Getting Real

So, my new job at Washingtonian is awesome. I hope you guys have been satisfied with the pace of blogging as I'm adjusting.  I'll do my best to keep it up.  But, among other things, it's really kind of mindblowing that part of my portfolio involves writing about the (hopefully) upcoming Real Housewives of DC. I was thinking a little bit about how the franchise, which is about the lives of elite women, actually has them interact with actual social elites:

New York City is big enough that if society establishment doesn’t welcome the Housewives in, it’s easy for them to stage alternate events with alternate guest lists for themselves. And some of that city’s elites are interested enough in media and popular culture to treat the cast’s involvement with Bravo as a pedigree rather than a taint. The Atlanta Housewives are self-created alternative suburban elites in the first place, the wives and ex-wifes of NFL players, former and wannabe entertainers (one of them even has a Grammy). Scarlett O’Hara may have delighted in flipping off stalwarts of Atlanta morals and norms, but her descendants aren’t even engaged with the contemporary iterations of those bastions of good behavior. The New Jersey installment of the franchise mostly ignores wider society in its core narrative by setting up a close-knit extended family and watching a disruptive outsider attempt to join their social circle. And the show that started it all, The Real Housewives of Orange County, began in a gated community, skipping implication and saying outright that the social world outside didn’t matter.

It’s going to be a lot harder for The Real Housewives of DC to isolate themselves and create significant viable alternatives to the city’s biggest social events—the Salahis knew that when they crashed the White House state dinner. There are events like that, or the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner, that on the weekend they happen are the place to be, without comparable, competitive alternatives. DC is too small a town to accommodate large elite social scenes, but it’s big enough that there are social leaders who matter, and who care about the turf they control. And setting the Housewives up as outsiders would end up denying viewers glimpses of DC’s low-watt celebrities through a decidedly new lens, transferring them from C-SPAN to a very different kind of reality TV.

Make my boss happy, help pay my salary, and check it out. And if you're interested in more DC blogging, the feed for Capital Comment is here.