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Last updated: 10:52 am
October 7, 2008
Posted: 3:07 am
October 7, 2008
JUST when you thought it couldn't get any tackier, anymore low-rent, any more embarrassing, "The Real Housewives," the most sexist, demeaning depiction of women on TV, dives to new depths.
If the pathetic, plasticized, super-white women in the New York "Housewives" group are so desperate to be famous that they have no problem humiliating their own children on national TV, the women in tonight's premiere of "The Real Housewives of Atlanta," at least stick to embarrassing themselves - and Southern women of color in general.
The Atlanta franchise of this fast-food formula TV highlights five insanely rich women who are so garish, so new rich, so embarrassingly shallow and label-obsessed and have such horrifying grammar ("We could have went anywhere!"), that the whole thing is skirting the very edge of racism. If the viewership turns out to be dominated by folks who keep extra crosses for burning in their garages, you'll know I was right. The whole setup just begs for viewers to mock these women.
The show includes DeShawn Snow, wife of the captain of the Cleveland Cavaliers. Her family moves into a house decorated without their input on tonight's show.
Then there's Kim Zolciak, a "black woman trapped in a white body." She's divorced and living on-the-arm, so how she qualifies as a "housewife," I don't know. If the show was the "Mistresses of Atlanta," it would make more sense since Kim gets her dough, new cars, clothes, etc. from a shadow figure she calls "Big Poppa." Hey, anyone seen Tennessee Williams around here?
Lisa Wu Hartwell, an Asian/African-American "housewife" married to NFL player Ed, is the most likeable woman on the show. She's busy with her own career (a real estate firm, clothing lines, modeling) and is seemingly quite lovely. What she's doing here, I can't say. Get out before you ruin your whole career - not to mention your reputation!
Front and center is NeNe Leakes, the most vocal "housewife." She's married to a real estate mogul and is constantly talking about herself and how "classy" she is.
NeNe's rival, Sheree Whitfield, who is also a big presence on the show, is no longer a housewife. She's in the midst of a nasty divorce. And so the premiere revolves around her birthday party "that is the talk of Atlanta." Right.
The sheer garishness of their homes, the inappropriateness of their clothing, the bad grammar, the total lack of understanding that this is train wreck TV taken to a new depth, is appalling. It's "Amos & Andy" for the new century.
"The Real Housewives of Atlanta"
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