07. Rich Girls with Hannah Becker

Helen Grossman

Welcome to Class of 03, the podcast about the year 2003 and all the ways it's shaped our world and our lives today. I'm your host, Helen Grossman. And this is episode seven, Rich Girls. Something bizarre was in the air in 2003 because it was a trend. I'm not going to call it a coincidence that in the fall, there were two shows about pairs of wealthy heiress, best friends and all the ridiculous stuff they did together and we, the viewers were encouraged to gawk at and ridicule them.

The first was of course, the Simple Life which plucked L A party girls, Nicole Ritchie and Paris Hilton out of Beverly Hills and placed them in the middle of Arkansas every day. They were assigned different jobs that they were inevitably fired from. We're going to talk about the simple life in the next episode of Class of 03. So hit that subscribe button if you haven't yet because you're not going to want to miss that one.

But the show that we're talking about today. It was an MTV program about Ali Hilfiger who is the daughter of designer Tommy Hilfiger and Jamie Gleicher, who was the daughter of a wealthy New York businessman. They were best friends and high school seniors, real legit class of 03 girlies and decided to broadcast their friendship on the most popular channel amongst their age group.

Really kind of a brave thing to do if you think about it for the time and they showed the world their lives as they went to prom and graduated high school and spent the summer together before they went off into their respective futures. Unlike the simple life, which had this clear structure and premise around Paris and Nicole being given these assignments and sort of doing ridiculous tasks.

The rich girls go shopping, they go to London, they get in fights, they make up, they start college, they do more shopping. There's really a lot of shopping in it. So there are several different parallels and angles that you could take to unpack these two shows to compare them to talk about them together. When I first rewatched them. What struck me was how these shows are both at their core stories about female friendship.

In 2003, we didn't have a lot of pop culture that portrayed the nuances of teenage friendship. We especially didn't have a lot of pop culture that portrayed the nuances of female friendships. There's the social politics of friend groups, the shifting allegiances, the body image issues, the jealousy, the emergent sexuality, the heightened emotions of the few examples that I can think of female friendships and female dynamics among young women were often represented as

dangerous, sexy or we the viewers were forced to compare and pit the women against one another take iconic 2003 movie 13, which is about 1/7 grader played by Evan Rachel Wood named Tracy and she makes a new friend. Evie played by Nicky Reed. This is like the story supposedly of her life. And Tracy becomes immersed in Evie's world of drug sex and crime.

There's also the most iconic friend show of the two thousands sex in the city, which is not about teens at all. So we're going to strike that off the list real stories, stories that show the depth and the tears of laughter and tears of frustration of being a teenager with so many feelings where every single day, everything about your friendship is the most important thing in the world.

Those stories are hard to find, they still are. But in a TV, production landscape dominated by male executives and an audience inhabiting the male gaze, not necessarily by choice but by reflex shows like the simple life and rich girls were positioned as comedies for us to laugh at the main subjects. Paris Hilton and Nicole Ritchie were best friends and it's clear that they could not have done this show without each other.

The show just simply could not have sustained without their delicate balance of personality. And the same goes for Rich Girls, a show that Ali and Jamie supposedly pitched themselves to MTV. In both these shows, their inside jokes and Bestie vernacular is this electric current between them? One that the audience only catches brief momentary glimpses of in between or in spite of the show's insistence that we laugh at them.

The other thing that really struck me about these two shows is what we will refer to in this episode as Eat The Rich Entertainment. So in February 2003, the quarterly Journal of Economics published a landmark article by economist Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez entitled Income Inequality in the United States 1913 to 1998. The paper used tax records spanning the 20th century to map out a U shaped pattern, a curve in the total income held by the top 10% of income earners in the 20th

century. And this U shaped curve is attributed to a swing from the early 20th century which started out with high income inequality to the mid century when things sort of leveled out due to FDRS income tax hikes, the Great Depression World War Two. And then the curve swings up again in the 19 eighties after the Reagan administration's tax cuts.

The authors of this article call for progressive taxation, which means that the higher your income the more taxes you pay. And in this article, they end it with this rather prophetic statement, quote, the decline of progressive taxation observed since the early 19 eighties in the US could very well spur a revival of high wealth concentration and top capital incomes during the next few decades.

That's right now, the Piketty and say model and paper was highly influential. It served as a basis for other studies on inequality and has been cited thousands of times. And just weeks before the quarterly Journal of Economics published this paper, a documentary titled Born Rich premiered at Sundance. The film was created and directed by Jamie Johnson, heir to the Johnson and Johnson fortune.

And in the documentary, which started as his Classic Air NYU film school thesis project in in this documentary, Jamie interviews other young heirs including Ivanka Trump about their experience growing up wealthy. And this film explored the disconnect between the ultra rich, especially those from old money families and their inability to speak about their wealth and how this inability alienates them from society.

In the film, Jamie discusses the widening wealth gap and the alienation and disparity between extremely wealthy people and average people in society. So this is setting the scene and the two simultaneous mental tracks that we're on as we discuss the original Neo babies from Rich Girls and the simple life. There's a growing fascination, a growing awareness of just how isolated these women are from normy but there's also an interesting dynamic in which the resentment about

this is being placed on young women, women who mostly just seem like they're creating this reality shows to cash in on their family names and strike out on their own. And while they're doing that, they're having a great time theoretically with their best friends, so bear that in mind for this episode. I spoke with my dear friend Hannah Becker about Rich Girls, which we both rewatched with fresh eyes for the podcast.

And she brought to our conversation such a thoughtful and incisive analysis of a show that most people would probably not see the critic value of exploring. I really, really love this conversation and I think you will too. So while the rich girls may be lost to history, as Hannah says in the episode, they aren't lost to us anymore. Not to us. In the class of 03, here's Rich Girls with Hannah Becker.

 

Hannah Becker

Hi, I'm Hannah Becker. And in 2003, I was in eighth grade.

 

Helen Grossman

So today we're going to be talking about the MTV show Rich Girls about Allie Hilfiger and Jamie Gleicher. Two New York City school girls, not really school girls. Yeah, three seniors. They were class of 03. It starts with them essentially graduating high school and then follows them through the summer after they graduate.

 

Helen Grossman, Hannah Becker

It starts with them going to prom, it starts with them.

 

Helen Grossman

You're right. It starts with them going to prom iconic. Of course, they go to prom, Jamie doesn't lose her virginity. There's drama, you know, but then it ends with them sort of embarking on their adult life paths or, you know, how the show presents it. And then of course, the reality was a very different thing. so what was your experience with this show in 03? Did you watch it when it was on?

 

Hannah Becker

I absolutely watched it as it aired. And I think at that time, like the channel to be watching was MTV. So it was kind of like an always on. So I'm not sure how much I selected it versus like opted in via always watching MTV. Like you got home, you turned on TRL and then like, until the end of the day, I feel like it was around.

I also have recollections of like watching it either with my mom or like in the same room as my mom, like doing like homework, my mom, like making dinner and then this being on maybe uh-huh, she was sort of like, shocked by the, the like freedom of these youth.

 

Helen Grossman

Yeah. Just the access that they had, how they were going all over the place.

 

Hannah Becker

So like privilege and like the access, the privilege gave them that there were like no boundaries. I also grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia. So I think like city, his lifestyle was a shocking difference.

 

Helen Grossman, Hannah Becker

Yeah, like mom, can you drive us to the mall.

 

Helen Grossman

Right. Right. That's like what most people's sort of upbringing was.

 

Helen Grossman, Hannah Becker

Like, if you weren't a rich, an MTV, rich girl, if you didn't have your own limo that you were annoyed that your friends just wouldn't pay you back for, despite having in every other episode of it.

 

Hannah Becker

Right.

 

Helen Grossman

Right. To her credit though. Allie could drive, which I was really impressed by.

 

Helen Grossman, Hannah Becker

I mean, she ultimately picks up Jamie and drops her off at college so, you know, so she can get from the city to Connecticut is what I seduced.

 

Hannah Becker

And I mean, I think that's pretty brave. Yeah, for an 18 year old city driver. Yeah.

 

Helen Grossman

Yeah. I mean, she also clearly has access to planes. Like, she flies to Nantucket, they fly to London, they fly to Seattle, they fly to L A.

 

Hannah Becker

but yeah, when, when they introduced the episode where they're going to Nantucket and they say Ali has a stomach virus so her mom wants her to fly instead. I just, like, really had a giggle about how they had to, like, introduce a new girlfriend just so somebody could drive Jamie to Nantucket.

 

Helen Grossman

Yeah, absolutely. were there episodes or like moments from the show that before you rewatched it for this, like, that you specifically remembered?

 

Hannah Becker

I would say that New York City blackout episode indelible in my mind. I just feel like my major impression of this show was like shopping. Just a lot of shopping was my recollection. and it's interesting how little actually happens in any single episode. So I'm, like, not surprised upon rewatching that I don't have deep memories of this show because unlike sort of current, reality TV, where there's, like, always a theme or a plot, there's like real long spaces in the show where

just like, it's just two girls and they have to figure out what they're doing in a day and there's no time we've spent figuring out what they're doing or seeing that as the viewer. It's just like they're gonna do this thing and it's 20 minutes and we're done.

 

Helen Grossman

Yeah. It's just like a real slice of life, but also an abnormal, like a, not a relatable life necessarily. I mean, in the first episode it's fun. Like, the shopping definitely stands out because in the first episode they're like, we stop around this city, like, it's our shopping haven.

 

Hannah Becker

You know, you have to call my uncle, sort of uncle Michael H and he's going to show us this vintage store that we can't access without being stylists. And I think it's the first episode where they do a lot of zooming in on receipts being like $1500. Yeah. $2500.

 

Helen Grossman

Yeah. Or like, when Jamie buys a laptop for college and it's almost $3000 and in $2003 2600 $3000 would have been, you know, $5500 today, which is also crazy.

 

Hannah Becker

which leads me to one of my favorite quotes of any episode that I watched, which was when we somehow meet Lucille Ball's granddaughter. And she gets asked, asks her. So do people ask you, like, are you rich? And she goes, well, let's put it this way. And my grandparents had $20,000 in 1950. What do you think? And like, that's a whole moment of the episode.

 

Helen Grossman

Of course, that's in the van en route to a Six Flags, which is also, I mean, you mentioned the the blackout episode. It's funny to think of like, that's the most, you know, famous episode of this show in a way that's like kind of the most important time capsule that they actually captured.

Yeah, exactly. I mean, I guess they realized that like the camera equipment, like they needed power to actually power the production. But they, like, they really did not, they did not show a lot of the power outage.

 

Hannah Becker

They think they built up the drama without ever kind of making us feel it because they like were like, look at them running like Allie is running around the city having the time of her life and Jamie is having seven different panic attacks about 25 different things, right?

Including lighting candles. Her mom sitting near a window, her mom saying, did you know about the last power outage her mom saying, do you think this is because of the Iranians? Yes. Her brother talking to her mom or maybe aunt being there.

 

Helen Grossman

Yeah. Well, Allie's like, I get to take the bus.

 

Hannah Becker

A is like, experiencing life of the people and she's like, we went up to try to get in the Tommy Hilfiger store and they were like, the power is out. We can't let you in. And she's like, oh, I guess that's a good thing.

 

Helen Grossman, Hannah Becker

But also we know that man inside.

 

Helen Grossman

Yeah. And then once they get in, in the midst of this blackout, they're just like, it's so nice that no one's in the store and we're just like looking through all the racks of clothing or shopping.

 

Helen Grossman, Hannah Becker

Yeah, it's another moment to shop.

 

Hannah Becker

There are a few really notable moments. I think when they try to make Jamie and Ali look like exact opposites of one another. I think one of them is the very beginning of the graduation episode where Jamie is commenting on, like, my degree feels like the culmination of my entire academic performance. And that's how I feel today at graduation. We also see she's giving a speech. The one quote they pull from Allie is that she's upset that her still sort of wet hair is frizzy under her cap

and her dad like, nags her so hard in his speech about like the fact that she graduated with honors. Oh, and Allie is wearing Uggs and Jamie's mom is, like, you have the best shoes there and she's wearing like, little prissy pumps. They're just, like, could you believe these two girls could be best friends?

 

Helen Grossman

Right. And, like, what binds them together is their materialistic tendencies. Like, they both have rich dads. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. This is early reality programming. You know, it's on around the same time that the simple life is on.

 

Helen Grossman, Hannah Becker

it's on, you know, a year after The Osbournes to me, that feels like the closest comparison feels like there's not producer imposed narrative compared to like a lot of what I feel like the reality we're inundated with now is where everything feels like it's really managed by production or like Andy at Bravo is like creating each season's concepts or something like this.

 

Hannah Becker

I doesn't feel real housewife yet. which I think is why it feels like a little void of content or I think the reason why it feels feels like under produced, produced in some ways compared to things like the simple life where I feel like all of it was which I never watched, but I feel like you couldn't escape because it was constantly like clips of it for next week's episode and commercials was very part of life.

And that show felt like so much more produced because they were like placing Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie into situations versus this was just Jamie and Ali. And this is this week in their life. I mean, they must have shot this only in, like, two months. It's like, definitely the end of the school year. So it's maybe May, may to August is this whole show?

 

Helen Grossman

Yeah. And then it starts airing in October, you know? So that's a really quick turnaround. Yeah. Yeah. I wonder though, you know, with the lack of structure and the lack of, like a conceit of a plot this week the girls are going to London and, like, in London they're going for this reason, right. Which is how we would potentially frame a reality show now or like an episode now is like, there's a purpose and they're achieving that purpose and there's like a reason that they're going

and that's, we're going to achieve something by the end of this episode, they're just, like going to London for no reason really. But, like, in that space, do you feel like we get more of a truth to, like their dynamic of their friendship?

 

Hannah Becker

I felt so disconnected overall in the show from the idea of them as friends? I think it felt like we're almost the third friend in a friendship group. But it doesn't feel like the show is truly about their friendship as much as it is about being an 18 year old girl with extreme privilege growing up in Manhattan turning 18 on the cusp of taking off into adult life.

 

Helen Grossman

Yeah. They supposedly were the ones who, like, brought this idea to MTV. Right.

 

Helen Grossman, Hannah Becker

Like they were, like, when I read that I was shocked.

 

Helen Grossman

Yeah, the point of view that we're getting about them isn't like, tenderness towards their friendship. It's like, look at how ridiculous they are in their own unique ways.

 

Hannah Becker

Well, and so I was trying to figure out a lot of times when we were seeing the two girls, like they are, they feel like, kind of classically like foils, sort of, we have like Ali and she's a little bit like a little bit more childish and playful and a little bit more like fanciful and free. And then Jamie who is like, clearly very anxious has like basically every type of interpersonal problem that you could drum up in your like 18 year old life she comes into contact with.

And when I said the thing about like Ally wears Uggs and Jamie's in these pumps, I feel like they do a lot to kind of demonstrate contrast between them without ever doing much to bring us back together with them as a pair. But I also feel like we're getting and trying to like set the audience up in relationship to these two girls. I've been trying to kind of figure out why they're seen as dumb so often.

Like, I don't think either of these two women are dumb and that also sort of plays hand in hand with like this simple life thing. of was the producer's goal to like dumb down women because there's like a love of dumbing down women through media in general was their goal to dumb down these women because like, if we're going to consume the ultra rich is life and not feel like just deep resentment toward the towards them, we like have to see them as dumb so that we can feel better than them.

Like they're clearly these two girls who like they talk about that Ethiopia thing which they call basically like that Ethiopia project thing so much, like they're trying to actively demonstrate that they're not idiots that they're not just compassionate that they're rich. What's that tag that they have? It's like, just because we're rich doesn't mean we're bad people is like the tag from the advertisements for the show.

So like, they're doing a lot content wise to try to say that they're not dumb and yet production wise, these girls who are 18 year old leaving New York City who like, one doesn't have a license and the other lives in New York City where like, you basically wouldn't learn to drive anyway. Don't know how to pump gas for themselves. I'm like, is it privileged? Sure. But is it also like what it's like to be an 18 year old or somebody who just got their driver's license?

Like, totally, but it's produced as like, look at these demos trying to pump gas. What idiots they can't figure out a credit card machine. And you're like, how many times have you put your credit card in? Taking it back? And it says, like, no, you did it too fast.

 

Helen Grossman, Hannah Becker

It's happened to me a million times and I don't think I've done all the time.

 

Helen Grossman

Yeah. You're definitely not dumb. And neither, you know, I don't think either of the women are dumb either. I mean, Jamie ends up going to Barnard. Right. Like incredible college. You know, there it was Jamie's top pick, it was her top choice, her childhood dream.

...

 

Helen Grossman

What do you think the show's point of view is on Ali on Jamie and then like on the two of them, you know, you talked about presenting them as foils. Yeah. Like there are a lot of moments in the show where like the music, the editing really is like giving us a sort of perspective on how we're supposed to feel about them, but also individually and who they are.

 

Hannah Becker

I mean, the one thing that is really stuck with me since my rewatch of a lot of it today is that so much of Jamie's content is about her being stressed, so much of it is about being stressed. I'm also really fascinated by the fact that to me, Jamie is very obviously Jewish and how much that read kind of across the country as being as obvious as it is to me.

I mean, like partially at one point, like my mom saying blessings over candles during the blackout. Like there's some, like, very overt Judaism and then there's other like different cues. call it. They like, didn't explain what, like a puttz was until like six episodes later. But Michael V is like, definitely a putts.

 

Helen Grossman

absolute putts.

 

Hannah Becker

A putt's head. It was just so funny.

 

Helen Grossman, Hannah Becker

I love the idea of her aunt going up to him at her graduation party and being like, I heard you're a puts hero, true hero of the show.

 

Hannah Becker

Yeah. No. Also the man who goes up to him on a bench and is like, you seem pretty insecure if you would be so mean to a man who just comes up to you on a bench like adults were on Michael V at that graduation party and I was there for it. But yes, Jewish. Jamie feels very Jewish to me. They feel like they make her plot line. I like, don't know how much the anxiety and the Judaism and the New Yorker feels like stereotypical and how much of it was like that is all the energy that girl was giving off at

the time. And I mean, like she's going through like one of the largest life transitions you can go through. And so it's reasonable that that was a stressful period of time. I also had the sensation that Jamie felt like she was really currently like Jennifer Coolidge vibes. She like constantly has a cigarette, she's always wearing leopard print and she like, just is giving off the energy of a woman 20 years older than she is.

 

Helen Grossman, Hannah Becker

And it doesn't help that whenever she's on the screen with her mom, like they look so much alike, like they really are presented as more like peers than as and her mom is like around all the time either for the sake of like they're actually friends.

 

Hannah Becker

She wants to be on the TV show. She's trying to be mindful of her daughter on the TV. Show what it is. Like, her mom is around a lot. Jamie feels like she's seen as this like person who's like very bound by her responsibilities and Allie seems very free as a girl with all the money in the world, right? Like we've got Jamie going in the last episode to her women's studies class and Allie is organizing her like 600 pairs of jeans.

Like they make Allie seem very superficial even though I think ultimately Ali keeps over and over again trying to describe herself as creative. They let her have like talk about how she's like, I wanna explore witchcraft. This might sound scary, but I want to explore witchcraft is something. She's, she's kind of a manic pixie dream girl.

She's like enigmatic. She's like very effortless. She's always in like the white tank top and the little denim miniskirt and Jamie's got on like full makeup and I think there's a lot of thinness and fatness that comes into the conversation of how they're portrayed too.

 

Helen Grossman

Definitely.

 

Hannah Becker

Which is, I mean, kind of conversation of the times. Like everybody who wasn't as skinny as Allie is in the show was a fat person and that is 2003 for you, Nicole Ritchie was the fat person. Exactly. It's, there, there has to be one of the skinny women who is the fat person in every show with two women. And that clearly also impacts these women because like we hear about it afterwards.

Yeah, I noticed a few things about them and then thinking back on 2003 culture that feels like they're kind of really prototypical to a lot of the female characters that feel really ultra iconic from this time period. I think the Rich Girls are very much lost to history and like shall never be reborn. But there's a part of the episode of Fourth of July where they're eating lobster and Jamie says no to butter because calories and God forbid and then Ally goes like, what are calories

anyway? And like what is butter? And it's just like there's no way Tina Fey did not watch this and say is Butter Carp for mean girls. Like there's no way that these two are kind of, I conically the Blair and Serena of gossip girl. Like one is a little bit more organized, like notably anxious and like driven by oriented,

driven, the Blair that is Jamie and then Ali is the free spirited. Like somehow lucks into everything, effervescently, effortlessly beautiful kind of character, magnetic.

 

Helen Grossman

Everyone wants to be friends with her. Everyone's jealous of each other for being friends with her. Yes.

 

Hannah Becker

Like she somehow is the drama despite also not doing maybe anything. I think the insight, especially with something like Gossip girl where it takes place in the literal setting that these two girls have also created for us in rich girls. I don't think gossip girl really exists. If we never get to view that through rich girls.

 

Helen Grossman

There were moments I guess watching it where I was truly like, these girlies are friends. Like there was the one scene where like Allie's like laughing so hard, she pees her pants and she's like, and it made me, I felt it right. Like there were brief moments like that because you don't get a lot of them, you get them declaring it.

You're my best friend. She's my best friend. Like I've never felt, you know, I've known this girl my whole life, this other girl, Liz. But with Jamie who I've been friends with for a year, like it's so deep. Our friendship is so deep.

 

Hannah Becker

I like, feel very positively towards these two girls in rewatching this I think, think I'm not sure I would have had that perception of them in 2003. I don't think I disliked them in 2003. I just think I was a little bit more deeply critical of them then. and now I'm sort of like, who can imagine putting yourself out there? Like this is like my first question and watching this. But yeah, there's like a buiness to their friendship.

You can tell the tenuousness of them knowing that they're about to go into these different steps of their life. And I think there is something really nostalgic that touches to not my 2003 nostalgia, but just the being a youth and like having these like fleeting but like so passionate and deeply important moments in your friendship, these like little periods that burn so hot, right?

 

Helen Grossman

Like friendships that feel so intense when you're experiencing them. I mean, you can tell, right? Like you can see that the dynamic between them and like the sort of the energy and vitality between them that like they went and pitched this to MTV. And you can see like, oh yeah, these girls are best friends like, and maybe it was like the presence of the cameras or the editing or something.

It's interesting because they are producers on the show. They clearly didn't have like edit privileges, but they were given producer credit because the editing is not very generous to them or to their friendship. Clearly, they're no longer friends, they weren't friends after the show aired. But in shows like the simple life, like what makes the simple life so fun to watch now is that even though the editing and the, and the perspective of the show is like, look at these dumb

girls, like trying to work at Sonic, like they're so stupid and like, you get the camera, you know, you know, showing townspeople who can't believe that Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie are like in their town writing lewd messages on the marquee signs, like you can actually glimpse from them from Nicole and Paris that they're very aware of how they're going to be portrayed. They're very aware of like, I know that you're doing this to make fun of me.

I know that we're going to be the butt of the joke here. But because we know that we're actually like, subverting it and we're making you the butt of the joke, you know, like there's like a very interesting wink that happens, which is why the show is so fun to watch. And I just feel like this show and it's pure genuine, you know, like, and just the fact that these girls were so trusting of the production ultimately is their downfall and the downfall.

 

Hannah Becker

They were making a video diary, I think, like to them, they were like, this is like our summer 2003. Like, and it's interesting though that you think that about the like, subversion with Paris and Nicole and the situations they were in because my perception I never watched the simple life because it always felt like these rich girls are making poor people feel bad.

But I think there is really this interesting ownership over the gaze that is something that these girls on rich girls don't have. And it's really hard to identify, like who is ultimately the butt of the joke in the simple life that makes it uncomfortable as a viewer.

 

Helen Grossman

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I listen, I can't recommend the simple life anymore. Like I, I truly, I've watched it. I've rewatched it multiple times. The first season is the first season they're in one place, they're on one farm, they're staying with one family and the family was clearly given the directive of, like, teaching these privileged girlies about morality and about, like, work and about like work ethic and like, you know, like living on the farm and, you know, being part

of a family and we're supposed to feel, I think, like they're insubordinate, right? Like, they're not, they're not being good house guests or whatever, but they're, it is, it is really interesting because I feel like they really tow the line quite well of like, not being disrespectful to the people of the town and to the people of the home who they're staying in.

But also being aware of like, this is not an ok situation that you're trying to put on us and if you're going to put it on us, then we're going to make the most out of it and be funny with it, you know, be bratty about it. Exactly. Exactly.

 

Hannah Becker

Is this a genre of TV called, like, Punish the Rich? Is that like what this, revolution is about? Like, there is clearly like, I think rich girls, we call it rich girls. But again, it's like also heiresses, there's like an heiress moment happening in 2003. which is funny to kind of think about our current Nepo baby fascination because they are essentially the same thing. Just like heiresses don't inherently try to also create art in a medium of their parents choosing.

 

Helen Grossman

Yeah. I mean, I think the Osbournes is also like part of this genre as well.

 

Hannah Becker

I feel like the Osbournes were always like, freaks though. Totally.

 

Helen Grossman

They're in the subgenre of Freak Freak Rich. Yeah.

 

Hannah Becker

Yeah, exactly. The genre of Freak Rich. That, yeah, they just feel like so much more like you're looking at a sideshow that happens to be wealthy when you watch the Osbournes as a reality show. Like he gonna emerge from a coffin while yelling at his son for spending too much on his credit card like that. It feels like that's like you just put a Halloween lens on the Rich Family.

 

Helen Grossman

What, you know, what do you think? Like, like, what do you take away from this show now? Right. Like having watched it when you were in eighth grade now as an adult watching it?

 

Hannah Becker

Like, what is your takeaway from it, being able to watch us back and not feel horribly cringe to be able to watch us back and to not feel like these girls were monsters and to be able to watch us back and have like compassion for the idea that these women put themselves out there at this incredibly vulnerable moment in their lives on the precipice of something that felt monumental to them. So they were like particularly in a tenuous mind space and to have come out with only this.

And it can honestly, I think it's like a blessing for them that this doesn't exist really basically anywhere except for one youtube channel online. Like it's, I think probably better for them as women to exist now with this being like three articles that you occasionally can find online and a blip in our 2003. And I feel good, not feeling scarred by it, I think in the Rewatch because I think there's a lot of things that have aged even worse.

 

Helen Grossman

Yeah, that's a really, that's a really, really good, good point and good takeaway. Yeah. I mean, I feel really, I think because I'm like, where are they now? Like, that's where most of the articles are and it's like they're no longer friends or like, they stopped being friends right after it. Like that just struck me. It struck me as so sad, you know, because they clearly took a leap of faith.

They clearly thought they were being independent. They, you know, there was, this was a moment of innovating the form of reality TV. And, like, that was sort of my takeaways. Like, there are a lot of episodes where I'm just like, oh, this is so boring. Like, this is such boring. Like, there's a whole episode that's just about, like, Jamie's dog getting sick.

 

Helen Grossman, Hannah Becker

And, like, the, the 20 minute episode is mostly just shots of the dog, you know, and it's like, and at the same time I'm like, ok, well, we actually don't see a lot of shows that are this, free wheeling that are, like, not as structured, unplanned, unplanned, unstructured, un, you know, uninteresting a lot of the unwritten, like, I don't feel like a lot of this was the manipulation of

the producers and I think that is so rarified from any television, let alone reality television, let alone the reality television that's about to happen right after this.

 

Hannah Becker

Like, I think that is truly unique and part of why it's boring. And I think that's like, well, those are good things to keep in mind. The producers have some value and also they seemingly are very sinister.

 

Helen Grossman

Yeah, exactly. And, like, they both seem like really well intentioned young women who are on the precipice of, like, discovering themselves. Yeah. They're just sweet little rich girls, you know? Like, I don't, I mean, what I do feel bad about is that I think that, like, at this particular moment in time with reality television, people didn't realize and with the intersection of like, reality TV and the internet, like, people didn't realize the sort of toxicity of, like

putting yourself out there in this way. And so knowing what we know now about, like, you know, I was just reading an interview with Jamie from like five years ago where she talks about going to Barnard, which of course we know is her dream school number one choice.

 

Helen Grossman, Hannah Becker

This starts airing in October of her freshman year, you know, and she was contractually obligated to have the camera crew with her for her first week of school, which is so embarrassing, you know, like I'm, I'm for the listeners, I'm like, folding in onto myself at the idea of having to have that experience.

 

Helen Grossman

Yeah. So, like, I can't even imagine. I think that like, for her in this interview, she was just like, I hadn't, I didn't recognize the reality of like, what it would be like that, what this product would ultimately be like, how it would be edited, how it would portray us. She was talking about how she put, you know, a whiteboard outside of her, her dorm room door and people would write messages on it that were like, go kill yourself, like, just horrible things.

And then on top of that, it's like the show starts airing and not just is she dealing with like being a known entity and a sort of reality TV celebrity on campus. Then on top of that, there's also the internet, right? There's like people making comments on the internet, there's forums, there's chat rooms, there's all that inescapable.

And so Jamie drops out of college after her first term and takes three years off and is in rehab, is in, eating disorder treatment in the psychiatric hospital for like a lot of that time.

 

Hannah Becker

That's, that kind of mental health problem is often can be characterized also as rich people problems. It's an interesting way it kind of all ties back into this larger theme of that characterizes Rich Girls. She then ends up with this Rich Girl problem of having this eating disorder based off of her public image based off the fact that she was on a TV show called Rich Girls.

It's kind of like a snake eating its own tail in this way. But it's, and you can see it happen to her, right? Like you can see it happen to her and I like, don't think the show alone is too be considered at fault for her body image because we see it as a theme in the show throughout from the first episode basically. in part because Michael V who I hope is having a terrible life right now, the he just, he says a lot of mean things to her.

He just repeatedly says a lot of mean things to her that often have to do with her body. So like she's getting this messaging from a lot of places, 2003 is a hard year to be getting messaging about body image from anywhere publicly. And she puts herself out in a public forum of being on MTV, which is like you want every teen to see you and have an opinion about you.

 

Helen Grossman

This is where you do it. And her best friend's father is a fashion designer and their juniors teen line is like, skirts that are six inches long.

 

Helen Grossman, Hannah Becker

You know, like they are, the designer is asking, don't you think that teens would be interested in wearing a belt as a skirt?

 

Helen Grossman

Right. Right.

 

Hannah Becker

And Ally has to come in and be like, I think they're too young for that.

 

Helen Grossman

Yeah. Right. I don't think they're ready for that. I tell you, I think not inappropriate. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and Ally has, her. Ally has her own, sort of fallout from the show and her own struggles afterwards. So it's just, you know, not to be, like, overly compassionate to girls who were really, really privileged and, you know, had it all but, like putting yourself out there in a, in a format that still didn't know what it was.

Right. Like, they had, they didn't know what the end result of this was. None of us really knew other than, you know, the few reality shows that were on at this time. What is the, what is it, what is reality TV? You know, it would come, it would define itself over the next five years. But, like, it was still, it was still undefined.

And so they, like, were sort of the original, maybe not the, the original, but they were some of the original people who, like, experienced the sort of full cycle of like the, of the reality TV churn And yeah, exactly the ecosystem and like the, the result that it has on, on your life personally, professionally, et cetera.

 

Hannah Becker

I think part of the reason why my takeaway is just being compassionate and feeling like these girls should count themselves fortunate in a lot of ways, not only because of being very rich is that they, it's like being involved in the beginning of any platform, I think like people who got really involved in social media in the beginning of Instagram or the start of youtube, we now have seen how much being an influencer, being a content creator in those spaces can really run people's

lives into really negative places. And so for people who did it when they first start out, when you get to be the people who are in accepting what is or like conceiving of what is reality TV, in the early two thousands or reality TV, for millennials. And so for them to be able to say we did this and we came out and the most is that you can find like four articles about us online and we're both living lives that are seemingly happy and fulfilled.

I count them so lucky because I don't think that's the people who were on. I want a famous face or what was the one where they would like, go and they would, like, change you in a week. You'd be, is that true life? True life. I wanna be like a skater girl and they would like, get somebody who was like a skateboarder to like come and like, wake you up every day and like they always told everybody they were too fat.

It's like my takeaway is like, you're too fat. Start running, then you can be cute and still you're gonna then have to like, perform this skill in front of your whole high school and they're still gonna hate you. Like that TV show just seemed like there was never a good experience. It was kind of there. Like, if only to tell you, like, keep like, you can think that the one thing that you hate about yourself.

If you only, you changed, that would make your life totally different. But this TV show is here to tell you like, never, you will always hate your life. There's so much reality TV of that time. That feels far more nefarious that I truly think Ali and Jamie got out clean for the most part, right?

 

Helen Grossman

Like they got a bad at it, but they got a bad at it. A lot of people. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, I also think there's something, you know, sweet and kind of tragic about, like, everyone has a best friend that makes them feel, you know, that they feel so deeply connected to. Like, we were talking about Burns fast Burns Bright. And you have conversations with those friends where you go, like, well, we should make a podcast.

Like we're so funny. Like we should have a TV show, you know, and they did it right? Like they did that they wanted to be together on TV, you know, like they wanted to show their friendship to the world and there were a lot of friendships that were lost to high school or lost to college or lost to my twenties.

 

Helen Grossman, Hannah Becker

You know, that when I watched the show, I was like, this reminds me of those, you know, like there's a, there's a, yeah, just the giddy moments, loving, being in the presence of like people you love.

 

Hannah Becker

That feels like the part where when Ali says she feels adult, like that's sort of a way in which the show does it to them too. I think it takes out a lot of the more the more like frivolous, fun parts of life and their experience as friends and inserts like more frivolous that has to do with their vision of what they're trying to say with these girls. As rich girls is like, we wanna focus on the frivolous spending. Not like the just joy that two girls can have by being besties.

...

 

Helen Grossman

Anything else on, on rich girls?

 

Hannah Becker

I I will say like, aesthetically, some things I thought were important to note is how many wrist warmers alley wears. That feels very important to the year 2003. So I've been keeping up this podcast, the wrist warmer specifically like the Rosta color wrist warmer is like, has a Chokehold. Also, she's wearing that white belt with either its pyramid studs or its black and white checkerboard so much.

And all of those things are so funny because they're also like very consumer available. Like, they're like the things you would buy at like a hot topic. This show really does a lot to highlight the like moment of the little dog which is very analogous to Paris Hilton.

 

Helen Grossman, Hannah Becker

There's like a lot of rich people with small pets on the go and I pet that as accessory had as accessory very of the moment.

 

Hannah Becker

Yes. the, when they, the flip phones, obviously, I think people will love, I loved when they both printed out directions to Nantucket and used the in car gps. That feels like really an important thing for the youth of today to know and experience is just like how little you knew how to get anywhere. Yeah. I really liked that more than one episode. Sea Biscuit came up just to kind of create again the climate of the times that sea biscuit came up more than once.

 

Helen Grossman, Hannah Becker

And at one point, Jamie asked, does a person play sea biscuit I think is really, it's someone dressed up a horse.

 

Helen Grossman

Yeah. New so newlyweds is an 03 show too actually. And it's like, it's the chicken of the sea moment, like every show, you know, it's the, like, what do they sell at Walmart Walls? Like that's from the simple life. Like, there has to be like a couple lines from every show like this. If you're doing an Eat The Rich or eat the celebrity moment, that air drama.

Exactly where they look at what air heads they are like, how could they, you know, take such a simple concept and, like, think something so dumb about it, you know, like, so that I think to me it's like every show needed a chicken of the sea.

 

Hannah Becker

Every show needs a chicken of the Sea. I mean, I think to this day it still, it's just not always about highlighting, like, stupid mistakes.

 

Helen Grossman

Yeah, exactly. Stupid mistakes that we can then, like, laugh at women for. Yeah.

 

Hannah Becker

the presence of yoga. This is like, definitely the beginning of yoga and I feel like yoga as an east coaster. I don't know if you have this sensation as a west coaster. Definitely felt like a trickle down from the rich to the general populace.

 

Helen Grossman

Yeah. Yeah. And the way that it's treated in the show as this very exotic thing that they do.

 

Hannah Becker

I really loved and I realized again, how funny it is to think about when things kind of had their inception into ubiquity of culture. And it was when they, like, really kept focusing on the staff making the caprese salad for fourth of July. Like re definitely having a moment in the year 2003. We like, just realized, yeah. Eat something as simple as a stacked slice of tomato. A big slice of mozzarella and some basil. Like again, feels commonplace now. Was of the time.

 

Helen Grossman

Yeah, totally.

 

Hannah Becker

If you hold on one second, I promise you, I can go find my 2003 yearbook.

 

Helen Grossman

I'll tell you what my quote is. Oh my God, please.

 

Hannah Becker

Oh, here we go. Here we go. Here we go. Hannah Becker. I'm leaving here now. I can have an opinion. I was pissed. Let me tell you I was so tired of the tyranny of middle school. Like I've known about fascism for a long time. Oh my God. I love Braddy. Eighth grade Hannah.

 

Helen Grossman, Hannah Becker

She was really, she was sick of this shit.

 

Helen Grossman

Oh my God. Well, thank you so much for rewatching Rich Girls and so welcome.

 

Hannah Becker

Thank you for inviting me to experience.

 

Helen Grossman

Hi again. It's Helen and it's time for Song of the week in honor of the friendships. So cavalierly destroyed by television editors and early internet. Forums. Our song of this week is we used to be Friends by the Dandy Warhols. The song was the lead single off the band's fourth album. Welcome To The Monkey House and was released in April 2003.

It opens with the lyrics a long time ago. We used to be friends, but I haven't thought of you lately at all. The catchy melody backed by hand claps and fuzzy guitars situated it in that perfectly 2003 space between indie and the OC volume one soundtrack. So listen back to the song which I will not put in this episode because of copyright reasons which I just learned about on episode seven.

So listen back to it, there will be a link in the show notes to the video and think about all your lost friendships to the early two thousands and hopefully you came away relatively unscathed. Thanks again to Hannah Becker for rewatching so many episodes of Rich Girls for Me and for class of 03. If you have a memory of this show or of the Simple Life that you want to share, please get in touch class of 03 pod at gmail dot com or at class of 03 pod on Instagram.

I'm Helen Grossman and I write, produce and host class of 03. Our theme music is by Schwartz and Evan Joseph and our show art is by Maddie Herbert of the new studio. Thanks to everyone who's been listening. If you like this show, please support it by rating it and reviewing it and telling your friends and family about it.