Sometimes cloying, but great cast of characters and location
5
By DPRedcliffe
The city of Charleston is rightly experiencing a renaissance in terms of cuisine, nightlife, and culture. It’s a city on par with the finest on the coasts of Italy and France. This show reveals another side of the city and its people, one that appeals to our baser nature, and forces us to reflect on why we find these seemingly self-absorbed and vapid people interesting, and what they add or detract from the city’s charm. Perhaps it’s the aplomb with which Whitney and his mother casually drink a $2000 bottle of wine (Petrus probably) for lunch, or the way she grouses about her pink ostrich Birkin bag. Despite such, for most unattainable, luxuries, the show’s most privileged characters also seem to be its emptiest and least satisfied. For example, the wealthy T-Rav wonders what would make people like him again, when the answer is obvious - he ought to do something constructive for Charleston with his money, as his father did, rather than focusing on partying and polo. There should be a question mark in the title after charm, because at its best this show lays bare many of the myths surrounding the south’s good society people, and their virtuous and honorable ways. At its worst it’s a self-indulgent vanity project for Whitney, which is the same critique flashed across the screen for his widely panned “documentary”, but it somehow remains an entertaining one.
