Last week, before actually important news saturated the airways (I’m speaking, of course, of the atrocities aimed at innocent civilians in Paris that shocked everybody and Charlie Sheen’s tragic medical diagnosis that shocked nobody), Bravo updates were appearing in the press constantly. For a few days there it was impossible to go online and not see that two new Housewife shows are heading our way like an Earth-shattering comet and that Brooks, the smarmiest man ever to walk the streets of the OC, admitted to doctoring the documents he waved in front of cameras on his I Have Cancer press tour in a misguided effort to prove (through falsified medical records) that he indeed has been stricken with a deadly disease. But before anyone can say anything, let’s just all go ahead and accept that fine, Brooks might have fabricated those documents, but he’s totally not lying about anything else and he obviously has a disease (I think it must be the disease that causes his unceasing smirk that I’d love to kick off his face with a stiletto) and if you believe anything else, you’re just an asshole. Either that or you’ve got yourself some working synapses.
The thought of two new Bravo shows appearing on my television brought on a strange combination of excitement and terror and I think it’s because I’m starting to be aware of the lengths the participants of these shows are willing to go. In fact, I sat back and contemplated some of the craziest moments we’ve already been privy to and they include, but are obviously not limited to, the following:
o Kim Richards drunkenly proclaimed sobriety before being arrested – for public intoxication.
o The husband of one of the Housewives committed suicide and, before he was even embalmed, his wife wrote a book about the abuse he’d allegedly leveled her way before, during, and after production.
o A woman wearing a red sari crashed a White House dinner.
o An electronic-cigarette-puffing psychic sneered that she wouldn’t help someone locate an abducted child.
o A self-proclaimed MILF suggested that her son get a fellow Housewife “naked drunk” and then looked the other way while the two almost banged in a bathroom during a dinner party.
About a week and a half ago, I received a text from someone I’m usually pretty happy to hear from – but this time, the message almost caused me to clutch the nearest wall for both emotional and physical support.
HIM: Have you heard? Vanderpump Rules is airing twice a week this season.
ME: No, only on Mondays.
HIM: There’s another show airing on Fridays.
ME: Please tell me you’re joking. Please tell me I will not be spending my Friday evenings writing about these dipshits after spending my Monday evenings doing just that.
HIM: I’m not joking.
ME: Fuck. Me.
After sliding down the wall I’d been clutching and yelling out a litany of profane words in the sweetest tone of voice I could muster whilst in the throes of an existential crisis caused by this news, I decided to fact check the information. I hopped onto Google and, with a shaking hand and a trembling heart, I typed “Vanderpump Rules Friday” into the search box. It was only after I confirmed that the Friday airing is an “after show” where the “stars” will appear in the hopes of gulping in some extra attention that’s been basted in fleeting fame and will surely lead to bloating that I calmed down.
Once upon a time, in a suburban home with a decent sized backyard but sadly no full-time maid, there lived a teenage girl. She had always been a somewhat happy child who had been reared on the mentality that nobody in the entire world could possibly be more fabulous and special than she was by a mother and a father who had neglected to take even a single parenting class about the dangers of inflating a child’s ego. When she walked into school each day, she could feel the envious eyes upon her. She knew their adoration was clearly due to how shiny her hair looked underneath the glow of the fluorescent lights in the cafeteria and so she would gaze out at her minions from beneath her lashes because they thought she was important and she knew it was true.
Back at home, she would climb the stairs to her bedroom and lie atop her probably-canopied bed and hold a pink pillow that had the word “DIVA” embroidered on it in rhinestones close to her heart and she would gaze up at the pictures on her wall that she’d carefully cut from the glossy pages of US Weekly. Like deities, Lauren and Heidi and Paris and Nicole hovered above her and she would lock eyes with all of them, especially with that one wonky eye of Paris Hilton’s, and she would sigh deeply and allow herself to think about her future.
One day, she swore to herself solemnly, I too will be famous for absolutely nothing at all. I will wear low-rise jeans and get photographed outside of a place like Hyde and maybe a Bling Ringer will even try to rob my home to steal my clothing and my blow. And no matter what happens, I will lean on my dear friends for emotional support and I will call every single one of them “slut” or “bitch” because that will illustrate my undying devotion to them and one day we will all star on a series together where we will destroy one another. One day…
What’s even left to say anymore?
That Brooks really has cancer or that he never had cancer?
That Shannon's marriage has legitimately been repaired or that it's currently being held together by a very loose Band-Aid with emotional puss threatening to leak out from all sides?
That Tamra is a reformed sinner or one just taking a break from sinning due to sheer exhaustion and the recommendation of a PR rep she met while standing on line at her local CVS buying generic antifungal cream?
That Heather might or might not petition the United States Postal Service to get her very own zip code for her behemoth of a home?
That Meghan believes that her terrifyingly chilly husband truly loves her or that she just got temporarily dazzled by a proximity to fame and ended up in over her head in a marriage that reads like a Grimm's cautionary fairytale about a once-blonde woman who was swept off her feet by a psychotic baseball player?
That Vicki is a pathetic asshole?
As we head into part fucking three of a Reunion that could have been covered in half the time if they’d just left out the colonic montage, what we do know for sure is that nothing will be resolved. The questions we have will never get answered despite my guess that every single one of these women will be back next season, even Vicki. It probably won't matter that there’s an epidemic of rumors floating around that the rest of the OC Housewives are threatening to refuse to film with her in the form of a reality TV fatwa or that she has been exposed to be foolish, hysterical, cunning and naïve (hard to pull off both at the same time, but then again, Vicki is special), friendless, and the kind of mother who chooses a man over her own kid. She'll still be back. She cannot stay away from any kind of attention. But it’s not her fault – God made her that way.
It was probably somewhere around the fifth hour of watching the Senate hearing on Hillary Clinton’s role in the Benghazi attacks when a series of revelations began to sweep through my mind like a brushfire caused by an aerosol can of Resveratrol exploding inside the bidet of a marble bathroom that is Coto de Caza-adjacent:
1. There’s the ability some of us have to keep calm under pressure – and then there’s the way Hillary Clinton reacts under pressure. That woman did not so much as lightly perspire the entire time she was being grilled under hot television lights by political foes who would probably rejoice in literally roasting her over a bonfire like she was a rotisserie chicken. No matter what she was asked, her composure was nothing short of masterful.
2. And speaking of masterful, I want the name of Clinton’s makeup artist toot sweet and I’d like to buy stock in whatever company produces her matte face powder and blotting papers because – holy shit – those are clearly some excellent products and perhaps our greatest hope in the fight to make unintentionally shiny skin a thing of the past.
3. Anyone who can walk away from watching the coverage of these hearings without fully understanding the term “bipartisan” at this point is either an idiot or was too busy checking the US Weekly website so as not to miss the latest pearl of wisdom that has fallen from the inflated pout of young Kylie Jenner, a girl who now more closely resembles a blow-up sex doll than a human.
I’ve come to believe that watching Reunion episodes of The Real Housewives of Fucking Wherever is very similar to sleeping with a guy you promised yourself you’d never writhe beneath again before a cocktail of literal cocktails combined with the false notion that sex doesn’t have to mean anything settled first into your head and then gravitated quickly towards your waxed nether regions. What I mean here is that you think that you will get some satisfaction from the whole experience, but what you are really left with is a few hours lost from your life, a teensy bit of regret, and a wet spot that you could swear looks exactly like Vicki Gunvalson’s first face.
Just like sex with an ex, nothing that happens during a Reunion is brand new. Sure, maybe someone has a new outfit to show off or a tighter ass to wiggle or a point to make that’s said in a different manner than it’s ever been stated before (examples here might include “Here’s the newest reason I think Brooks is a liar” and “No, I’m staying on top”), but it all really comes down to the fact that, in both scenarios, nothing changes and nothing is truly gained and you probably could have achieved far greater happiness by eating a Snickers in a dark room where you could pretend to ignore the suggestion written on the wrapper of the King Size bar that a chocolate bar so humongous is really designed for sharing.
Fuck Snickers and whomever designed its packaging. Fuck the sharing of candy of any kind. And really fuck the OC Housewives who have done next to nothing all season long. Beverly Hills had a wineglass-heaving sociopath and an alcoholic who relapsed right there on camera. New Jersey boasts an incarcerated castmate who never completed the evolution cycle and a son-in-law who was rumored to have banged his wife’s mother. Atlanta has NeNe, the largest being ever measured by the naked eye that allegedly doesn’t contain some Sasquatch blood. And what does Orange County have? A whole lot of nothing.
On the snowy twilight of my Sweet 16, I twirled across a dance floor wearing a red dress that had poofy shoulders and a tight bodice. The neckline showed off my newly burgeoning chest and gave a strong hint that I'd probably need to buy some serious bras with some serious built-in underwire by that summer, but I was too busy that night to pay any attention to the changes taking place beneath my undergarments. See, I was laughing with my friends and singing along to The Cure and dancing with the boy who would be the first one to feel those newly-hatched breasts that upcoming summer while we reclined on some stranger's front lawn. But before any adolescent groping could transpire, I had a Sweet 16 to enjoy and the events of that winter party were entirely innocent and full of real joy, marred only by the white opera gloves I wore for the entire night that made my palms so sweaty that I left little marks on the shoulders of the people I danced with.
Even at sixteen I loved me a touch of the dramatic.
What I'm saying here with this Just Like Heaven-sponsored boogie down memory lane is that I know the meaning of a big day. I know how an outfit can matter and how glorious it feels when people take time out of their lives to celebrate you and that's why I feel able to understand just how big a day it is for Tamra. No, strike that. It's not a big day; it’s a huge day! Today she will be baptized. She will prove her commitment to God and embrace the strength religion has given her to be less of an asshole on a moment’s notice. She will wear white and – based upon her holy decree – so will her guests. And then she will drink wine next to a gorgeous pier because that’s what she thinks Jesus would have done if he’d been born in Orange County.
Life in the eighth grade just wasn’t easy. I don’t allow my present mind to flutter back to those days all that often, but every now and again a song will come on the radio and before I can even stop it from happening, I find myself conjuring up terrifying images of the unflattering short haircut I was talked into getting by friends I now believe might really have been very stealth enemies. It was a look defined by the kind of uncontrollable frizz that could have potentially toppled an empire and it was smack dab on top of the head of a girl whose self-esteem was already quaking due to the braces plastered across her teeth and not nearly enough Champion sweatshirts hanging in her closet. It was a rough time and it was made exponentially more difficult the day my mother announced that she was marrying a man I knew full well was a putz. For the purposes of this little tale, I am going to call him Bill – because that’s his real name and I see no need to protect the anonymity of a putz.
It’s not that Bill was a terrible person, but he kind of made me sick to my stomach. He wasn’t particularly smart and he definitely wasn’t funny and he took up space in a home that already felt rather crowded after stuff like a divorce had gone down. He wasn’t cruel to me in the slightest – he bought me a black and white cookie every time he went to the corner store to buy the newspaper, so there was some kindness there – but I could tell that he was threatened by how successful my mother was in her career and that kind of reaction revolted me. The distaste I had for him spread quickly, like a particularly fungusy outbreak of athlete’s foot, and it didn’t take long for me to decide that I hated the following things about a man who lived in my house:
1. I detested the way he ate pasta. There was no delicate twirling of a noodle and certainly no quiet slurping ever went down. Instead, it was Bill’s face and his mouth and a plate of food engaging in what looked and sounded like a full-contact sport and thinking about it even now might have finally put me off carbohydrates forever.
2. I loathed the way he snored. My bedroom was upstairs in those days and the bedroom he shared with my far more tolerant mother was right beneath me. I heard the rumbling of his snores through my floorboards each and every night, and I’d tell you that I’m ashamed that I sat awake often and contemplated how to frame someone else for his death, but that would be a lie. I felt absolutely no shame for anything except for the fact that I never made it a priority to devote my time to making some friends who were far less morality-minded than I was and had a basement where one could hide a body.
Like anyone with a hint of a pulse and a semi-decent attention span, I was quickly drawn into the first season of Mr. Robot. Even the commercials for the show were intriguing; they gave away almost nothing about what the eventual plot turned out to be, but there was a style to them that I responded to immediately. The show looked like it was going to be gritty, like it had been shot by some genius in 1973 before the studio system decided to sign him to a binding contract and then required that he trade in his testicles and his taste for some pure mainstream appeal that came with pure mainstream profit.
Only two minutes into the pilot, Mr. Robot managed to remind me of Taxi Driver and Fight Club in terms of having an unreliable but charismatic antihero protagonist and the lush wide shots, off-kilter pacing, and Elliot’s voiceover that came out like a drug-numbed drone settled deep within my head. I focused on the characters and their interactions and I was swept away to a very dark place that I happily crawled back to week after week. As with many series that have interwoven plots and mounds of developing characters and questions that have been alluringly dangled like a bunch of bright green grapes over the course of a season to ravenous viewers who just want something to chew, it was the penultimate episode of the first season that felt the most rewarding to me. Answers were offered and theories were somewhat resolved and so the actual finale fell a little flat for me because it would have been nearly impossible to follow up the gripping hour that preceded it. Still, there was something eerily magical about the conversation Elliot had on the street with Joanna in that last episode. The whole thing was shot in a hushed kind of manner and so much was not being said between them and all of the empty and dense space behind them in the frame managed to look almost menacing and it was just about perfect. For me though, the most perfect part of the entire episode was not that street scene, but a line spoken by Elliot in voiceover when he saw the mania created by the repercussions of his choices and his actions: “So this is what a revolution looks like.”
I couldn’t help but think about the Mr. Robot revolution line as I watched the latest episode of The Real Housewives of Orange County because it certainly seems like a battle is about to burst forth, one that will be fought on the expansive grounds and inside the tacky parties thrown by women who should really know better than to expect normality to govern their lives anymore. I think maybe that’s what actually offends me – that any Housewife still has the audacity to feign surprise that 1) the other Housewives are talking about her and 2) that they are saying only very shitty things. What does surprise me, though, is the darkness this franchise as a whole has descended into. The conflicts used to revolve around lies rich women told one another for sport or people showing up to events for which they had never sent an RSVP or any other minor calamity from which an hour (or seven) of dramatics could be squeezed, but we are not in that place anymore. The conflicts have been upped and the fallout has become massive. Now our Housewives face things like incarceration. They fail publicly and spectacularly in alleged quests for sobriety. They are embroiled in lawsuits for screaming across the airwaves that another Housewife’s vagina smells like rotten fish. Depositions are actually scheduled for some of the other Housewives to comment on the record about what they have heard about the alleged scent of another woman’s vulva.
You know those television shows you loved so much when you were little that you haven’t seen in years? I’m not talking about shows like Three’s Company or Roseanne – those have been running in syndication for years and we have all revisited them pretty frequently. In fact, during the time my insomnia was at its most profound (otherwise known as “the time period during which I should have been rewarded for not snapping and going on a blood-drenched killing spree due to lack of sleep”), Three’s Company helped me stay sane. If you have blessedly never experienced such a thing, try to imagine that you are exhausted almost beyond belief but you still can’t sleep and your mind is racing like it’s a possessed windup toy and the entire world around you has literally gone dark and every concern you have ever had has mutated into a gigantic and pressing matter and all of the stress has come to reside in the very front of your mind and right at the moment where you think you cannot possibly stand it for another millisecond, you see that a marathon of Three’s Company or The Fresh Prince of Bel Air is airing on Nick at Nite. That realization is like a sleeping pill, a tranquilizer, and a delightful punch in the head all occurring at exactly the same time and maybe it’ll calm you down enough that you will eventually drift off to the sound of a laugh-track and Jack Tripper’s barely veiled sexual harassments that somehow managed to read back then as charming.
But then there are the shows I haven’t seen a bit of since I was young – really young – and I am saddened to say that many haven’t aged all that well. Take The Facts of Life. I loved The Facts of Life. A show about a bunch of smart girls who were good friends to one another at a boarding school where a dietician who made croissants pumped full of chocolate was their guardian? Sign me the fuck up. Sure, I realized that the show was a little schmaltzy at times. It was the kind of program that sprinkled “very special episodes” throughout a standard season so we could all quietly confront hot-button issues like parents with debilitating illnesses, attempts at date rape, and hair that was feathered beyond height and comprehension, but the rest of the series felt light and fun and it was maybe the only time in my life when I wanted to be blonde so I could have tresses like Blair.
