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Wives Gone Wild!
Andrew Eccles / Bravo
Bravo’s Real Housewives franchise doesn’t just showcase America’s funniest home catfights. It’s a post-feminist nightmare that preys on women’s shallowest, least-attractive qualities. And I can’t stop watching.
Even before the start of Bravo’s back-to-back episodes of the season finale of The Real Housewives of Orange County and second-season premiere of The Real Housewives of New York City, I was already transfixed, pinned at the edge of my living-room sofa as the coming attraction caused my heart to race:
“HOLY CATFIGHT!” screeched Bethenny Frankel, one of the New York posse, as she was broadcasted reading a New York Post Page Six banner item about the show’s feuding, arriviste cast members.
“To exploit your life is revolting but to explore your life is exciting,” Kelly Killoren Bensimon said. “I wanted the world to see I have a strong moral code. I just wanted to be authentic and genuine.”
Embarrassing as it is to admit, especially since I like to think of myself as a feminist—if not exactly in practice, then surely in principle—my particular reality-TV craving is for sit-dramas powered by a distinctly voracious strain of enmity-cum-amity between two-faced, fire-breathing, airtime-hogging females.
The current formula goes something like this: Trail a geographically specific coterie of attractive-enough extroverts with double X chromosomes and manageable personality disorders. (Read: OCD, histrionic, narcissistic, paranoid, borderline.) Toss a Cinderella- or Stockholm Syndrome-type victim into the mix and presto! The claws come out, the viewers tune in.
“Reality TV looks for someone who is a drama queen—feisty, forthright, a colorful character—at the same time, without so much pathology that they won’t crack up on the set,” confirmed Dr. Jean Cirillo, a Long Island, New York, psychologist who evaluates reality-TV participants. “They want women because they don’t resort to bodily injuries as men do. They choose a person who has exaggerated traits that everyone has to some degree, whether it’s sexual aggression or cattiness. Their conflicts make for a good story. If everyone was nice to everybody all the time, there’d be no plot.”
Ergo, Bravo’s winning soap triad: The Real Housewives of Orange County, which premiered in 2006, followed by last spring’s The Real Housewives of New York City, and this past fall’s The Real Housewives of Atlanta. (A fourth series featuring New Jersey housewives is in the works.)
Rejecting old-school notions of feminist solidarity, Bravo's she-beast housewives are constantly vying to stay ahead of their own pack, even if—no, especially if—it demands catfights, gossip mongering, and disloyalty. Without ever pulling a punch, they engage in actions that are as ruthless and harmful as physical violence, TV's unlady-like ladies’ alternative to professional wrestling’s simulated battering and theatrical chest-beating. More specifically, the housewives’ antics, both verbal and nonverbal, are diagnosed as “female relational aggression," a socio-psychological term referring to the specific way girls and women use relationships to hurt another, pitting individuals against each other, and forging alliances to deliberately exclude someone. A barbed tongue remains a female's most lethal weapon, instigating a war of words curdling with ridicule and betrayal.
No one knows this better than the media-savvy sextet of New York City housewives, or “skinny bitches,” as they called themselves, clinking Champagne flutes. In last week’s premiere episode, which filmed the cast mostly summering in the Hamptons, fangs were bared because Alex and Simon McCord, the show’s wannabe socialite couple from Brooklyn, had been written up in New York magazine, wherein Simon made a dig at one of the other housewives, Jill Zarin, implying she was déclassé because she was from Long Island. She, in turn, retaliated by getting Cindy Adams, the New York Post gossip columnist, to print the banner headline item that earlier prompted Bethenny's "Holy catfight!" alert. It said that Simon was a lush, prone to insults. Would the adversaries come to blows when they spied each other at the same East End party? If only!
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Jacob Bernstein is a senior reporter at The Daily Beast. Previously, he was a features writer at WWD and W Magazine. He has also written for New York magazine, Paper, and The Huffington Post.
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Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
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Elizabeth Hayt is a freelance writer in Manhattan and the author of I'm No Saint: Memoir of a Wayward Wife. (Warner Books, 2006)
Your likening it to professional wrestling seems correct. It is 90 percent fake.
Yeah, I never understood how a man could beat his wife until I watched that show. Now, I still don't condone it but I understand.
I have watched the one with the women of New York. I just can't get into the others. I don't understand why I watch because these people seem kinda shallow to me. Why don't they do a show with middle class women who are bookkeepers, teachers, clerks now that would be interesting to the average woman to see how they are coping with this economy. These women seem to busy patting themselves on their backs.
it's voyeurism baby in it's higher form. now we know how they went to hell in a golden hand basket. it all for the money,it always for the money
I am horrified by my addiction to this series. I just can't look away. And I even read the message boards! Yikes! It's like people who go on the Dr. Phil show, exposing themselves to a bazillion viewers - who on Earth wants this type of exposure? Well, I can answer that myself: the women who agree to be in these series. The faux reality of it doesn't even compare to the willingness of these women to be humiliated, criticized, analyzed, become objects of scorn for being on these shows. And, the horror, the horror of it - I am an enabler!
So is this how The Beast makes its money? Not-so-subtle "product placements" in the form of touting something in a blog?
I'm not buying. If you say it's shallow, I believe you. Thanks.
This "article" has 4 pages? I couldnt even get past the first page. Uggh, 'real housewives'... No wonder I will NEVER get married; Im keeping my $$$ and sanity (if I get lonely there's always a huge market of Asian hookers!)
ack, elizabeth! i went to your site and was bombarded w/ autoplay. why? i'm already listening to music and i can assure you it's way better than whatever you can throw at me. however, you're super hot. like younger guys?
Wives!?
Calling these women "wives" is an insult to all married women....
They are hookers who happen to be married to their clients.
I am a well educated , mature European male living in the US for the last 20 years and I suppose I should turn up my nose to this type of television as being shallow .....but I find it riveting to watch how these beautiful women go through their daily grind ....However, I would not want to be married to any of them ....I expect they would chew up and spit out my 401K in a nano second .......what can I say ....its America warts and all !!!
I hate to say it, southernyankee, but no one wants to see a show about middle class housewives. To get a dose of that, most of us just need to ring up a few friends and go out for dinner...or invade a friend's place with a few bottles of wine and the makings of dinner -- given the new economic "realities" and all. Unfortunately, these would be gatherings of women who actually LIKE each other and provide little, if any dramatic catfights between frenemies. So, no drama and not a producer in the world is going to take that on. Think of it this way, though: the purpose of these women is to provide entertainment for the rest of us.
P.S. I completely agree that the only part of this franchise that interests me is NY.
"We wanted to see if there was a modern Peyton Place where women were redefining the dream of what it means to be a modern housewife." Andy Cohen should be smacked around by his wife a little - assuming he has one. I suppose I understand the fascination with these pathetic human train wrecks, but after watching an episode for 3 minutes I just wanted to gouge out my eyes and run head first into the tv. But I guess it's better than having to know them in real life...
And I can see why you have a nagging interest in being a part of such perversely inane tripe - fake breasts, self aggrandizing 'erotic' memoir, restylane lips, won't leave home w/out makeup, and an award for Journalistic Achievement from the American Society for Plastic Surgeons (now THAT'S comedy!!)...You and Andy Cohen are made for each other...
I don't know why this article reminds me of the anti sex league.
What not mentioned in this article are the offspring of these prima donnas. Some seemingly well adjusted, others disturbingly without ambition living off the family largesse.
These shows are very funny, but for those of you looking for something with a little more pizzaz try one of those wife-swapping shows. I especially enjoyed one episode where a type A family from the NY suburbs traded moms with a family of traveling carnies.
I also recommend the Nanny 911 type shows where a professional nanny fixes a family of crazy parents and spoiled children. I liked the one where the young mother let her pet goat eat food from the table and her kids eat food from the floor. Awesome!
C'mon, the RHOC are a mess, nasty and cheap-NYC, not so bad. However, it is disturbing that BravoTV, Andy Cohen being openly gay and all, lets the gay bigotry in, or out, as it were- Listening to this kind of talk ,I tuned out for good on the OC women; I even teared up, I was so upset. They should be off the air, period. I like the NYC and Atlanta groups, I find them entertaining, but OC, ignorant, offensive, and vulgar beyond words.
And by the way, Elizabeth, good piece, very funny and enjoyable.
They are a guilty pleasure for me. The New York dames are great fun to watch, especially Bethanny Frankel, so bright and funny. I love that the Countess is writing a book on etiquette, yet showed rudeness in a couple episodes. And Jill's mother is a star in her own right! May it run for years.
Thank god I'm not the only TDB reader who watches these awful shows. The OC version was so horrible and disturbing this year that I kept waiting for Flave-O-Flave to show up and claim Tamra for himself. Ugh. The NYC wives seem like a sophisticated breath of fresh air: college degrees, clear skin, summer homes, and NO SPLIT ENDS! Also, they speak in clear sentences and use the word "classy" much less.
The housewives are interesting to watch because these are real women, most of them living privileged lives, making fools of themselves on cable.
I'm hooked on the three Housewives series - to the point that I also read the message boards. The show gives access to three subcultures, and especially, to women I would never know in my own life. I think the series show the corrupting effect of wealth when there is little education, substance, and spirituality. Money for money's sake isn't enough, and certainly, money doesn't buy values or substance. When a person lacks substance, there aren't enough designer shoes to fill the emptiness. The same (human) story gets played out in three different cities, with different races and stories. Money with little or no education gets you the OC: vacuous, adolescent, insecure women with vacuous, insecure adolescents. Money with no education gets you Atlanta: adolescent, insecure women with vacuous, insecure adolescents. And money with education and no values gets you NYC: adolescent, insecure women with vacuous, insecure adolescents. What separates us from other animals is our ability to form values, to aspire to greater good, to create and appreciate beauty, and our sense of awe at the God-created beauty around us. Without humility and values, humans of any city are just monkeys with golden purses.
Thank you.
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