Thank you for articulating many of my own objections to these shows! I haven't watched anything on the CW since they canceled "Veronica Mars."

If they showed teens - or people, for that matter - that were working class or poor, and showed them actually living lives of worth and value, that might give us peons ideas.

Like that perhaps the rich didn't deserve tax cuts, that we deserved jobs and medical coverage and hope for the future and freedom from dying in a rich man's war.

Of course the CW and Fox doesn't want to give anyone ideas. Neither do the other networks, but Havrilesky got the appropriate focus for the article; shows intended to appeal to women, whom Murdoch and his rich buddies REALLY don't want to start thinking.

I'm thrilled that Heather highlighted this disturbing development in the US. The middle class has disappeared and turned into the working poor, with people living paycheck to paycheck. There are people with college educations, or beyond, unable to find jobs that pay a living wage.

I personally can't stand these shows for teens that play up the rich lifestyles of whores and druggies. We are setting the youth up for disaster -- credit card debt and unrealistic life expectations. As for their parents, they're going to have to explain that money isn't that easy to obtain -- if it were so easy to become rich, we'd all be working toward that goal and succeeding.

Life is getting harder and harder. I don't want to be totally depressed by the shows on TV -- my real life depresses me enough as it is. But I'd love to see shows that accurately reflect the majority of people out there: people living in modest rentals or homes, getting by and relying on one another for support during tough times. Certainly the working poor have enough drama in their lives to fill seasons for years to come.

...HOW TO TEACH FILTHY RICH GIRLS, and, trust me, the show has toned down the "rich are better" aspect of the book considerably. (Yeah, I know that's not saying much. :P) It's also made the heroine less an object of insult--the book gets a fair amount of comic mileage from the rich twins' really awful initial treatment of Megan because she looks geeky and "downmarket." As well, the only way she can get the Baker sisters to even listen to her is to pretend to be a society girl with the same name and learn how to dress/look to "fit in." It's not about being respected for your talents or brains anymore in a lot of these GOSSIP GIRL-type books and shows--if you don't present the right image, you're dissed and insulted.

It's early to tell right now how the two newest CW shows will fare -- I personally couldn't make it through the second episode of 90210, but was pleasantly surprised by "Privileged," mostly because Rita Mimoun of "Everwood" is involved -- but if we're talking solely teen audiences, they're flocking elsewhere. This summer, the more old-fashioned teen show, "Secret Life of the American Teenager" was a runaway hit for ABC family, and Kyle XY had surprising success in its first couple seasons on the same cable network.

While "My Super Sweet Sixteen" and the NYTimes would like you to believe that all the teenagers out there (but really, a certain exclusive sample) are wearing designer denim, throwing lavish birthday parties so they can whine the whole time, etc., the economy spells a different story. There just aren't enough of these teens to watch fictionalized versions of themselves play out on the screen. Or, they're just too busy with their parties and drug addictions to do something so pedestrian as watch TV.

Unless teens are getting their "Gossip Girl" episodes online, much of their viewer base comes from women college aged and older.

Frankly, I'm more disturbed by the fact that Lauren Conrad just inked a three book deal with HarperCollins, where her series/trilogy was described as resembling the arc of LC's past couple years:

"According to the Hollywood Reporter, the book series, which follows an average teen who becomes a reality star, could potentially be developed as a film or (uh, another) TV project." (E online)

Average teen, eh? It's a little alarming how the "upper middle class" has become the average. No wonder "Friday Night Lights" can't even air on a regular network anymore. All those regular people getting in the way...

Like Dynasty, Falcon Crest, Knott's Landing, Dallas......

Which were also Aristophean Comedies about the foibles and futilities of we mortals and our mortal games.

Oh, let’s lift our voices to a hymn

loud and clear our own sweet song koax koax

in honour of Zeus’ son Dionysus

of the NysosMountains and of the marshes

the song we once sang

when the slosh-heads drunk-heads

rolled by on the day-after parade

of the sacred wine jug day.

Vrekekekex koax koax,

vrekekekex koax koax!

Geez, Heather, do you really think the point of Dallas and Dynasty was to make us glad we weren't wealthy ogres? Do you think Robin Leach and Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous was a big hit because the middle class was staring at it like a roadside accident: "Gosh, I'm glad that didn't happen to me!"

The happily-ever-after of the rich has been a part of popular storytelling since forever, and today's examples are nothing new. If there's any big difference it would be the preponderance of teens in the storyline, as opposed to people in their late thirties (pretending to be in their mid-twenties).

It's depressing to read this article, which has none of your wit, and resembles something a 1930's socialist might have written in response to an evening at an Astaire-Rogers feature. You sound like Ninotchka before she let go in Paris.

If these shows are junk, it's because they are poory acted, written, and directed. Not because they inculcate a taste for excess in the young.

who kidnap the kids from Beverly Hills and turn them into hardcore revolutionaries that rob banks and shoot it out with the cops.

Possible names ...

"SLA 90210"

"Commie Girl"

"Anarchy in the O.C." (or L.A.)

Tell me you wouldn't watch THAT. I know I would ....