PhoRHO
PhotoShoppin' the Housewives, one show at a time ...
Sunday, February 9, 2014
Vyle Kyle, the Housewife Catcher
Come out, come out, wherever you live ...
I've got some lovely passive-aggressive questions for you ...
Thursday, April 4, 2013
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
Poor Little Dutch Girl
News Alert!!
Recent excavation of a defunct windmill uncovered a trunkful of movie memorabilia from Ms. Foster's most famous film: Het Meisje Met De Griezel Kip Voeten or The Girl with the Scary Chicken Feet.
Here is a frame from that long-lost footage of Ms. Foster's famous "Dance of the Chicken Legs" ...
Let's hope they release the restored film in the US!
Recent excavation of a defunct windmill uncovered a trunkful of movie memorabilia from Ms. Foster's most famous film: Het Meisje Met De Griezel Kip Voeten or The Girl with the Scary Chicken Feet.
Here is a frame from that long-lost footage of Ms. Foster's famous "Dance of the Chicken Legs" ...
Let's hope they release the restored film in the US!
Thursday, December 13, 2012
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
The Fulcrum of Housewives' Lives
In the 2008 movie “Untraceable” a
serial killer kills his victims faster, depending on how many people are watching his murder room through a live feed on the Internet. The more people watch, the faster he
kills. Even though connecting to the live feed is contributing to
the death of the victim, people around the globe log on and watch.
Are they complicit in the murder? Yes. But they're not murders –
they just are humans who can't look away.
From the age of the Christians vs. the
Lions, humans all look at horrifying things willingly. It's our
nature, with a mix of motivations. We want to know what's going on,
so curiosity; we want to feel grateful it's not us in the situation;
we find pleasure in watching how other humans act and react, we gain
knowledge so we know what to do in similar situations … even if
we'll never be in those situations.
This is about Jill Zarin. Isn't
everything about Jill Zarin? Don't the planets spin, doesn't the
dawn rise, don't tulips come up in April because of Jill Zarin? Oh,
no, only during the season. The season of Real Housewives of New
York. If it's one of the other seasons, then the planets, dawn, and
tulips owe their existence to Taylor or Kyle or Teresa or Caroline or
Nene or Kim. During New York's turn, even Jill faces competition
from Aviva.
Other networks, like other solar
systems, have their own satellites. But Bravo is the daddy of them
all, where it's at, where it started, where it turns. Bravo is the
original, the one to beat. So Bravo is inevitably the one where the
change has happened first.
What change? Oh, the shift from
“normal” people, tapping into their typical activities and
individual peculiarities, to abnormal megalomaniacs, Frankensteined
together by the focus of the camera and the glamour of attention.
Jill Zarin wasn't a monster when she
signed on to do the show. She was a typical New York woman who had
married well and enjoyed privilege. A mother, a wife, a sister, a
daughter, a former career woman, a shopper with money to burn …
someone whose life seemed enviable. The conceit of the show seemed
aimed towards viewers wanting what she had – what all the
housewives had. So how did she get to the place where what she has
in life is not enough unless she can continue to flaunt it? Reality
Show Sickness? “On Display”-itis? Can we coin a new term?
'Cause, baby, she's got it.
And so do the other housewives on the
list. Aviva, the newest, made the turn only weeks ago, when she had
to film the reunion shows and realized she didn't have the support
she thought she would or didn't think about needing, but suddenly
realized “hey, might be good” to have. She didn't quite pull it
off. But give her a few years' experience and she'll either come out
smelling fresh and clean or she'll disappear into the same rabbit's
hole that got Jill, Kelly, Taylor, Kyle, Caroline and others.
And what lures them to the edge of that
hole? The belief that there are enough fans to go around. That as
long as there are viewers, anything they do is justified. Untrained
market analysts, they talk about “team” this or “haters”,
tweeting jokes about other cast members appearing on live show,
becoming hectors who are caught up in their own hubris. It seems
obvious that 95% of the cast and secondary cast of The Real
Housewives of New Jersey think they are popular, admired, believed.
How did they get this opinion? From not reading everything that was
written about them, but only from a favored list of opinion. From
ganging up and blanket marketing, shouting as a chorus, from their
side of the issue. Who can hear the other side above that din?
Actually, a lot of people can.
Where the Jills and Carolines misstep
is when they think that if everything is rosy in their little
cocooned world, then everything is all right in the whole world.
It's just not so.
In the last year or two, there's been a
change in some of the housewives that is leading towards the demise
of the franchise. It is becoming common to read the sentiment in
forums on the shows, that the viewers feel sick after watching the
shows. Pledges to “not watch again, if” pop up all the time. Of
course, these are across all the boards, not just the ones those who
pick and choose would see.
Watching someone like Jill Zarin or
Taylor Armstrong has caused physical illness and depression. Some
viewers have posted that it takes them several days to get through
one show. And yet … they keep watching. But will that continue?
Will the audience develop thicker skins or will Bravo change tacks?
Will they realize that these women whose lives are the show are not
the same as the women whose lives were merely shown on the show?
Will Bravo make a correction in the
course of this franchise or will it crash on the rocks? At risk are
women like Jill Zarin and Taylor Armstrong and Aviva Drescher. They
need therapists and a lot of alone time, not another season under the
microscope. And strictly for respect for their audience, Bravo needs
to remove these people for whom opinion has become truth. In my opinion. As someone who feels she is about to crash on the rocks of self-disgust, merely for tuning in to watch Season 3 of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, with Taylor Armstrong at her grifting, lying, horrifying best. I don't think I should feel violent disgust and still do something. Right?
Damn you, Bravo!
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