Walking Disaster

Hint: it’s mostly the escapism, but it’s also the pure, unadulterated, unhinged female chaos, which will only ever be shown on reality television. 

In my opinion, reality shows are not a guilty pleasure because there’s no reason to be ashamed for liking them. The tub of cookie dough I am likely to eat during a Bravo marathon is a guilty pleasure, more so then the content on my screen.

There is a dearth of fully formed women on our screens – mainly scripted television and movies. HBO used to do a good job, but they’ve whitewashed their characters of late. I grew up with Carmela Soprano, aka the patron saint of hypocrisy. She would cry, scream, steal, and tell her husband that he was going to hell while she actively tried to fuck a priest. We also had Selina Meyer rage-fucking her vice president and then calmly telling a congresswoman that she would have the IRS crawl up her husband’s colon just in the hopes of finding more cancer.

When House of Dragon started, I thought we were going to have real anger and war crimes, instead we have two women calmly mourning their friendship more than their own murdered children. I wanted a conflict like the Real Housewives: pure anger, chaos, Tyler Perry quotes, and season four Cersei Lannister. Instead, I got a conflict like a Lifetime special: calm, cool, collected, and season eight Cersei Lannister. 

When I’m upset in real life, I already know that I need to keep my cool to be taken seriously. The second I raise my voice or a frustrated tear escapes, I know my feelings will be immediately invalidated, as will my argument, regardless of the content. It’s no surprise to me that growing up watching Lauren Conrad express her feelings, hold people to account, and set boundaries with the toxic people in her life led to my burgeoning confidence in holding my ground. I did with much less grace but still – the Hills walked so Vanderpump Rules could run. The catharsis in watching Ariana Madix hold her disgusting ex accountable for his fake apologies and attempted defamation while red-faced and spitting mad is second to none. Seeing the Witches of WeHo (Stassie Shroeder and Katie Maloney) put all the narcissistic men around them in a chokehold just by refuting their premise, refusing to concede, and beating them at their own game, gives me life. The power of Jenni Farley clocking a man in the face for disrespecting her was formative to my teen years. When boys I didn’t like got handy in high school, it seemed socially acceptable to shut them down. 

When the standards for women are at unattainable heights and we are not only expected to meet them, but to do so calmly, easily, and with a smile, it makes it even worse to then deal with our male counterparts who are tripping over the standards set unbelievably low. At that point, it helps to see Theresa Giudice flip a table at dinner, or Aviva Drescher throw her fake leg across another one. 

Even in competition shows, the same principle applies. We may be past the golden age of The Challenge but there is never a season that goes by without a moment where all the men come together to discuss how this girl or that one is the devil, or a bitch, or manipulative, all because she has the sheer audacity to play the same game as them. The women rise above and beyond the typical fratboy bullshit and they’re villified for it. Ashley “Millionaire” Mitchell, Tori Deal, Laurel, Evelyn, I could go on. They all have model looks and are tough as shit, capable of running a half marathon through a jungle in the morning and going to the club in full glam that night. They have no qualms about using their sexuality, their friendships, or their brains and brawn to get to the finals. All the while competing alongside and in the same living conditions as the boys, yet they’re largely hated for it! Why? Because somewhere along the way they got drunk and aggressive, or got frustrated and started yelling? Behavior that no man has ever been shown to do, ever, in history. 

And for all the people in my life who try to tell me that reality TV is “fake” or “staged,” that’s not the argument you think it is. That just means reality producers are allowing these women to be full-fledged people, more than any other network or streaming service does. It just means that Bravo, MTV, or E! are the only ones who want to tap into this demographic that comes with the realization that women are people too. 

And at the end of the day, it doesn’t have to be that deep, these shows are objectively hilarious. The housewives are ridiculous in the best possible ways (see early New York, current Salt Lake City, or all of Atlanta). I would say that watching Angie K pull out a medieval scroll of past slights, or Kate Chastain’s habit of assigning word fonts to her different staff members is funnier then any Emmy-winning sitcom airing right now. Some of these shows have hour long episodes that have you on the edge of your seat more than any of that televised golf your dad spends his time watching. And honestly, it could just be that I like reality television, the same way some guys like to watch wrestling, non-playoff baseball, or the NFL draft. And who the fuck cares.