Rude housewives without borders
Updated: 2013-06-16 07:42
By Alessandra Stanley(The New York Times)
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Blond, gym-honed and silicon-enhanced, the housewives of Vancouver may look like those of Beverly Hills, but they are slightly more polite. Slice |
It turns out there is a near-universal supply of rich, vain, well-groomed and ill-mannered women ready to preen, bicker and malign one another on camera.
The "Real Housewives" franchise of the American television network Bravo may seem inimitably and indigenously American, but it has a global reach. There are Canadian, Israeli and Greek Real Housewives, and there are even French ones. An Australian version is in production.
Like their American counterparts, these housewives wear yoga pants and carry Chanel bags. They shop, do Pilates and throw drinks and extravagant parties, only they do it in their native language in places like Athens, Tel Aviv and Vancouver.
Everywhere except Paris, that is. The French version of "Real Housewives" is the only foreign spinoff that is not set in its own country - apparently, it is impossible to find Parisian women vulgar enough to fit the format. Frederic Pedraza, an executive at NT1, the channel that broadcasts the French adaptation, put it this way: "We have rich, glamorous women, of course, but they would never expose themselves in that manner."
The producers finally had to enlist French expatriates in Los Angeles, Europeans who have succumbed to West Coast mores and nouveau riche lifestyles, for "Les Vraies Housewives de Beverly Hills."
The Real Housewives of Vancouver spend more time outdoors and are slightly more polite than their American counterparts. The Real Housewives of Israel are the opposite.
Even in this lighthearted fantasy format, Israel is a country too small and too consumed with politics and its past to ignore the real world. Two of the Israeli housewives have a tiff about the Palestinians. In between dress fittings and facial fillers, another visits her mother, a Holocaust survivor who was a twin experimented on by Josef Mengele.
The first in the franchise, which had its premiere in 2006, was "The Real Housewives of Orange County," and that spawned shows in Atlanta, New York, Beverly Hills, Miami and elsewhere. Each plays up local sensibilities and stereotypes.
"The Real Housewives of New Jersey" worked Hurricane Sandy into the domestic dramas. Teresa, inspecting the damage at her vacation house at the Jersey Shore, looks on the bright side. "Thank God this is my second home," she says. Melissa instead turns her hostility on the storm, saying, "Sandy, you're a bitch."
But the foreign adaptations of "Real Housewives" are even more freakish. Viewers in Vancouver or Paris or Tel Aviv have already seen the original, American-made versions. But that's not quite enough. Even in Canada, which is so close, many viewers crave a homegrown context.
"We want to see if this can happen in our own backyard," said Erin Haskett, an executive producer of the Vancouver series. "We want to know if there are actually Canadians who behave the way those women do in Beverly Hills or Orange County."
They do - up to a point.
At first glance, and second, all the foreign housewives look alike and it's almost impossible to distinguish Annita of Athens from Christina of Vancouver or Brandi of Beverly Hills: They all have blond, blown-out hair, silicone-puffed lips, gym-honed figures and brows that never crease.
There is plenty of malice even in wholesome Vancouver.
When Christina exclaims over the fresh air during an excursion in Season 1, Jody says with a snicker, "You don't get out of the bedroom much, Christina?"
"The Real Housewives of Athens," which began in 2011 just as the Greek debt crisis was cresting, barely lasted one season. The Greek adaptation had a depressive undertone that might have matched the national mood, but didn't provide viewers with a frothy escapist kick. And wealthy Greeks weren't flaunting their lifestyles.
There are no such inhibitions in the wealthier suburbs of Tel Aviv. Lea, the alpha housewife of that series, is holding a lavish party for herself ("I live for celebration!") and instructs the gardener to spray-paint all the bushes near the pool, saying in Hebrew, "make it silvery."
The Israeli show is more absurd than most, but it makes sometimes dizzying turns from satire to sobriety.
In Season One Lea takes a break from social engagements to visit her mother, Olga, the Holocaust survivor. Lea videotapes their conversation, saying she wants a record for the grandchildren. And her mother explains that she ended up in the clutches of Mengele, the Nazi who conducted inhuman experiments in concentration camps. The children, Olga says, referred to him as "Uncle Josef" because he greeted them with smiles and candy. "Imagine," Olga says sorrowfully.
Lea is moved by her mother's memories, but once she is back in her chauffeured Mercedes, she gets back to business. "I need my fix," she says into her cellphone, setting up an emergency Botox appointment.
"I want whatever Demi Moore gets."
The New York Times
(China Daily 06/16/2013 page12)