Tori Spelling

I am concerned about Tori:



She is not going to a yard sale. She is not cleaning out her closet. She is not hanging out at Home Depot, looking at faucets and light fixtures. She is not buying compost. She is not looking at used toilets listed on Craigslist. She's not taking out the trash. She's not running out for coffee filters and toilet paper. She's not moving her car for street cleaning. She's not late for her O-Chem final. She's not starring in an episode of Law and Order in which someone who appeared on What Not to Wear is murdered after backsliding into their old way of dressing. She's at an m-fing wine-tasting/photo op. In grody moccasins and old cut-offs. SHE MUST BE CLINICALLY DEPRESSED. Right? I mean, that's the only acceptable explanation. 

Oh, Tori. I just don't know.



Actually, I do know: this kind of looks like the satin tablecloth that covers the dressing room vanity in a fabulously glamorous old movie wherein the heroine does a lot of swishing around in peignoirs, lighting cigarettes with giant jewel-encrusted lighters and waving her martini glass about insouciantly, while denying to everyone -- ESPECIALLY HERSELF -- that she's in love with the dapper leading man, who is never seen without a tie. Which is AWESOME. But a piece of advice: dress like the WOMAN, not the TABLE. It's sort of Fashion 101.

Let's not pretend we're not all thinking the same thing, here:

OK, seriously? As I type, I am watching a rerun of the original 90210 -- Andrea Zuckerman is petitioning the school board to distribute condoms at school and is spouting off all these AIDS statistics, because this was the era of Addressing Issues, rather than the current reality of Addressing The Importance Of Drinking Dr. Pepper On Road Trips Because Dr. Pepper Paid A Bunch Of Money To Be In This Episode, and Donna Martin's mom Felice is REALLY opposed to the safe-sex advocacy at school and I sense this may create a rift in the gang -- and it is all only underscoring that something is VERY WRONG HERE:


[Photos: Splash News]

Tori Spelling is not supposed to be this thin. I know Tori insists she doesn't have an eating disorder, and I'm certainly not here to assert that she's lying. That's not my job. She might just be really busy, as she claims (although, when I get really busy, I get fatter because I have no time to do anything but snack, snack, snack, and what more perfect snackable food is there but the mighty potato chip?). The point is, I don't know her life.

But it's impossible to deny that she can't be consuming enough nutrients. Look at her! There is NOTHING LEFT. If she turned sideways she would slip through a crack in the floor. That dress is cute, but I guarantee you it is not supposed to accentuate a girl's assets in this particular manner:

Oh, don't look so cranky, Tori:


[Photo: PacificCoast NewsOnline.com]

Surely, at the very least, your nightgown here is very COMFORTABLE, even if you do look a bit like a woman who's escaped from a burning building in the dead of night and is wearing the blazer of the maitre 'd of the restaurant downstairs, who loaned it to you because he was feeling guilty about how he's pretty sure the blaze started in his establishment, seeing as the management has neglected to get faulty wiring fixed. Much as happened in the seminal episode of 90210 in which Kelly ended up almost dying in a faulty-wiring-prompted party/rave because the jerky frat boy with whom Steve went into the Lame Rave Throwing business showed flagrant disregard for both fire safety and the way electricity works. And look on the bright side: if you can believe it, you actually look better in this than you did then. Well. Maybe not. But at least you're not dating Ray Pruit anymore. That douche was bad news. Just look at him:

 

  Gross.

TORI SPELLING: We meet again.

AUDRINA PATRIDGE: We've actually never met, Tori.

TORI: I know you from somewhere.

AUDRINA: I'm on The Hills? That reality show on MTV? Lots of pretty girls crying about boys and texting a lot?

TORI: I don't watch reality programming.

AUDRINA: You're ON a reality show.

TORI: I'm only on that because I was on a scripted show first. It doesn't count.

AUDRINA: Why are you even posing with me, then?

TORI: I thought it might make me look young. Hip. With it.

AUDRINA: Um, maybe you should try not wearing a doily and a severe bun, if that's what you're going for.

TORI: How dare you? If I stare at your boobs REALLY hard, I think I can see your nipples shields.

AUDRINA: At least people want to see my nipple shields, GRANDMA. You look like you just took a vow of celibacy.

TORI: I will cut you.

AUDRINA: I'd like to see you try.

TORI: Why don't you come on my reality show and we can mud wrestle? The ratings will be huge!

AUDRINA: Okay!

TORI: Nice doing business with you.

It's well-documented that we hold a fond place in our hearts for Tori Spelling, on account of the important social contributions she made as Donna Martin, to a lesser degree as Screech's snorting girlfriend Violet on Saved By The Bell, and of course to a MASSIVE degree through her catalog of Lifetime Television For Women movies. We now know that the answer to the question, "Mother, May I Sleep With Danger?" is a resounding, "Not unless you want to get stalked and nearly meet a violent end on a pier somewhere in the country." Ergo, we wish Tori only good things in life.

I am not sure this dress is one of them.

Outwardly, aside from how destroyed it got in the car on the way over, it's not that bad. The color is great. But the bodice is making upended ostrich eggs of her boobs. Everything is tight and squished and uncomfortable-looking, like she was so excited to squeeze herself into a size zero that she was HELL-BENT on getting those puppies into the top, whether they whimpered at her the whole time or not. I also enjoy that every time I get a passing look at that clutch purse, I mistakenly think it is a really old-school calculator, like she brought it with her in case she's seized with the urge to write "BOOBIES" on it in numbers and then hand it to reporters with a giggle.

Although... is it just me, or has Tori dropped a little too much weight? I know she was always really lean, but something about her looks a tiny bit too shrunken. Almost bobbleheaded. Which, incidentally, I think you could ALMOST also write on a calculator if the window were long enough... and if you left out the a... and the ds, too. But that's not a very good reason to give up carbs (or forsake spelling). Somebody please get Donna a Megaburger, stat. Where is Joe E. Tata when you need him?

Anyone who reads this blog knows that I am a big fan of the Spelling genre. It's all Brenda Walsh this and Dylan McKay that and blah blah Amanda Woodward blah. Poor Tori Spelling hasn't benefited much from this love, though, even if I did really like So NoTorious.  (It was funny! Although  it did mean that it took me a while to adjust to Zachary Quinto, who played her amusing gay roommate, being a crazy brain-eater [he's eating the brains, right? I think he's eating the brains. He must be eating the brains. Or something.] on Heroes.) And I admit that I will totally TiVo this reality show she's doing about opening a B&B, because I'm the person who watches reality shows featuring people who used to be on 90210.  But she's had a long run of bad press, with the estrangement from her mother after her father's death and all the alleged plastic surgery and the divorce from Husband One after less than a year of marriage and the taking up with Husband Two who then got a tattoo of her face even before his own divorce was final.   And unfortunately, this is not the moment where it all turns around for her. Because, DUDE, PUT IT AWAY:

[source]

That skirt is TOO SHORT.  I think it's awesome that pregnant women don't have to wear giant jumpers with huge bows at the neck anymore, and I am all for working your legs but OH MY GOD I'M SCARED OF HOW SHORT THAT SKIRT IS. People -- pregnant women, non-pregnant women, men, children, anyone -- should not be walking around in public looking like they are about to inadvertently reveal things best left unrevealed.  It makes the rest of us uncomfortable.

And this picture makes me very uncomfortable indeed. Both because of the expanse of thigh, and because of all the pointing. I feel like Dean McDermott is the new K-Fed. But sort of more menacing. For all of K-Fed's many faults, he mostly just seemed very very very very lazy and entitled. But McDermott looks unafraid to wield a tire iron, you know? He will come after you, his Tori Spelling tattoo in tow, and he will f you up.

So I will just stop talking about her too-short-skirts now.

Just yesterday, I was talking about how cute I think Jaime Pressly looks now that she's got a wee Presslyette percolating. I do wish I could say the same about Tori Spelling at the AMAs last night.

I hope this isn't a Donna Martin Original, because that company is never going to get off the ground if it is:

Judging from the expression on her face, I think the woman standing behind Tori is thinking the same thing I am: "Damn, Donna! That dress is too short! The lingerie-inspired overlay ain't fooling anyone! You can't sit down in that thing!"

And truly, unless this super short number is actually a clever homage to the mini-skirts of Amanda Woodward -- in the sense that we're pretty sure that if Amanda Woodward were to be impregnated (which, of course, she was, but it was tragically an ectopic pregnancy, which was quickly followed by such stressful events as having her apartment blown up, getting cancer, having a lamp thrown into a hot tub in which she was canoodling, and having to shove Antonio Sabato, Jr. off a balcony), this is the sort of look she would go for. Roots included. (We know: Tori isn't coloring her hair because of the BABY, while Amanda didn't color her roots because she was too much of a bad-ass to care. Play along anyway!) -- I can not condone it. It just makes me nervous. It's so short. It looks like it's riding up. Every time she sits down, you know she has to pretend that she's just demurely setting her hands in her lap, when what she's actually doing is pushing the fabric of her skirt down so that no one can see up it.  (A lesson I learned with the Short Demin Mini of July 2004.) And shit's going down with Tori right now, with all the drama with her mother and a new baby and a new reality show and a husband that could very well be trying to get Britney Spears's number, now that she's on the market again. Doesn't she have enough to worry about without worrying about flashing the world?

Take this time to be good to yourself,  Donna Martin. Reject the Hoochie Maternity Wear. We'll all be so much more comfortable.

Part of me suspects that Gabrielle Carteris came to the Melrose Place and 90210 DVD release party (sidebar: AT LAST, THANK YOU,  LORD! Our prayers have been answered!) in costume as Andrea Zuckerman:

Those sleeves just scream "Doctor divorced from man she married because he knocked her up, back in town to try and seduce the self-righteous dude who refused to take the flower of her virginity when she offered it to him -- because he was moving back to Minneapolis -- in one of the most cringe-y scenes ever put to film, topping even the time Donna starred in David's 'Light the Match' video and was forced to wear hot pants and gyrate on the hood of a car, lighting matches  under the disapproving eye of her dreamy and likewise virginal star quarterback boyfriend, Heart Condition Joe." And I don't know: All  that fringe is kinda mesmerizing, like something you'd seen on a fortune teller at the county fair. Brandon might be hypnotized into going for it.

Overall, though, the gang from the Peach Pit has held up pretty well:

In this tableau alone we've got: 1) a victim of date rape, attempted rape, non-date rape, amnesia, a terrible frat-house fire, a stalker, a cult, endometriosis, drug addiction, diet pills addiction, and her step-brother seeing her naked;  2) a dude whose mom was homeless and mentally ill, who was addicted to meth REALLY BAD for one day, who stole money from his girlfriend, who accidentally misplaced his sister because of drugs, who saw his friend accidentally kill himself, and who had to deflower Tori Spelling;  3) Steve Sanders;  4) the most self-righteous character ever written who also happened to be gambling addict, a possible sex addict and someone who caused a drunk-driving accident; and 5) a Type A perfectionist who nevertheless almost had an affair with her drama teacher, had an affair with a dude she met at the laundromat, had an affair with her RA, had an unplanned pregnancy and a terribly painful divorce, and also really bad outfits. Seriously,  all things considered, they look pretty swell.