The Gray Lady Heads for The Hills

SUBTEXTUAL HEALING Hills gals Did you see the New York Times' review of the third season of MTV fake reality program The Hills today? You might have, but you probably couldn't make sense of the damn thing unless you have a master's degree in literary theory.

In trying to intellectualize the most anti-intellectual pop-culture offering this side of Rock of Love 2, writer Ginia Bellafante takes a page from the Atlantic Monthly's Britney Spears playbook and lets loose. According to Bellafante, silicon enhanced vixen Heidi Montag is a "kind of feminist hero" Gloria Allred would be proud of because she chastises on/off boyfriend Spencer Pratt for taking the flat screen TV with him after he moves out; LC hides her vulnerability from being dropped by Brody Jenner "beneath her baroque moralism"; Whitney Port's new job as a PR assistant helps her emerge from her previous incarnation as "the best approximation of a Shakespearean mute that reality TV has ever produced;" and Vogue West Coast editor Lisa Love is the show's most enigmatic figure "because she allows herself to be shot close-up, her craggy skin contrasted with all those unspoiled 21-year-old complexions."

We told you this was the sort of thing you're better off being drunk for.