Dear Tina,
If I were to make a list of everything I aspire to be as I continue to grow up, spending a good portion of my adult life in gossipy feuds with other women doesn’t even break the top 100. Well, it wouldn’t break into that list if the list were infinite, so my first point is moot. What I can tell you is that as I continue to strive to be a mature adult who doesn’t butt into other adults’ lives and announce my opinion as if anyone were asking for a third party perspective, that does not mean I cannot enjoy watching other women do it on a weekly basis. It probably means that I shouldn’t enjoy it, but I do and so does Andy Cohen so I’m in good company. I am of course referring to The Real Housewives of New York City airing Thursday nights on Bravo. Before we get into the specifics of this cast, let’s just acknowledge the absurd genius of this series. Women inherently love to gossip. Gossip for women is like a progress report they need to check in with in order to make sure that no matter how bad they’ve managed to screw something up in their lives, someone out there is doing a worse job. And thank God, right? Who cares about compassion when you’re seeking validation? No one is proud of this child-like response to the internal, always persistent competition women have with each other. Most of us like to keep our cattiness closeted. So in the same way we are secretly comforted by someone else’s shortcomings, we can also find solace watching other women who are openly trivial and spiteful because then we get to say to ourselves “See? I’m not like that.” Enter, the real housewives. They may be from different cities but they’re all the same breed.
Bravo’s Real Housewives series encourages the women they profile to sweat the small stuff, to hold on to past altercations as if any of these hissy fits actually impacted the course of their life. We watch these women thrive on opportunities to wag their fingers and roll their eyes and rehash their side of the story to anyone blind sided enough to listen. And then Ramona Singer says something like “you’re making a mountain out of a hole mill!” So it’s funny too! If I haven’t made my point clear enough yet, let’s look at each woman featured on the show and see if I can’t be more specific.
Alex McCord. Alex often seems to be the most level headed one in the group except the fact that she is even on this show immediately contradicts this point. Appearing partially level headed on a reality show is like being the sanest person at the asylum. Alex loves to belabor her authenticity with reminders that she and her family live in Brooklyn. Did you say Brooklyn or Harlem? Because, rumor has it, Brooklyn can foster as many “holier than thou” attitudes as Manhattan. Working examples include Alex McCord. I still like Alex. I like that she has acknowledged the need to do something about that mane of hers. In season one, Alex’s hair looked like the aftermath of an eight year old who managed to simultaneously get a brush and gum stuck in her hair. Though her hair is now shiny and fabulous (I mean, nothing special, but a fabulous improvement), this season has already been an emotional one for Alex. She had a tearful confrontation with Jill who supposedly was caught on camera insulting Alex’s son Francois. Surprisingly, it wasn’t because the kid’s name is Francois. Jill slithered her way out of taking blame for that one but Alex held steadily on to her resentment and even went so far as to not invite Jill out to lunch with her and the other housewives. The reasoning Alex gave the camera was that she wanted to avoid anymore drama. Because leaving someone out of a social gathering is about as drama-free a solution as giving someone the silent treatment. Of course you can’t have a conversation about Alex without mentioning her husband Simon. Simon is best known for wearing red leather pants to charity events and a print whenever possible, which in Simon’s case, is always. He’s like the older, Brooklyn version of Chuck Bass, which should imply that he’s a touch more flamboyant. But Alex and Simon probably have the best sex life of anyone on the show so who’s to judge? Well, me. That’s why I have a blog.
Ramona Singer. Ramona is the type of woman that if you knew her and saw her from a distance heading toward you on the street, you would duck into the nearest store front for fear that, upon seeing you, she’d take up 30 minutes of your lunch hour talking about the bitchy thing she said that someone misinterpreted and now everyone’s mad at her. Then she’d badger you into taking her side and you would somehow leave with a necklace from her jewelry line that she guilted you into buying as if she were a street vendor trying to sell you a fake Gucci duffle. The woman is outside her mind and the amount of pinot grigio she pours into her system every day certainly does not offer any stability. Ramona’s signature look doesn’t involve a style or a certain silhouette, just those crazy eyes of hers that make you wonder, for someone who appears to be taking in so much visually, how does she avoid processing any of the basic social cues or manners she observes in others? The chach behind the woman would be her husband Mario. If there was ever an argument that men are not as petty as women, I would use Mario as my one and only rebuttal. Mario seems to thrive on the drama of this group of women almost more than the women do. He referred to Countess LuAnn as “countless” at a public event while LuAnn was going through a divorce. After being confronted and admitting to the harsh words, he found no reason to apologize. The same way a troubled thirteen year old girl would refuse to apologize for writing a nasty rumor about on of her classmate’s on the bathroom stall. Mario is that troubled thirteen year old girl. And Ramona talks too fast to notice. Or care.
Kelly Killoren Bensimon. Kelly didn’t enlist her services until the second season of the show and, gosh, it’s hard to imagine a time without her. Kelly was arguably the most famous coming into the series thanks to her ex-husband, Gilles Bensimon, a world-renowned fashion photographer. Most people probably know him as the photographer Tyra Banks name drops during the run-down of prizes awarded to the America’s Next Top Model winner. So if Tyra says he’s famous…Kelly must be…sort of famous. You can usually find Kelly spending time pushing the front strands of her hair out of her face. Someone get that girl a bobby pin. She has been the source of conflict during her time on the show caused by her many aggressive opinions coming out of an inarticulate, illogical mouth. Last season while Jill was organizing a fundraiser for juvenile arthritis (which her daughter suffers from) Kelly stated she did not want her name on the invitation because she doesn’t have time to work on her own charities, she’s a very private person, and she doesn’t lend her name to anything, ever. Take whichever excuse you like. Any way you slice it, Kelly’s confidence regarding her célébrité seems to be solely validated in her head. This season we see a whole new side of Kelly–wait for the joke to land–when she agrees to do a spread for Playboy magazine. The day of the shoot Kelly explains to the make-up artist that her diet to get ready for the shoot has consisted of chicken wings and beer. Because there is no better way to get women to like you than by telling them your fit figure is a result of scarfing down junk food all day long. Really, we love that. Kelly has two young daughters who she argues will be pleased that their mom has decided to do Playboy. Sure, Kelly, until seventh grade comes and some jerk kid comes to school with a copy of your issue and your children resolve to resent you until they’re 18 and need you to buy them a laptop for college.
LuAnn de Lesseps. Pardon me, Countess LuAnn de Lesseps. Who would be surprised to learn that on her birth certificate her name is spelled Louanne and she changed it to the version with a mixture of upper and lower case letters just to make it extra difficult for people providing her assistance? I would not. When we first met LuAnn three years ago she was married to a Count and was determined to convince Americans that this made her better than them. Well LuAnn this is America and unless you are married to the Count, from Sesame Street, you will be hard-pressed to find someone impressed by your title. Remember when ABC hired a “prince” to be The Bachelor? It’s kind of like that. Things didn’t pan out so well for the Countess when her husband left her for a much younger, much more Ethiopian, “princess.” There have been a lot of rumors swirling this season that LuAnn has always been a bit of a, oh how would a Countess put it, huss. Ramona clamors on and on in a phone conversation with Jill about how she has no sympathy for the newly divorced LuAnn since she has “never been alone in her life” even when the Count was away on business. Ooo yes, what other humiliating rumors about this mother of two can we discuss on speaker phone while the Bravo cameras are here? Unfortunately, LuAnn doesn’t garner a lot of sympathy due to her frequent and oh-so-patronizing lessons in etiquette. My personal favorite was when she explained in a confessional that when discussing another woman’s breast enhancement surgery you do so behind the woman’s back or if she happens to be in the room, you whisper softly, but you never talk to her about it directly. Yes, that would be just plain rude. On a more positive note, LuAnn has managed to raise a sophisticated and grounded daughter, Victoria, but if you’ve been watching from season one you know that former housekeeper Rosie can take the credit for that.
Bethenny Frankel. If only Bethenny could find a way not fill her days complaining about tedious New York social gossip, she would be on par to be the only housewife I could conceive of befriending because she is hilarious. In this past week’s episode she made references to both Angela Lansbury and Inspector Clouseau when explaining that it didn’t take a lot of detective work to figure out Jill had planted a story about her in the New York Post. Of course this would indicate that Bethenny felt the need to discuss this situation more than once. When Bethenny was with some of the other women at Alex’s get together (not Jill, remember she wasn’t invited), she apologized to them for the article, explaining she had nothing to do with it but still felt bad that they were getting dragged into her ongoing feud with Jill. This was Bethenny’s not-so-subtle attempt at paving the way for her to do everything short of standing atop a soap box with a megaphone à la Harvey Milk to convince these women that she is the victim of a vicious, vindictive Jill Zarin. Jill Zarin can’t even make direct eye contact with you, how harmful can she be? For the first two seasons Bethenny was the single gal, struggling to have it all in New York City. If you would like to see a more well written version of this character, I encourage you to rent Sex and the City on DVD. Now Bethenny has finally met Mr. Wonderful, Jason, who has disappointed women everywhere as he appears to be seriously and severely wonderful. Reality TV is supposed to make me feel better about myself; if I wanted to constantly feel pangs of jealousy I’d watch a show about the women who get to go on dates with Jeremy Renner. Coming this Fall to Bravo. Bethenny is also raking in the dough with her books and products all based on the premise “if you eat less, you’ll weigh less!” Well then can I write a book based on the idea “if you fold your laundry, you’re dresser will be tidier!” Because it’s true and I live by that motto. Isn’t that all Bethenny has done here?
Jill Zarin. If you’re going to be a wealthy housewife in New York City who pretends to spend most of her time doing charity work but really spends it making fun of women less fortunate than she in oversized sunglasses, then you need a name like Jill Zarin. Equally important, a husband named Bobby. You have to respect a man who makes millions and can still garner respect with a name reserved for ten year old boys with a fondness for stickball. Jill has done little to quell the stereotype of a wealthy Jewish woman living in New York but it’s hard to be critical when this stereotype describes a woman who is outgoing, a natural gabber, and instinctively maternal. Jill’s main issue is her pride. She can never be wrong. I suspect that she will go to the grave truly believing that when it comes to her relationship with former best friend Bethenny, she did nothing wrong and it was Bethenny’s fault things ended so badly. As she said in a recent episode, “She made me cry. You know she made me cry. And I can’t be friends with someone like that. I can’t be friends with someone who makes me cry.” I have a feeling Jill thinks it’s mandatory to expend her entire breath when speaking. You won’t find Jill summing up a situation with less than 15 words. She’s not the “Life: it goes on” type. But if every female friendship ended over initial hurt feelings, women wouldn’t have any friends. If we cannot learn to let things go and move on from the past, we are bound to be friendless, with our husbands serving as our only companions. And it’s mandatory that they’re around so it’s a bit of a cop out, no?
So yes there is a lot to learn in the world of women willing to put their private lives on television. Mainly, if you’re an adult and you suspect that your girlfriends spend most of their time talking behind your back, that means that they definitely are. And if there were ever a situation when one should not follow the “if you can’t beat em, join em” mentality, this would be it.
30 Rock Quote of the Day:
Liz: I’m back.
Jack: What’d they turn out to be? Lesbians?
Liz: No, fight club.
Dear Tina 