Southern Belles Louisville - Not Suitable for Sensitive Viewers

May all applicable deities, djinns and spirits be invoked, and my household instructed to inform visitors, in hushed tones, that I am laid upon the bed!

I have watched the "Real Housewives," in all its various ghastly iterations. I have squee!ed and shuddered in delighted disgust with the best of them in the unspeakably lurid parade of the majestic oeuvre of Chris Abrego, each more grandiloquently repellent than the last.

So what is it about the seemingly innocuous-by-comparison Southern Belles Louisville that makes my flesh crawl?

It took me a while to figure it out, but I think, to put it as politely as possible, that it is the diminished suspension of disbelief requirement.

With all due respect to DiVello, Abrego, et al, their creations give the senses an "out." The much-decried obviously scripted and totally UN-real nature of the reality shows to which we have become accustomed permit us to emerge from our viewing experience comforted, even if subconsciously, by the knowledge that it is "just a show," a work of fiction no different from Ong Bak or Original Recipe Exorcist.

But somehow, Southern Belles Louisville, whether due to artistic intent on the part of the director or exceptional dramatic talent on the part of the cast, fails to provide that cooling spray of reassurance.

These hamsters, this reality show, cranks the realness up a couple of notches past my viewing pleasure center.

Maybe it is just the unavoidable damning by faint praise of calling these characters "better drawn" than the typical Rock of Love skank, a sort of superficial pseudo-documentary version of Arendt's banality of evil.

Or maybe it's because that banality hits a little too close to home in ways that at least for most of us, Bikini Corrie and Heidi Montag do not.

While relatively few of us can make such a claim about Saaphyri or Brittanya, if we are to be brutally honest, and leaving aside any and all distinctions of geographical or cultural context, most of us have, at some point in our lives, known these Belles.

And even more poignantly, most of us will have, at some point in our lives, faced the sad task of comforting their hapless Beaux.

The Belles' grisly payload of skeeve is not about just another gaggle of bimbos "suckin back" on the glorified screwdriver whose current popularity has no doubt caused the descendants of that crafty old imperialist Lauchlin Rose to ceaselessly bless his crusty old opportunistic soul, nor is it yet another stream of glittering scenes of yet another charity event where the total sum of funds raised is slightly less than price paid by most of the attendees for their gowns.

If we are tempted to gasp at the incogitant cruelty of Hadley, as she describes her dream wedding standing two feet from the man who has just declared himself and been spurned, what really gets us is the look on his face. That's just a smoosh realer than I like my reality, thanks just the same.

Hadley actually breaks two hearts in the course of the first episode. Her best friend, who, though presented to us as a "ladies man," has the words "quintessential nice guy" painted all over his every word and gesture, is also in love with her, and meets the same sad fate as his rival.

If we can manage to move past the cringeworthy pathos of those sorry little scenes, we are obliged to acknowledge that it would be disingenuous, not to mention impossible, to completely divorce the show's zeitgeist from cultural context.

On the contrary, we are hit in the face with the social costs of a culture in which some of the children remain children until they are well into their thirties.

If Hadley displays the emotional nescience of a teenaged girl, Emily seems similarly oblivious to the gilded cage from which she acts out "her dream."

Thanks to parents depicted as annoying salt of the earth folksy folks who dine at a card table adorned with a bottle of supermarket salad dressing, whose down-home working class ethos belies their inherited millions, in return for some relatively mild belittling of her unremarkable hairstyle choices, Emily receives the safety net that permits her to eschew a seat in the family boardroom in favor of a low-wage fun job at the local TV station.

The Belles' blondetourage is rounded out by Kellie, the obligatory divorcee "waiting for her settlement," currently obliged to live in a modest home that she petulantly boasts would have fit into the garage of the residence provided by her erstwhile spouse. The poor thing has even been reduced to using one of the bedrooms as a closet, to accomodate the designer spoils of her late marriage. At 32, Kellie declares she wants to have her own money now. She wants her settlement, dammit!

Of all the Belles, Julie is the least fleshed out, at least in the first episode, where her role seems to be primarily that of Culture Victim. A low-end fashion model in her mid-thirties, she is now subjected to the indignity of being told she could get work in ad campaigns looking for "soccer mom types." As the camera moves from the decade-old glamour shots in her book to her face upon hearing this verdict from a smug-faced agent, the narrator doesn't have to say a word. The strains of the leitmotif of heartbreak swell as clearly as if sounded by a score of violins. Julie's story is trite but true. The Youth Culture really does destroy lives and souls. Well, duh.

Speaking of narration, apparently Shea does need some. We hear her background described as "nouveaux riche," against a montage that screams "Ya think?" If ever reality show has shown us a stereotype, Shea is it. Her shallowness and vapidity soar to cartoonish near-Hills quality heights. She has captured, it would seem, the heart of a suitor, but pouts that she has no ring. She takes him shopping for one. He would, he says, need to sell both kidneys in order to afford one that she would wear.

Shea is the creepiest of all because if you have known only one Belle in your lifetime, whether you knew her in Louisville, Lagos or Lhasa, in the 20s, the 60s, the 80s, she's the one you knew.

Maybe you know her today. And even if you missed it, you just know she had a really amazing Super Sweet Sixteen.

Real Housewives of New York: Chihuahua Tongue Flashback and The Count is an Old Rake

In case we had forgotten about RHNY's contribution to the Most Revolting Moments In Television Hall of Ew, Jill promises her little chihuahua dog that if he cooperates with having his Halloween costume fitted, she will "let" him insert his tongue deep into her nose and lick it clean.

Mercifully, we were spared a repeat of Ms Zarin's preferred combination nasal hygiene and animal cruelty performance.

This week's real RHNY gossip was off-camera - according to reports, Count de Lesseps (who received his title as a result of an ancestor having arranged for some rich men to make some more money) has forsaken his erstwhile Countess Luann, who refers to herself as a "Native American from Connecticut," for Her Royal Highness Princess Kemeria Abajobir Abajifar of the ancient Gibe Kingdom in the land today popularly known as Ethiopia.

Luann, who distinguished herself on the show for expressing displeasure when Bethenny introduced her to a driver as "Luann," instead of "Countess de Lesseps," maybe ten minutes before a scene in which she is shown addressing catering staff by their first names, and hurling an especially ugly back-handed putdown at a ten year old girl who said she wanted to be a model when she grew up, and snort-sneering at another who aspired to be a baby-sitter, has written a book called "Class with the Countess."

Count and Countess are said to be currently "separated," but if they should divorce, will outraged readers demand that the publisher send them a new copy of the book with an updated title? Maybe "Class with the Ex-Countess," or "Class with a Native American from Connecticut?"

On the show, however, Luann goes shopping with her daughter, who, she says, enjoys "watching her (Luann) getting dressed in the dressing room." (WTF?)

She buys the daughter a black hoodie identical to one I got last week at Wal-Mart, except the daughter's has unsightly elbow patches. Mine cost $9.

I hope the Possibly Soon-to-be Ex-Countess didn't pay a whole lot extra for those patches.

After re-watching a few episodes, I have, upon reflection, come to the realization that Kelly, at least as she is depicted on the show, may be "troubled," and thus the only appropriate comment would be to express the sincere hope that she will seek and receive any help she may need.

Real Housewives of Orange County : A Transcontinental Leap

It is impossible to watch even one episode of Real Housewives of Atlanta without recalling the words of Miss Margaret Mitchell, and it will henceforth be impossible to read Miss Mitchell's words without recalling NeNe.:

"...But Atlanta was of her own generation, crude with the crudities of youth and
as headstrong and impetuous as herself..."

Thanks to the miracle of Dish Network's Tivoid, I was able to televiport directly from the Atlanta reunion show to the season premiere set in the SoCal enclave of Coto de Casas, and I enjoyed the immediacy of that transition.

Although I recognize that their own view would be very different, from my perspective, the Housewives of the various locations seem to have share much more than the relatively small if visible and entertaining cultural details, such as accents, that separate them, and the new season promises to reassure viewers who need it that little seems to have changed in the lives of the California hamsters.

These are, in the reality show universe, Old Money people, since they have had a lot of it for ten or twenty years, as opposed to the Atlanta cast, who just received theirs ten minutes ago, and while all the Housewives, regardless of location, are obviously selected for their strong drama potential, the OC hamster selection process seems to also cleave very closely to the SoCal enclave stereotype that has been presented to the world via a whole schedule full of other shows, and rightly so, as the world cannot seem to get enough of this remarkable subculture.

While the Atlanta bunch are still actively choosing how to spend their newly minted money, their SoCal counterparts have pretty much done that. Vicky, for example, has a "lake house" that is paid for, and which she plans to sell in order to purchase a million dollar pleasure yacht.

That the yacht contains household appliances is beyond anything she has ever imagined, she is surprised and delighted.

Lauri, over a breakfast of eggs and what appears to be rather revolting little nodules of some meat product, asks her recently acquired "multi-millionaire" husband George where they will go on their honeymoon.

Without hesitation, he replies "Dubai," which Lauri does not like, and indicates this by an insistent declaration that Dubai would be a good stopover, for shopping, she adds with a meaningful glance George-ward, but she wishes the honeymoon to take place on an island where they will be pampered.

It is as clear that Lauri has never even so much as talked to anyone who has visited Dubai, with the possible exception of George, and whose opinion on the subject does not interest her, as it is clear that Vicki has never set foot on a pleasure yacht of the type she had already determined to purchase.

George suggests, with resigned cheerfulness, that they ask a prominent billionaire for the loan of his private island. Lauri seems pleased enough with this.

Tamra's son is moving into a new apartment, and her segment consists almost entirely of the process of Ryan and Simon moving a large TV into the headstrong youth's new digs.

He has left his low-wage job at the car part place, and is now making what is considered at least an Orange County-style Living Wage of sorts at a construction company. What, if anything, he actually does is not clear.

Tamra's mother has decided to get a face lift, and while they are at the plastic surgeon's for her inistial consultation, Tamra announces that she wants to age gracefully and nestles back onto the examining table and has her lips injected.

Poor sad Jeana is still separated from her head-injured husband, Matt. Apparently still refusing treatment for the sequelae of a severe head injury some years ago, he has moved back into the house with Jeana. To cope with his presence, she plans to redecorate a couple of rooms.

Kara, who surprised many viewers last season by choosing to attend Berkely, has remained strong in her traditional SoCal enclave reality show values, and seems to be enjoying living in a different cultural milieu and cultivating contempt for her fellow Berkelians.

The older son, whose name escapes me which would probably please him, apparently does not want to be on the reality show any more, and Jeana was obliged to bribe him by hiring a chef to make a special breakfast in exchange for his appearance in a scene or two and uttering a couple of monosyllables.

All in all, despite the variological intrigue of the teleleap from Atlanta to SoCal, nothing much has happened in the enclave, and that's how they like it.

The biggest change, I guess, is the departure of Tammy? Or did she leave season before last? Whenever it was, it was obvious that she put the needs of her family before our entertainment, proof that she never really did fit in, anyway.

This season features the addition of two new hamsters. From only a couple of frames in the pre-show promos, I thought that Gretchen's fiance Jeff reminded me of a post-surgery Kenny Rogers, and apparently I'm not the only one, as within minutes of introducing the new couple, both Jeana and Gretchen mentioned seeing the same resemblance.

And that is about the extent of thoughts and comments that would be appropriate for me to share about Jeff and Gretchen.

Jeff has leukemia. I hope that he will beat the disease and regain his health, and keep him, and all who love him, in my prayers.