The Real Housewives of Orange County
Dec. 12th, 2007 11:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mallorys_cameraBen maintains that the real reason Al Qaeda has it in for America is because Bravo TV produces a show called The Real Housewives of Orange County.
I confess that I watch this show regularly with a fascination I otherwise reserve for Amityville Horror sequels and vintage episodes of The Outer Limits.
Why?
Well, The Real Housewives is an opportunity to display schadenfreud, you know that German word that nobody but Heidi Klum and Hitler's ghost know how to pronounce that gives you permission to rejoice when bad things happen to people you're only pretending to like.
Or maybe not even pretending.
The show is a mockumentary following the lives of five women who live in the real life equivalent of Nancy Botwin's dear and now departed Agrestic. There's Jeana, a chunky X-Playmate; there's Vicki who sells insurance and looks like what Miss Piggy would like if Miss Piggy bleached her hair, got Botox injections three times a week and sustained herself on a diet of Adderal and Slippery Nipples. There's Lauri whose millionaire land developer fiancé must have Serious Issues because Lauri looks exactly like a pre-op tranny. There are two (count 'em!) 2 Tammys – one's a rather severe looking brunette (altogether now in the tone you'd use for "Salsa from New York City" – brunette?); the other's the New Bimbo On the Block, a perky 40 year old with her own Major Issues – what's the opposite of Oedipal complex?
Then there are the accessories. Mercedes, Porsches, BMW's! Vast, soulless McMansions! Diamond engagement rings! Diamond knuckle rings! Diamond earrings! Austin Scarlet! Wheeled from the super-secret Bravo TV underground vault where he's been kept in cryogenic freeze lo these many years since the end of Project Runway, Season 1, defrosted, forced to cater to Lauri's Disney Princess Bride delusions. His eyes are still crossed and there was a look of real panic in them.
Then there are the clothes. I will confess that at the age of 55, I don't have a clue how women my age are supposed to dress and so embarrass my children by wearing the Same Basic Outfit – I call it My Universal Suit – day in, day out. These women don't have that problem. They have a lot of clothes. A lot of ugly clothes. A lot of shiny neon sports wear, tube tops and tight white pants.
Finally there's the boobage.
Now. There is a very easy way to tell if boobs are real or fake.
Well, two easy ways – if you're close enough to touch, just grab one. Silicone implants aren't squishy the way real boobs are, particularly if they've been implanted under the pecs. Saline implants feel just like your favorite pool raft when you squeeze it hard enough to give it an aneurism.
If you're not close enough to grab, then you have to do it by sight. Boob jobs often lead to a peculiar type of fibrotic scarring between the breasts. This is because successful though the ruse may be with 45-year-old Cialis junkies, you cannot convince your own body that those 44 double D's actually belong to you! Your body wants to reject them.
If a woman en cleavage has a big space between the upper portions of her poitrine, then chances are she's had work.
Every woman over twenty-five on The Real Housewives of Orange County has fake boobs, and at least two of the twenty-somethings do too.
Ya gotta wonder about the libidos of the men who are attracted to these women – I mean, presumably there are men who are attracted to these women, right? Maybe that's why stuff like Viagra is all the pharmaceutical rage.
"It's anthropology," I tell Ben. "These women are every bit as exotic and interesting as a National Geographic special!"
"Just keep telling yourself that," he says as he leaves the room
I confess that I watch this show regularly with a fascination I otherwise reserve for Amityville Horror sequels and vintage episodes of The Outer Limits.
Why?
Well, The Real Housewives is an opportunity to display schadenfreud, you know that German word that nobody but Heidi Klum and Hitler's ghost know how to pronounce that gives you permission to rejoice when bad things happen to people you're only pretending to like.
Or maybe not even pretending.
The show is a mockumentary following the lives of five women who live in the real life equivalent of Nancy Botwin's dear and now departed Agrestic. There's Jeana, a chunky X-Playmate; there's Vicki who sells insurance and looks like what Miss Piggy would like if Miss Piggy bleached her hair, got Botox injections three times a week and sustained herself on a diet of Adderal and Slippery Nipples. There's Lauri whose millionaire land developer fiancé must have Serious Issues because Lauri looks exactly like a pre-op tranny. There are two (count 'em!) 2 Tammys – one's a rather severe looking brunette (altogether now in the tone you'd use for "Salsa from New York City" – brunette?); the other's the New Bimbo On the Block, a perky 40 year old with her own Major Issues – what's the opposite of Oedipal complex?
Then there are the accessories. Mercedes, Porsches, BMW's! Vast, soulless McMansions! Diamond engagement rings! Diamond knuckle rings! Diamond earrings! Austin Scarlet! Wheeled from the super-secret Bravo TV underground vault where he's been kept in cryogenic freeze lo these many years since the end of Project Runway, Season 1, defrosted, forced to cater to Lauri's Disney Princess Bride delusions. His eyes are still crossed and there was a look of real panic in them.
Then there are the clothes. I will confess that at the age of 55, I don't have a clue how women my age are supposed to dress and so embarrass my children by wearing the Same Basic Outfit – I call it My Universal Suit – day in, day out. These women don't have that problem. They have a lot of clothes. A lot of ugly clothes. A lot of shiny neon sports wear, tube tops and tight white pants.
Finally there's the boobage.
Now. There is a very easy way to tell if boobs are real or fake.
Well, two easy ways – if you're close enough to touch, just grab one. Silicone implants aren't squishy the way real boobs are, particularly if they've been implanted under the pecs. Saline implants feel just like your favorite pool raft when you squeeze it hard enough to give it an aneurism.
If you're not close enough to grab, then you have to do it by sight. Boob jobs often lead to a peculiar type of fibrotic scarring between the breasts. This is because successful though the ruse may be with 45-year-old Cialis junkies, you cannot convince your own body that those 44 double D's actually belong to you! Your body wants to reject them.
If a woman en cleavage has a big space between the upper portions of her poitrine, then chances are she's had work.
Every woman over twenty-five on The Real Housewives of Orange County has fake boobs, and at least two of the twenty-somethings do too.
Ya gotta wonder about the libidos of the men who are attracted to these women – I mean, presumably there are men who are attracted to these women, right? Maybe that's why stuff like Viagra is all the pharmaceutical rage.
"It's anthropology," I tell Ben. "These women are every bit as exotic and interesting as a National Geographic special!"
"Just keep telling yourself that," he says as he leaves the room
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no subject
Date: 2007-12-12 09:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-13 03:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-12 09:07 pm (UTC)I have no idea how to dress appropriately, either. So, I wear jeans, a long sleeved T and a blazer.
I have to wonder if a large breastal region helps with libido issues. Of course, the only libido I have run into in the past two years has been my own. I don't spend a lot of time grabbing my own boobies.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-13 03:17 pm (UTC)I have very complicated theories about the boobage issue which I'll bore you with over drinks some time. Basically, they boil down to the fact that through the overconsumption of movies and television, we have become a society of voyeurs for whom visual stimuli are more important than tactile stimuli.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-12 09:52 pm (UTC)Not even a smidge.
I'm not sure what exactly is the single most off-putting facet, either, but I suspect that a lot of it is my belief, also, that what they portray on that show is EXACTLY what the rest of the world hates about us, those plastic women who crave money and power and consumer goods, who reject their children because they aren't conducive to getting a good man and vote republican because their men want them to. The whole thing makes me want to vomit. I can totally see why that would freak Al-Qaeda out.
My kids would DIE if I went around showing that kind of cleavage. There's a real fine line between looking fresh and young and sexy and looking like you are auditioning for a MILF dirty video.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-13 03:12 pm (UTC)Orange County is just a bizarre place. My x-husband, Max's dad, moved there for a job 15 or so years ago, and this is the one time we went to court. I mean, we didn't even do our divorce with lawyers. But we had a shared custody arrangement that naturally wasn't going to survive a 500 mile move.
"You're a great mother," the X's new wife told me, "but everyone knows kids do better in a two-parent family."
Know what? I agree with her. (I was raised by a single parent -- it was a nightmare.)
But there was no way I was going to allow my child to be raised in materialistic, soul-sucking orange County.
So I took them to court. And I won.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-12 10:45 pm (UTC)thank you so much!
this is a little off-topic, but still involving southern california- when i did my 'valley girl' linguistics paper recently, i watched video samples from 2 'pretend' valley girl set-ups and 1 'real'. i used the high-rising terminal and 4 properties of 'like' (according to a linguist) as criteria. i read more than a few articles about how both are markers of bonding as well as confidence/subservience within communities of girls, and that worked out exactly in my sample from an episode of the hills. the lead girl (the original protagonist of laguna beach), who is the center of the show, did not use the high-rising terminal or 'like' once. i found that so interesting.
and i was able to use guilty pop culture reality tv- win/win
no subject
Date: 2007-12-12 11:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-13 03:03 pm (UTC)Are you a linguistics major? Specialized jargon does seem to mark boundaries in inclusive groups, doesn't it? Professional and social.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-15 05:03 am (UTC)unfortunately, the valley girls paper is an example of something i rushed (i wanted to get to houston for the weekend and of course procrastinated until basically the night before + morning i was leaving) and am not very proud of, although i found the research i had to do for it very interesting. i might fill it out a little more and post it, though. :)
no subject
Date: 2007-12-13 02:39 am (UTC)instead, i feel like kicking myself in the ass, because somehow these incredibly stupid women with incredibly stupid children and husbands are all rich- and none had the benefit of being born that way.
the only good thing is when they show themselves being stuck in the face with needles- it's kind of like voodoo doll fun. i can't stick needles in them myself, so it's amusing to see them do it to themselves.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-13 03:01 pm (UTC)Well, if it does that to you, you can imagine what it does to Osama bin Laden.
Seriously, though, w/the possible exception of Vicki who was smart enough to diversify nationally -- she's horrible, but she's a shrewd businesswoman -- the rest of them are gonna get hit pretty hard by the nosedive in OC real estate. They're mortgaged and leased and generally financially overextended.