"Defeat the lie!” went the rallying cry of Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, cited repeatedly in obituaries after his passing last week as a reminder of his belief that artists had a responsibility to spread the truth. This year, based on the amount of attention they’ve received in the self-flagellating entertainment media, the artists with the loudest voices are currently starring on The Hills. That is, presuming that what’s being presented represents what the show claims to be: reality.

But the more written about how secretly smart The Hills is — like those old Russian novels that would leave the reader wondering about their own purpose in the world — the more intimidating the prospect of tuning in becomes. After all, any popular program that breeds another popular program dedicated to dissecting exactly what just happened seems like the stuff of adult nightmares that involve forgetting to study for a final exam.

The more popular reaction outside of this modern-day spin on the prime-time soap (and all the surrounding publicity) was probably best summed up by comedian Bill Maher: “Stop giving me news about Heidi and Spencer,” he deadpanned about The Hills stars in a monologue on his Real Time talk show back in April. “I don’t know who Heidi is. I don’t know who Spencer is. I don’t know what they do, or why they’re in the news. I just know I want them to die.”

But, on the other side of this house of mirrors called The Hills sit Jessi Cruickshank and Dan Levy, the 25-year-olds who co-host MTV Canada’s The After Show. Perched on their futon throne at the station’s studio in the Masonic Temple at Yonge and Davenport, they’ve been given the task of making sense of it all each Monday night at 10:30pm, in front of an increasingly rabid studio audience. Designed to help fulfill the CRTC licence requirements of a Canadian interactive talk-show channel required to program two-thirds homegrown programming, The After Show follows in the tradition of feeding off, and commenting on, American junk culture in order to cultivate a Canadian one (see sidebar).

How successful has it been? Successful enough to be sold back across the border, with the MTV mothership in the US promoting it for weekly online viewing on www.mtv.com. And the last two season finales of The Hills incorporated an After Show simulcast, live from Hollywood. Cruickshank and Levy, meanwhile, perfected their improvised banter to the point where their pop-culture klatch goes nightly on MTV Canada this fall, expanding beyond Heidi and Spencer to the entire hyperverse of mindless drivel.

The hosts’ appeal owes plenty to the fact that neither would fit into tanned tableaux on The Hills. And, even if you don’t see the contrast, they’ll remind you themselves.

Levy lived in Los Angeles for a spell of grade-school — his father, Eugene Levy, based the family there for a year or two in an effort to launch his post-SCTV comedic acting career without having to commute, then decided to move back to Toronto.

“I could never feel like [L.A.] was home, anyway,” says Levy. “I don’t find any of the culture and diversity that I like about Toronto. People living there seem to like being in the sun — but I’m not the most athletic person, so I don’t know if I’m really equipped to seize everything it has to offer. I’ve never really warmed to it.

“Plus, I don’t know if I could live that Hollywood life where you’re constantly waiting for that phone call. A lifestyle where nothing is secure is scary to me.”

It was only while helping out behind the scenes at Canadian Idol that Levy was prodded to try out for a job on this non-music MTV Canada that launched in March 2006.

Cruickshank, on the other hand, was at a New York film festival touting a short film she starred in when tipped off that MTV Canada were recruiting hosts. Freshly armed with a University of Toronto arts degree, she filmed an audition doing street interviews in Times Square. Prior to that, her biggest credit was a small part as 14-year-old in For Hope, a 1996 disease-of-the-week TV movie directed in her hometown, Vancouver, by Bob Saget: “I had three lines,” she says. “And two of them didn’t make the final cut.”

Her first break, though, came from being a gymnast recruited to play a tumbling elf in a Christmas commercial for Shoppers Drug Mart. “I was not an attractive child — I looked like a small boy,” says Cruickshank. Having later joined the same high-school improv squad as Seth Rogen, the stage had become contagious. That didn’t mean she was entirely clear on what MTV Canada wanted her talents for — after all, she was happier teaching drama to kids than chasing her own spotlight.

“There were eight of us hired as hosts,” she recalls. “I was wondering, ‘Where do I fit in here?’ It was probably the first time something like this didn’t have a blond.”

Blonds would be beamed in from MTV stateside, of course, with the entire run of Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County tailored for export. With just a few cameras to keep them company, assorted hosts on MTV Canada would then moderate a discussion with viewers about what they just watched. Levy and Cruickshank proved to have the best chemistry by the time Laguna Beach’s high-school starlet Lauren Conrad relocated to learn the ropes of the fashion industry on The Hills.

The show focuses on the non-stop drama that apparently comes with being vain and vapid. “Heidi Montag is a superstar based entirely on going to restaurants for lunch and to clubs at night,” says Levy. “But they’ve continued to tailor the show in a way that makes you forget about the whole orbital fame thing. You’ve got to remember, though, taping the show is their life. They don’t have anything else.”

Heidi and boyfriend Spencer Pratt have therefore reacted unkindly to The After Show’s occasionally harsh depiction of their presumably real-life relationship dynamic. “It’s not meant to be malicious,” explains Levy. “But if we’re left trying to figure out whether these tensions or conflicts are real, we have bigger problems.

“I’ve seen enough footage of Spencer to know that he’s a douchebag, though. There are certain things about him that cannot be manipulated through editing.”

There are grown-ups on The Hills, too, generally people who make the ditz industry tick — even if their enabling roles in the surrounding circus render them not unlike the plunged-trombone voices of Charlie Brown’s cartoon teacher.

Relative to his younger on-camera talents, the 37-year-old head of MTV Canada, Brad Schwartz, may well be speaking that language. Born and raised in Toronto, he climbed the executive ladder in the US before being called back by CTV, who cut a deal to finally give the MTV brand a place on the Canadian television dial. During this phase, in early 2006, a new organizational structure was announced for multi-platform strategies that involved a pair of “highly integrated ecosystems.”

Translation: MTV Canada had to find a new way to hang on to those teenage eyeballs, even if keeping those eyeballs required tactics worthy of A Clockwork Orange.

“The company has done more research on young adults than anyone else in the world,” gloats Schwartz. “And all signs pointed to something called collective cocooning, where they’re constantly addicted to communicating with friends.”

Conveniently, a lame-duck licence held by CTV for defunct station talktv — conceived on the basis of being a video version of open-line news-talk radio featuring hosts like Mike Duffy — could be plugged into this MTV ecosystem thing, especially since their latest flagship show was designed to stir meta-discussion. And it didn’t hurt when CTV bought a frenemy, MuchMusic, where Schwartz is now also in charge.

“Dan and Jessi are representing every single Hills fan in North America,” raves their boss. “We’re catalyzing the conversation, and facilitating their vocabularies.”

Schwartz even mentions a slogan — “I Want My MTV” — dating back to a time before his After Show hosts were born, the same words originally designed to pester cable companies across America into picking up Music Television. (And when it was mocked by Dire Straits in their 1985 hit “Money for Nothing,” they made a point of co-opting that, too.) Says Schwartz: “Do you know what the most important word has become in ‘I Want My MTV’? That word is now ‘My.’”

However, all it takes is a glimpse of The Hills — a phenomenon largely influenced by the high-definition cinematography — to know its appeal involves lotsa “Want.”

“I did this intense four-year degree and figured I’d delve into intellectual pursuits,” says Cruickshank. “Maybe [I’d be] a novelist or something high and mighty — not someone known for introducing back-to-back episodes of Laguna Beach. But it was the lack of perspective in the actual show that helped us find all of the humour in it.

“Would I watch The Hills if it wasn’t my job? Maybe, since I have friends who are studying to be lawyers and doctors who are totally obsessed with it. I’ve ended up more invested in the show than I’d even care to admit, although it might be because it’s my job to watch it with a critical eye. And if a 38-year-old woman who’s busy with raising three kids stops me on the street to tell me she makes time to watch the show, then maybe I shouldn’t feel like it’s a waste of my time.”

But when the celebutard machine is making celebutards out of those who are theoretically positioned to subvert the machine — like wondering aloud how Heidi went from a sweet and innocent 19-year-old aspiring singer from Colorado into a plastic surgery disaster who looks 45 — where will the funhouse exit ramp be?

“Maybe it never ends,” winks Levy. “But I’d like to think that we’re doing our part to help ground something that shouldn’t be so far off the ground to begin with.”

“From 10 to 10:30 the viewers are taken into this fantasy world,” rationalizes Cruickshank. “There’s a seemingly airbrushed perfection, and we’re definitely not like that at all. It helps send a message to the 12-year-old girls that maybe you shouldn’t aspire to be like them. We’re putting that superficiality in perspective.

“When I was that age, though, I had a bowl haircut and a unibrow — we played Duck Hunt after school. We weren’t talking about bags and brands, shopping and boys. It was about sports! And being outdoorsy! Not trying to be sexy schoolgirls. I want to stay true to myself, even when I’m saying these ridiculous lines, so I figure if I can still be different, and smart, and funny, then I’m doing my job well.”

After all, if the lie finally dies, the truth may make it less entertaining to stay alive.

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