Princess, Journalist, and Real Housewife Carole Radziwill recently tweeted a link to an article that made me think:
@CaroleRadziwill “‘Which network boasts the most affluent, educated and engaged audience in cable? Did you guess Bravo?’ bit.ly/N8IiAb”
I wondered why millions of intellectually curious people would continuously tune in to episodes of the Real Housewives (the ultimate trash tv) every week. Intellectual Turn-Offs are abundant in this series, but is it possible that there are hidden gems of powerful knowledge beneath the show’s superficial surface? Surprisingly, yes! Here’s a list of 5 housewives whose experiences provide fodder for their intellectually curious audience:
1) Alexis Bellino: Alexis, an expert in Religious Studies, constantly preaches the Christian gospel as she sees it on her blog. The Christian Warrior/Hero has been dubbed “Jesus Juggz” and “Jesus Barbie” because of her vivacious style, but her wardrobe is a PSA for Jesus, so she has nothing to be ashamed of. She believes that her risqué clothing selections “brought so many girls back to the Lord because they didn't realize you could go to church and dress like this." God loves you Lex! Religious viewers can learn a lot from Alexis Bellino, the Lords unofficial Recruitment Agent/Style Expert.
2) Kelly Bensimon: Kelly recently penned her book, I Can Make You Hot, which, according to her, is about, “Mid-Western values, eating well, living well, enjoying the life that you have because life is really really short.” She gives readers helpful advice like, have 2 oranges and coffee for breakfast (that’ll make you want to get out of bed), “drink water, not seltzer, actually water,” and wear jeans that are too small because they’ll make you look thinner (Oh is that what they do in Missouri?!). I would call her a Health/Nutrition expert, but in Kelly’s own words, “I’m not a nutritionist, and umm, you know, I don’t really know much about you know health and fitness, I just do what works for me.” So she makes things up, but she’s a former supermodel, so she’s legit.
3) Teresa Giudice: Teresa is a financial savant whose knowledge of all things money-related rivals that of Suze Orman. Teresa was known for her frugal spending habits on Season 1 of RHONJ (she paid $120 thousand dollars in cash to furnish her $5 million “french-chateu” because she “heard the economy was crashing”), so it came as a total shock when she and her husband filed for Bankruptcy in 2010, because they were $11 million dollars in debt. Both were later accused of committing Bankruptcy Fraud by concealing assets such as, a $250 thousand dollar advance for Teresa’s book (Skinny Italian). On the current season of RHONJ, Teresa and Joe are in the process of withdrawing their Bankruptcy Petitions. They are also building a garage complete with a chandelier (which will probably be made of Swarovski Crystals instead of the usual Diamonds in order to save money).
4) Aviva Drescher: Those interested in Physiology will not be disappointed by this Real Housewife of NYC. She had her left leg amputated after losing her foot while playing on a conveyer belt as a kid, and now, she’s giving us helpful behind-the-scenes info on what it’s like to be an incredibly glamorous amputee. On the 1st episode of RHONYC’s 5th season, she revealed that she has two $25 thousand dollar prosthetic legs - one for heels, one for flats (a must for any fabulous amputee). We also learned that the fashionista has to pay for three sets of toenails when she gets pedicures! Hopefully she knows a thing or two about budgeting, if not, she can always ask Financial Expert Teresa Giudice for tips!
5) Phaedra Parks: The Real Housewife of Atlanta and self proclaimed “Vera Wang of Funerals” is an upcoming Mortician. She is currently enrolled in Embalming School proving that a) It’s never too late to go back to school and b) you can never be too fabulous to embalm corpses. Her fascination with “putting the boom in the tomb” may seem creepy, but it has resulted in the creation of many unique funeral concepts for Atlanta’s “high society” (aka Kim Zolciak when Nene Leakes finds out that her show’s ratings were pretty good): Death doesn't seem that bad now that my ashes can be glamorously encased in diamonds!
I really liked this post, I watched the beverly hills season and thought that there was not one thing that was not shallow about these women. I guess each one of them has something that they're good at besides creating drama.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite housewives were The Real Housewives of Atlanta, Nene being my favorite one for 3 seasons until she was on The Apprentice and became shallow. Hilarious post by the way, I may give Phaedra a call to plan my funeral!
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