Hannah Loves (Good) Reality Television
here's another new post format!
This is our weekly blog talking about what we’re obsessed with in pop culture, old and new! Changing it up so we can talk more about more things, if you can believe it.
I can say, with complete and total confidence, that Season 3 of The Real Housewives of New York (RHONY, to the fans) is the best season of television ever created. I’m including both scripted and unscripted content, so don’t try to qualify it. It is not only reality television at its best, it is simply television at its best, period, end of sentence.
It has everything any primetime dramedy should have: two best friends fighting; a pregnancy, an engagement, and a vow renewal; a girls' trip that’s colloquially called “Scary Island,”; someone crying because they received a gift basket. There is no moment that isn’t engaging. There is no fight that you can’t pick a side on. There are heroes, there are villains, and there’s someone saying, “There are three sides to every story: yours, mine, and the truth.”
This season is so good because it found the delicate balance that makes the quality of a reality show, a science that’s deeply under-appreciated. It’s somewhat similar to writing a good pop song, another underrated art form: writing a catchy hook, a tried-and-true earworm—without being too stupid, too annoying, even if it is repetitive—takes some degree of skill. Reality television, to make it just right, needs someone who knows what they’re doing. Casting, direction, concept—all have to be harmonious.
At their core, they’re interesting enough to focus on, yet frivolous enough that you exist outside of them, and they fulfill our basic human need for gossip. We all know that tidbit from Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, a book everyone bought but no one owns, where he states (not in so many words) that language stems from gossiping about where the best berries are and what’s going on down by the river. Gossip sustains us!
It’s gossip that, generally speaking, fuels the arguments in a reality show, which are the best parts. There have to be points of conflict that you can either relate to or laugh at—the former, perhaps, fighting with a friend over inviting someone you hate to a party, or the latter, maybe, playing detective to find out who was doing coke in your bathroom at your party the night before (or maybe you can relate to both!). It’s all about what you can think about after the episode ends, or talk about with friends over dinner.
A common pitfall for these shows lies in serious interpersonal conflict, especially in relationships or in sobriety journeys (which come up a fair amount), where you think okay, they need to turn the cameras off and actually help. My favorite reality show, Vanderpump Rules, became too depressing to watch as a toxic couple got married, the lead-up to which was dozens of brutal fights that should have ended their relationship (they’re divorced now, if you’re wondering).
These heavier arguments come can from picking the wrong cast, or maybe picking the right cast but at some point, the characters (and they are characters!) begin to move past the realm of Unlikable into Unforgivable territory. If someone is, maybe, lying about having cancer, or, potentially, if someone inherited wealth from arms deals, or, I don’t know, committing serious crimes, it can be harder to watch and laugh at. I’m not necessarily turning off the TV, mind you, just cringing a little more.
Reality shows are a sort of controlled burn—messy enough to keep things entertaining, but not enough to destroy the show. As long as lives can move on, people can bounce back, and you can keep the conversation at happy hour to fun arguments and not leave questioning your friends’ worldviews, then the perfect equilibrium has been met
Dolly Parton, in response to criticism over her image and her signature look, famously said, “It costs a lot of money to look this cheap.” That’s how I view reality television. So go watch Season 3 of The Real Housewives of New York, and go listen to “9 to 5”! Maybe go to Dollywood if you can, and if you do, I’m begging you, invite me!