Pop Culture!

The Housewives of the World, my participation in reality television

Season 12 Poster of 'The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills'

Sourced via: bravotv.com

In a globalised world, ‘Pop Culture’ seems to become more and more relevant and interconnected no matter which corner of the world you witness and participate in it from. We all live rather similar and relatable lives nowadays, to some degree, of course this is dependent on factors such as finance, class, race, gender and personality. Popular Culture defines itself in unlimited forms of media; film, television, books, art, fashion, music and sport. Anything with a ‘buzz’ can be considered Pop Culture.

I find it interesting the ways in which a piece of pop culture impacts our society, specifically in the forms of audience creation and fanbases. In a world where diverse populations have access to increasingly abundant media environments, it has emerged as an important theoretical construct for explaining audience behaviour,” (Ksiazek, Webster, 2008). In 2020, I was exposed to ‘The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills’ through Netflix, and I’ve been a pretty big fan of the series since. This is definitely a guilty pleasure of mine, I’m not at all proud of it, I know the show is not one that has extreme depth and meaning to it, but I suppose that’s exactly what drew me in.

Reality television is an avenue of Pop Culture that I’ve been involved in for, well… quite frankly as long as I can remember. When I reflect, shows like Australian Idol, The Block and Big Brother are definitely scattered throughout my childhood memories. I remember being little and watching shows like these with my family over dinner and late at night. I think this reality tv love affair then developed and continued when I was a pre-teen. I loved watching Keeping Up With The Kardashians in the early days of high school. Married At First Sight was created around that time too and I enjoyed watching that for a few years. Australian Survivor was rebooted by Channel 10 in 2016 also and I absolutely fell in love with the show and have supported it ever since. So when I was in Year 11 and going through Covid-19 lockdowns, scrolling through Netflix, it’s not too hard to understand why The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills (RHOBH) caught my eye.

I watched the first season pretty quickly and since then have watched all 11 seasons of the show, thanks to Hayu and Binge! RHOBH is currently in the middle of airing its twelfth season and I’ve continued to keep up with that too. This for sure speaks to the level of globalisation we have reached in popular culture and society, if a seventeen year old boy in Sydney, Australia, had an interest in the happenings of middle aged women on the other side of the world…

The Real Housewives is a global franchise

Sourced via: iRealHousewives.com

The Housewives is actually an extremely popular franchise which has extended from North America and into many other regions including the UK, Europe, South Africa, Dubai and even Australia with Foxtel’s editions to the franchise including The Real Housewives of Melbourne and The Real Housewives of Sydney. I suppose its popularity can be traced to the increasing interest that globalisation has caused lower and middle class people to have in higher class people. I know that for me I mostly use reality tv as a form of entertainment and escape from my own personal problems and day-to-day thinking. There are lots of conversations about the Housewives on platforms such as Twitter, Reddit and even Instagram which I’ve witnessed and occasionally been involved in. The global economy is powered by the internet, and to be not connected impacts serious development” (O’Shaughnessy, 2012). I know that I feel like I’m missing out if I don’t check online forums to see what other audience members are thinking after a new episode drops. So, if it weren’t for popular culture and globalisation, I suppose I would have never discovered RHOBH, for better or for worse.

Reference List

Ksiazek, T. and Webster, J., 2008. Cultural Proximity and Audience Behavior: The Role of Language in Patterns of Polarization and Multicultural Fluency. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 52(3), pp.485

O'Shaughnessy, M. (2012). "Globalisation." in Media and Society, Oxford University Press, pp. 458-471.

Moylan, B. 2021. Gloria Steinem hates it - but is The Real Housewives secretly a feminist triumph?. The Guardian (TheGuardian.com) Accessed via: https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2021/jun/08/gloria-steinem-hates-it-but-is-the-real-housewives-secretly-a-feminist-triumph

MrPopCulture.com (Unknown, Unknown) What is Pop Culture? Accessed via: https://mrpopculture.com/what-is-pop-culture/