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Reality Matters
Anna David
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Reality Matters
Anna David
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Top Chef. America's Next Top Model. Survivor. Dancing with the Stars. American Idol. Big Brother. The Biggest Loser ⌠Everyone has a guilty reality television pleasure. Curated by Party Girl author Anna David, Reality Matters is a collection of hilarious yet revealing essays from novelists, essayists, and journalistsâincluding Toby Young, Neil Strauss, and Stacey Grenrock Woods, among many othersâabout the reality television shows they love, obsess over, and cringe at; and why they, and America, can't stop watching.
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POVERTY IN THE TIME OF THE REAL HOUSEWIVES OF NEW YORK CITY
Stacey Grenrock Woods
âIF JILL CAN DROP sixteen thousand dollars on a bag,â beamed Kelly Bensimon, the newest housewife on Bravoâs The Real Housewives of New York City, âthen I say, go for it!â
âGo for itâ is excellent advice, especially from someone who designs owl jewelry and jogs in traffic. Bensimon was referring to her fellow housewife Jill Zarinâs televised purchase of a garish green handbag. It really was, as the price tag showed, sixteen thousand dollars. Most people, even the obscenely rich, wouldnât go for such a thing so publicly in late 2008, when season two of the series was shot. But the Real Housewives will go for anythingâparties, purchases, press lines, each otherâs jugular veinsâas long as it means more of that precious commodity: attention.
In late 2008, I was going for things too: enough change for a meal at McDonaldâs, a lot of walks (my oxidized green 1991 Saab had long stopped going for it), and down to the mailbox, hoping vainly for a check. Work had been scarce for some time. Iâm a writer and my husband, Kenny, owns a recording studio, so of course we are insurance-free. Unable to afford our antidepressants, we went off them, and our bodies seemed to turn wholly edematous within hours. Our new Top Ramen and Quarter Pounder diet was counterproductive to our health goals. Also, his teeth were steadily rotting. Each newly sprouted abscess thwarted our few remaining dreams. We couldnât afford to take drugs, and even the plants curled up and died. Jill Zarinâs throwaway sixteen thousand would have made all the difference in the world to us, so itâs tempting, and it would be great fun, to rip the Real Housewives for having so much when so many have so little, but we all know things donât work that way. Besides, Iâd rather rip them for being stupid and awful. I feel itâs more appropriate.
The housewives brought this on themselves. Not content to be privately rich and terrible, they belong to that rare and now overrepresented class of people who have always thought, âYou know what? I should have a TV show. They should make a TV show about me.â Fans of the series could easily imagine Jill Zarin saying something like this in her Long Island brogue. I like to daydream about how each cast member made the decision to audition for a reality show; how they all thought it over and decided, âYes, the best thing for me and my loved ones is to have our lives derided by as many people and through as much media as the current technology will allow.â It will be, they surely told themselves, good exposure. I want to be on television, they surely said. Iâll come off well. Besides, itâs all in good fun.
No it isnât.
For several years I was a correspondent on The Daily Show, both with and without Jon Stewart. I reported on ridiculous people doing moronic things (or was it moronic people doing ridiculous things?) for exposure all over America. I loved this job because I got to be on television, and because I got to make stupid people look stupid on television. Of course, no one producing entertainment of this kind would ever admit to mocking anyone. âCelebratingâ is the euphemism of choice. I canât tell you how many times I sat in meetings and listened to development executives beam about their new projects: âWeâre not mocking these people,â theyâd say, âitâs not mean-spirited at all.â (Itâs at this point that another executive or two would echo the sentiment with an âOh, no!â) âThatâs not what weâre about,â theyâd insist. âWe want to celebrate these people!â Iâll bet people at Bravo say this sort of thing an awful lot. I imagine that Bravo executives celebrate the fuck out of âthese people.â Iâll bet theyâre âall aboutâ it. But these people shouldnât be celebrated. They should be mockedâroundly mockedâwith the meanest spirits we can musterâbecause capital ârâ Reality is getting far too close to real reality for my comfort.
Of course the Real Housewives arenât really housewives. (Students of Reality should by now have a natural suspicion of any show with the word ârealâ in the title.) At the time of this writing, only three of the six are technically wives, but like nuns who have taken a vow to God, the Real Housewives are wedded to the media, forsaking all others. Season two (one of the rare superior sequels in art) saw our girls feathering not their nests, but their brands. And by their brands we shall know them:
There is a countess on the show. Itâs okay if you forgetâthe countess will consistently remind you by dropping hints like âIâm a countessâ and by referring to herself as âthe countess.â Those interested in how former âcatalog modelâ LuAnn de Lesseps became a countess can read the whole fairy tale in her gracefully ghostwritten etiquette guide/memoir. (Or I can save you the trouble: she married some count. He was rarely seen on the show because, as it turned out, his Ethiopian mistress demanded much of his time. Fortunately, the countess will retain her title after the divorce.)
Natural foods chef Bethenny Frankel (two nâs, two eâs) has spent season two promoting her Skinnygirl (one word) brand: Skinnygirl cocktail mixes, Skinnygirl wheat-, egg-, and dairy-free baked goods, and a peppily ghostwritten book about how you can be a Skinnygirl yourself. Skinnygirl, Skinnygirl, Skinny girl. Letâs all say it! Although formerly branded the showâs underdog (because she was, until recently, unmarried, goofy, brash, doesnât like to be touched, and has a bite radius of such might and scope that it could come only from a lifetime of grinding through even the stealthiest of nightguards), Bethenny Frankel seems to be reaping the most rewards from her decision to go for a reality show, her second. She is certainly faring better than she did on The Apprentice: Martha Stewart. Weâre all very proud of our Bethenny. All of us, that is, but Kelly Bensimon.
Kelly Bensimon, former model, current horsewoman, is the newest housewife. Tan and torrential, she has no time for anyone she doesnât consider âamazingâ (she means âfamousâ). Her remoteness and unrepentant snobbery keep her at odds with Bethenny and have managed to offend even the countess. A woman of many whims and at least as much alimony, Kelly is a tremendous figure on the Manhattan/Hamptons/Owl Jewelry scene. And she works, too: she goes to parties and âwrites for articles.â Iâm not sure what that means, but in any case, Kelly is fiercely protective of the Bensimon brand.
Simon van Kempen and Alex McCord have always reminded me of the Veneerings, Charles Dickensâs nouveau riche climbers whose furniture âsmelt a little too much of the workshop and was a trifle sticky.â Their one-night stand born of an Internet chat room has blossomed into a beautiful life in Brooklyn with their two small but vigorous boys, Johan and Francois, who impress everyone with their command of Latin and their genius for running around at parties, screaming and stabbing things with steak knives. The show takes every opportunity to insinuate that Simon, often called the seventh housewife, is gay. I donât think heâs gay. Nor do I think heâs straight. I think heâs just Australian, and a con man. The van Kempens donât fool me. Simon has implied on camera that he owns the Manhattan hotel he only manages, and everything about them tells of colossal debt and vague horseshit. When their sons are old enough to comprehend their parentsâ publicity, Iâm confident the boys will, as they say, âgo Menendez.â Naturally, the van Kempens are writing a parenting memoir. (No word yet on whoâs ghost-writing.)
Ramona Singer is the one with the âcrazy eyes.â Her husband, Mario, sells religious jewelry, and must sell an awful lot of it from the looks of their Hamptons house. Despite her protests otherwise, Ramona doesnât do anything, leaving her plenty of time to offend people at parties. âYouâre, like, blind, right?â she asked New York Governor David Paterson, who is blind. She went on to tell him that sheâs, like, blind, too, without her contacts. Convinced of her irrepressible youthfulness, Ramona is âdevelopingâ a line of anti-aging skin care products that she hopes to sell one day on QVC. She also has a line of jeweled Tâsâbut these days who doesnât?
Which brings us to Jill Zarin, the Fabric Queen. Jill, in the space of one episode, bought that $16,000 bag, turned down her husbandâs gift of a new Mercedes because it lacked a specific dashboard dock for her iPhone, and spoke at length about the size of her diamonds. But itâs all right, because Jill does charity workâor, I should say, helps organize some charity fund-raisers. (Choosing a tapenade and deciding where the Zarin Fabrics logo will appear on the invitation is work, after all.) On one episode, Jill spoke to the BBC about the world economic crisis. âEconomic crisisâ would have waved the red flag of mockery right in the face of most people, but not Jill Zarin, who is ravenous for publicity. When asked if she thought it fair to have so much when people in Africa, for example, are starving, Jill said that life isnât fairâbut, funnily enough, she had just raised money for a school in Africa. She even cited the âteach them to fishâ idiom so popular with the very rich. To her credit, she was able to repeat the phrase correctly, unlike the time she spoke of âkicking a gift horse in the mouth.â
With so many vivacious personalities competing for screen time, itâs no wonder our housewives occasionally step on one anotherâs toes. What usually happens is something like this: Bethenny Frankel is chosen to be on the cover of Social Life magazine (the only magazine Iâve heard of where the stylist picks the cover story). Immediately upon hearing the exciting news, the countess asks if the magazine will be doing any retouching. Bethenny is understandably hurt, and asks the countess to lunch to discuss the hurting. When pressed, the countess explains that her comment was not evidence of jealousy, but merely her protective modelâs instinct kicking in. Furthermore, the countess canât understand why Bethenny is being so âattackiveâ toward her. Later on, Bethenny goes on the attackive herself by calling into question the countessâs authorial credentials (which is a ludicrous notion to anyone whoâs ever seen the countess hashing it out with her ghostwriter!). To soothe her image, the countess, in a black dress and a pair of knee-high suede boots, takes a town car to the Madison Square Boys & Girls Club to inspire a group of underprivileged, underfunded, underloved, and misunderstood black girls. After a proper introduction, she begins her talk with âMy husbandâs familyâget this, âcause itâs funâbuilt the Suez Canal.â After what surely felt like hours, the countess asks the girls what they want to be when they grow up. One girl says she wants to be a model. On top of being underprivileged, underfunded, underloved, and misunderstood, Iâm sorry to say this girl looked to be grossly overfed (although, judging by the quality of food most easily afforded by the poor in America, she could have just been bloated like I was).
âStand up,â ordered the countess. âHow old are you?â
âTen.â
âOh,â said the countess, âyou have plenty of time to grow.â The girl stood very still. âYou have a beautiful face,â said the countess, before taking a sip of the bijou coffee drink she had brought along. The girl remained heartbreakingly still. We all did.
âAnd you know what?â No, Countess. What?
âLosing weight is easy!â
There it was and there it stays, on national television, for all to see, rerun after blessed rerun.
âI think they got a kick out of seeing me in my high heels on the basketball court,â the countess later said. âAnd they really appreciated me taking time out of my day.â
It occurs to me now that I havenât mentioned, for all those who want to buy it, the name of the countessâs book. Itâs called Class with the Countess and comes to us courtesy of Gotham Books. (Thank you, Gotham Books.)
Another major attackive that runs through most of season two started at the meeting for an arthritis charity fund-raiser that Jill Zarin was helping organize. Well, really it started long before that. It really started each time Bethenny was, she felt, systematically ignored by the towering Bensimon at various stops along the Manhattan party circuit. The countess asked Kelly to come along to meet the other housewives and get involved with the Creaky Joints event. She showed up classically late and was introduced to the group, which included Jillâs teenage daughter, Allyson.
âCute!â said Kelly Bensimon, upon hearing that Allyson is herself afflicted with arthritis. The other women seemed a little taken aback, but proceeded with business. They were told that, as honorary co-chairs, each womanâs name would appear on the invitation. At this, Kelly perked up. (Youâll recall that Kelly is very protective of the Bensimon brand.) She flat-out refused to have her name associated with the charity. Kelly Bensimon, according to Kelly Bensimon, doesnât lend her name to just anything. Why? Well, for one thing, sheâs super-busy. âLike, I have, literally, fifteen more minutes,â she told them, âand then I gotta go.â Thatâs how busy she is. Everyone there looked rightfully wounded, and Bethenny made a light crack about Kelly thinking herself Madonna. I felt the remark was justified; I think we all did. Kelly, for unknowable reasons, took issue with the comparison.
That is what prompted the legendary âIâm up here, youâre down hereâ exchange, during which Kelly used hand gestures to demonstrate how much higher she is than Bethenny on the social ladder. It happened at a cocktail date called by Kelly to discuss the hurtingâa cocktail date to which Kelly was half an hour late.
Throughout the season, numerous attackives are flung about: Jill calls Simon a drunk in the press, Ramona calls the count âold,â and everyone calls Simon gay. Eventually, Kelly, who we indeed see lending her name to just about anything throughout the season, recants and helps out with the Creaky Joints auction, and despite a gigantic screaming match over what Jill felt was an abundance of Bethennyâs Skinnygirl signage, the climactic event goes well and Ramona offers everyone âkudooz.â The van Kempens, with the help of the showâs sponsor, General Electric, redo their apartment, and there is also a tennis side plot, manufactured and uncompelling, between Jill and Mario, but I donât care about any of that. I care about the real stuff: âthe weight,â âIâm up here,â âretouching,â âMadonna,â âdrunk,â âgay.â
Here in the spring of 2009, work has begun to trickle down our way. We can currently afford weekly groceries, and our bodies, finally free of pharmaceutical impediments, have regained their rightful sizes. Stunningly, one of the plants has even come back to life. We live for Tuesday nights and always say the same thing after The Real Housewives is over: âI wish this show were ten hours long.â
What troubles me, though, is as much as they are mocked, the housewives are also being celebrated. Quick visits to the Bravo message boards during the second season revealed an outpouring of ungrammatical love and support, even for the ones I consider the vilest. Itâs working: they are crossing over. As the self-appointed gatekeeper of truth, I plead with anyone whoâs still reading to not let it happen. Do not feel for them, do not buy their muffins or their skin cream, do not buy their books (publishers, Iâm talking to you). Donât let âthese peopleâ use their freak-fame to step over to legitimacy. Legitimacy belongs to us: the real, the poor, and the decent. We must come together, finally, and laugh at the laughable, the terrible. Yes, at them, not with them, at them, at them, at them, at them! And although Bethenny Frankelâs book is at number twenty-three on Amazon and mine is, when I last checked, substantially higher, I have a little attackive of my own: Reality Star. No oneâs getting across.
2
FAKETASTIC
Melissa de la Cruz
MTVâS THE HILLS GETS A LOT OF GRIEF for its relationship to reality. Mainly that it has none. The situations are scripted! The drama is forced! What Teen Vogue intern also graces its cover? Câmon! Thatâs not reality, thatâsâŚorchestrated! Manipulated! Fake! Fake! Fake! And yet, for all the rotten tomatoes hurled at it, the documented lives of young women in Los Angeles is one of the highest-rated shows on the network and has made tabloid sensations out of its stars.
So whatâs going on here? I, for one, am addicted to The Hills. I love the fairy-tale-in-LA premise, with its shiny Range Rovers and club openings in place of carriages and royal ballsâand the toothsome and uncomplicated prettiness of its former main attraction. Lauren Conrad is...