Today, because it’s raining and I’m coming down with something, I’m watching an episode of Dr Phil in the middle of the day.
The subject is unusual phobias. One woman can’t stand any kind of human sounds – like breathing, sniffing and swallowing. She also struggles to touch people, including her husband and daughter.
The other has a long list of things that drive her crazy. Seeing a bed with crinkles on it is one of them.
She also has a pregnancy addiction. I have my own set of issues but the
Dr Phil show is not a place I’d be taking any of them. It’s a brave person who puts their stuff on television.
Which leads me, directly, to the flamboyant bunch of well-heeled women who’ve been selected by television producers to represent the “real” housewives of Melbourne.
Let’s just move quickly on from the fact that none of them is, in the historical or actual sense of the word, a housewife.
No one’s struggling with toddlers or the washing basket; they’re hooking up for lunch in sequin dresses and taking rides around town in limos.
But this isn’t reality television. It’s fabricated, one step removed from The Truman Show, because none of these carefully handpicked women are running into each other at Costco.
Someone’s orchestrating all their champagne lunches and limo rides, primarily, it would appear, so they can cat fight with each other.
It’s nasty stuff, really, but no fault of the stars. Each of these women is smart and sassy and probably great fun to have a champers with, but one can also assume they were selected because the producers suspected there might be stuff about them the audience would find annoying.
I’m not seeing all that much posh either, which should be irrelevant except that this global television franchise has been established on the premise that rich housewives with nothing to do all day but have lunch and spend money can be entertaining, albeit in a hateful sort of way, for normal television-watching people.
But the real old money in Melbourne would never expose itself on television. This bunch is the showbiz, hard-working end of the spectrum.
They are clever, they run businesses and families, and I’m absolutely sure there’s more below the surface of big hair and spectacular make-up for the producers to reveal about their lives.
Surely there’s more than the ins and outs of who told someone whether or not the other one said the fortune teller was wrong. (Fancy that, a fortune teller being wrong. How very dare they!)
I don’t mind how these women live their lives. In fact, I think it would be a riot colour-coding my wardrobe and dragging my husband away from work so he can buy me a dress.
But, ladies, you have a TV show. Make it worthwhile. Say something, anything, to make a difference. Don’t let the producers reduce your lives, and reflect badly on all of ours, by spending the entire series party-planning and back-stabbing.
At this stage I’m thinking there’d be more fun to be had watching the Real Housewives of East Bentleigh or Reservoir or Geelong West.
Actually, in my patch, there wouldn’t be a lot of competitive party-throwing or back-stabbing, just coffee and compliments for whoever can put together the best outfit from the op shop and tally up a good energy credit from their solar panels. I guess that’s not good TV, though.
Dr Phil and his bunch of mixed-up American housewives with phobias are looking much more interesting to me right now.
– khall@theweeklyreview.com.au
