'I've always likened it to Andy Warhol's The Factory': The surprising depths of the Real Housewives franchise

Elsewhere in the venue, there is an exhibition hosting artefacts from some of the different iterations of the series. A pink, glittery facial roller, a plate of cookies and a pair of leather trousers are all encased in glass boxes, as if they were relics from Tutankhamun's tomb. To a non-viewer, they won't have any particular meaning – they are actually props from famously explosive scenes on the show –  but to the Real Housewives fandom, the cultural context of these pieces makes them lore: they are everything. The guests are in peals of laughter at seeing the objects in real life, and snap away on their phones, taking photos to post to their social media.

For outsiders looking into the Real Housewives phenomenon: its appeal can seem beyond comprehension. Critics have attacked the show as being lowest-common-denominator TV, with Gloria Steinem claiming that the series "present women as rich, pampered, dependent and hateful towards each other", and The New Feministalleging that "the show undermines the great strides for female empowerment being made elsewhere in the public arena". 

More seriously, two separate lawsuits have been filed against Bravo, the US cable network that created the franchise, by former cast members Caroline Manzo and Leah McSweeney alleging mistreatment. While both cases are still pending, Bravo and Real Housewives executive producer Andy Cohen have denied all claims. A spokesperson for Bravo tells the BBC that they are unable to comment further due to ongoing litigation, but referred back to their previous statement of denial, which included the point: "We are always improving upon our policies and procedures including stricter guidelines on alcohol consumption and direction on when to intervene to maintain safety of cast and crew, increased psychological support, enhanced workplace trainings, and a requirement to provide cast and crew with a direct line to NBCUniversal to raise concerns." 

While the legal complexities continue – at the time of writing, a judge is decidingwhether McSweeney's case will go to trial – it is debatable whether this will have an impact on the leagues of adoring Real Housewives fans across the world, to whom the franchise represents something more than a TV show. Its devotees include everyone from Rihanna (it's her favourite obsession, the singer says, after her children) to Tilda Swinton, Jon Hamm, and Michelle Obama.

The Real Housewives origin story

The franchise began almost 20 years ago on Bravo as 2006's The Real Housewives of Orange County, a reality TV show riff on the popular primetime drama of that time, Desperate Housewives. A year later, a show with the working title Manhattan Moms  – focused on similar group of older socialite women in New York – was taken under the same umbrella and became The Real Housewives of New York City, before further spin-offs in Atlanta (2008), New Jersey (2008) and Washington DC (2009) were launched. There are currently 21 different US cities hosting the Real Housewives series, and 11 overseas iterations – from the Real Housewives of Athens to Melbourne, Dubai and Budapest.

At first glance, the glossy, chaotic worlds of these designer-clad women could be dismissed as cheap, light entertainment. But that wouldn't explain the fiercely loyal and committed connection that many people have to the series and its stars. That was exemplified earlier this year by a variation on the If You Asked Me on a Deeper Level meme on TikTok, which saw a Housewives fan make claims for its hidden depths. In a much-viewed post, they declared  it was akin to a sociological study: "It's about complicated group dynamics in female friendships, social hierarchies, understanding the regional differences of the upper class and the social cues". 

"I think that's absolutely correct," says Brian Moylan, journalist and author of The Housewives: The Real Story Behind the Housewives, "and that's always what fascinated me about it. I always liken them to Tennessee Williams characters in that the best ones are a little bit delusional, they think that they're better than they are and they're all hiding some kind of darkness or conflict within themselves."

One of the franchise's stars, Sutton Stracke, who has been on the Beverly Hills show since 2020, also sees it through a similar high-cultural lens. "I've always likened it to Andy Warhol's The Factory," she tells the BBC, referencing the artist's famously debauched New York studio and breeding ground for his "superstars", adding that "there's always been hierarchies in female friendships so I think that's probably true [as to why people watch it]".

The predictability of the format coexists with the unpredictability of exactly how each character instigates, responds to and manages conflicts – Laura Grindstaff

The franchise has also been notable for giving a voice to older, 50-plus women, who traditionally have been marginalised on television. And as privileged as their lives may be, the stars have broken free of the stereotypes often afforded to middle-aged women on screen: these women are wildly glamorous, many of them successful entrepreneurs, with a vibrant social life filled with a group of girlfriends. Together, they have thrown parties, travelled the world, and argued with each other a lot, yet also helped each other through divorces, death, cancer, domestic abuse, IVF journeys and a whole manner of other life-changing experiences.

In every series, viewers watch how these women interact with each other, working through personal events, from the exceptionally trivial (the mystery of who stole someone's tequila bottle) to the profoundly devastating (being robbed at gunpoint; losing a child). Their straight- to-camera confessionals give viewers insights into their identity and social status within the group, as well as how they're expected to conform as women where they live.  

Laura Grindstaff, a professor of sociology of the University of California, points out that while it could never be viewed as an anthropological study – while not technically scripted, each episode has manufactured narrative "beats", and topics that that producers choose to focus on and then prompt the women to discuss or confront, while they are filmed by an extensive camera crew – it does have a unique pull for viewers.  

"The predictability of the format – strong women characters in luxurious settings navigating life events that generate conflict and drama – coexists with the unpredictability of exactly how each character instigates, responds to and manages these conflicts," she says.

"I think viewers are responding to this tension, along with a related tension between the ordinary and the extraordinary. The women of Housewives are 'ordinary' in the sense that they are not professional actors and in the sense that their storylines tap into universal themes of personal struggle, friendship, rivalry, loyalty, betrayal, and so on. They are extraordinary because of their affluence and because their representations are thoroughly structured by the need for drama, more often than not in the form of conflict. The housewives are emotionally volatile, larger-than-life personalities." 

The real v the unreal

And the pleasure comes for the audience when the "real" emerges from the artifice of the "reality" TV set-up, argues Grindstaff: "Viewers enjoy parsing out those moments when authentic or 'real' emotion breaks through, in seeing the blend of 'scriptedness' and spontaneity unfold, in vicariously enjoying glamour and opulence, in following the arc of a favourite character."

This delicate balance of the real and the unreal is key to the show's success. It simultaneously allows viewers to empathise with the housewives in watching them deal with their issues – and find escapist entertainment in their wealth and luxurious lifestyles, as if they are characters in a soap opera.

There's something about having to navigate one's troubles while watching the troubles that these women have, which somehow alleviates our own pain and distress – Brian Moyl

Fan Marc Blackmore, 33, explains: "I discovered Housewives during Covid," he says. "I love it on an evening, I can watch it and I can run away from everything else and just watch their lives". 

"Talking to a lot of fans," explains Moylan, "a lot of people come to Housewives during a dark period. I have a friend whose mother died and this was her escape. There were a ton of new fans during the pandemic – a collective dark time – so there's something about having to navigate one's troubles while watching the troubles that these women have, which somehow alleviates our own pain and distress in some kind of weird way."  

There is another simpler pleasure for many Housewives fans: it's often hysterically funny. Even Oscar-winning script writers couldn't write real-world episodes like a mime artist interrupting two furious frenemies on The Real Housewives of Potomac, or the New York Housewife who took off her prosthetic leg mid-row and threw it at the table in anger yelling "the only thing that's fake about me is my leg!". 

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The expansion of the Real Housewives-verse has also been taken up well across the globe. While the 21 international series all follow the same format as their US counterparts, they collectively offer insights into life for women of different cultures who again may not have traditionally been featured on TV.

For example, The Real Housewives of Dubai – although it faced criticism from human rights groups when it launched in 2022, asking why a series was being launched in a country with "violence against women" and "homophobic laws" – has seen scenes like a single mother, Sara Al Madani, teaching her then six-year-old son, Maktoum, how to cook and dine in their traditional way, as she had been brought up to in her Arabian household. She talked about the idea of toxic masculinity and how sometimes, men in her culture are told "they should not show emotions, they should not cry", as she put it. Al Madani later told Women's Health magazine her reason for joining the franchise: "I looked at it as an opportunity for me to use it as a window, to show the world and the West how Arab women are stereotyped in a very wrong way. And that we're not who they think we are". 

Meanwhile in the South African series set in the city of Durban, one episode saw Housewife Sorisha Naidoo bring together a group of women to celebrate the Hindu festival of Diwali and to introduce them to her lifestyle and beliefs. Though a peaceful dinner party, as any Housewife knows, is a folly; drama inevitably followed.  

However the diversity of the franchise only goes so far, of course: for all its increasing cultural and geographical spread, the participants remain uniformly extremely affluent. Among the many criticisms levelled against the franchise is that it promotes conspicuous consumption, while one study from Central Michigan University found that watching the heightened emotion of the dramatic series could "increase aggression, manipulation and narcissism" in viewers.  

However Grindstaff cautions that she takes "effects" studies of media, including reality TV, with a large grain of salt. "Effects as measured by self-reports are often unreliable and/or short-lived, and those measured by experiments are also typically short-lived. There's also the question about causality – does reality TV make people more argumentative or are argumentative people attracted to reality TV? Media consumption is just one aspect of a person's entire life experience and in the real world outside a research lab, there's no good way to separate off what influence the media may be having as opposed to other influences in a person's life".