This Episode of “Real Housewives of New York” Was Performative Pride Allyship at Its Finest

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Allies are the real backbone of queer culture.

[cue laugh track]

Just kidding. I hope you weren’t ready to flip a table at that statement, because today we are taking a journey into what allyship looks like on screen. What is an ally, really? Your options are: A) a Lady Gaga billboard, B) someone who tweets out “love is love” or “trans rights are human rights” for clout, C) a politician who “supports us” but then casually allows anti-queer policies to pass, D) the nice lady who yells “HIS PRONOUNS ARE THEY/THEM”.

The answer is actually E) all of the above, but allies are so much more than just that. Allies are everywhere on television, and we as queer people should be incredibly thankful for that, but my personal favorite place that celebrates allyship is none other than the Real Housewives franchise. No other series has done quite as much for representation on the small screen as Andy Cohen and his wide collection of American Girl dolls come to life, many of them dragging their gay accessories along with them to gossip with about their frenemies.

Since beginning my deep dive into the world of RH, I’ve been particularly taken by Real Housewives of New York. One episode especially has never left my mind when it comes to the housewives and how they interact with queer people. Hell, a scene from it was even tweeted out this year with the playful “happy pride month” phrase attached. That’s right folks, in this ongoing celebration of Pride, we’re going to talk about season four, episode two of RHONY, “March Madness.”

Let’s jump back over a decade to the top of RHONY’s fourth season, arguably one of the weakest of the series overall but not without its treasures (from stolen hangers to bumpy camel rides). All of the drama from past seasons continues to boil as this one begins, people try to sweep their mistakes under the rug to start fresh, and the women all come together and vaguely pretend to like each other at the first event of the season. While tensions are still low, Alex McCord announces she and her husband Simon are on the committee for the Marriage Equality March, which will proceed from Manhattan to Brooklyn to support those who want to get married and cannot, and that all of the women are invited to march along with them in their wedding dresses (or a white outfit that is adjacent in some capacity).

It’s a simple invitation that, without the context to come, is actually rather endearing. After all, this was 2010, and the Marriage Equality Act had still not been passed (though the season aired in 2011 just months prior to its signing). Seeing a bunch of straight women — Sonja included despite her attraction to women being alluded to many times later in the series, though she never identifies as “bisexual” herself — band together and set aside their issues for the sake of supporting queer people in their journey toward marriage (which was the issue du jour at the time) was a net positive. Do Ramona and one of her friends insert their own conservatism by toasting and suggesting marching for a small government? Sure. Does Jill take the moment and make it all about her as usual? Also yes. But, y’know, as queer people, we are forced to settle for crumbs.

It doesn’t take long for this to sour though, as everything about this event quickly becomes about none other than the women themselves instead of the people they claim to be doing this for. In the same episode, Jill makes excuses for not being able to attend the march while still being on some sort of honorary committee, and Alex guilt trips her about not attending. But the true magic doesn’t begin until “March Madness” itself.

Sonja Morgan begins the episode by noting she was invited to be the grand marshall and one of several speakers at the event, explaining that MENY (Marriage Equality New York) described her as the ideal opener: light, funny, and “such a gay icon.” Now, to be fair, Sonja Morgan is a gay icon (she’s “raised millions for the LGBT”), and I will admit to having had many a session with my therapist explaining how deeply and painfully I relate to her at times, but I digress. As soon as Alex enters the room, she reminds everyone that she is on the host committee, and the episode becomes a question of whose event it really is. As Kelly aptly puts it: “So is it Sonja’s day or is it Alex’s day? I’m not sure, but I was marching for marriage equality.”

Alex, bless her heart, tries to explain the significance of wearing bridal gowns to this event and is instantly cut off by Kelly, who clarifies they’re really just doing it because it’s fun and campy, while Sonja emphasizes this isn’t a public broadcast, and Luann calls her an annoying infomercial. What follows is a series of inane conversations about dressing up and various women challenging each other about the fact that it isn’t their day, but actually a day to support marriage equality. “She was trying to take ownership of a day that was supposed to be about a cause, not about a person,” Alex notes about Sonja.

This is further proven by the fact that, upon arriving at the event itself, Alex discovers that Sonja has blocked any of the other housewives (and their husbands) from speaking at the event. Simon, who had a speech prepared, has essentially been cockblocked because, as Sonja notes, “it’s about me.” The thing is, as right as Alex and Simon are in their frustration about the whole thing, they do, inevitably, participate in the same game as Sonja does. Everything becomes about them.

For half the damn episode, the women (and Simon) do nothing but argue with each other about who exactly is the problem and who exactly is doing the most for marriage equality and gay rights. Sonja’s speech (if you didn’t click the link above, I implore you to do so now) was something of a disaster, and Simon’s speech, which he recited in private to his friends at home, isn’t much better despite coming from a seemingly more sincere place. Every minute of this fight for marriage equality became something else: a showcase of who, exactly, should be allowed to pat themselves on the back the most.

These are people who have proposed themselves as bastions of selflessness, sacrificing their time and energy and voices for the sake of queer people, but are incredibly selfish in the way they approach it. There is no talk of why any of this matters beyond shallow comparisons to straight life, as it is simply a given that it matters because these women say it does.

To revisit and write about this episode, in some ways, feels like analyzing an ancient relic, something that is so bafflingly dated that it’s hard to imagine we were ever there. Even beyond the absurdity of the reality series itself, there’s something ridiculous about looking back at just a decade ago and realizing that marriage was the sole priority of queer people in charge. It’s easy to laugh at Jill when she jokes that gay people should suffer as much as straight people in marriage, but when you think about it — isn’t it laughable that that’s exactly what people were happy to settle for instead of fighting for safety beyond that?

“March Madness”, as completely unhinged and dated as it is, also reveals something far more depressing and contemporary: Nothing has really changed. Is watching faux-celebrities bicker over who is the best ally not essentially what we do every day now between Twitter and the news? I’ve long maintained that reality television, for all its inanity, is something of a microcosm of American culture. What is Survivor if not just showcasing how willing people are to backstab each other in the name of a prize? What did our last presidential elections teach us if not how much of an impact on the culture someone’s self-aggrandizing behavior can have?

Looking back at the last decade of television, including but not limited to “March Madness”, can actually show us exactly how things still are. To call the episode a perfect encapsulation of liberal bullshit isn’t a stretch, as it is just scene after scene of people in power praising themselves and each other for caring without actually doing a single thing. Think of how that plays into everything in politics designed to be for those who most need it. While conservatives do their damnedest to ensure people will be stripped of their rights, liberal politicians are showing up on Drag Race and doing nothing but telling people to vote.

This isn’t a new observation by any means, but the realm of politics is one in the same with reality television. Everything is about empty promises for the sake of self-promotion, to the point where streaming services are producing just as many shallow hagiographic documentaries about campaign trails as they are reality television. Anyone who even considers criticizing the actions of someone in power becomes the target of criticism themselves. Just like Alex and Sonja accuse each other of being narcissistic about the event, so does every politician who tells us we should shut up, take what we can get, and go back to the polls.

For all the pronouns in bio and tweets that say “trans rights are human rights,” is anyone actually doing anything? Or is it all one big performance? As depressing as it is, this is what ally culture is, and has always been, about. It is people who don’t understand our struggles thinking they have the experience to speak in our place. It is people with power cherry-picking which issues they care about and putting them on a national platform without acknowledging the mountain of other issues, sometimes far more life-threatening, that exist. With all the anti-queer rhetoric, propaganda, and legislature that continues to threaten us, wouldn’t it be nice if everyone stopped fighting over who gets to represent us best and instead actually fought to save us?

Real Housewives of Miami Is a Strong Argument Against Having Straight Friends

Hello, Bravo Dykes! (Yes, I went ahead and officially made a TAG FOR US!)

It has been a minute since I last touched down on the homoerotic tendencies, rumors, and dramas of the Real Housewives Extended Universe. Well here I am, ready to talk about the newly rebooted Real Housewives Of Miami, filmed in the city I currently live in (well, filmed mostly in Miami Beach and surrounding areas including Ft. Lauderdale but let’s not split hairs here). Honestly, it’s a solid Housewives season, bolstered by the fact that most of the women have very long and real relationships that remain in place even when the cameras are down. All Housewives shows are theater, but RHOM really does deliver costumes, dramatic stakes, lavish sets, etc. It’s firing on all cylinders when it comes to all six of Aristotle’s elements of drama. It is (spoiler alert) supposed to end with a wedding and instead ends with a funeral????

It also features model-turned-farmhand Julia Lemigova as a main Housewife, and Julia Lemigova is openly bisexual and also married to tennis star Martina Navritalova (whose history on trans athletes is not great btw!). She lives on a farm where she is very close with her pet goats. Her main storylines are having goats, saying goodbye to her teen daughters who are moving away, and possibly being in love with and/or romantically loved by her best friend Adriana de Moura.

Ahead of Real Housewives Of Miami’s premiere, I received multiple press releases describing Julia as “the first LGBTQIA+ Housewife,” which is just……not true? Unless you tack a bunch of qualifiers on it, which the press releases did not? Like, sure, maybe she’s the first openly bisexual Housewife who is a main cast member in the show’s first season (RHOM is a reboot, so it’s labeled as “season four” on Peacock, but for all intents and purposes, it’s a first season) and who is married to a woman during filming, but first LGBTQIA+ Housewife???? It’s even less true when the entire alphabet is involved! Braunwyn Windham-Burke of Real Housewives Of Orange County came out as gay in 2020. Noella Bergener, who recently joined Real Housewives Of Orange County, is bisexual. Though I don’t think she has ever put a label on it, Real Housewives Of Atlanta’s Kandi Burruss has talked multiple times on the show and on her podcast about having past intimate relationships with women. WHOMST WILL EVER FORGET KIM ZOLCIAK DATING DJ TRACY??????

Anyway, I think the mis-titling of Julia does speak to a larger issue of Bravo’s often perplexing portrayals of queerness and its frequent tokenizing of certain Housewives, including Housewives of color who join the super white casts. Instead of strangely and incorrectly touting her as an “the first LGBTQIA+ Housewife,” why not just say Julia talks about being bisexual on the show? Which is indeed a rare thing to be talked about in the Real Housewives Extended Universe! Housewives love to talk about “taking a dip in the lady pond” which yes is unfortunately how they word it, and many Housewives also love to ignore bisexuality exists at all, concluding someone is a lesbian if they admit to hooking up with women.

And the other straight Housewives of RHOM are constantly making weird comments to Julia in a way that goes unchecked in the reunion episodes. Many of the other Housewives quite obviously subscribe to the biphobic belief that Julia’s bisexuality makes her hypersexual. Lisa Hochstein, bizarrely, says she has a “fetish” for Julia. The women all seem to think Julia is this super sensual, flirty woman when really she’s just hot and bi? She lives on a FARM with her WIFE. She’s like a portrait of quaint queer domesticity. Most of the time Julia is on screen, I want to save her from these women!!!!! Like go be with your real friends, your goats. The heterosexual drama that these women are bringing into your life is not worth it, Julia!!!!

And, yes, sure, she does have a flirty vibe with her best friend Adriana, and let me be clear that my hyperbolic headline here does not actually include Adriana at all, because I really don’t really think Adriana is straight. She hasn’t really explicitly labeled her sexuality at all, and she tells Julia that she taught her that “love has no gender.” If anything, Julia’s friendship with Adriana is indeed the queerest part of RHOM, because whew these ladies are co-dependent!!!!! I do think they’re playing up some of their dynamic for the camera, but actually when you pay attention to some of the less overt moments (like Adriana getting jealous of Julia kissing Lisa at a sleepover night and Julia doing a “friendship proposal” with Adriana) and look at the ways Adriana and Julia interact on just an everyday basis, yeah, there’s something here! It’s romantic friendship at the very least!

The other Housewives on the show continue to be the worst kind of straight friends by always talking about how weird Julia and Adriana’s friendship is and constantly insinuating that something more is going on. Julia even gets asked if she’d ever cheat on Martina, and the implied part of that question is if she’d ever cheat with Adriana. Andy Cohen added fuel to the fire by asking Julia if Martina gets jealous of her friendship with Adriana, and here’s what Julia had to say:

“Martina is not jealous, and there is nothing to be really jealous about. I’m married, happily married, and love Martina. And, you know, Adriana is my best friend.”

“And I’m like this butterfly who is — people think I’m flirting, but I’m not actually flirting. Even my dress has butterflies. You know, it’s my way to communicate with people.”

Let’s be real: Andy Cohen only seems to care about stereotyping, tokenizing, etc. when it comes to gay men. This entire line of questioning just perpetuates biphobic assumptions and stereotypes!

Julia’s relationship with Adriana doesn’t look much different from the myriad co-dependent and somewhat romantic friendship duos of other Housewives programs. Like Bethenny and Jill, Kyle and Lisa Vanderpump, Kyle and Teddi more recently, Sonja and Ramona, and Cynthia and NeNe (okay, so that friendship has been over for a long time, but I always feel compelled to mention it when talking about fraught friendships on Bravo because the friendship contract moment resonated so deeply with me because I ALSO HAD TO SIGN A FRIENDSHIP CONTRACT with my best friend in high school lol). But because Julia is openly bisexual, the way the other women, straight viewers, and Andy Cohen respond to this friendship is different, tinged with assumptions and accusations that there’s absolutely something sexual going on.

Again, I do think there’s something queer here, but I don’t think it’s the spicy, sexy story the other Housewives and Andy Cohen want it to be. I think it’s complicated. I think we finally got an interesting and nuanced queer storyline in the Real Housewives Extended Universe, and I think it ends up being crowded out by the Straight Nonsense of the other cast members. I think Julia’s storylines would have been so much better if the rest of the cast were not so freakin straight. (Tbh I also think some of the other Housewives are weirdly dismissive of Julia opening up about the trauma of losing a baby many years ago, almost like they subconsciously see her bisexuality as being at odds with her motherhood.)

I want Julia to have more queer friends (and maybe she does; the thing about these shows is that we’re only getting a microcosm of these women’s lives). And I want Julia to be able to be bubbly and kind to other women without the straight people around her automatically jumping to the conclusion she wants to sleep with them. I also want Bravo to care about queerness beyond little statistics about representation.

I Would Like To See It: I Think Two Real Housewives Should Fall In Love

Sure, there have been some gay happenings across the franchises. There was the whole Denise Richards mess on Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills last season. Sonja Morgan of Real Housewives Of New York openly discusses her crushes on multiple castmates and also famously “raised millions for the LGBT.” Several Housewives in several different cities have alluded to or outright detailed dalliances with women.

We’ve even almost had exactly what I’m talking about. Real Housewives Of Orange County castmember Braunwyn Windham-Burke recently came out as gay, which was directly addressed in-season on the show. She’s also apparently in a relationship with Fernanda Rocha, who appeared in season six of the show but only as a “friend of the wives” and not a full-fledged, orange-carrying main cast member. Friends, this does not count! Andy Cohen has alluded to casting lesbians on the shows, and while I’m absolutely for it, this also does not count! I want two longtime Housewives to suddenly realize they’re in love and for the cameras to capture this romantic revelation.

(Yes, I’ve read a lot of fanfiction in my lifetime—why do you ask?)

Let me be clear: Do I want this to happen for the purposes of representation or visibility? No. Absolutely not. I want this to happen because I just simply do. Between watching the shows, following the blogs, reading recaps, speculating in various group chats, having hours-long conversations with my girlfriend, watching Watch What Happens Live, listening to the Bitch Sesh podcast, and following all of these human disasters on various social media platforms — I have put countless hours and so much physical and psychic energy into becoming a Bravo Dyke. But I do not crave to see myself reflected. Nay. I come to these shows specifically to leave this earthly plane and get away from myself. I cherish the knowledge that if I were in a room with many of these women they would simply ignore me. I do not wish to be perceived by the Housewives nor do I wish to relate too strongly to any of them (though it does happen).

But I do want this incredibly specific storyline to occur. I want a Sapphic love story to unfold before my eyes. I want to see Sonja follow through on all her flirtations with Luann de Lesseps, and I want to see Kyle and Lisa Vanderpump’s friendship breakup mended by a confession they’ve been in love all this time. (Frankly, a lot of their drama would make a lot more sense if secret romance were revealed.) An enemies-to-lovers arc for Porsha Williams and Kenya Moore? It sounds so dysfunctional and absurd that, yes, I would indeed like to see it.

To really double-down on my chaos here: I don’t even need these relationships to be “real.” Queerbait me, Bravo! I’m only kind of joking! Okay but really…so many of the “relationships” that have unfolded on these shows have felt wildly produced. Whether true or not, Kenya was once accused of hiring a boyfriend to give herself a storyline. Something about Luann’s courtship, engagement, marriage, and divorce with one Tom D’Agostino (all taking place in less than two years) was also touch-and-go in terms of credibility. Harry Dubin has hooked up with almost every RHONY Housewife, and I simply refuse to believe that happened organically and not without a little nudge from production. I don’t necessarily want a complete fakeout when it comes to my fantastical Big Gay Romance storyline, but I also don’t need this to be a relationship I root for. It can be like 50% real feelings, 50% ratings grab.

I don’t come to the Housewives for tales of true love. I come to see the unexpected, like a woman married to her step-grandfather, a woman paying $120,360 in cash for furniture, and a woman finding out her husband is indeed cheating on her seasons after a psychic tells her, on camera, her husband is cheating on her. The best Real Housewives moments are the ones that defy true explanation. I don’t need logic or reason I just need this storyline to happen simply because, well — I would like to see it.

Bravo’s “Family Karma”: When Queerness and Cultural Expectations Clash

Family Karma just concluded its fantastic second season, begging the question: When will Bravo finally realize this is the best show in its current lineup?! It deserves not just another season but a much larger episode order than the first two — plus reunions. I’ll probably be shouting about this for the foreseeable future.

The reality series follows a group of Indian families in the Miami area, focusing on both the older generation of immigrant parents as well as their adult children. With truly excellent editing, an ocean of drama, and genuinely compelling relationship arcs and familial narratives, it’s perfect reality television.

It’s an Indian soap opera come to life. Sure, we might not get secret evil twin storylines, but there is an evil future-mother-in-law (I’m slightly exaggerating, Lopa Auntie, don’t come for me!). There are engagements and un-engagements and re-engagements?! Bali, a sort of bridge between the younger generation and the aunties as a young divorced mom, is a masterful gossip, and she takes her over-the-top looks to a whole new level in season two’s testimonials. She’s the comedic relief and the provider of looks. She’s on everyone’s side, which kind of makes her on no one’s side? All friend groups and television shows should have a Bali.

The drama and twists are abundant. Much of the first season is spent on a will-they/won’t-they arc between Brian Benni (a reformed player with a heart of gold) and good girl Monica Vaswani. When season two started airing earlier this summer, it’s revealed Brian IS dating Monica…but it’s a different Monica. New Monica KNOWS original Monica and used to do pageants with her when they were younger?! Scripted television could never! Original Monica also has an ongoing feud with Anisha Ramakrishna, the show’s resident quippy romcom character looking for love. That feud came to an unexpected head during the post-finale episode of Watch What Happens Live on Wednesday night, when Monica straight up accused Anisha of being jealous of Monica’s close relationship with Anisha’s mother. Reader, I gasped so loudly I scared the dog.

Indeed, a big part of the appeal of this show is the deep well of history between all the characters. Too many Bravo shows somewhat haphazardly cobble together a group of people who, sure, might run in the same social circles or even be actual friends but aren’t really deeply embedded in each other’s lives outside of the context of the show. On other shows, we often watch the group dynamics build and shift. On Family Karma, the group dynamics are very much in place already. Each family unit has its own storylines and stakes, but the families also bleed into each other with deep connections that go back many years. This is a real, tight-knit community, and that means the drama is organic, intense, and oh so juicy. The aunties get together for regular happy hours that often turn into gossip sessions. When there’s drama between the kids, there’s drama between the parents, and vice versa. But at the end of the day, everyone also has immense love and respect for one another.

The producers are also very present on Family Karma, a departure from other Bravo shows, which prefer to keep that fourth wall pretty firmly in place. During testimonials, we get to hear the producers’ questions a lot of the time, and let me tell ya, these producers are asking the good questions. The testimonials are also often done in groups, which adds to the familial/communal vibe of the show. I know these are famous last words, because reality shows seem to change people, but for right now, it doesn’t feel like most of these castmembers are really trying to be full-time reality stars. Of course situations still end up heightened and produced, but there’s a genuine documentary vibe to the show. These families and friendships feel very real, and it makes all the storylines genuinely riveting.

One of this season’s central storylines features a gay wedding proposal. It has been both difficult and so important for me to watch this narrative unfold as a half-Indian lesbian who would like to get married one day but also doesn’t know how that will look when it comes to telling and inviting certain relatives. Early on this season, Amrit Kapai decides to propose to his longtime boyfriend Nicholas. He has been out to his parents, Suresh and Lavina, since his twenties. It sounds like that was its own painful and complicated journey in the past, but his parents have since come to be accepting of his queerness and relationship with Nicholas. But when he tells them he’s thinking about proposing, Lavina regresses a bit. She doesn’t react the same way she did when his brother announced his own engagement to a woman. It’s tough to watch.

Most reality shows don’t really feature moments where people possess self-awareness—to put it lightly. Yet here, Lavina recognizes, acknowledges, and tries to work through her feelings in a productive and meaningful way. This culminates with a strikingly honest scene between her and Suresh in a parked car. It’s simultaneously sad and hopeful, a sentiment Amrit echoes when he later comes out to his grandmother. He says being gay and coming out will always feel both happy and like a disappointment. Whew.

Amrit’s coming out scene with Nani is unlike anything I’ve ever seen on television, full stop. I obviously have a personal connection to a lot of the emotions dealt with here—to the point where I’m not quite ready to write about it extensively. But I’m also just amazed by the depth, empathy, and complexity with which this scene and Amrit’s relationships within his family are treated with. This is reality. And it never once feels sensationalized or oversimplified. It’s hopeful and somber all at once, such a stark look at when queerness and cultural expectations clash. So often, Family Karma cracks me up. This storyline cracks me open. Believe me when I say this show has the range.

The first season is available on Peacock.

I Still Can’t Believe How Relatable Jill and Bethenny’s Friendship Breakup Was On “Real Housewives Of New York”

I Still Can’t Believe is a TV Team series where we remember the things happened on television that baffle us — in good and bad ways — to this very day.

One summer, I stopped writing. Well, technically I was still writing, because writing is my job. But I wasn’t doing any creative writing. For years, I’d been the kind of person who worked on several creative projects at a time. Multiple pilots, various screenplays, plays, short stories. And then I was hit with what some might call an extreme bout of writer’s block, but it was more complicated than that. I had ideas. I just didn’t want to do anything with them. I pushed them away. It didn’t even feel gradual. It was like I’d flipped some sort of switch. I felt broken, but I also didn’t want to fix it.

So I wasn’t writing anything. Instead, I filled my days with another activity: watching all nine seasons of Real Housewives Of New York.

In the time since then, I’ve gone from a casual viewer to a full-on Bravo Dyke, a term I am desperately trying to make happen. My girlfriend and I organize whole evenings around catching up with our best friends, the absurdly rich and richly absurd women of the various Real Housewives franchises. I’m in multiple group chats across multiple platforms with friends to specifically discuss the latest episodes. But the summer I stopped writing and started obsessively watching RHONY, it was a solitary experience. My ex hated reality television. I watched alone, often on my iPad in bed. It wasn’t some shameful secret or guilty pleasure — I’ve never really believed in feeling guilty for things that give you pleasure. But in the beginning, RHONY was a true emotional escape for me. I didn’t want to think about some of the recent changes in my life or actively address my depression, so I fixated on these chaotic bitches.

RHONY has been on so long now (thirteen seasons!) it’s basically an epic. Housewives have come and gone (except for Ramona Singer, the only cast member who has been in every single season and who might be immortal?); singles have dropped; trips have gone awry; there have been engagements, divorces, book deals, arrests, drunk fights, sober fights. Some seasons have more compelling drama than others. Sometimes the messiness of these women is difficult to watch. But across over a decade of their pinot grigio-soaked escapades, season three of RHONY will always be my favorite. Its main storyline — the dissolution of Bethenny Frankel and Jill Zarin’s friendship — is the best depiction of a friendship breakup I’ve ever seen on TV.

In case you don’t live and breathe Bravo, here’s the rundown of what happened with Bethenny and Jill. A lot of times on these shows, the friendships are tenuous, more like work friendships than real relationships. Jill and Bethenny though had a legitimate friendship outside of the context of the show, and you can tell. They act like real friends. In fact, they act almost like family. But something’s off at the start of the third season. Bethenny’s dating someone new, and Jill’s telling anyone who will listen she’s done with Bethenny because of a voicemail Bethenny left her telling her to get a hobby. Jill’s also mad Bethenny didn’t call when Jill’s husband Bobby was in the hospital for cancer treatments. She thinks Bethenny is only concerned about her brand and herself. Bethenny thinks Jill has a complex where she needs to take care of people and feel needed.

Jill and Bethenny don’t share any scenes in the premiere, and it’s clear right away they’re on different pages. Jill seems genuinely hurt by Bethenny but also stubborn and immature. Instead of attempting to repair anything, she’s just shit talking. Bethenny, meanwhile, knows something’s off between her and Jill but doesn’t realize quite how bad it is. She tells her new boyfriend Jason it’s just a small bit of drama, something that will probably pass.

It does not pass. Bethenny and Jill have an uncomfortable interaction at a fashion show. Bethenny becomes convinced Jill planted a gossip story about a rift between them. Other housewives start taking sides but also seem confused by the magnitude of this fight. In “Hot Off The Press,” the fifth episode of the season, Bethenny is determined to squash it. She calls up Jill, who initially seems like she’s sort of having fun messing with Bethenny but who quickly realizes this is serious. Here’s how the phone call starts:

Bethenny: In light of the disproportionate nature of this argument now compared to actually what originally happened, I think that we should sit down and have a conversation about it.

Jill: What does disproportionate mean?

Bethenny: Disproportionate means, it’s out of proportion. What originally happened with you and I was an email and a conversation and now it’s like a massive argument where other people are involved, where the press is involved. I haven’t told a single person about this argument, and now it’s enormous. I didn’t realize that Luann had heard my voice message from this summer, which you kept for two months and played for someone else. Like, that’s disproportionate. No one killed anyone. No one slept with anybody’s husband. Nothing enormous happened, and now it’s enormous, and I’d like to sit down and talk to you about why it’s so enormous.

Jill: I don’t think it’s really important why it’s so enormous.

Bethenny: If it’s not important to you, then that speaks volumes. But I thought that our relationship was much bigger than this. You have blown this so enormously out of proportion. You have told strangers. You have told Perez Hilton. The lengths that you’ve gone to to advertise this argument that wasn’t even anything enormous to begin with is astounding to me.

“Bethenny, we were friends like no other,” Jill goes on to say. “You were my best friend. I spoke to you five times a day.” Then she brings up Bethenny’s mean “hobby” voicemail again and recounts all the ways Bethenny didn’t show up for her over the summer. It’s quickly evident Bethenny didn’t actually know how sick Bobby was, and the more they argue over the phone, the more it seems like this is really just a series of miscommunications that have, indeed, been blown way out of proportion.

Jill cuts the conversation short by literally saying “we’re done” and hanging up. Bethenny’s left alone on the sidewalk, sobbing against a car. I’ve watched this phone call so many times. It’s heightened with classic reality TV aesthetics — a dramatic score, quick cuts between the women, close-ups on their reactions. But flourishes aside, it’s feels fucking real. It’s visceral. The emotional stakes are genuine.

Over the course of the season, Bethenny gets engaged. She gets pregnant. She learns her father who she’s estranged from is dying. And throughout all these major life changes, she doesn’t have her best friend. Then just as Jill starts to come around and realize she wants to be in Bethenny’s life again, Bethenny decides she’s done with Jill for real. Yet again, they’re on different pages. Every time it seems like maybe they’ll be able to work things out, someone says or does the wrong thing, and the fracture in their friendship widens.

Part of what makes Jill’s behaviors at the start of the season seem so calculated and off-putting is easily explained by her eventual confession behind-the-scenes that she heightened the rift between them for the sake of ratings. She essentially thought she was producing a friendship breakup storyline. Her flippant attitude at the start of that explosive phone call makes sense given these motives. But in her wild attempt to make good TV, Jill accidentally made great TV. Because her faked feud turned into a very real one. Her ratings grab ruined a friendship.

Friendship breakups are obviously hard to capture on television. So much television is narratively fueled by friendship. If two characters stop speaking to each other, then how can they exist in the same show? Bethenny and Jill’s friendship breakup is reality TV gold, because it really does feel real, but they also have to confront it on camera, have to process everything in front of an audience. They’re not just friends; they’re also castmates. They can’t take a break from each other, because they have to film together. Their arguments become scenes. Their breakup is a plotline. The simultaneous realism of their friendship breakup and the performance of it is disorienting and makes it all the sadder. As a viewer, I wanted Jill and Bethenny to make up. All the other housewives wanted them to, too. But as someone who has been deeply hurt by friendship breakups at various points in life, I’m almost grateful they never fully resolve things. Because that’s reality. Not all friendships last. And friendship breakups can be just as life-altering as romantic ones. That’s palpably felt in the way Jill and Bethenny’s plays out. At the end of the season, Jill quite literally compares it to death.

There was a reason I stopped writing. It became easier to understand that once I had some distance from it. Not long before I started watching RHONY, a significant friendship of mine changed dramatically. It was far from my first friendship breakup, and it wasn’t even the most dramatic or devastating one. But it was the first time I experienced a friendship breakup that was also connected to my writing. Two women who I had collaborated on a creative project with stopped dating each other, and their breakup fractured our friendship trio as well as our working partnership. We had just begun the process of forming our own small production company. I had just written the second season of our scrappy, DIY queer webseries. Then it all just sort of fell apart. It was difficult to keep the friendships going, too. We grew distant with each other. It became difficult to separate my grief over the sudden end of the webseries from my feelings toward them.

Jill and Bethenny’s friendship breakup is hardly an exact retelling of what happened between me and these two friends. But in retrospect, it’s easy to see why I was so drawn to and affected by season three’s saga. I had so many unprocessed feelings about what had happened with those friends. When revisiting Jill and Bethenny’s arc, it’s tough to see where real life ends and reality TV begins. It feels both real and produced all at once. But it captured so many of the feelings I was actively trying to ignore in my own life: the difficult-to-describe loss, the fantasies about how things might’ve gone differently, the frustrating lack of control, the sad nostalgia.

I stopped writing because I was scared. The (small but meaningful) success of our webseries followed by its abrupt end gave me creative whiplash. It was always in the back of my head, that feeling that putting myself out there in my writing could result in heartbreak again. I stopped trying to repair the friendships because I was scared, too. It felt easier to shut down, to immerse myself in someone else’s drama like, say, the drama of a bunch of wealthy socialites running around on reality television. Eventually, I was able to work through a lot of these feelings and understand the link between my writing dry spell and the end of a significant part of my life.

I could write again. But the friendships were never fully fixed. It became clear that it would never be the same as it was before. And that’s just how it goes sometimes. But just Google “Jill and Bethenny” and you’ll find dozens of articles with headlines like “Are Jill Zarin and Bethenny Frankel Friends?: 2021 Update”; “Jill Zarin reveals if she’d be friends with Bethenny Frankel”; “Jill Zarin Gives Update on Her Friendship With Bethenny”; etc. People want closure. People want to believe that friendships are forever. But Jill and Bethenny are striking examples that sometimes all you can do is wish each other the best and move on.

“Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills” Dyke Drama, “Explained”

Nearly five years ago, I did a tweet thread of screencaps from the iconic reality television program The Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills that looked like they could be screencaps from the demonic scripted television program The L Word. (I spend too many hours and too much brain space contemplating the homoerotics of the Real Housewives universe, but that’s an essay/manifesto for another day.) Now, in season ten of the Bravo series, there is finally FINALLY some real-life, non-subtextual, in-your-face, convoluted, messy DYKE DRAMA.

special skills include the ability to screenshot Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills to make it look like The L Word pic.twitter.com/jWr77SLBjp

— kayla kumari upadhyaya (@KaylaKumari) September 27, 2015

This is your primer to RHOBH season ten AKA “Feud: Brandi and Denise.” I will try to break down the “facts” of this storyline, but keep in mind that “facts” and “truth” and “reality” are broad concepts here. Much like Riverdale, The Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills is where logic and certainty go to die. Also, everyone is mean!

For context, some basic details:

Who: Brandi Glanville and Denise Richards.

Brandi is a former cast member of Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills, and longtime viewers will recall some of her greatest hits such as “at least I don’t do crystal meth in the bathroom all night, BITCH” and the time she threw wine at sweet Eileen Davidson’s face because she somehow forgot that soap operas are not real life. For those of you just now joining us, Brandi Glanville is absolutely an agent of chaos. She first appeared on the show in season two and then was brought into the main cast in season three, where she remained until season five, but she has popped in from time to time in subsequent seasons. If you’re wondering how many seasons of this show there are and will be, the answer is infinite. Brandi is also known for previously being married to Eddie Cibrian, who cheated on her prolifically including with a server from Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills’s spinoff series Vanderpump Rules and LEANN RIMES, who he is now married to. Normally I don’t care about the trash men who are tangentially a part of the Real Housewives universe, but these details will become relevant later.

Denise Richards is, well, Denise Fucking Richards. Longtime film actress and star of Drop Dead Gorgeous, Wild Things, etc. She has also been a longtime player in celeb tabloid drama due to her marriage to and divorce from Charlie Sheen. Now, she’s married to a man named Aaron Phypers, who she met at his “business” which is a healing center that specializes in “frequency medicine.” I dunno, the dude has major chemtrails conspiracy vibes.

What: Brandi is alleging that Denise had an affair with her, which Denise is vehemently denying.

Before season ten even began, Daily Mail (which along with Page Six is essentially the paper of record when it comes to the Bravo universe) reported that Denise Richards would be quitting the show following allegations of a months-long affair with Brandi Glanville. Denise’s co-stars confront her about this mid-season on a cursed trip to Rome

When: 2019ish?

The timeline is a little confusing, especially since Brandi and Denise’s narratives are not lining up. But if the affair occurred, it was sometime well before the current season filmed.

Okay, now let’s dig deeper.

Then, season ten begins with a fairly middling premiere UNTIL THE LAST FOUR MINUTES, which teases that Brandi will be coming onto the show, she will share details about the affair, Denise will deny it, and then Denise will eventually do some tell-all when all’s said and done at the end of the season.

Then, we had to wade through many weeks of other storylines, waiting for the big drop. On July 22, the episode “Kiss and Tell All” finally delivered the goods. In it, Brandi “coincidentally” drops in on cast members Kyle Richards and Teddi Mellencamp in Kyle’s home and tells them that Denise Richards is not who they think she is. Brandi prefaces things by saying that she herself is bisexual and that everybody knows that, which prompts inadvertently hilarious reactions from Kyle and Teddi who are like…we did not know that. Technically, Brandi has never said she’s bisexual on the show before, but we’ve all Known. Kyle and Teddi are just the extra oblivious brand of heteros.

Like, very oblivious. Because then Brandi proceeds to tell them that she and Denise made out in a bathroom shortly after meeting and then later “hooked up” after Brandi interviewed Denise on her podcast, and Teddi asks if she means KISSED and Brandi is like…no, everything.

Here’s where some of Brandi’s history comes into play, because she claims that she only hooked up with Denise because Denise had assured her she has an open marriage with Aaron that allows her to hook up with women. But after they slept together, Brandi says that Denise was all of a sudden like jk you can’t tell Aaron or anyone for that matter because if you do, Aaron will KILL ME. Brandi tells Kyle and Teddi that this hurt her because she hates cheating and cheaters so much because of her ex-husband’s affairs that she never would have gotten with Denise if she’d known it wasn’t above board.

What’s prompting Brandi to talk about all this now, a year later? Well, she says that Denise essentially started threatening her. She tells Kyle and Teddi that Denise has been bad-mouthing all the cast members to her, perhaps as a way to bond with Brandi and keep her close so she won’t reveal the cheating. Brandi also says that Denise contacted her shortly before a party at Kyle’s house that they were both going to be at and that was going to be filmed and essentially said that she would NEVER reveal Brandi’s secrets so she HOPES that her DEAR FRIEND would NEVER reveal HER secrets. Brandi takes this as a threat, which is supposedly the tipping point that made her come and tell Kyle and Teddi the truth.

She happens to tell Kyle and Teddi this RIGHT before the whole main cast—including Denise—are set to go on a cute lil trip to Rome together, which is where the next episode begins. Cute lil trip turns into a trip from hell when Teddi decides to confront Denise at dinner, starting off by confronting her about the supposed mean things she said about Teddi to Brandi. Teddi also doesn’t seem entirely sure if she should bring up the affair, but the information is already out there since Brandi already talked about it on camera in the episode before. Before Teddi even brings up the allegations, Denise says they aren’t true which is, hmmm, not a great start for Denise.

Denise proceeds to basically Mariah-Carey-I-Don’t-Know-Her.gif about Brandi. She attempts to establish that they have no real relationship at all, and the details shift a little from episode to episode, going from no friendship to a little bit of a friendship to an ended friendship. The women all say it’s none of their business who Denise sleeps with while, of course, making it extremely their business who Denise sleeps with, but they are saying that their main concern is that Denise is LYING, and LYING is what gets you into a lot of trouble with the Wives. Lying—especially bad lying—also makes for very good reality television, as Ziwe beautifully articulates in this Team Denise soliloquy:

Tonight's #MomentOfMAZEL comes from comedian & internet sensation @Ziwe here to proclaim that she is #TeamDenise! ✨ @Denise_Richards #WWHL pic.twitter.com/7ISNMMvcAR

— Watch What Happens Live! (@BravoWWHL) August 13, 2020

Denise is maintaining that nothing happened between her and Brandi because, as she says herself during the confrontation dinner, she’s “a very married woman.” After being confronted, Denise also bizarrely tries to pull a trick to get the crew to put the cameras down by shouting “BRAVO BRAVO BRAVO.” If you’re unfamiliar with the rules of reality television, you’re never really supposed to break the fourth wall. But Denise seems to think that by deliberately breaking it, the footage won’t air, a trick she has tried to use at least twice now. But the trick doesn’t work. It all airs anyway, and then Denise enters major damage control mode.

In the penultimate episode of the season, which aired on August 19, Denise last-minute announces that she can’t come to Teddi’s surprise baby shower being inexplicably thrown at a Buca Di Beppo (okay, the reason it’s being thrown at a Buca Di Beppo is because cast member Dorit Kemsley designed? a? special? dining? room? for? a? Buca Di Beppo?). Denise says she’s sick. Meanwhile, Brandi Glanville is absolutely coming to this baby shower. Brandi strolls in very late, and Teddi literally asks her non-Real Housewives friends to LEAVE her baby shower so that they can get into some shit. With the Normals gone, they do indeed get into some shit.

The cast seems pretty split down the middle on who to believe: Denise or Brandi. Denise at this point is maintaining that Brandi is just lying about everything and in Rome she even tries to say that Brandi has made false rumors about sleeping with OTHER Wives. It’s such a blatant deflection!!!!!!! I’m not technically an expert in lies, cheating, emotional manipulation, but Denise sounds a lot like someone who got caught cheating and is spinning a web of cover-ups. You know, in my opinion.

Because of Brandi’s history of being an agent of chaos on the show, some of the women are indeed skeptical. But Kyle, who has had some Serious Drama with Brandi in the past, insists that Brandi may be a lot of things but she isn’t a liar. At Buca Di Beppo, Brandi starts passing around her phone to the other women so they can see her texts with Denise, and while there’s nothing as clear-cut as sexting or direct references to an affair, it’s very easy to see that Denise’s claims that they had no friendship at all are an over-correction. They use terms of endearment for each other, even say “I love you,” which cast member Lisa Rinna says is out-of-character for Denise.

Brandi at one point becomes so frustrated by people not believing her that she blurts out “I SUCKED ON HER *BEEEEEEP*” which prompts a jaw-drop from Kyle. People seem divided on whether she said “tit,” “titty,” or “clit.” I lean toward the latter, because the scene immediately cuts to a flashback to Brandi offering to eat her pussy. In any case, Brandi wants to firmly establish that there was certainly more than an acquaintanceship and probably more than a friendship.

It’s all very messy, to put it lightly. New cast member Garcelle is firmly in support of Denise, and I think I’d listen to anything Garcelle says, because she is absolutely the least chaotic part of the cast at the moment. Meanwhile, Kyle and Teddi have both been a little too ready to essentially out Denise, even if they keep claiming that it’s not the gay sex that they care about but rather the LIES. Also, there doesn’t seem to be enough concern for Denise’s safety in all this. Aaron is caught on camera earlier in the season mumbling that he wants to crush her hand out of frustration as they’re leaving a party after an argument, and it’s scary! Even if Denise IS lying through her teeth and trying to gaslight Brandi—which is possible!—I still don’t think Kyle and Teddi are being super thoughtful in their approach, especially if Aaron is a genuine threat.

For those reasons, Team Brandi (Kyle, Teddi, Erika Jayne, and sorta Lisa Rinna but she might be on the fence) are kind of coming off as bullies. Kyle and Teddi are also not bringing much to the table this season, so it feels like they’re just jumping on other people’s drama with little repercussions for their kinda fucked-up actions. But I also understand Brandi’s frustrations, especially if Denise really did lie to her about her marital situation. And Denise’s story is porous af to the point where I’m almost like does she WANT to get caught in a lie? But at the same time, it almost makes it so that I WANT to believe her? Listen, I’m very susceptible to lies, even (especially?!) bad ones.

The season finale and reunion episodes (filmed remotely in the Wives’ homes due to COVID-19) are still to come. Brandi won’t be present at the official reunion, but she’s apparently doing a one-on-one with Andy Cohen about the alleged affair. But I don’t think we’ll be getting Brandi and Denise in conversation with each other at all.

Here’s the tl;dr Ira Madison III:

https://twitter.com/ira/status/1296666741657886720?s=21

Let’s Discuss This Very Bisexual Pride Episode of “Vanderpump Rules”

Vanderpump Rules aired its annual Pride episode. Perhaps for you, like me, those words carry a lot of meaning and inspire haunting flashbacks to the alleyway behind SUR Restaurant. Perhaps you, like me, have lost approximately twenty thousand hours of your life to this Bravo reality program, about 40% of which has specifically been lost to thinking about the Pride episodes.

For the uninitiated, here’s a quick rundown on what exactly Vanderpump Rules is. Vanderpump Rules is a spin-off of Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills, focusing on the current and former (because they were fired) employees of Lisa Vanderpump’s restaurant SUR Restaurant & Lounge (SUR stands for Sexy Unique Restaurant, so its government name is Sexy Unique Restaurant Restaurant & Lounge). It is a show about a bunch of beautiful liars navigating their lives and all the lies they’ve told. It depicts one of the most dysfunctional group of friends I’ve ever seen in my life (the main cast includes four Cancers, two Aquarians, a Pisces, a Libra, and a Virgo), and everything I know about heterosexual culture I’ve learned from this show.

The Pride episode is an annual tradition, set during Los Angeles Pride. SUR sits along the parade route and turns into even more of a hot mess than usual for Pride, full of patrons who likely are here specifically because they want to be a part of the annual Pride episode, which despite happening on the earlier end of each season is usually a pretty climactic event. The Pride episodes are a dark corner of the series, one that me and my fellow gay lady friends who are fans of this show (Bravo Lesbians: there are DOZENS of us) hold in contempt and awe. Mostly focusing on the mostly straight cast of liars, Vanderpump Rules’ Pride episodes are an EXTREMELY ACCIDENTAL critique of the modern commodification of Pride and rainbow capitalism.

Season eight’s Pride episode was a lot of the same, although now there’s the added layer of main cast member Ariana being out as bisexual. This was the first Pump Rules Pride episode that Ariana was out for, and in fact, it was her first experience being out at Pride event in her life, something she talks candidly about in the episode. It’s not the first time a Vanderpump Rules Pride episode has shifted some focus to actual LGBTQ people. One Pride episode introduced new recurring character Billie Lee, who is a trans woman and who often used her platform on the show to discuss the prejudices and challenges she faces. But Pump Rules’ track record with dealing with LGBTQ issues has been messy at best. Billie Lee, in fact, accused several of the main cast members of transphobia when they excluded her, and the show never really grappled with that, because everyone’s approach to conflict resolution on this show is to 1. Scream 2. Lie and 3. Scream lies.

That’s why I was thoroughly surprised to see a very queer — and important! — scene in last week’s follow-up to the Pride episode, “It’s Not About The Pastor” (the episode’s title is a brilliant in-joke/callback to a previous nonsensical fight on the show, and if you want to be in on the joke, I implore you to just watch the entire series from the start and join me on this demonic journey). In it, new girl Dayna approaches Ariana at the bar and says that she was inspired to come out during Pride this year. Ariana and Dayna then have a conversation about their bisexual identities and some of the reasons it took them a while to come out.

Two bi women talking about being bi without anyone else in the conversation?! I can’t recall ever seeing that on television, especially since Ariana and Dayna aren’t in a relationship. Just two bi friends being bi friends! More of this on television PLEASE! And less of Dayna interrupting herself to center her straight dude boyfriend’s reaction to her coming out, please, but I’m going to chalk that up to her still working on some internalized stuff.

In addition to its bisexual bonding scene, “It’s Not About The Pastor” also confronts another queer issue head-on when Jax (the show’s resident Liar In Chief) and Brittany (Jax’s fiance) have to reckon with the fact that the pastor who is supposed to perform their ceremony is homophobic. In actuality, they do very little reckoning. It isn’t until they receive pressure from their friends and Lisa Vanderpump herself that they pivot from a homophobe marrying them to ?LANCE BASS? marrying them.

Watching Jax and Brittany initially defend themselves by saying they weren’t totally aware of the comments the pastor had made on social media is incredibly frustrating but also familiar. As with most reality shows, everyone has stock types that they fill and lean into, because the name of the game is ultra over-the-top melodrama. Brittany often positions herself as the sweet farm girl from Kentucky, and an insidious side of that crops up here when she tries to say that she knows this pastor and knows that he’s ultimately a “good guy.” Ariana isn’t buying it, and neither am I. Interpersonal relationships do not trump bigotry.

But this is an extremely relatable situation that queer people often find themselves in: having to deal with someone who is complicit in homophobia while simultaneously trying to distance themselves from it or downplay it. So many straights will only stand up to homophobia when it’s convenient to do so, and that’s exactly what’s happening here. Jax’s issue isn’t so much with the pastor’s beliefs but with the fact that he had made them public. I can’t believe I’m about to say something positive about Tom Sandoval (Ariana’s boyfriend), but even after Jax and Brittany pivot to Lance Bass, he pressures them to explain why they didn’t do something sooner. This immediately devolves into a classic classic Vanderpump Rules episode a.k.a. lots of drunk shouting, emphatic finger-pointing, tears, frustration, and nonsense.

Through it all, Ariana does not back down. Jax and Brittany don’t get any passes just because they finally did do the right thing. Honestly, Ariana and Sandoval are challenging their friends in just the slightest way, but the reaction is outsized—partially because outsized reactions are necessary for good reality TV but also partially because of the actual reality of most straight, white people never wanting to be challenged ever.

So yes, “It’s Not About The Pastor” is a very special episode thanks to that little moment between Dayna and Ariana that, despite many victories for bisexual representation on television in recent years, stands out in the way it centers bisexual identity between two friends. But Ariana’s queer identity also comes into play throughout the episode, forcing a group of friends to face the limits of their allyship. Does anything get actually resolved? NO. I’m not holding my breath for Brittany and Jax and the slew of friends who rush to their defense to actually engage in some introspection. Historically, Vanderpump Rules is more about people performing their worst qualities in perpetuity versus learning from them (BLEAK, but there are at least a few exceptions). But at least Ariana and Sandoval don’t shy away from naming their friends’ failures. Expose! These! Heterosexuals!

Anyway, it seems like Ariana’s entire arc this season is 1. Being queer and 2. Being depressed, and I for one feel incredibly seen.