Real Housewives of Salt Lake City is reheating its own nachos
Reality Brain Rot #4
This is a Reality Brain Rot newsletter for paid subscribers, where I post my periodic thoughts on whatever reality TV I’ve been watching.
Queer people have been accused of celebrating political violence in the past week in the aftermath of the former podcaster Charlie Kirk’s death. Still, I saw far more celebration of the return of reality television’s greatest gift since Lisa Rinna broke a wine glass in an Amsterdam restaurant. I’m talking about The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, a glorious Bravo franchise now entering its sixth season, which operates more like pro-wrestling than a Real Housewives franchise.
As I wrote during last season’s best episode, “Mazel, Meredith,” which featured an over-the-top bat mitzvah for grown adult Meredith Marks and Mary Cosby arriving late — peering through windows to find the entrance while everyone inside could witness her confusion — camp is the point on RHOSLC: The thing that makes RHOSLC work is that from the first episode, it felt like Housewives on steroids. And as pop culture continues to parody the franchise and fans quote the series endlessly, the fact that these women know they’re creating television and it does so in such operatic, diva-ish ways that you feel as if you’re watching Gena Rowlands in Opening Night or Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard. The institution of Housewives feels like it’s crumbling! New York has trauma dumped its way to near cancellation. Orange County has spent an entire season bullying its only POC off the show, which resulted in viewer backlash.
The women of Salt Lake City are aware of this, however. They’re constantly aware they’re putting on a show. They play into it on social media, where they lip sync to their own iconic quotes. They rehash their fights for viewers in public at Bravo Con like Roman gladiators in a coliseum while the fall of Rome approaches. Only, this is a coliseum with sharks in it, like in the overtly ridiculous film Gladiator 2. Speaking of the fall of Rome, which has been on my mind since I reread Julius Caesar this summer to work on an adaptation, some historians and scientists suggest that the use of lead in water pipes, cookware, and wine sweeteners resulted in widespread lead poisoning in Ancient Rome, which basically poisoned the political and social elite, drove everyone crazy, and killed the empire. It would explain Caesar’s frequent "falling sickness” or epileptic fits as described by Shakespeare and the Greek historian Plutarch. Ironically, this morning, I came across a TikTok from Evan Lazarus theorizing that arsenic and lead poisoning are the reason why the ladies of RHOSLC are so damn wackadoo as well.
Like Jen Shah’s scams and her eventual arrest on camera by Homeland Security agents. Despite everything that’s happened in the previous five seasons of RHOSLC, that moment remains the series’ benchmark and, naturally, fans constantly reference it. However, I didn’t expect the show to reference it so damn much, which is why I found last night’s sixth season premiere, “Hot Dogs and Hearsay,” so disappointing.