For those of us whose first introduction to anthropology was National Geographic, we know that there is a difference between how its photographs introduced us to the nomadic customs of the Maasai, and the way that MTV, TLC and Bravo have pulled aside the trees and invited us to watch. But even more alien than those fist-pumping Shore kids are Bravo’s contrived tribes of Real Housewives.
And yet, we sense that if and when we watch the Housewives chronicles, we can learn something rare and available only to those with special observational access. Not that what we learn is true; we realize that it’s more like a collection of stereotypes that allow us to feel better about ourselves, but for a moment, it often feels as though we know something.
For example, at any given time, we may feel that we know that the nouveau riche housewife is amazingly shallow, destructively catty, surprisingly stupid, or embarrassingly dependent. We buy into a scripted study of dilettantes who imagine that they should make a record, even though they can’t carry a tune; that they should launch a clothing line, even though they have nothing but sketches to exhibit; that they should create and sell jewelry, which seems like a shortcut to personal branding. That they should pose for Playboy because “it’s such an honor” to display your breasts at forty-one. And for another moment, we feel really good about ourselves because we are more realistic, less narcissistic.
And we also are led to discover that for the affluent women of Orange County, New York, Atlanta and New Jersey, the central focus of their lives is stirring the pot, back-biting, ruminating over real and imagined slights, investigating their friends’ pasts and engaging in endless neurotic competition.
Yes, their kids and their mostly bland but rich husbands are also worthy of their attention, but their focus is almost equally split between their wildly fluctuating loyalties to each other and their search for something that will make them feel, well, real. And then there are the lesser obsessions – with marble, wigs, dieting, breast enhancements, decorating, who has crazy eyes and who doesn’t, who used to be a prostitute or is still a gold-digger. Who says the most hurtful things.
I admit that I have watched each of the Housewives shows and that I have gazed through the trees too long. But unlike a real anthropologist, I have judged, not just observed, which is what Bravo wanted me to do. What could possibly be the point of these shows if not to give us a cast of real characters to examine, dissect, judge?
I think the New York Housewives are the smartest and the craziest. I like Bethenny Frankel and Jill Zarin, who don’t like each other. I think Kelly and LuAnn and Alex represent a less-evolved life form that somehow manages to dress up and go to parties and make chit-chat, but who will never, ever be Real.
And that’s basically all that I will ever “learn” about them or myself. That I respect most the women who have a strong work ethic and that I respect least the women who are kept and bored and mean.
I also learned that I feel unclean after I allow myself to be lulled into the moral superiority that Bravo has programmed viewers like me to feel: I don’t have money but I have my integrity; I’m not missing anything by not having money because having money didn’t prevent most of those women from being shallow, callow, vapid -- even stupid.
I see Alex McCord’s face on the screen and want to tell her how ridiculous her husband looked in those red leather pants, and then I realize that someone is watching me through the trees, making notes, and smiling.
