BLOGS

Gallery Girls: Emphasis on Girls

In the latest of Bravo's string of TV shows that aren't about Real Housewives in title, but do circulate around a group of over-privileged idiots, Gallery Girls premiered last night. The series is about several unpaid interns who work at various mediocre galleries throughout New York City. Based on both the pilot and the season preview, there seem to be some turf wars, money problems and probably a lot of other things that have absolutely nothing to do with art or anything remotely transcendent brewing.

In case it isn't abundantly clear already, Gallery Girls hits a nerve with me more than Bravo's usual trashy docu-soaps, and I think that has a lot to do with the comparisons this series will naturally draw with HBO's Girls... except Gallery Girls isn't a fictional TV series written by a legitimately talented young woman, but instead a reality show that really does deserve the criticism about nepotism, white-washing and cringeworthy people that Lena Dunham was slewed with earlier this year.

Before I just start writing another defensive piece about HBO's Girls, let me just say again that these Gallery personalities are actual women who believe that they are entitled to jobs because they've been interning for a few months/have famous fathers/sleep with the "right people." Liz, Kerri, Chantal, Claudia, Angela, Amy and Maggie (even watching this damned pilot twice, I could barely tell you who is who) talk about their lives being inspired by Sex and the City earnestly, which was literally a joke written in the pilot episode of Girls. Even if we compare these real people with the characters of Hannah, Jessa, Marnie (who had a job in a gallery, no less!) and Shoshanna, I frankly think their pursuits of self-discovery are more noble than anything we saw in the pilot of Gallery Girls, and at the very least, the Girls gang is not complete horrible to one another. The Gallery Girls cast is by far closer to the Gossip Girl clan, with many of them looking vaguely like Leighton Meester and Blake Lively knockoffs. Their judgment is relentless, and they make New York art culture look downright vile (which, from the glimpse that I've personally seen, is at worst an exaggeration).

Comparisons aside, there's simply nothing redeeming or even interesting about this show or any of its stars. It might've been compelling if Bravo explored the ridiculous and all-too-real unpaid intern culture in New York, or taught viewers the slightest thing about what's actually happening in the art world. (Though, from Work of Art, I think we've all learn that that's never going to happen, and probably shouldn't.) If I do find myself tuning in to another episode, it will likely only be to see the main characters blow their entire trust funds, or to watch one of their beefy boyfriends punch this Eli person in the face. Fingers crossed.

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