‘Tori and Dean: Home Sweet Malibu’

After years of thinking about doing it, being told by everyone from former bosses, co-workers and friends to do it, and procrastinating doing it, I am finally launching my blog.  Welcome to popsiculture where I will dish on all things pop culture, while throwing in a dash of motherly advice.  I have been a pop culture addict since I can remember.  While growing up in the 70’s and 80’s, I was a big fan of TV, and unfortunately having just turned 40, not much has changed.  My favorite shows as a kid were the weekly dramas.  I was the 10 year-old who couldn’t wait for 8pm on a Friday night so I could watch “Dallas” followed by “Falcon Crest.”  My other favorites included “Knots Landing,” “Hart to Hart” and “Dynasty.”   I spent hours playing Atari games while pretending to be Alexis Carrington, faux British accent and all.

With my love of (almost) all things Aaron Spelling, I decided that blogging about the finale of “Tori and Dean: Home Sweet Hollywood” was a good jumping off point for my blog.  I have grown up with, admired, hated, loved and despised Tori Spelling.  I currently really like her.  While in college, if I missed an episode of “90210,” the world was surely ending.  As a little girl, I could only imagine what life as Aaron Spelling’s daughter must be like.  As an adult, after watching countless interviews, reading magazine articles, as well as her own book, “Mommywood,” I have a pretty good idea.  Not the Mayberry childhood she dreamed of, and not the childhood I would trade my Mayberry childhood for.

Just as my feelings for Tori Spelling go, so do my feelings for “Home Sweet Hollywood.”  I can’t stop watching, yet I find it contrived and unreal on so many levels.  The exterior shots of their house, or any house they have had during filming of the show, has never actually been their house.  I understand their need to protect their privacy, but they have chosen to be on a reality show.  At the end of last night’s episode, Tori and Dean downsized to a much smaller house with more land for their menagerie of pets.  This makes them seem more like the rest of us, until you find out that the smaller house sits in Malibu, CA.

One of the themes in “Mommywood” was Tori’s need to belong to a community and live in a normal neighborhood like the rest of us.  However, when she did belong to a “normal” neighborhood in Los Angeles, her neighbors all but rejected her and she felt completely out of place having grown up in not McMansions, but the real thing.  I feel like this has also been a theme on the show, yet I feel like Tori and Dean put themselves in situations where they are anything but normal.  I’m curious to see how life in the new house goes and I’m hoping they have finally found what they are looking for.

So, my motherly advice is to want what you have when you have it.  Whether it’s a small house in the suburbs, a mansion in Encino, or a mid-sized house in Malibu, and everything in between.

Thank you for reading!  Bear with me as I get comfortable and get used to writing again.  Hopefully, you’ll find my blog entertaining and funny.  If not, just drink a lot of wine before you read me.