Princesses or Old Maids?

The show Princesses of Long Island not only defines false representation of; Jewish, Long Island, single women, but it sheds a bad light on what it means to be a newly thirty year old women in modern times. If it is not bad enough to over emphasize the stereotypes of Long Island single Jewish women; the show also had to add desperate, dramatic, and drunk to the mixture. Although Princesses of Long Island is not the first of its kind to over dramatized a single stereotypical type of culture, who could forget the classy Jersey Shore crew or every type of Real Housewife imaginable, but the show is the first to step into the boundaries of stereotyping a lifestyle of women as a whole.

Not only does this group of young women greet each other with a warm “Shalom!” at every get together, but they also go away to the Hampton's for High Holidays, and to top all that off they take the time to go to Jewish speed dating events. Now, the stereotyping of a “JAP”, or Jewish American princess, has been around long before the show was every produced. So, this is not what comes as a shock to viewers or critics. What did get heads turning is the shows focus on how this group of late twenty year olds were so fixated on being wed, and having children at such a young age. Rachel Arons of The New Yorker stated, “The social pressure that women face to get married is the predominant, if unofficial, theme of “Princesses.” In today's day in age when deadlines of graduating, having children, and especially marriage are all being pushed back; to have a show like Princesses of Long Island make such a statement that is meant to represent women of their age group is somewhat degenerate and appalling.

This regressive view on life, where a man is all a women needs to get by, is extremely postmodern and relays a bad perceptive for upcoming generations. Emma Rosenblum of Business Week writes that, “It’s an origins story, but instead of the character-building arc of future superheroes, we see the early curdling of values that leads to Real Housewife-dom.” So now we must pose the question of whether these soon to be “Real Housewives” are a threat to the representation of thirty-something year old women in America, and how the stereotype these “princesses” are portraying effect women like them.

The shows that illustrate and attempt to represent certain cultural groups, like this one, vary due to the aspect that they are not trying to falsely personify an entire age and gender group. Women in today's age are very career, and independently driven. We have come a long way from the 1950's housewife identity, maybe everyone expect for that 300 sandwiches girl, and women being dependent on a man for financial support or stability is a thing of the past. So, the main issue of the representation of Long Island Princesses is how contradictory its views on the gender role of women really is.

From the beginning to the end of the first season of the show; every women on the show had made some remark in regards to how quickly they need to find a mate. As Arons quotes the show's character Chanel's parents, “ 'You’re twenty-seven years old, you gotta get married already. You gotta go for a doctor, or lawyer, somebody who has money, somebody who can take care of you.’ ” So, do women of the age of twenty-seven or above watch this, and think they fall under the same speculations. I would hope that women watching this “reality” television program would see through the idiocy of being married by the age of twenty-seven and make up their own destinies. Having your number one goal in life of being married by age 30 is something no one in today's age should strive for.

Shows like Princesses of Long Island and Jersey Shore are fun to watch when you are in the mood for mindless television; but is that really all it is? The dynamics of reality television tell us as viewers that although they are real people we are watching; it is not always a factual scenario of life. Even so, Long Island Princesses must have some kind of impact on viewers to the extent that it caused some uproar in the critics eyes and almost be taken off the air. If reality television is meant to represent “reality” then why not really depict an accurate image for people to feel good about. Long Island Princesses should try to represent strong independent women who can support themselves, and if they find a soulmate along the way, then that makes one of us. Yes, the drama and desperation makes for good television and allows viewers to somewhat feel better about themselves that they do not have that much drama in their own lives, but shouldn't we want our generations and future generation to be represented in a light that shows we are moving forward and not backwards. Why make a television show that we will look back on in 20 years, maybe in a television critic class, and scrutinize its degrading attributes. Television should be a representation of how far we as a culture have progressed, and Princesses of Long Island is a television show that resists us from that ideology.