TV reality: Privilege has its viewership
Many of us love to hate Paris Hilton. She's the perfect spawn of the greedy 1980s, a Miss Thing so wealthy that she finds no reason to vote in presidential elections. She's a living, breathing, bartop-dancing ad for money to burn.
But we'd love to be in her position, too, if lottery-ticket sales and the popularity of the game show ''Deal or No Deal" are any indication. It's funny how TV can affirm our superiority over ridiculous heir-heads whose brainpower is as scant as their micro-miniskirts, and at the same time knock us cold with envy.
Tomorrow night at 8 on Channel 56, the WB is premiering a reality contest that openly exploits America's cultural ambivalence about the filthy rich, the same love-hatred that has made Hilton into a superstar celebrity. ''Survival of the Richest" pits seven ''rich kids" against seven ''poor kids" who are in debt, so we can spy on their mutual contempt. Cohabitating in a mansion that would have suited Alexis of ''Dynasty," the blue bloods trash the blue collars, and vice versa, for an hour a week with host Hal Sparks. There's something for everyone here, as the class insults fly back and forth like a ricocheting bullet.
But the rich kids are particularly crass and showy, shamelessly flaunting their snobbery to steal attention. They don't need to worry about evoking smiles in others; trust funds offer them unconditional love. To revise a line from Bob Dylan's ''Like a Rolling Stone," ''When you got everything, you got nothing to lose." They have no reason at all to cultivate likability on the show; a prize of $200,000 will ultimately go to the rich-poor pairing that wins the most challenges. That's chump change to them.
And so the heirs and heiresses go for the glitz, and for the ratings, possibly hoping to become the next Paris-like icon of the stinking rich. They aim for obnoxiousness. When all the contestants are told to work at a restaurant, for example, a chunky hotel heir named Nick is proudly disgusted by having to serve ''second-class citizens": ''I was thinking to myself as I'm putting food in their plates, do you have any idea who I am?"
These rich kids aren't the tasteful, noble aristocrats found in the great British novels about wealth and class by Jane Austen and Anthony Trollope. They're the vulgar, insecure ones that Austen and Trollope ridiculed. When Dutch heir Hunter brags about having attended prep school with Prince William and tells us, ''I think we can all agree that I'm the total package," he's a cartoon of self-importance. Modesty is meaningless to him and the other spoiled young adults, and boring, too.
Presumably, by the end of ''Survival of the Richest," lessons will be learned, although the evils of money certainly won't be among them. Despite the grotesque entitlement and insularity on display by the rich kids, the 1980s style of opulence still reigns supreme on this and many similar series. It's just very photogenic. WE's ''Daddy's Spoiled Little Girl" and the shows obsessed with California's Orange County, including MTV's ''Laguna Beach" and Fox's ''The O.C.," lure viewers with their portraits of luxurious ennui. Charity work certainly isn't going to be the Next Big MTV Thing.
Interestingly, none of these series, most of them devised after Hilton's ''The Simple Life" proved our renewed interest in excess with attitude, focus on the people who make the money. They're about those who inherit wealth, or, in the case of Bravo's new ''The Real Housewives of Orange County," the women who marry into it. Earning millions of dollars isn't as alluring and provocative a TV fantasy as simply lucking into them. ''The Real Housewives" invites us to drool over the indulgent lifestyles of women who generally just wound up in exclusive gated communities. You just know the show won't portray those iron-barred entrances as prison gates so much as the gates to heaven.
Donald Trump's ''The Apprentice" did have its moment in the ratings sun, with Trump's arrogance and his loot as the show's objects of desire. But ''The Apprentice" has never qualified as money-lust TV, since Trump and his contestants are all about earning what they get. They're in the dictionary under ''American work ethic." Money-lust TV must contain the sneer factor; we have to be able to roll our eyes at those who are rich by proxy, who have betrayed one of our country's seminal principles, who are more like European royalty than self-made individuals. Without the sneer factor, ''The Apprentice" is just ''Survivor: New York."
''The Real Housewives" offers up a healthy serving of sneering. It's largely about days of relaxation and self-beautification, sprinkled with a few moments of social angst and marital strain. Dissention generally comes in the form of a teen who resents being given a hand-me-down Mercedes instead of a new one. The women look like actresses, and they're glad to be the best trophy wife they can be. When Kimberly's husband suggests she get breast implants, noting, ''There's a lot of image out here," Kimberly happily agrees. ''In Orange County," she says, ''people just don't grow old."
On all these shows, younger and older subjects are happy to talk on camera about their free money. They don't appear to worry about turning off viewers. They seem to know that while mainstream America may resent them, the feelings are more complicated than simple hatred. Elizabeth on ''Survival of the Richest" puts it this way: ''I think people attack rich kids because we have an easy lifestyle and we don't really have to do anything. They're just jealous."
On some level, they know that viewers are smitten with their easily acquired affluence, that hope for a financial windfall still fuels shows as old-school as PBS's ''Antiques Roadshow," on which people pray heirlooms will make them rich. If these wealthy wastrels want to be watched, if they want to be stalked by the paparazzi like Paris Hilton, they know they need to let their exorbitance and disdain hang out for the world to see. When it comes to drawing an audience, that's hot.
Matthew Gilbert can be reached at gilbert@globe.com. 
