by Marc Jacobs

The WB's Popular is so pop it's almost Japanese. It stars hair-pulling, popular blond sophomores pitted full-tilt against unpopular brunettes. Girls call each other Abercrombie & Bitches; a plot can turn on an issue of Seventeen recommending aggression and the perfect shade of plum lip gloss to make a man happy; and house party doors are worked like Web site launches, complete with headset and guest list. Beverly Hills, 90210 is over, and it's time to meet the new class, one that's prettier, richer, skinnier and more teenaged than any before on television. And it knows it. Popular is pastel-colored like Saved by the Bell but dark like Heathers. Instead of 90210's earnest moralizing, it's a smart send-up of e-generation ambition and the teen crusade for popularity, acceptance and clear skin. "It had to be something you've never seen before," explains Ryan Murphy, one of the show's creators. "That's why I decided to make it really f**ked-up and dark and crazy. I never pitched it as a teen show."

WHAT A GIRL WANTS
The most popular girl at Santa Monica's fictitious Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy High is Gwyneth Paltrow, who is mentioned in every episode like something out of a dorm room drinking game. She is adored; her flawless skin cherished. "I've always been obsessed with her," says Murphy, 34. "Every generation has a style icon, and she is certainly the one for these young girls. She represents the idea of perfection, of artifice and style." He pauses to acknowledge Paltrow's talents should the sunny day arrive when she would be available for a cameo. "It's f**king hard work to be popular in high school. I found it very debilitating and draining."
Accordingly, Nicole, the blonde pit bull; Mary Cherry, a striking composite of Portia de Rossi and Delta Burke (who, not incidentally, plays Mary's mother, Cherry Cherry); Poppy Fresh (Anel Lopez Gorham), the cheerleading Glamazon of color; and Brooke McQueen, played by cover girl Leslie Bibb, are Murphy's class pets. Brooke is Popular's blond antiheroine, a cheerleading captain who juggles four AP classes, is a perfect size two and until episode six has never had a stress zit. "She's the most popular girl in high school, and she feels like the biggest loser," says Bibb, 26. "She's in this battle between her heart and her fear of the social order of high school." Adds Murphy, "When I was writing the pilot, they wanted me to have the popular people be evil and the unpopulars be good. I said it's more interesting to make the lead popular girl very vulnerable so that you like her and understand the struggle."
That struggle includes the efforts of her sometime rival Sam McPherson, played with brunette-Sherilyn-Fenn-beauty by 19-year-old Carly Pope. Their single parents fall in love and move in together, facilitating dinner table vitriol and squabbling over bathroom sinks. "She's not in the popular crowd, and as much as she wants to believe that she chose not to be part of it, she didn't make it," says Pope of her character, who doesn't simply resent being the underdog (instead of celebrating it 90's style), "she's fed up with it and gets caught up."

UNSKINNY POP Naturally, this issue processing is delivered by exceedingly handsome and charismatic actors, whose impeccable maintenance Murphy abets ("Glowing skin is very important to Popular"). He has the show's makeup artist give the cast regular facials and will gladly go $50,000 over budget to make costumes for a wedding - not to mention hairstyles evolving at speeds that would give Tori Spelling's hairdresser whiplash. The formula is a hit. "We got a fan letter from Manolo Blahnik, which I cherish," Murphy says. Other fans are of the less famous variety. "Carly and I were shopping at Barneys, trying on shoes," says Bibb, "when this woman came up to us and said, 'I just want to say that I'm 32 years old, and I have all the mothers in my "Mommy and Me" class watching your show.'" The New York Post raved, "I almost projectile vomited."
If the show, in fact, has the youngest median viewer age for the WB's original programming lineup, it's also popular among gays. "Hugely popular," Murphy confirms. "It's really weird. I go to my gym and sometimes I'm treated like Madonna."
An episode about a transsexual even won the show a GLAAD award. That's quite a range. "It's really nice," says Pope, "because it was kind of the underdog show. No one was really expecting it to do very well and be anything dynamic. And it did."

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