What’s worse: Real Housewives of Atlanta or race-based criticism of it?
by Guest Contributor Tami, originally published What Tami Said
My blogsister Professor Tracey has me thinking about “The Real Housewives of Atlanta.” Yesterday, on Aunt Jemima’s Revenge, Tracey asked whether the hit Bravo show was “a guilty pleasure or embarrassing as hell for black folks, particularly women.” And so, as a regular watcher of the show, I pondered the lightning rods that the Hotlanta housewives have become.
Yeah, I watch RHOA. It’s shamelessly trashy, quite obviously scripted, drama-filled reality TV. But after a week of working and thinking and stressing and getting caught up in our country’s all-too-real political drama, sometimes I want to rest my brain by consuming something simple, indulgent and without value. “Real Housewives” is like a Hostess cupcake for my gray matter.
To be sure, the women on RHOA are no role models. They are alternately bullying, narcissistic, back-stabbing, money-grubbing, cliquey, disloyal, arrogant, self-involved, willfully ignorant, poorly spoken, wasteful and tackily nouveau riche. The show features street fights, wig tugging, name dropping, pole dancing, sugar daddy-funded goodies, “baller” fetishizing, vanity business projects, cattiness, loud arguments in nice restaurants (and nice offices..and nice homes), and whole lot of “flossing” and faux importance. Whether editing or reality is to blame, the women read like gross caricatures of the bourgie set, garnished with a little Jerry Springer.
But here’s the thing: These traits are not solely the hallmark of the black housewives of Atlanta. Reality shows are cast and scripted for drama, and the “Real Housewives” franchise serves up plenty of it with each and every season. So I find it curious that these five, black women are singled out as egregiously off-the-hook. Oh, I’m not saying that the white Real Housewives don’t catch hell. Half the thrill of watching all the RH series is snarking on the excess and ignorance afterwards. My problem is HOW the Atlanta wives are criticized.
A foray into online coverage, blogs and TV forums like the ones on Television Without Pity will uncover frequent use of the word “ghetto” and “hood,” references to this or that housewife looking “like a man,” hints that the housewives are high-classed “hos”–promiscuous, scheming she-devils hot on the trail of big money, snark about big booties, talk of how the women are embarrassing black folks. Hmmm…sounds kind of like the type of criticism often thrown at black women, even those who act demurely and properly. (Have you seen the stuff folks say about Michelle Obama and her daughters?) Frankly, I have more problem with this sort of racialized analysis than I do with anything that happens on “Real Housewives of Atlanta.”
Bethany Frankel, one of the “Real Housewives of New York,” goes heavy on the race-based synopses in her weekly RHOA recap at E! Online. Read her account of housewife Sheree’s episode one meeting with a party planner:
Was anything better than the final party planning scene? I love how Sheree says (with a straight face), “I didn’t get any messages from either you or a poet!”
Anthony had the most professionally looking attire, and he let us know that he is a top-level executive. Then the wheels fell off—you could just feel that something was about to explode.
My man tried to be so articulate in the beginning, and he worked his way up to gangsta. Not only did he not get the helicopter. He was a helicopter! I loved how he would occasionally look at the camera as if it wouldn’t catch all of this.
You really need to rewind it because there are so many fantastic nuggets in this scene. I definitely laughed so hard I cried, and I mean windshield wiper Snoopy tears. OK, a few examples: “Who gon’ check me boo?” Or “I eat bitches like you every day.” Did he throw “yo mamma is a bitch?!” Did anyone else just die when his coworkers subtly closed the office door as if they had begun speaking just above a whisper.
When she stood up, still in sunglasses, after her Cleveland explanation, her face literally looked distorted. It was fantastic. She went full hood on his ass, and I dropped dead. This was a meeting with a party planner!
“…tried to be articulate…worked his way into gangsta”
“…went full hood…”
Huh.
Was it “hood” when New Jersey housewife Theresa lost her shit and flipped a table during a loud imbroglio in a swanky restaurant?
I read mocking comments about the RHOA women “axing” for things and numerous slights against their collective blaccents. But why is it more acceptable when the Jersey wives mangle the Queen’s English than when the Atlanta wives do?
Atlanta Housewife Sheree is one self-aggrandizing chick, but is she any worse than ex-Countess Luann de Lesseps on Real Housewives of New York? Honey, a married-into/divorced-out-of title doesn’t make it any better when you act a pompous ass.
And for all the tittering about new Atlanta housewife Kandi’s seemingly sorry fiance with the four baby mamas…There are several series players with first, second and third marriages and blended families. There are sketchy boyfriends and even worse husbands. I look at Kandi’s man and want to scream “Run, girl, run!” But, y’know I say the same thing about the cloying, controlling, joined-at-the-hip weirdness that is the marriage of RHONY wife Alex. I said the same thing about oily, creepy, young-woman-chaser, Slade, in season one of Real Housewives of Orange County. I said the same thing about the disinterested and sour-faced boyfriend New Yorker Bethany Frankel chased in season one of RHONY.
The Atlanta wives can be awfully clueless for alleged high society types. No ladies, you probably don’t want to eat the fondant on your pricey cake flown in from L.A. Of course it tastes bad. Fondant, though edible, is for decoration. But when OC Housewife Jeana hosted a guest from Canada in season one, her family could not have appeared more ignorant and xenophobic. “Do you speak Canadian?” WTF? Jeana and her crew hardly seemed like well-traveled, worldly jet setters.
My point–As far as I can tell, nearly all of the Real Housewives are bullying, narcissistic, back-stabbing, money-grubbing, cliquey, disloyal, arrogant, self-involved, willfully ignorant, poorly spoken, wasteful and tackily nouveau riche. It makes for good television. But the Orange County, New York and New Jersey wives are not seen as representative of white culture or white womanhood. They are not discussed using racialized terms. And no white folks are spending time being embarrassed by their hijinks. By contrast, the Atlanta dysfunction is positioned as uniquely black, confirmation of a host of stereotypes about poor, ignorant, urban people; loud, angry black women; and shiftless black men with myriad baby mamas.
There is a sense in the sniping about the RHOA women, that people think they especially don’t deserve their arrogance and feelings of entitlement. Who are these black women to think they have class, looks and smarts? Consider these comments from Television Without Pity:
Sheree – you can take the girl out of the ghetto, but you can’t take the ghetto out of the girl! You are the wiki of trash. Truly.
My mouth is hanging open. The sheer blunt force of the vulgarity has left me stunned. It was like a herd of cattle wearing wigs and lipstick passed through my living room.
Sheree looks like Ray Allen with a wig.
And for the record, NeNe (I didn’t know Martin Lawrence was on this show!!)…
This show needs subtitles. I don’t think anyone speaks english. Must get out my Detroit Ghetto Translation Guide. Holy shit, what a mess of ugly, gross bimbos. Reminds me why I left Motown. Barf. Shower, please!!!!!!
Vulgar…manly…ghetto…animals…Detroit-like(?)…
There is something about a willful black woman that attracts unflinching, crazy hate. I call it it Star Jones/Omarosa Syndrome.
Look, there is a whole lot that is distasteful about the Real Housewives of Atlanta. But more distasteful is the disproportionate level of racialized criticism that is heaped on them for doing the same things that their white counterparts do.
) is Kim.
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of
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