or Europe, has to do with the boy-girl relationships occurring or not occurring. As Allie prepares to go to Europe, she has an awkward goodbye with an ex, Chase, who left her for another bleach blonde Newport Beach girl.
The scenes are shot to reinforce the drama, often ending in meaningful glances between characters. In addition, the lighting, camera angles, and overall film quality are chosen to give a more ethereal look and to enhance the overall beauty of the landscape in addition to the characters themselves. This is in contrast to other reality television shows which do not have the same film quality.
Gust Yep and Ariana Ochoa Camacho essay on the Bachelor discusses how they hand picked the women to appear on the Bachelor how these women were chosen to “look good in a hot tub”. (Yep and Camacho, 339) This seems to be the same for Laguna Beach, but, I don’t think the gaze was aimed just at women. Being a first time watcher, it was difficult for me to tell the characters apart – all the girls were blonde, overly made up, and had fit, thin bodies. However, the boys as well were well-built attractive men with about the same hair-cut. The same article points out that the women were placed in scenes which would accentuate their bodies as well. This occurs as well in Newport Harbor but to a lesser extent. The opening scene of the episode features the two main male characters surfing and walking the beach in skin-tight wetsuits followed by a scene with Chrissy and her friend playing tennis in super short skirts.
In “Is the Gaze Male?” Kaplan discusses how, as spectators, we, the viewers, become voyeurs during sex scenes in films. (Kaplan, 120) I believe this also occurs often during this show, although there are no sex scenes, the majority of this episode is focused around the relationship of Chrissy and Clay in their intimate last date before she goes to college. The camera is positioned so near their faces as they kiss, you even feel slightly uncomfortable as you become a voyeuristic viewer.
Overall, the show uses the beautiful, rich lives of Orange County teenagers to allow other teenagers to live vicariously through their glamorous and gorgeous relationships.
Comments
I watched an episode of this show the other day, and two of the blonde girls who look exactly the same didn't know whether Italy was a country or state. I felt ashamed for even watching this show, and I absolutely love Laguna and The Hills.
Posted by: Kelsey | November 28, 2007 10:19 AM