Hey, Bravo: Try spotlighting social heroes instead of social climbers (re Real Housewives)

[alp227]

by Robert McCartney, a local columnist for The Washington Post

I found this column on Facebook's feed of the Washington Post, and this is outside the Politics RSS feed of the Post that I normally read. I agree with McCartney. Is it really appropriate during a recession to broadcast shows like The Real Housewives?

The most annoying thing about the new television show "Real Housewives of D.C." is that it represents a kind of honor for the parasitic social climbers featured on the program.

These women will reap financial and other benefits for participating in the binge of snobbery and pettiness that debuts at 9 p.m. Thursday on Bravo. Our society rewards people for appearing on five episodes of prime-time television, regardless of what put them there.

I wish it were different. Wouldn't it be fine if Bravo used its resources to produce a show that celebrated Washington area women whose good works and contributions to society actually merited having scenes from their lives broadcast to a national audience?

In that spirit, I hereby urge Bravo to do a follow-up show: "Really Deserving Housewives of D.C." My show would honor women who've devoted their lives to teaching poor children or helping victims of sexual abuse instead of jetting to Paris for dinner or overspending on champagne and chocolates at luxury hotels.

To help Bravo get started, I'm nominating three women to spotlight. All have careers that help society. All have been leaders for years in charitable and civic groups that have had real impact in our region. And they have husbands and children, too.

Full article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/04/AR2010080406313_pf.html

[Chulanowa]

1. Asking Bravo to portray women in a positive light

Is like asking the History Channel to stop talking about Nazis and Jesus. Ain't gonna happen.

[awoke_in_2003]

6. yeah, why the hell

has DC been on such a bible kick lately?

[valerief]

2. In the few glimpses I've caught of those shows, the women seem like dolts, too.

I like a good train wreck, but these females who flaunt their wealth while so many of their viewers suffer are just total wastes of oxygen. Then again, they're probably no different from our Congresswhores.

All in all, I'd rather watch The Bad Girls Club.

[Berry Cool]

3. I'd change this one way.

I would not require the women to be "housewives" or have husbands or children. True, juggling any kind of serious work with marriage and children is a challenge for most women, because they oftentimes don't get an equal contribution in that area from their husbands. But why perpetuate the message that in order to be considered accomplished, a woman has to have improved the world AND been a wife and mother on top of that? Isn't just improving the world enough?

Mother Teresa, after all, never married or had kids.

[Alcibiades]

7. I think the whole thing emerged as a way to link in to the

success of "Desperate Housewives."

[DonCoquixote]

4. Silver Lining

Next time the GOP creeps talk about the rich as if they had some special virtue, one look at these shows will cure that.

[tom_paine]

5. You can't sell cheap Chinese consumer crap on a show about meddling do-gooders

I wish this was sarcasm, but marketing and advertising have deformed our society in ways innumerable and unimaginable.

Shouting into the wind. Cue Fahrenheit 451.