“The Real Housewives”

I’ve never really been into the shows that the Bravo network features. Recently my girlfriend has been watching the Real Housewives series. In these shows, housewives have unlimited amounts of money, lives full of drama, and women acting like teenagers. As I watched these shows, I couldn’t help but notice how unrealistic these “real housewives” are. The real housewives series may be entertaining to watch with all the glitz, glamour, and drama but the show misrepresents women as a whole by glorifying their wealth, drama, and the way that they act. The real housewives of Atlanta also misrepresents black women by showing loud and angry women that fight all the time and like to start arguments, that happen to be black as well.

            Representations of identity help define what culture thinks is normal for a particular group, how behaviors and traits fit into a societies shared common sense (Mittell). When I think of housewives in the U.S. I think of women who stay at home because they have obligations to stay in the house. This may be to take care of the children or just take care of the home. The Real Housewives don’t fit into what we think of when we think of an average housewife. Their behaviors and traits don’t fit into the societies shared common sense of housewives. Average women don’t live the glamorous lives these women do.

            One thing that stands out to me about this show is how much money these women are able to spend. All of the women featured in the shows are very well off and spend money on trips, gifts for their children, and shopping trips for themselves. Normal, average American women are not able to take a trip whenever they please, they are not able to take a shopping trip for themselves and spend thousands of dollars, and most women do not buy $75,000 cars for their child’s 16^th birthdays.

The Real Housewives are full of drama, it seems like every episode one of the women are arguing and fighting with another cast member. Every time I watch the show it makes me want to laugh because it’s funny how much drama they have in their lives. They are all supposed to be friends but it seems like they all hate each other and are always talking about each other behind their backs. Most women in America are not in a confrontation as often as these women are. It seems like they are not able to control their emotions and care too much about what each other say about each other. The average American women have other things that they are concerned with and are not talking bad about their friends behind their back, so this is another way that this series badly represents women.

Another thing that does not accurately represent women is how the cast act. The way that the women act on the shows reminds me of high school girls. They over react about little issues, they crave attention and will do whatever they need to do to get the attention they want, they hold grudges against each other, and they act like friends but talk about each other behind their backs. One example I can think of about holding grudges is when Teressa and Melissa from the New Jersey show hold a grudge against each other for pretty much no reason. I would think that most women at their age would be mature enough to not act the way that the women do on the show and would be able to talk out their differences. This is another example of how the show misrepresents women.

Many people find The Real Housewives of Atlanta stereotype black women and find the show to be offensive. This show features many of the same aspects that the other housewives series do but is shot in Atlanta and features mostly black women. Many people don’t like this show because they think it reinforces the stereotype of laud angry black women. Ja’net Defell says “my initial thought of the RHOAS is they are a bad portrayal of American black women.” This show only captures a fraction of black women and emphasis stereotypes out there about black women. The show does a poor job of representing the majority of black women in the U.S and also misrepresents women as a whole in the same ways that the other housewives shows do.

The misrepresentation and stereotyping that the Housewives series does is downright embarrassing to other women around the country. The glamorous life style and drama filled lives may be fun to watch but I think it is representing women in a negative light and is carrying on stereotypes about racial groups that could be harmful to our society.