Loading...
Start Date
25-6-2022 12:00 AM
End Date
25-6-2022 12:00 AM
Abstract
This paper examines concepts authenticity, the presentation of body image, and the focus on defying age markers by focusing on beauty and medical methods to maintain attractiveness by cast members during select episodes of the reality television Franchise program, The Real Housewives. Selections from various episodes from The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills (RHOBH) will be described to exemplify this phenomenon. Cast members consistently discuss their methods to maintain their beauty, defy their age, and mediate their bodies throughout the season in during confessionals, group settings, and reunion episode; additionally, the authenticity of some of these claims from the cast members of RHOBH are shared for viewers to debate as well. During reunion episodes, audience members are able to share comments that negotiate authenticity and the casts’ body/beauty work in the real world. While audience members negotiate cast member’s authenticity, cast personas are crafted to reflect a certain ideal, the real housewife trope. Cast members consistently perform glamour labor and body work to help maintain their roles as casted Real Housewives. Both the audience’s idea of authenticity and the cast member’s idea of their own and other member’s authenticity creates a paradox in relation to beauty and attractiveness. Further, the paradox of authenticity arises when cast members debate each other’s realness/fakeness or body work in a way that creates a dramatic scene, or when the audience responses incite an emotional response about the cast member’s body work. The paradox of contention between the cast members' self-presentation of beauty and audience-identified version of authentic or realistic beauty creates a rift around the term authenticity, which I explore in this paper. After considering the paradox and negotiated identity of authenticity I argue the following: The cast members must struggle to negotiate their own authenticity to their audience by providing lengthy explanations about their bodies and on allegations against them, by answering questions from Andy Cohen during reunion episodes and from other cast members. Additionally, both audiences and cast members take part in voyeuristic behaviors that craft the way each understands the presentation of authentic beauty and body work of the other housewives.
Are They Even Real or Do The Real Housewives Just Pretend? Examining Presentations of Body Work, Beauty and Authenticity on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills (RHOBH).
This paper examines concepts authenticity, the presentation of body image, and the focus on defying age markers by focusing on beauty and medical methods to maintain attractiveness by cast members during select episodes of the reality television Franchise program, The Real Housewives. Selections from various episodes from The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills (RHOBH) will be described to exemplify this phenomenon. Cast members consistently discuss their methods to maintain their beauty, defy their age, and mediate their bodies throughout the season in during confessionals, group settings, and reunion episode; additionally, the authenticity of some of these claims from the cast members of RHOBH are shared for viewers to debate as well. During reunion episodes, audience members are able to share comments that negotiate authenticity and the casts’ body/beauty work in the real world. While audience members negotiate cast member’s authenticity, cast personas are crafted to reflect a certain ideal, the real housewife trope. Cast members consistently perform glamour labor and body work to help maintain their roles as casted Real Housewives. Both the audience’s idea of authenticity and the cast member’s idea of their own and other member’s authenticity creates a paradox in relation to beauty and attractiveness. Further, the paradox of authenticity arises when cast members debate each other’s realness/fakeness or body work in a way that creates a dramatic scene, or when the audience responses incite an emotional response about the cast member’s body work. The paradox of contention between the cast members' self-presentation of beauty and audience-identified version of authentic or realistic beauty creates a rift around the term authenticity, which I explore in this paper. After considering the paradox and negotiated identity of authenticity I argue the following: The cast members must struggle to negotiate their own authenticity to their audience by providing lengthy explanations about their bodies and on allegations against them, by answering questions from Andy Cohen during reunion episodes and from other cast members. Additionally, both audiences and cast members take part in voyeuristic behaviors that craft the way each understands the presentation of authentic beauty and body work of the other housewives.
Bio
Suri M. Pourmodheji is a master’s student in the Cinema and Media Studies program in The Media School at Indiana University-Bloomington. She received her Bachelor of Arts in Communication Arts with an emphasis in Rhetorical Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in May of 2017. Her research interests include Celebrity Studies, Reality Television, and Body Image. She is interested in looking at how female celebrities on reality television represent and discuss body image. Additionally, she is interested in looking at social media (particularly, Instagram) to find moments of continuity or moments of difference in how these celebrities discuss/represent body image. Within the conversation around body image, she is also curious to know how the celebrities confront age.