Lady Gaga, Britney Spears and Diana Ross walk into a Halloween party. Lady Gaga is dressed in bubbles, Britney Spears is at least 59 years older, and Diana Ross is white? While this gaggle of pop princesses seems stranger than fiction, it is a scene from the reality TV hall of shame; The Real Housewives of New York Season 11 premiere, starring Dorinda Medley as Lady Gaga, Ramona Singer as Britney Spears and Luanne De Lesseps in blackface.
The Real Housewives of New York (RHONY) has always been shockingly unrepresentative of New York’s demographic, a city characterized by vibrant diversity. The core cast of characters plus the rotating friends have always been predominantly white, wealthy and living within the ritzy few-block radius of the Upper East Side of Manhattan. In this fictitious all-white world masquerading as reality, a long list of ill-timed jokes, racial microaggressions and cringe-worthy comments studded the first thirteen seasons. In Season five, De Lesseps mocked Native American culture by patting her mouth, chanting and making savage jokes. Carol Radziwill, the cast’s resident downtown liberal cool girl is incredulous and, as always, alone in her feelings. When she attempts to explain the offense, the women laugh her off and the conversation becomes drunken dinner-party fodder.
Almost every discussion of race followed that same format. RHONY has always had a race problem and the Halloween blackface incident was just the tipping point. After a few more rocky seasons, the network eventually dismissed the entire cast. With the new younger rebooted cast debuting its first season, Bravo finally proves that it can discuss race in a nuanced, relevant way that does, in fact, seem real. The audience just had to suffer through a lot to get there.
Since the show’s inception, race has seemingly been a non-factor. The women never spoke about it nor were they confronted with it. The only culture, politics and lifestyle on display was that of wealthy white women.
The Housewives’ brushes with race were ignorant and unintentional. When De Lesseps, a long-time fan favorite, arrived at the Halloween party in blackface she was greeted by “I love that” from fellow housewife Bethany Frankle. In a separate confessional, Frankle elaborates, saying “she’s got the balls of a burglar, you’ve got to give it to her.” Not only does Frankle not condemn De Lesseps, but she also celebrates her, ending her confessional by saying “she really does not give a f—.”
It is true — the women didn’t give a f—. But, after years of only seeing people of color in service positions, recipients of charity or at the butt of jokes, fans started to catch on.
Josh Lora, a sociologist and devout reality TV watcher, told Ampersand LA, “[offensive jokes] were played off for laughs. When they’re around like-minded people, it gets glossed over and they get that extension of the benefit of the doubt. I think that’s why the show hadn’t cast a woman of color yet. Keeping it white protected them from these larger conversations. But, it wasn’t working anymore, especially in the political climate of 2019.”
The series was temporarily resuscitated in Season 12 by the addition of younger, edgier Leah McSweeney. She lives downtown, has tattoos and speaks openly about her torrid past as a teenage New York City party girl. She brought a new kind of social commentary to the show, famously uprooting and discarding tiki torches, fully naked in a Hamptons backyard. Her hate for tiki torches was spurred by their symbolism of white supremacy after they were used at a 2017 rally in Charlottesville, VA, to protest the removal of Confederate statues : “I hate these tiki torches… they represent bullsh—.”
For the informed viewer, this moment was a feather in her first-season Housewife’s cap. It put McSweeney in stark contrast to her costars, who never used their screen time to comment about social issues related to race. Her first season, which was filmed in 2019 and aired in 2020, was very tense. Leah was at odds with her castmates’ politics. Her at-times unhinged antics, coupled with her liberal political views, made her relatable and likable to a younger audience.
“Leah may be the best rookie housewife of all time. Jumped right in as a New Yorker… held her own. Really, really, nothing but praise,” said Jerry O’Connell, a longtime Bravo superfan and actor. While McSweeny’s message often got lost in her brash delivery, she pushed her castmates’ conservatism into the storyline. It made for compelling TV.
The progress made in Season 12 was halted when the coronavirus shut production down in 2020. In the same year when the country went through a racial reckoning after the murder of George Floyd and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, Bravo went through a racial reckoning of its own. As fans binge-watched Bravo favorites such as The Housewives, Vanderpump Rules and Southern Charm, patterns of mistreatment towards Black castmates became even more apparent. Bravo fired a handful of its reality stars for past racist actions — including Stassi Schroeder and Kristin Doute for suggesting a Black cast member should, without any basis of proof, be reported to the police for theft. The New York Housewives’ history of racism, however, continued to go unpunished.
Instead, production took another route to address the race issues on RHONY; cast the franchise’s first Black Housewife, Eboni K Williams. With the country’s racial tension at a generation-high, she was set up to fail.
Williams had McSweeny as an ally but she was still relatively alone in most situations. She faced an immense amount of pressure as the only racial minority during a highly contentious moment in American history. Race not only became a topic of conversation for the first time, it underscored nearly every conversation. The show went from being completely devoid of race to a prime-time showing of middle-aged white women confronting race for seemingly the first time in their lives. The racial biases that bubbled under the surface for the 12 seasons prior, now aggressively boiled over.
Williams took her position as the first Black New York Housewife as an opportunity to directly, but gently, teach her new coworkers, and viewers, about the joys and pains of being Black in America. From a Harlem Renaissance-themed dinner to Black Shabbat, Williams used the events she hosted as a means to educate her ignorant castmates. The other women did not like this, calling Williams “preachy.” They mocked, complained, and disrespected Williams’ efforts, all of which she handled with an astounding amount of grace and patience. In the rare moments that Williams displayed frustration, she was quickly labeled as an “angry woman” by both Singer and De Lesseps.
For the audience, Williams’ tokenization was obvious. Reality TV is predicated on juicy drama and petty fights. But, the tension within the Season 13 cast was anything but enjoyable. The season exploited race and the experiences of a Black woman for ratings. The transparent attempt objectively failed, garnering the lowest ratings of any season to-date.
Many fans blamed Williams for the season’s failure, but she refused to take responsibility for that. This overt discussion of race did more to reveal the weight of white fragility than it did to celebrate affluent Black womanhood. After an argument between Williams and Singer led to them comparing privileges, it was clear that the distance between cast members and their ideologies was more difficult than the show could handle. Williams valiantly tried to bridge that racial gap but the dynamic of the cast was irreparable.
After a two-year pause, Bravo debuted a fully rebooted cast for Season 14. This is the most diverse cast in Housewives history, not just in New York, featuring: Afro-Latina Sai De Silva, Brynn Whitfield who is biracial, Somali-Canadian Ubah Hassan, Israeli-American Erin Lichy, the first Indian Housewife Jessel Tank and Jenna Lyons, who is gay.
This reboot was thoughtfully cast to represent multiple boroughs and backgrounds. As we get to know each new Housewife, they share stories of their upbringing as a means to connect. What the viewers see is drastically different from the privileged outbursts of Singer or De Lesseps. The women primarily support and encourage one another to share the intimate details of their lives. For the first time, race is being discussed on an even playing field and is portrayed as a nuanced gradient of experience, not just Black versus white.
The Housewives franchise is about voyeurism and criticism. We peep into lives and analyze what they reflect about society as a whole. The old RHONY said a lot about middle-aged women and visibility, life after death and divorce, and navigating businesses, motherhood and relationships. It also said a lot about whiteness — how it’s perpetuated and protected, its fragility and ubiquitousness, and how it hates to be challenged.
With the rebooted RHONY, which no longer deals with race as a plot point, but rather a matter of identity. Audiences are finally able to have these nuanced discussions with women of color as well.
This season was marred by typical reality TV downfalls; gang-ups, tired plot points and pot stirring. But, it also introduced poignant conversations about the joys and guilt of success, surviving childhood trauma, navigating life as “other” and the varied experiences of motherhood. These themes are experienced uniquely by each woman and their diverse racial identities undoubtedly influence their lived experiences. It’s refreshing and finally reflects the real New York.
So what does the new RHONY say about what the network thinks of its viewers? It says that we are evolving, that “seeing color” goes deeper than skin tone and there is strength in diversity, especially in lifestyle reality TV.
While the original New York Housewives may never leave their white bubble, the rebooted cast of vibrant, interesting, successful New Yorkers show that it’s probably time they do. I’m just happy Bravo is no longer giving them a platform to do so publicly.