Basketball Wives (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Are we all ‘frenemies?’ Forbes’ Meghan Casserly asked in a recent post about female friendships and the ForbesWoman book club discussion:Blueprints For Building Better Girls.
One close look at most reality shows will have you thinking that perhaps women are becoming frenemies.
The woman on TV and the everyday woman are becoming one and the same.
Once again, just like the model in the magazine versus the average-size woman, some still find it hard to differentiate between the reality star and the average woman.
When I sit with a successful business man who tells me this, ”I feel like I got a handle on the modern woman you know, I mean I watch reality TV from time to time,” it makes me wonder just what he thinks he knows about women.
Could it be possible that the woman on reality TV is now representative of the woman next door?
If this is the case, women might have an even tougher time. While moms try to get their teenage daughters to refrain from being bullies (or bullied), and women try to slowly eliminate the threadbare phrase, “put a bunch of women together in a room, and you get a catfight;” the sentiment is repeatedly echoed by reality show women catfights, and moments similar to this one when Real Housewives of Beverly Hills’, Camille Grammar, calls cast member Kyle Richards, a bully (although, it’s only fair to add that Camille and Kyle have both moved beyond this moment and are friends).
The girl fight is now an expectation on some reality shows.
Some say it’s a bad thing, others say the girl fight could actually be a good thing.
In 2009, long-time business woman and TV personality, Joan Rivers, lost it on this episode of Celebrity Apprentice, calling Annie Duke “trash” for being a professional poker player, and former Playboy Playmate, Brande Roderick a “stupid blonde;” later confirming her true feelings on The Ellen Degeneres Show—amidst great applause.
Later, some would speculate that perhaps the producers of the Celebrity Apprentice show were creating ‘women’ teams in order to produce TV drama among women.
Even the Oxygen Network, which prides itself for producing “engaging content for young women who like to live out loud,” has as its top girl show, a show about girls who fight each other and call themselves the Bad Girls Club.
In contrast, I might add, the reality show that features an all male cast has at its core, real estate business.
Reality TV shows are producing female frenemies.
Just recently, Basketball Wives’ Jennifer Williams sued another woman for slapping her on the reality TV show. The riff with the women started when Jennifer’s relationship with her former best friend of ten plus years, basketball wives’ Evelyn Lozada, started to unravel from this interview where Williams makes a statement about Lozada’s fiancée—New Englands Patriots’ Wide Receiver, Chad Ochocinco. After this blog post, Lozada and Williams finally stopped talking.
Later, Lozada’s assistant—Nia Crooks—takes offense once Williams cuts off ties with Crooks (the assistant to the former best friend).
The result? The resounding slap from Nia Crooks heard across the reality TV waves, a slap that the reality TV network, VH1, was only too eager to capture on its blog.
’Change’ is a bad word for women on some reality shows.
Even more telling is this negative connotation of change: once a woman is empowered to do bigger and better things, it drives other women away.
Leaving one to wonder: Does a woman’s success place her at odds with other women?
The women on BasketBall Wives seemed to have an issue with Williams because, “she’s changed.”
Let’s examine the change: Jennifer Williams got a divorce from a man she openly fought for, yet did not get his full attention in return, she owns this business but also recently started this business which causes her to associate with other business people, and she avoids violence and people who resolve conflict with violence.
I guess that defines a change worth a slap on national television.
Yet Williams is not the only reality star whose reputation was said to be marred by change.
On Real Housewives of New York City, Bethenny Frankel faced the same judgment. She was dating a new man, focused on being a chef, designing a product and building her personal brand, when she quickly became the ostracized changed woman.
In this interview with The View, Frankel, who made the list as #42 on Forbes Celebrity 100, tells the story of losing her best friend, Real Housewives of New York’s Jill Zarin.
As for the change? Well Bethenny took it to the bank, all $100 million of it.
Reality show producers edit to encourage insanity among women.
Some say that reality shows are to blame. Others argue that the shows are only taping real people and their real doings. An even bigger debate is the whole idea of the reality show edit.
Perhaps it is as J. Anthony Brown from the The Tom Joyner Morning Show, once put it, “mess sells.”
But does mess also influence?
In 2010, 15 of the top 20 highest rated broadcast television programs among those 18 to 49, were reality or unscripted shows. In fact, just recently, even daytime business news network CNBC hired VH1’s Jim Ackerman to develop reality shows for the network.
Whether these shows now infer that insanity is the best way for the modern woman to get heard or seen in real life, remains to be proven.
However, when Deshawn Snow was let go from Bravo’s Real Housewives of Altanta, she was told that she was “too human for a circus show.” Not too long after, reality star Lisa Wu Hartwell also left the show, stating creative differences because the show wanted her to “amp up the drama.”
As for the catfights on Basketball Wives, some blame the women, some blame the network, some blame executive producer and business woman Shaunie O’Neal—former wife of basketball star Shaquille O’Neal. Aside from a revealing moment shared by Tami Roman and her mother on the show—a moment that resonated with viewers because the women discuss a social issue that plagues women—and a few short clips of the women as business and family women, the majority of the show was a series of catfights. So much so that even Lozada’s fans had enough and scolded her on her own blog.
Perhaps this might be the answer to the future of women on reality TV after all: the fans.
Seeing as how there are reality shows out there that don’t include the catfights, do you think that the all-women cast will be able to rise above the catfights?
If you liked this post, you might enjoy reading:
Four Next-Gen Female Leaders You Don’t See On Your TV Screen
Cheryl is a writer, start-up junkie and global business fanatic; with a passion for women studies and global children’s issues. She also tweets and makes business personal.
