Listen up, people. This is IMPORTANT CONTENT.
(No, it’s not.)
For years – and at this point I really mean years – I have been delightfully indulging in The Real Housewives franchise. I started watching when RHONY (Real Housewives of New York City, as each city will henceforth be monikered in this post by its acronym) premiered in spring of 2008, my freshman year of college. At that time, the only other franchise on the air was RHOC (Orange County), which was a weird, gritty, “new-moneyed” mayhem of California blondes. It was compelling, but it lacked a little…something. Polish, maybe.
Cut to the New York girls BRINGING. IT. Bethenny, Jill, Luann, Alex McCord (I could do a whole series on Silex alone), and Ramona. The five original mob bosses of Bravo. Bethenny, of course, has gone on to be a mogul in the world of business, and the other ladies have each staked their own claim in their own corners of the universe. Later that year, the Atlanta girls arrived on the scene, and then in 2009, we were #blessed with RHONJ, where the New Jersey gals changed our lives forever simply by introducing two little words that will send chills down the spine of any true Bravo fan: Danielle Staub.
If you’re reading this piece as a complete stranger to this series, sorry for all the inside baseball talk. But thirteen loyal years of fandom for these franchises, their later (not lesser) descendants (Potomac, DC, Miami, Beverly Hills, Salt Lake City, and, God bless, Dallas), and the “short-but-canceled” (Miami and DC) means I had to pay some detailed homage right up front.
Haters will say that the whole Housewives universe is the brainchild of evil, brilliant Andy Cohen, who sicked these mostly-over-40 women on America at a historically vulnerable and unpleasant time and got us all hooked on people who just scream at each other. And in every joke, there’s some truth: they are all older, they’re prone to hollering at each other, and it is full of drama.
Luann DeLesseps falls into a bush in Mexico.
But it’s not cooked.
And herein lies the major difference between the Housewives and every other reality show: there’s no bottom line. This isn’t a show about winning a cooking competition, surviving in a house full of enemies to get prize money, or being the last woman standing to win the heart of some bumbling ding dong. No, this is simply lives being lived while cameras are up. In fact, I’d argue the decline of some of the franchises has been the awareness of the cameras, and that the best seasons of any franchise are the result of lack of self-consciousness. When the cast members start producing their own seasons, a la Lisa Vanderpump or Lisa Rinna, it can sometimes go great - but other times, you spend a whole season swirling around the drama of who gave a dog away and to whom (yes, really) while flying to international destinations with a glam squad in tow. When Erika Jayne does it? Great. When every housewife is suddenly glammed to the max in every scene? No thank you. Give me no makeup Scary Island or give me death.
Shereé Whitfield delivers one of the most iconic lines in Housewives history.
I have grown to love these women so much that I can actually (and sometimes prefer to) fall asleep with Housewives on. As Casey Wilson recently wrote, “their screams are like waves crashing against the shore.” So well said.
Why is it comforting? Because these women have become my friends. Their lives have played out in front of me; their stories have scored and punctuated the high and low tides of my own life. I can remember where I was sitting, 5 days post-partum with Mac at Christmastime, when I got the news that Luann had been arrested and assaulted a cop. I was feeding Rosie a bottle while I read up on whether or not Erika Girardi’s husband swindled widows out of millions. I stood in my college apartment with my two best girlfriends watching Kelly Bensimon completely melt down on Scary Island. Danielle Staub debuted “Real Close,” a duet with lesbian superstar Lori Micheales, a nightmare and an ear worm that caused us all to claw out our collective ears and eyeballs, my senior year at ‘Southern (and we parodied it for months). If you’re unfamiliar, please watch this horrible clip with dancers that can only be described as Oompa Loompa’s wander, thrusting, confused, on a tiny morning show stage. (Or, if you’re feeling sultry, might I suggest this version, which features a horrified and delighted Andy Cohen saying, “Wow! Wow…Oh my God?!”?)
There are real reasons to watch, in my opinion, that transcend the comfort of our dear friends screaming at each other and drunkenly falling in the bushes. There are few shows on television that, almost exclusively, feature women over 40. In each HW city, the median age skews lots closer to 50 than it does to 30 (though there are younger cast members cropping up like Candiace Dillard, Ashley Darby, and Leah McSweeney). Getting to watch women whose primary responsibility may once have been taking care of young children and keeping a home transition into their next chapter of life is exhilarating. Maybe their chosen chapter isn’t what we’d write for ourselves, but the simple acknowledgement that women are people beyond their responsibilities in their family is revolutionary and deeply feminist.
Ramona Singer “walks” in a “fashion show.”
There’s actual, un-produced family drama (“You stole my goddamn house!”; Taylor Armstrong’s tragic storyline; Jennifer Aydin’s parental woes; watching Vicki Gunvalson discover by phone that her mother had died; Ramona Singer’s true love Mario publicly cheating and the divorce that followed; Porsha’s myriad dramas with the Hot Dog King) that keeps each woman human, because no matter how petty things get with the other cast mates, she has layers. We’ve seen our girls through prison, through spousal suicide, cheating, bankruptcy, and, most recently, swindling orphans and widows out of millions of dollars. Allegedly.
Another compelling and timely reason to watch is the diversity. With the casts of Atlanta and Potomac featuring exclusively Black women, the other mostly-if-not-completely white cities have gotten much-needed makeover. The addition of the ICONIC Eboni K. Williams on RHONY, Crystal Kung Minkoff and Garcelle Beauvais to RHOBH, and Dr. Tiffany Moon to Dallas are equal parts overdue and refreshing. Sadly, it does occasionally mean that these women of color are having to explain why “articulate” is offensive and that gagging over eating chicken feet is culturally insensitive – and while that’s a burden that should never be on BIPOC, it’s bringing a conversation into living rooms (and onto tablets, really) across America that the average viewer may not have ever actually seen play out. Watching Black women wrap their hair before bed or discuss how their passion is often mis-identified as anger because of their race? It’s a window into a world white women don’t live in. It’s certainly not The Point of the Housewives franchise to educate white women, but, much like Ramona is learning from the incredibly patient and gracious Eboni, I’d wager a lot of white America is learning a few things, too. And we’re learning it from friends, which is powerful. (We’re also seeing how ugly it can be when white women mis-handle issues of race, which I guarantee has left white viewers wondering, “Oof. Is that what I do?”)
Play the above while you read the end. Just trust. Extra points if you get the RHOBH reference.
You may scoff and consider us, the fans, to be trolling for garbage at the bottom of the Dumpster. But I ask you: is a deep, comprehensive knowledge of a subject really a bad thing? I’m lookin’ at you, sports fans who know every single member of a team there’s ever been, with the players’ stats committed to memory. Consider us sports fans if you must. We are up to date with every fight, with every nuance. We know that Melissa really hates Teresa. We watched Porsha go from “Where did the train actually run in the Underground Railroad?” to blooming into the comedy legend and activist she is today. We remember the horrendous blue background at the first Jersey reunion. We were there. We REMEMBER.
If I can make it to my 80’s with a knowledge of the cast of RHONY in the first five seasons? I’ll call it a win. If I can shout WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE WITHOUT DORINDA?! to a stranger in a bar and get a goofy smile of recognition back, I’ll be happy. What I want in my life is more idiocy. More lobsters in purses. More breaking off teeth from biting the buttons of a strange man’s shirt cuff. More Donkey Booty workout tapes. Less luxury car shopping, honestly, I can do without that and murder mystery parties EVER AGAIN. But more bad products: perfume, wine, lip kits, joggers that never arrive. Give it to me. Give it ALL to me.
Ultimately, though, what glues us to our screens (and to the podcasts about these shows, the Instagram accounts, and Housewives Twitter) is that we’ve grown connected to these unhinged, larger-than-life characters we call our pals. I thought for many years I was alone on an island with my fandom, maybe alongside a few very close girlfriends, but NO – Al Gore’s Internet has proven to me the ocean that surrounds us is also made up of Housewives fans who know every reference, every deep-track quote. Bonding with HW fans across generations and geography is one of The Lord Andy Cohen’s greatest gifts to us all. We all have our favorites (Sonja, Porsha, Dorinda, Kathy Hilton, Yolanda, Phaedra, Karen Huger, Luann, Dolores). But we stand strong as a fanbase, ready to defend a viewer whose opinions we disagree with because, like the sands of time, God knows our own opinions will change on a dime.
So today I offer praises from my heart to the ears of the heavens for our decade+ relationship with our girls. Long may they live, more may they drink (except the sober ones), and louder may they yell.
I hear every shout as a triumph over the patriarchy.