It's no secret that the clothes on TV tend to be aspirational: we get that. We, after all, know first-hand that a freelance writer who peacocks like Carrie Bradshaw is mere fantasy, and don't begrudge the dame her Manolos. But it also strikes us as a little curious that the spate of prime-time shows whose avowed goal is to portray powerful women (Lipstick Jungle, Cashmere Mafia, Dirty Sexy Money, anything set in a hospital or law-firm) then feel they need to glamorize and sexualize these careers in order to make them interesting.

On a basic level, it's misleading. Says one female exec in a Financial Times piece, “You’ve got to be able to run up stairs and chase down taxis...I see programs like Lipstick Jungle, where the women walk around in 5in heels, with outrageous jewellery and low necklines. That isn’t practical.” Or professional: whenever we see Whitney Port swanning around Manhattan in a 3" skirt we worry uncomfortably how many young women are going to appear for an interview for some summer internship dressed in just as "aspirational" a getup.

While "real-world" ladies are toning down their work wardrobes in keeping with somber times and a shaky job market, the high-powered execs of prime-time corporate America hover ever higher and their clothes shout ever-louder. Says Lipstick's stylist, Amanda Ross, to the FT: “I dressed the characters on the show to look polished and impeccably groomed,” adding that it “goes to extremes with layering and accessorising” but otherwise stays the straight and narrow. While a viewing of the show leads us to respectfully disagree (and by the by, costumes are the least of its problems), no costume designer should have to apologize for upping the ante. Perhaps what seems problematic is the wrinkle as old as Ally McBeal: it's one thing to glamorize for entertainment, but at what point does that veer into disrespect for actual dames?

This is a relatively new issue: professional women have rarely, historically, been the focus of shows and as such didn't require much sexing up. But it does seem like even when professional women were portrayed, it wasn't in a sexualized way: when Melanie Griffith's Working Girl goes corporate, she becomes less sexy, more professional: her clothes are impeccably tailored, but serious. In prior eras, a working gal might be glam, but that was very different from sexy. Mary Richards hardly showed cleavage; acting and writing added the character's allure. Is it good that a character can be both a sexy woman and a career pro? Sure. But why does that require a "sexy" outfit to prove it? A little less showing, more telling, plz.

The Wardrobes Of TV’s Career Women [FT]

• Listen to Heidi Montag's earsplittting new single, "No More," at your own risk. It sounds like this: You said I was the reason why we couldn't work out but it was all a lie...Ar ar ar ai ai ah ah blah dah dah, except in like, dolphin language. [People]
  
• Lindsay Lohan reportedly left a series of phone messages for Calum Best that were all, "I can't believe you would ever fucking do this to me, I should have listened to everyone. I should never have fucking trusted you." Hey Linds! Didja hear? That's not you in the BJ clip! [The Sun]
  
• A judge is upholding the conservatorship of Britney Spears, despite some random lawyer's appeal. [Yahoo News]
  
• Britney kept her sunglasses on during rehearsals for How I Met Your Mother. Very professional. [MSNBC]

• A source says the role was very carefully chosen and avoided "trigger" topics like her music career and her kids. "They just wanted her to be treated normally, but obviously this wasn't a normal situation. This wasn't about her career, it was about her health." [MSNBC]
• Ooh, Britney revelations via Henry Rollins! Yeah, that's right, Henry Motherfucking Rollins! Henry sez: "They have the black chick come in and sing, and Britney sings over it, and they mix them together. (Britney) gets her phrasing basically from this older R&B woman. I found that out talking to an engineer. Britney apparently isn't actually the worst singer, she just has no feel. So they bring in this older black woman who sings the song, then Britney sings to it, and they kind of make a mix of the two voices, and that's what you hear on the records." [Dlisted]
• Cashmere Mafia: Dunzo? And Lipstick Jungle coming back? Is anyone watching either show? [Page Six]
• A dude named David K. Zandi is lobbying to star in Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, a Disney flick based on a video game. Actors up for the role include Orlando Bloom, Milo Ventimiglia and Zac Efron but Zandi says "people are fascinated that a real Persian with royal lineage could be hired to play this role." And by people he means himself. Anyway, Disney is all LOL. [Page Six]
• Grey's Anatomy star Justin Chambers had a vasectomy after he and his wife had their 5th child. But! The couple would consider adopting! Are they battling Angelina for kiddie supremacy? [Page Six]
• Weekly mag editors find Ashton Kutcher's show, Pop Fiction and the fake news it's trying to peddle (Avril's pregnancy, Paris' guru) in a word, yawn. [Rush & Molloy]
• Nude photo of Carla Bruni, aka French First Lady, up for auction! [Rush & Molloy]
• Allen Covert, who has co-starred in a dozen movies with Adam Sandler, was arrested on the set of his latest Sandler film when he spat and slapped a paparazzo he thought was filming his kid. [TMZ]
• The family of Bob Marley will not allow his music to be in a Weinstein Co. film, even though Rita Marley is an executive producer on the project. But Martin Scorsese is set to direct a documentary on Bob, which would be allowed to use his music, according to Ziggy. [TMZ]
• Dancing With The Stars alum Sara Evans went through a very public divorce battle last year but won't let that stop her from getting engaged to a former University of Alabama quarterback. Congrats. [People]
• Milo Ventimiglia has a YouTube account in which you can see videos of Milo brushing his teeth and whatnot. Gripping! [People]
• The Smashing Pumpkins are suing Virgin Records for illegally using their name and music in promotional deals. Did anyone know the Smashing Pumpkins were still around? [Yahoo News]
• Sean Diddy Combs has settled a lawsuit brought by a man who claims the rapper punched him outside of a Hollywood hotel, but the terms of the deal are unknown. [Yahoo News]
• Denise Richards, who was legally known as Denise Sheen, is changing her name back to Denise Richards. Don't these people have anything better to do than go to court? [Yahoo News]
• Heather Mills once claimed she'd been offered a title, Baroness Mills; a new TV documentary calls bullshit on that. [Mirror]
• Ice T and Coco have a sex secret called The Stroke that you can feel free to read more about if you care to. [The Sun]
• Amy Winehouse has been offered £350,000 to perform at a Dutch club that is "in the heart of the biggest drug circuit in Holland." Oh, dear. Sing, take the money and run! [The Sun]
• Pete Doherty was seen visiting Amy's house with hands that looked like they "hadn't been washed for a week." Such lovely imagery this morning! [The Sun]

[Image via Oh! My God! I Miss You]

Variety

"Lipstick Jungle" is the superior product of this winter's "career-woman pals try having it all" dramedies, but that's not an especially esteemed sorority. Like ABC's "Mafia," it's all fairly surface-oriented stuff — grappling with ruthless bosses (who, in Sands' case, always seem to know the gossip first), fending off ambitious underlings and solving other problems particular to the filthy rich, like getting kids into a prestigious private school or having the former nanny pen a tell-all book.

"Lipstick Jungle" is plodding and heavy-handed. "Cashmere Mafia" isn't much better, but it at least has a slightly lighter touch...This pilot opens with a montage of fancy footwear: four-inch pumps, leopard-print wedge boots, silver slippers. Those who love by the shoe, die by the shoe. "Lipstick Jungle" is a wooden clog of a melodrama squeezed into a flimsy, satin and marabou mule.

"Lipstick Jungle" is to "Sex and the City" what New Coke was to Coca-Cola — a brand extension best forgotten. Whereas "Sex and the City" minted a genuine, shiny, new modern heroine — the sexually active, sexually explicit but still romantic good girl — "Lipstick Jungle" is content to play dress-up with a bunch of frayed-at-the-edges paper dolls. Here's Wendy Healy (Brooke Shields), the nicest movie executive you'll ever meet (she doesn't even swear), dutifully struggling to fill her roles as deal maker, mommy, wife and BFF. Needless to say, she's on the phone a lot.

Not for a second will you believe Shields as a movie mogul, not when she fights to cast a "Galileo" film or when she tangles with a director who added a gay twist to her summer romantic comedy. Shields fares better when the stories veer to her guilt about being the family breadwinner.

It's nearly a certainty that someone will call "Lipstick Jungle," NBC's new drama series about sensual and successful women, a "guilty pleasure," but it's really more of a guilty horror. You feel you're not watching a show so much as flipping through a catalogue of gaudy and pricey luxuries — glittery junk that nobody needs — and being expected to drool on cue.

Just imagine the anti-Hillary forces condemning these two network shows about type-A female personalities, as if they had anything to do with serious achievers. The assertive-to-the point-of-aggressive woman is getting special scrutiny this year. Whether they're sparring over a lover, a promotion or a condo, women can be sharks. At least that's the vision of successful cosmopolitan women offered by a certain strain of TV series suddenly in abundance. Don't bother to call it post-feminist or third-wave feminist, just call it tacky soap opera.

Lipstick Jungle Review [Variety]
Shoe-Savvy Friends Against the City [New York Times]
Lipstick Jungle Review [Los Angeles Times]
Glossy 'Lipstick Jungle' Smacks Of 'Sex' [Boston Herald]
'Lipstick Jungle': NBC's Thick Application of Gloss [Washington Post]
'Lipstick' Is Just Another Shade Of Tacky [Seattle Post Intelligencer]

Earlier: Could Lipstick Jungle Be A Show You Actually Watch?
Critics Say Cashmere Mafia Has Polyester Quality

So anyway: we fully intended to feel the same way about Lipstick Jungle, the Candace Bushnell project that will premiere next week to compete with Cashmere Mafia viewers, the show that tore apart the lucrative friendship of Bushnell and Darren Star. I mean, seriously: Lipstick Jungle: if there is a title more obnoxious, more shamelessly pandering to the sick set of values perpetuated by Sex & The City than Cashmere Mafia, that would be it, right? But according to a story in today's New York Observer — the newspaper that started it all by printing Bushnell's wretched columns every week! — there may be a reason to give Lipstick Jungle a chance. Specifically, an executive producer and director who intends to make it somehow palatable to dudes, thirtysomething star Timothy Busfield:

"I really wanted this show to be about the little problems," he said. "I do not like necessarily, even in our show, when we get too hijinks-orientated. Too high profile. I'd love the show to be, at its core, about the difficulty of the working mom, a leader in the workplace, who still is a mom and wife who provides for her husband and kids. My dream moment is to see Brooke come home after an enormously long day and have to load the dishwasher. Those little problems—not the business going under, or flying to Scotland to get J.K. Rowling ... That stuff? Great, we have it. But the matters of self-doubt and overcoming self-doubt, that is what the show is about."
Mr. Busfield, who was raised by a single mom, has encouraged the cast to bring their kids to the set (Ms. Raver has a 5-year-old son and 3-month-old baby) in the name of creating a happy work environment. "If Kim breaks to nurse, no one is allowed to make her feel bad or rush," said Mr. Busfield. "This is a show when women can bring their kids. I don't expect you to leave them at home, I'll wait for you to finish pumping if you need to."
He also expects the show to offer sympathetic and complex male characters. "I felt the men were a little two-dimensional on Sex and The City," said Mr. Busfield, adding, "I think men's reaction to Sex and The City is like women's reaction to The Three Stooges.
"I want the male audience," he continued. "I want them to think, What can I do better?" He laughed. "They laugh, but the actresses know I want to shoot them like John Wayne. They're all John Wayne to me. Shoot the costumes, get the moments, let me see the spurs."

But shit, people, there's a writer's strike on. What else are you going to watch, Millionaire Matchmaker?

Okay, seriously, Millionaire Matchmaker is kind of awesome, but still.

Carrie's Sister [New York Observer]

• As reported late Friday, Nicole Richie gave birth to her baby on January 11, a daughter she named Harlow Winter Kate Madden. (6 lbs., 7oz.) Ooh, pretty name! Er, names, that is. [People]
  
• And the next day, just down the hall in Cedars Sinai's maternity ward, Christina Aguilera gave birth to a baby boy, Max Liron Bratman, (6 lbs. 2 oz.) on Saturday. Seventeen years from now, will Max and Harlow be dating? [TMZ]
  
• Britney Spears and new boyfriend Adnan Ghalib went shopping over the weekend and Ghalib got into a "shoving match" with the paparazzi. Dude, don't forget where you came from! [Page Six]
  
• Um, while Brit and her man were car shopping, she was wearing her old wedding dress. [People]
  
• Did Britney pay for Adnan's new Mercedes SUV? [PopDirt]

• Britney's due in court today, and Commissioner Scott Gordon is definitely going to want to know what was up with the kerfluffle at her house that crazy Thursday. But will she even show up? [TMZ]
• She has been "strongly advised" to attend the hearing. Obviously. [People]
• A source says Britney's boys are doing "fantastic" in the sole custody of Kevin Federline and aren't asking for their mom at all, sob. [PageSix.com]
• Staffers at the Mexican hotel Britney stayed in on Wednesday say Britney appeared to be "high" while there. She sat all alone at the bar singing the words to "Toxic" to herself. Maybe she felt like she was in a video? [The Sun]
• Sources say Adnan and Britney may get married. But wouldn't he have to get divorced first? [Mirror]
• Is Val Kilmer dating Chad Lowe's girlfriend? Do you care? [Page Six]
• "It's great to see an exotic face in sci-fi. Little girls who look like me — or who are Arab, Filipina, whatever — are going to go, 'Oh, my God, we can be in space, too!" — Zoe Saldana, who plays Lt. Uhura in the upcoming Star Trek movie. [Page Six]
• Will Lipstick Jungle be way better than Cashmere Mafia? Sources say CM's Lucy Liu has a "lack of friendliness" whereas LJ's Brooke Shields "laughs out loud constantly." Hmm, could one of those "sources" be Candace Bushnell? [Gatecrasher]
• Blind item! "Which candidate's daughter recently went on a date with an ardent Ron Paul supporter? "The date became all about him trying to convince her about Paul," laughs a friend. 'Finally, she said, "You know my dad's running for President. You're not going to change my mind!"?'" [Gatecrasher]
• Will the writers' strike derail the Grammys? Survey says: Maybe. [Rush & Molloy]
• Bjork landed in New Zealand and a member of her entourage asked that no pictures be taken at the airport. A photographer snapped a couple of shots, so Bjork ran up on the guy and tore his T-shirt. Human behavior! [TMZ]
• A new report names Mary J. Blige, 50 Cent and Timbaland among the stars who may have received or used performance-enhancing drugs. Mary on steroids? Thought she was just fine! [Editor & Publisher]
• So you know how Brad Pitt let Pax "drive" a couple of weeks ago? He also let him ride in a cherry picker at the construction site. Sources are saying that Brad put the kid in danger and Pax should have been wearing a helmet, seatbelt, safety harness, etc. [MSNBC]
• Dame Edna (Australian comic Barry Humphries) has been ordered to rest for six months after complications from appendix surgery. The 73-year-old Humphries was forced to cancel a North American tour. Get well soon! [Reuters]
• The Harvard Lampoon is giving Paris Hilton the "Woman Of The Year" award in a large public ceremony in the middle of Harvard Square. Is this the closest Paris will ever get to Harvard? And does she realize it's kind of a joke? [PR Newswire]
• Oscar-winning screenwriter Roger Avary — he penned Pulp Fiction — was arrested on suspicion of manslaughter and DUI after he crashed his car, injuring his wife and killing a man. Hate to say it, but it sounds like a plot twist from the flick. [USA Today]
• Malia Nurmi, known as Vampira, has died at the age of 86. RIP. [BoingBoing]
• Vivica A. Fox claims her rumored sex tape does not exist. "If you see me having a love scene, it's going to be choreographed in a movie, and be fabulous," she says. [People]
• Yes, Lauren Conrad has left Teen Vogue but she was not fired. "I was kind of done," she explains. Meanwhile she says she's "looking" for a new job. And will return to The Hills for another season. [People]
• In old-school Hollywood news, Richard Burton slept with Marilyn Monroe, a new book claims. Yeah, not surprising. At all. [Telegraph]
• Wesley Snipes will go on trial today over the fact that he didn't pay taxes from 1994 to 2004, despite earning about $38 million. He says he is not guilty and acted on the advice of tax professionals. Good luck! [NY Times]
• One of Kid Rock's friends dropped a $200,000 watch at a restaurant; Kid gave the busboy who found it $1,000 in cash. Who knew that KR had cash to throw around? [Page Six]

Earlier: Critics Say Cashmere Mafia Has Polyester Quality

The Boston Herald:

"Cashmere Mafia" seems designed to distract viewers with the heroines' dazzling wardrobes. But clothes don't make a woman, nor do they make a show.

The Alphabet web trots out another uninspired hour about women attempting to balance fabulous lives and careers with romance, but other than a lesbian liaison, it all feels about as fresh as "That Girl." Each member wrestles with romance, while their frenetically paced careers are wholly nondescript. Beyond the main foursome, meanwhile, the other women in the show are almost uniformly predatory — conniving bitches eager to entice those overwhelmed and emasculated husbands.

"Cashmere Mafia" also feels rushed, as if the creators sensed their material is so familiar, they can't afford any foreplay. Sexual identity crises, insensitive men who do incredibly lunkheaded things, and whispers of spousal cheating all surface in the first episode, as if each character has a checklist of traumas and might as well start enduring them right now. This serves neither the viewers nor the actors.

The biggest problem is that the women populating "Cashmere" seem to be more caricatures than characters. It's as if Starr [sic] was trying to fill out the roster of a reality show with stock types — and various hair colors — and forgot to make them warm, interesting and/or engaging.

It's slick and exquisitely cast. The characters are easy to believe and easier still to look at. Naturally, the clothes are fabulous, too. Most importantly, for those drawn to this kind of melodrama, the stories invite emotional investment.

The clothes are glamorous and the settings are chic, but the lives of these women are parodies of businesswomen, or perhaps stereotypes...For a series like "Cashmere Mafia" to survive, there would have to be practically no other dramas to watch and, whaddya know, that just might be the case, as more scripted shows fall victim to the writers strike.

Earlier: Is It Possible To Make A Show Worse Than Sex & The City?

Sex and the City felt like New York. Its characters were ironic, self-deprecating, and funny... Watching it made me think about an early Sex and the City episode in which Miranda realizes that she's a smart-lady beard for a serial modelizer, trotted out to assure his friends he's not shallow. She's invited to dinner parties and ditched the second Lotus opens. It was about the push and pull between beauty and brains, and a city that values both but sometimes gets confused.

See, I would interpret that situation to not really be about "push and pull" or any sort of "conflict" in values whatsoever, because there's sort of a common theme running through: "appearances", specifically how "they're all that matters in this town." And yeah, that's not totally true, because money also matters, as evidenced from the aforementioned Darren Star-Candace Bushnell feud (and also: Candace Bushnell's entire body of work) but if you think brains really have a place here, Amy, ummmmm, why do you and Robin Givhan consistently seem to be lone two ladies in town capable of intelligently writing about the fashion industry?

Sex & the City Creator Darren Star Returns With Cashmere Mafia [New York]