What is your definition of a housewife? One dictionary calls her a woman who stays at home to take care of the house, the kids, husband and pets. Other dictionaries may have slightly different definitions, but one thing is certain: a housewife stays at home and takes care of the household.
However, that’s not what TV reality shows would have us believe. With so many new shows focused on the housewife, we have discovered a very different kind of woman. She is almost always dressed to kill and out shopping with friends, coming across as if she was 18 years old.
While everybody probably needs a life, there are lines that we need to be drawn as well. With the new Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills coming to our screens, you can’t help but wonder what other new things they will bring to the genre.
We have had the same shows in New Jersey, in Atlanta and a few other places and the last thing we need is one more, even if it is from Beverly Hills.
Even though we haven’t seen it, let’s predict what we can expect. At first the women, who are strangers to each other, all appear friendly towards one another. They talk about the most random things, but as patient audiences we give them a chance to get to the point of the show. However, the story is the same throughout and only thing that is different are the names of the characters and locations.
As they get to know each other, we know that the women will form alliances within the small group. This creates the perfect atmo-sphere for drama which we will see soon afterwards.
Having said all of this, the question remains: why do we need shows like this? Apart from new seasons of old shows coming back, we see new versions of the same kind of programming over and over again, which must mean that business is clearly booming in the fake housewife trade.
So we’ll never see the housewife getting busy in the kitchen packing lunch for the kids before they go to school. Nor do we see the parents attend their kid’s soccer matches on Saturday morning, or poem recitals at the schools at night.
Instead, they frequent massage parlours and nightclubs. Not to discriminate, but how often do you see 40-something-year- old women in a nightclub? Unless, of course, they are “working” and I am not talking about waitressing.
It is in these clubs that the women usually start to have verbal and sometimes physical altercations with each other.
She who shouts the loudest and the longest wins the fight. But come the end of the night, they all lose one thing from everyone else around them: respect.