How The Last Year Has Been A Season Of The Real Housewives
Summary lead. || Photo Credit.
There is no topic I know more about than The Real Housewives. Many wouldn’t brag about this but I wear it as a badge of honor. It all started in a hotel room in Boston in 2008 where I found myself recuperating from being slightly overserved the night prior and flipping through the channels on the television. I stumbled upon a marathon of The Real Housewives of Atlanta (in its first season at the time) and immediately knew I had found my home. I wasted an entire tourist day in Boston watching the marathon. Who needs Fenway Park when you are witnessing the birth of “She by Shereé”? Who needs to tour Harvard’s campus when Kim Zolciak is changing clothes in a gas station parking lot? The real history was happening right before my very eyes and even a hotel fire wouldn’t have pried me away from that television.
Since that fateful day, I have seen every episode of every single Real Housewives franchise in the US at least once (including the short-lived D.C. season). I have also seen many of the international spin-offs. I don’t say this to brag, I say it to provide the proper credentials to show you that if there is one thing I know, it is Housewives.
So am I the only one that feels like they have been living in a season of The Real Housewives the last 12 months?
Think about it. There are staples that usually happen in every season of The Real Housewives, and these staples feel so similar to what we have been experiencing over the last year.
THE GLASS-OF-WINE-IN-THE-FACE
There is nothing more “Housewives” than a Housewife tossing a glass of wine in another’s face in a heated moment. I even went to the exact location that Rinna threw wine in Kim’s face in Season 5 of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills during a 2015 vacation in Amsterdam to pay my respects. March 2020, we all had wine thrown in our face. Heck, many of us have had a few glasses of wine tossed at us since then. And much like that glass of wine, so many great projects that were years in the making were wasted and couldn’t be enjoyed. The wine can’t easily be put back in the bottle and has left some stains. Eileen Davidson from The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills had the best reaction to a glass of wine being thrown in her face. She remained calm. She remained professional. She had an adult conversation with the person who threw the wine in her face. That isn’t an easy way to handle a tough situation. In the end though, it was the healthiest and the most productive reaction, and serves as a good reminder for me to try and always choose calmness first when faced with pandemic stress.
(Sidenote: I do not condone throwing wine in someone’s face. I do condone throwing wine down your own mouth.)
THE TUG-OF-THE-HAIR
Shereé famously first tugged Kim's wig in Season 2 of The Real Housewives of Atlanta (with Lindsay Lohan’s dad randomly in the background) and the hair pulling trend was born. And just like Shereé was testing how resilient that wig glue was on the synthetic wig Kim was sporting, the pandemic has tested our resilience too. Whether our wigs were just shifted slightly or completely ripped off, we have all been caught off guard by the circumstances of this pandemic. But what do we do now that we are standing here with our wigs on the floor on national television? We have two options. We either put the same wig back on our head and keep our fingers crossed this doesn’t happen again. Or we find the most industrial strength wig glue ever made and tack that wig down so tightly that a hurricane wouldn’t even blow it off. I’m subscribing to the second option. We never know when the next wig snatcher is going to come along, but we can do whatever we can to try and be better prepared if it happens again.
(Sidenote: I do not condone pulling hair. I do strongly condone wig wearing.)
SNAGGING THE BEST ROOM IN THE VACATION HOUSE
The Housewives always go on vacations together. You mean you don’t go on trips with people you are currently fighting with? And it never fails, they cross the threshold of the home they are all staying in together and they are racing through the house like horses in the Kentucky Derby trying to find and claim the “best room”. Ramona and Sonja from The Real Housewives of New York City are the most notorious for this. It reminds me of so many of us in our industry who have spent so much energy this last year racing to think of the next best “pivot” idea to help us sustain while live events weren’t possible and beat others to the punch. I know I personally put so much pressure on myself to come up with the next big idea for RED VELVET so we could be the first to launch something genius. But I look back now and at the end of the day, there is no “best room in the house”. The best idea for our company isn’t necessarily the best idea for another company and vice versa. And just like the Housewives shouldn’t be stressing over room selection and just be happy they are on vacation, we should all be proud that we had (and continue to have) the creativity and the tenacity to think outside of the box and come up with the best ideas we can during a weird time. So pat yourself on the back and hopefully you can find something to like about whatever room you ended up with.
(Sidenote: I do not condone being bad travel mates. I do condone us all going on vacations very very soon.)
THE DOOMED VOW RENEWAL
There is no greater prediction of a future divorce than a Housewives couple doing a vow renewal. It is the kiss of death. Ramona and Mario. Vicki and Don. Shannon and David. Peter and Cynthia. I’ll stop there. They give us, the viewer, so much hope that the cracks we see in their marriages are all sealed and we have nothing to worry about. And then they divorce. Have you felt that way a million times during this pandemic? That hopeful feeling only to have the reality set in? I have. “Covid-19 numbers are dropping!” Back up again. “Bars and restaurants can open back up with limited capacity!” Closed again. It has been a whirlwind. But what is the one thing that all of those above-mentioned Housewives have in common? They are all okay now. It was rough for a while, but they are okay. In fact, they are all thriving. I know eventually our industry will be back to where it was, and in the case of Ramona, looking better than ever.
(Sidenote: I do not condone all vow renewals ending in divorce. I do condone on-air vow renewals creating revenue for caterers, entertainers, florists and planners.)
Let me leave you with this thought: The second season of any individual Housewife is always a pivotal moment in their legacy on the show. We can look at Denise Richards and Portia Williams as two examples of this. Portia thrived in her second season based on the lessons she learned in her first and quickly became a fan favorite. Denise barely showed up and her second season was her demise. It looks like our second season is on the horizon now. How do you plan on showing up?
The highlight of every Housewives season is the reunion at the end. I’m excited to have a reunion with all of you soon. We can get dressed up, sit on the couch next to each other and recap the last year. I promise not to shout or storm off of the set (another staple Housewife move). But I do promise there will be a champagne toast at the end.
Need some strategic insight for your next brand activation? We’d love to hear from you.
