The Real-est Thing About the Housewives of Potomac

noun: housewife; plural noun: housewives

1. a married woman who stays at home, does cleaning, cooking, etc., and does not have another job outside the home
2. a pocket-size container for small articles (as thread)


Yes, I did it. I had to, how could I not? I mean – it’s right in my backyard. Well, not right in my backyard, its down the street, around the Beltway a few exits. Sunday was the premiere of Real Housewives of Potomac and after checking to make sure the couple Black ladies I know who do live in Potomac were not on it, even as a special guest, I had to watch.  It’s like when you pass an accident on the highway – it’s terrible, but we’re nosy, we gotta look and see.  What a mess.

Here’s the cast. For the most part, they are not housewives. (See definition above.) And this is true not just of Potomac, but of this whole franchise.  We’ll agree that none of them is a pocket-size container (raise your hand if you knew that was what those little Altoid mints-sized boxes were called, for the record – I did not, but will try to work that into conversation.)  Of Potomac (I have not committed their names to memory, but it doesn’t really matter. If you watched, you know who I’m talking about; if you didn’t, you can still follow along):

• 1 is a married mother, but I don’t think they showed her kids this first episode
• 1 is a mother married, her husband lives in another state
• 1 is a divorced mother of 3 babies who wants to marry any White guy (we don’t know yet who her ex is)
• 1 is a mother, divorced but lives with and shares a bed with her husband (I think this adds a new definition to dysfunctional relationship)
• 1 is a mother, divorced from her cheating ex-husband preacher

In episode one, none did any cleaning and the only cooking that happened was messing up a pot of crabs. Which by the way, when did a “crab boil” become a thing in Maryland?  This didn’t occur to me at first, because I have been known to do a shrimp boil or two, but I definitely always steam my crabs. Or usually, go buy steamed crabs.

So we’re down to 2/5 who at least meet some minimum criteria to be labeled as a “housewife.”  I can’t think back through all the messiness, but I’m pretty sure the statistics were pretty much the same for Atlanta, New York, and the short-term DC. Those are the only ones I’ve watched. I think they all killed each other off in the New Jersey one or went to jail or something.

Now, some random thoughts on Episode 1.

The episode opened with the ladies taking tennis and golf lessons. It looked like they were in lesson number 1. Now, maybe this is my own stereotype, but I don’t know one person who lives in or near Potomac who does not know how to play one of those two sports, if not both. I don’t know when they learned it, but it seems like a prerequisite to moving to the neighborhood. I’m not understanding how they have lived there and don’t belong to one of the country clubs and own a tennis racquet or golf clubs.

All the drama on the Housewives is fake, manufactured drama – I acknowledge that.  But can they at least make it believable, age-appropriate, fake, manufactured drama? I mean – “you sat in my seat at my birthday dinner?” A real, self-assured 50-year old woman, who really cared about where she sat, would’ve said, “it’s my birthday, get up let me sit there,” not sat there in a quiet huff. Now maybe that would’ve caused a little kerfuffle, but hey, at least it would’ve been more believable.

Who did she think was going to boil those crabs?  Girlfriend had a bushel of crabs in her garage and plans to get her make-up done (because the make-up artist was waiting upstairs), but then had an attitude when her friend came, with a friend/hairdresser/crab boiler in tow, and was messing around in her kitchen cooking the crabs for her crab boil party.  More fake, manufactured drama.

Preacher’s ex-wife being in a pretty nice house in Potomac raises some questions about the finances of the Reverend. He’s pulling in enough tithes and offering to pay for wherever he lives and for her house, too?  Okay, this is not actually show-related. I’ll have to wait for the preacher to move to LA and get on that show for those answers.

I guess the condescending attitude is just par for the course, but that’s probably what bothered me most about the show. If you are trying to act like you have money and need to make sure everyone does not treat you like you don’t have money, you have to keep reminding folks of where you live and that you are a different kind of Black person and go out of your way to be condescending to those other Black people. How many times did the women make snide comments about going back to the ghetto, unhappy poor people, and going back to Baltimore?  It just hurts my heart when folks act like that. If you’ve got class, you don’t have to tell people you’ve got class.

While the rest of the show is all made-up rich people problems, the snide comments, the condescending attitude, the looking down on other people who didn’t climb up the social ladder, the belief that you really are better because of your zip code - that’s about the real-est thing about the Housewives.

Did you watch it? What'd you think? Will you continue to watch?

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I Can't Watch Anymore Reality TV

Even I'm ready for football season.

 

On a recent night devoid of good TV shows (like most), we absentmindedly flicked through the range of reality shows. Oh, I could feel my brain cells oozing out of my ears. My daughter dubbed it our mindless-TV tour.

 

WWE Divas - I didn't understand who the women were or what they did. Were they the girls who hold up the signs between rounds (do they even do that anymore?), were they the actual wrestlers (who knew?), or were they some kind of hangers-ons. Maybe they were the "popcorn hoes", whatever that means. Wait, no that was the other show. That was the one with the dysfunctional couples where the guy didn't have a straight answer to the question, "are you and her (whatever her name was) engaged to be married?" Since his other woman was sitting on the other couch and he just laughed and said they were fine the way the were, I - and any other woman with any sense - would take that as a "no." But the fiancee in question continued to sit there and smile.

 

I used to really like cooking shows because I really do like to cook. And I used to like Chopped because it was creative in a different way. But I can only watch them take cactus leaves and make them into ice cream so many times.  When in doubt, fry it seems to be the theme, and I can do that on my own.

 

I finally watched Honey BooBoo for the first time ever. I know, am I the last person on earth? Why was the show sub-titled, I wondered at first, then realized why. Wow. That's all I can say.

 

There was a tattoo show, one of those elimination shows. Whoever's the worst tattoo-artist gets kicked off. I felt bad for the human canvases as the judges critiqued the tattoos, especially of the kicked off artist. And how did I get sucked into this show? I don't even have a tattoo!  But really, it was maybe one of the most interesting of the "mindless TV tour."

 

I've been done with housewives and celebrity reality shows. The "wives" are rarely married and I can never identify the "celebrity" who is usually famous from their role on another reality show.  I don't care about their lives. I don't want to watch them fight over who called who a name or didn't invite them to the party. I've got a middle schooler and a high-schooler for that kind of madness.

 

Coincidentally, I read a statistic recently that said only 6% of rich people watch reality shows. And I bet the majority of that 6% is watching themselves. So with that in mind, I'm not watching anymore reality shows 'til I'm starring in one. And hopefully I won't be fighting or need sub-titles.  Maybe, I'll get a tattoo.

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I need some new friends

I have just watched the season premier of “Basketball Wives” and I’ve come to one conclusion: I need some new friends.

If you aren’t part of the cult-following, this cable reality show documents the lives of a group of women who are, were, were supposed to be, or are engaged to be married to a professional basketball player and/or the mother of a child or children of a player, corralled by Shaunie O-Neal, ex-wife of Shaquille O’Neal. The producers would have you believe that the showcased women, in addition to those on another cross-country reality series “Real Housewives” (I’m particular to those who live in Atlanta), exemplify grown-up, female relationships. Some of the women are put together by circumstance (they were all selected for the show), but many claim to be real-life friends. And, if these, are in fact, what mature females and their friendships look like, none of my friends match up to any of the basketball women or housewives.

I have a friend who lives in Atlanta, but when I went to visit her, she did not have a flamboyant, high-heeled gay friend coming over to do her hair and make-up, instead, her husband was there, cooking us a Caribbean dinner, with her kids and mine running around the house.

A friend who travels internationally on a regular basis, hasn’t yet bothered to take our group of friends on an all-expense paid trip abroad. This friend is also a wine connoisseur who probably has a secret wine cellar, but she has never invited us over to stomp on store-bought grapes.

Last week, I went to breakfast with a couple friends and they were dressed in yoga pants and a t-shirt, shorts and blouse, or something simple like that. Neither wore a $1000 low-cut dress and 4” platform heels. (Years ago, there was a woman in our playgroup who wore heels and dress pants for the hayride at the pumpkin patch, I’m not sure what happened to her. Maybe she went to find some better dressed friends.)

One of my friends had a reality show a few years ago. She wasn’t part of an ensemble cast of housewives – she was the housewife; the show was about her and her husband building their 50,000 square foot home in a ritzy part of the county. And not once, all season, did she invite us over for a wig party so we could get into a huge argument, talk about how unimpressed we were by the lighted pool that turned into fountain, or find out that her husband had sold his business, unbeknownst to her, and they were now broke.

Another friend lives in a beautiful house on a couple acres of land, but I think her husband pays the mortgage and car notes, so they aren’t getting foreclosed.

Some of my friends aren’t really “housewives” because they decided to use their college degrees and went and got jobs. Not useful jobs like fashion designer, shoe store owner, or wanna-be-recording artist. They have careers such as lawyers, nurses, writers, private bankers, and professors, employed at places like the State Attorney’s office, World Bank and NEA. One is the head-mistress of her own private school. Not useful at all.  (One of those working friends even has a live-in nanny, but she still bothers to talk to her children and have dinner with them.)

A group of my friends have been together for years, we met through a mothers’ group so our kids would have someone other than us to play with. We semi-regularly go out for dinner and drinks, and over the course of about 10 years, I don’t recall a time when anyone threw a drink at another or revealed that she slept with another’s husband. And certainly, no-one has cursed out another and then printed up t-shirts to tell the world about it.

So that’s my bunch of friends. Their husbands (who also happen to be the father of their children) cook dinner and pay the mortgage. They wear cute, affordable clothes and talk to their children. They don’t fight each other and have professional jobs. They cheer on their kids at soccer games and swim meets, they help them sell enough Girl Scout cookies to earn a cruise. They call me and talk to me about things other than each other. We get together for celebrations - or for no reason at all. They are nothing like the “real” women on TV.

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