The Fantasy of Reality: Critical Essays on «The Real Housewives»

by Rachel E. Silverman (Editor)

Overview

With over twenty different casts, multiple spin-off series, and five international locations, The Real Housewives franchise is a television phenomenon. The women on these shows have reinvented the soap opera diva and in doing so, have offered television viewers a new opportunity to embrace a loved, yet waning, genre. As the popularity and prevalence of the docu-drama genre of reality TV continues to increase, the time is ripe for a collection of this sort. The Fantasy of Reality: Critical Essays on ‘The Real Housewives’ explores the series and the women of The Real Housewives through the lens of race, class, gender, sexuality, and place. The contributing authors use an expansive and impressive array of methodological approaches to examine particular aspects of the series, offering rich analysis and insight along the way. This collection takes seriously what some may mock and others adore. Chapters are both fun and informative, lending themselves well to Housewives fans and media scholars alike.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781433130489
Publisher:	Peter Lang Inc., International Academic Publishers
Publication date:	05/22/2015
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	198
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Rachel E. Silverman (PhD, University of South Florida) is Assistant Professor of Communication in the Department of Humanities and Communication at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University. She is co-editor of Communicating Pregnancy Loss: Narrative as A Method for Change (Peter Lang, 2015).

Table of Contents

Contents: The Real Housewives: Casts and Seasons ‒ Ragan Fox: Queering «Housewives» ‒ Robin M. Boylorn: «Brains, Booty and All Bizness»: Identity Politics, Ratchet Respectability, and The Real Housewives of Atlanta ‒ Nicole B. Cox: Race (Re)visited: It’s a (Mostly) White World ‒ Erin Ashenhurst: Sunshine Blondes in a City of Glass: On Watching the Real Vancouver ‒ Watching and Selling The Real Housewives ‒ Jacquelyn Arcy: Affective Enterprising: Branding the Self Through Emotional Excess ‒ Peter Bjelskou: The Real Entrepreneurs of New York City: Selling Elegance and Class in the Marketplace ‒ Rachael Liberman: Hate-Watching the Housewives: Gender, Power, and the Pleasure of Judgment ‒ Emily D. Ryalls: Do Mean Girls Grow Up? Watching «Queen Bee» Stassi Schroeder on Reality Television ‒ Judy Battaglia, Ashley Cordes, Kathleen Norris, and Roxanne Bañuelos: Love the Housewives, but Where’s Our Feminism? ‒ David Gudelunas: Every Housewife’s Best Friend: The Sidekick ‒ Without Him, The Real Housewives Wouldn’t Exist ‒ Keith Berry/Tony E. Adams: Notes on Andy Cohen.

Editorial Reviews

«When Betty Friedan diagnosed ‘the problem that has no name,’ housewives were confined to the family home. Today, ‘real-life’ housewives saturate media culture as reality TV performers, microcelebrities, savvy entrepreneurs, and brands. This lively collection analyzes the contemporary gender, race, class, and sexual politics of Bravo’s Real Housewives franchise, and situates the televisual performance of housewifery within debates over commercialization, feminine cultural forms, and the new media landscape of the twenty-first century. Scholars and fans alike will appreciate this book.»
(Laurie Ouellette, Associate Professor, University of Minnesota; Co-editor of Reality TV: Remaking Television Culture)
«The Fantasy of Reality: Critical Essays on The Real Housewives explores the series and the women of The Real Housewives through the lens of race, class, gender, sexuality, and place. The contributing authors use an expansive and impressive array of methodological approaches to examine particular aspects of the series, offering rich analysis and insight along the way.This collection insightfully and systematically reveals the ways in which The Real Housewives franchise holds up a funhouse mirror to issues of race, class, gender, and sexuality in contemporary America. It sorts through the distortions and reveals both the underlying flaws and the lurking potentials that fascinate fans and critics alike. This is an engaging read and an important contribution to the academic literature on reality TV.»
(Mark Andrejevic, Associate Professor, Pomona College; Author of Reality TV: The Work of Being Watched)

«When Betty Friedan diagnosed ‘the problem that has no name,’ housewives were confined to the family home. Today, ‘real-life’ housewives saturate media culture as reality TV performers, microcelebrities, savvy entrepreneurs, and brands. This lively collection analyzes the contemporary gender, race, class, and sexual politics of Bravo’s Real Housewives franchise, and situates the televisual performance of housewifery within debates over commercialization, feminine cultural forms, and the new media landscape of the twenty-first century. Scholars and fans alike will appreciate this book.»
(Laurie Ouellette, Associate Professor, University of Minnesota; Co-editor of Reality TV: Remaking Television Culture)
«The Fantasy of Reality: Critical Essays on The Real Housewives explores the series and the women of The Real Housewives through the lens of race, class, gender, sexuality, and place. The contributing authors use an expansive and impressive array of methodological approaches to examine particular aspects of the series, offering rich analysis and insight along the way.This collection insightfully and systematically reveals the ways in which The Real Housewives franchise holds up a funhouse mirror to issues of race, class, gender, and sexuality in contemporary America. It sorts through the distortions and reveals both the underlying flaws and the lurking potentials that fascinate fans and critics alike. This is an engaging read and an important contribution to the academic literature on reality TV.»
(Mark Andrejevic, Associate Professor, Pomona College; Author of Reality TV: The Work of Being Watched)

From the Publisher