Viewers love the women of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills for their lavish lifestyles, killer comebacks, and delicious drama. I’ll happily spend hours watching Lisa Rinna smash wine glasses, listening to Dorit Kemsley’s faux accent, and laughing at Kathy Hilton’s failure to perform basic tasks without the aid of her massive staff. It’s just. so. fun. But, let’s be honest, it’s far from “reality.” The show is heavily scripted: from the “impromptu” trips the women take to the “random run-ins” with contracted guests, there is little-to-no actual life displayed in the program.
This season, however, the housewives are having to confront an issue that is undeniably real. Cast member Erika Girardi’s husband, Tom Girardi, has been convicted of embezzling millions of dollars from his law firm clients. Among his victims are widows, breast cancer patients, and orphans of plane-crash victims. Yeah, it’s as bad as it sounds. Erika is also potentially implicated — her LLC received 20 million dollars from the firm.
While Erika maintains that she was unaware of any malpractice, the circumstances are admittedly fishy: the housewife filed for divorce shortly before the accusations were made public and repeatedly lied on the show about Tom and his firm throughout the years. The housewives now have to confront this new information about Erika as it is released in the press as well as grapple with the difficult decision of whether to stick by their friend through this messy legal process.
While I can always get behind some juicy drama, watching these serious accusations unfold on TV has left me feeling slightly uncomfortable. This isn’t some petty fight over which glass to serve champagne in — these accusations are real and scary. To act as though these tragedies exist on the same level as the other, superficial drama on the show is both insensitive to the victims and plainly incorrect.
It should be noted that this isn’t the first time that the show has addressed matters of larger significance. During the #MeToo movement, Lisa Rinna brought up Professor Christine Blasey Ford’s sexual assault accusations against Justice Brett Kavanaugh and discussed her own mother’s rape. This season, cast members Kyle Richards and Garcelle Beauvais addressed the Black Lives Matter movement and some of the microaggressions that have been said on the show in the past. Alcohol recovery has been a major theme throughout the seasons as well, with Kim Richards chronicling her journey to sobriety and Eden Sassoon sharing her own addiction problems too.
The question remains, how does reality TV fit into social and political landscapes? Should it only serve as a form of extreme escapism? Or, should it tackle these real-world issues?
Unfortunately, I don’t have an answer yet. What I can say is that I will continue to watch this season of RHOBH to see how both Erika’s and the group’s personal issues play out. I am interested to see how the show will navigate these topics, and whether they will show proper sensitivity to the victims by appropriately denouncing Tom’s actions. If they do not, I will have to re-evaluate my appreciation for the show. Concurrently, if someone doesn’t throw wine on someone else’s face before the end of the season, I will also have to reconsider my loyalty.
We’ll just have to wait and see.