The Real Housewives of New York City: One Shrew Too Many or New Guilty Pleasure?

Posted by Jacci Lewis
Categories: Prime Time, Reality, Bravo, Cable/Satellite, Editorial, News

I remember once a media professor at the University of Washington asked our class the simple but loaded question: Why do you watch TV? The class’ answer seemed to boil down to two main reasons: we watch television because we aspire to be what we see or because what we see makes us feel better about our own lives.

This memory popped into my head as I watched a mini-marathon of Bravo TV’s newest ‘docu-reality’ series the The Real Housewives of New York City. What I can’t yet decide is which category of reason for watching TV this show falls into. I’m pretty sure it is the latter.

After shame watching three seasons of the The Real Housewives of Orange County, I expected the NYC ladies to be more of the same cliche of spoiled, self-indulgent, wasteful and shameless cougars albeit a bit less tan, with sleeker hair and a much less appealing accent. And while they are to an extent all of those things, much like New York City itself, these women do seem more worldly and educated than their Southern California counterparts. It is also clear that despite Bravo’s spin-off name for this show, these women are not housewives at all. In fact, it appears they spend very little time, if any, at home.

Click to continue reading The Real Housewives of New York City: One Shrew Too Many or New Guilty Pleasure?

• Tools:
• Permalink
• Comments (2)
• Digg This
• Share on Facebook
• Email this story