What is it about The Real Housewives?
Understanding the grip they have on me.
Everyone has a comfort watch. For when you need to put something on in the background, when you’re trying to fall asleep, when you don’t want to keep browsing, what have you.
I’ve heard a lot of my friends say theirs is New Girl, I used to watch The Office a lot or old episodes of Keeping Up With The Kardashians, and I also have a deep love for Law And Order: SVU.
But there has never quite been a comfort watch for me like The Real Housewives franchises.
For me, they consist of New York, New Jersey, Beverly Hills and Salt Lake City, respectively. I first started with Beverly Hills, what I thought to be the pinnacle of glitz, glamour, riches and lavish lifestyles. I then moved to New York for the Bethenny of it all, Salt Lake City premiering shortly after I finished RHONY, and then I moved to Jersey for the crime.
I never expected to become so attached to each and every cast member that graces my screen. From the Jules Wainstein’s and Aviva Drescher’s of the world, to the Lisa Vanderpump’s and Meredith Marks, every friend-of or even creative director (okay maybe not those) holds a special place in my heart.
I’m not sure what it says about me that in order to relax or take my mind off of things, I watch grown women scream at each other about senseless drama and just absolutely meaningless things. When I’m stressed out, the first thing I seek out is a Danielle Staub-fueled showdown. Whenever I’m working, cleaning, reading, writing, I have to stop my brain from intruding with “NINETEEN TIMES?”
I realize that if you’re a normal person who appreciates an Apple TV+ drama or watches things like Succession, I realize that none of these words or names or references will make not much sense at all. But maybe you’ll learn something.
It’s been previously mentioned that I have a strong affinity for reality television and always have (shameless plug for an article I wrote here). Andy Cohen has monopolized my life with Bravo, making me care more about these characters than is appropriate for people I don’t actually know.
Right now, we’re in a sort of limbo with many franchises. RHONY is in shambles, RHOBH cannot continue on with the cast of clowns they have on now, and what will happen when Jen Shah goes to prison?
A lot of the reason why many fail is because they lost the luster that earlier seasons had. This is something that may come off a bit crass, but I don’t want to watch struggle. I want to watch opulence, I want to watch things that I probably will never experience. I want to watch Birkins and vacation homes and diamonds. I don’t want to watch Sonja struggle over her townhouse, or Teresa slowly realize that she is, in fact, going to prison.
Perhaps that’s why I like to return to simpler times. To simpler seasons where SkinnyGirl doesn’t make you uncomfortable to say out loud (how that has not been cancelled yet is beyond me) and Yolanda Hadid was picking lemons off of her lemon tree on her Malibu estate. To when times were the opposite of trying, and no one had a problem letting everyone know that their lives were way better than anyone else’s.
I want to return to a world where Bethenny Frankel doesn’t post on TikTok the way that she does, but where she screams at Luann that life is NOT a cabaret. Or a world where Lisa Rinna doesn’t dig herself into the deepest hole possible, but where she does throw glasses on the table in Amsterdam. Or a world where Teresa Giudice isn’t accusing Margaret Josephs of leaking information about her bizarre husband to the press, but she is berating Melissa about sprinkle cookies.
There seems to be light at the end of the tunnel. BravoCon is this week—another event in New York City that will have me on edge the entire weekend at the potential of me running into a hero of mine at any street corner—but hopefully Andy Cohen has good things up his little sleeve for those of us who are hurting right now.
For now, we can look at Jamie Lee Curtis as a sign of hope.
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