Bravo, Bravo, Bravo - An interview with Dr. Racquel Gates.
On the invisible labor of reality tv stars, what it looks like to watch ethically, and why we love Nene Leakes.
Hello,
This month’s newsletter is my favorite one so far. I talk to Dr. Racquel Gates, an Associate Professor of Cinema and Media Studies at the College of Staten Island, CUNY. Dr. Gates has written about reality television, Blackness and popular culture for publications like the New York Times, the Los Angeles Review of Books, The Root, and more. She is also the author of Double Negative: The Black Image and Popular Culture.
In this interview, I bring my questions about reality television, the apologies people make about why they watch it, and what we can learn from it. Dr. Gates is a scholar and a viewer, and I enjoyed every minute of talking to her. I hope you will enjoy reading our conversation.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity
The first thing I'm curious about is what you have been watching [during the pandemic]?
You know, it's funny. I know that everybody is watching a ton of TV, or has watched a ton of TV for the past year, I have not because my kids were home most of the time and that makes TV watching a little difficult. So, I've watched a lot of Disney. Like my next book now has a chapter about Dumbo because all we've been watching is Disney. [During] season one of the pandemic - season one was like last March when making bread and there was like, no toilet paper - I watched Tiger King. I'm trying my best to keep up with the Real Housewives shows, especially, because Real Housewives of New York, which is my favorite, now has a Black cast member. And I saw the cast of Potomac is coming back, which I'm super excited about because I think that's the best of The Real Housewives. Sadly, I fell a little behind on Jersey Shore, but those are usually my kind of like [mainstay] shows. It's like, all VH1 and Bravo.
You talk about it in your writing that reality TV is always framed as a guilty pleasure. Like, it's something that people always say [they watch] and give some kind of justification as to why they do. Why do you think that people feel the need to include that caveat?
I don't ever refer to anything that I watch as a guilty pleasure. Because I don't believe in guilty pleasures, but mainly because I think the reason people say that is because media and culture are organized around their sort of range around hierarchies. Like high culture and low culture. And the reason that I reject the idea of reality TV as a guilty pleasure is because typically, anything associated with women is called a guilty pleasure. Like anything associated with consumers or viewers or fans who are not straight white, middle, upper-middle-class men is considered to be like low culture or a guilty pleasure. Especially reality TV of now because it bears such a close likeness to early television in the 1950s, which was geared toward women, like game shows, which in some ways are predecessors to reality TV, and talk shows and soap operas. And all of those are things that get referred to as guilty pleasures.
So, for me, that phrase guilty pleasure is a remnant of the ways that we denigrate media centered on and marketed towards women as being somehow lesser than other media.
And you say that because there has been no critical attention or close reading of reality TV people miss the “deeper considerations of race, gender, class, and sexuality precisely because it is perceived as frivolous, fun, and trashy.” What are people not seeing when they refer to [reality TV] as a guilty pleasure?
I think that the ways that we engage with media is very complex. And it's not necessarily a straightforward, knowable thing. But I think there's an intimacy with television itself as a medium because of its historical location in the home. But also, because, if you're talking about Real Housewives shows where you follow these characters [or] the Kardashians - the idea that you follow these characters through like marriage to divorce, [and] to the birth of their children - I mean, there's such an intimate connection there. And I think that what we see is the ways that reality TV is often talked about as a kind of shock value type of pleasure or schadenfreude, the idea that people watch because they're taking pleasure in other people's misery. And that's what people always said about something like Jersey Shore. But I always say that a show can't last more than a season based on that. You don't just tune in to watch the same people look like idiots year after year, and I think that Jersey Shore is a really good example. Because you have Jersey Shore, which lasts for however long it lasts in its initial incarnation, and you have, like, three different spin-off shows. To me, [that] demonstrates that there's an understanding of the fan base as being deeply emotionally connected to these characters. I think that that's the aspect of [reality TV] that we don't talk about a lot. In a lot of ways, reality TV gets to dwell in these moments that wouldn't make for good fictionalized television. There's something about Love and Hip Hop, it has so many episodes because it really deals with the kind of unresolved muck of relationships that can't be solved in 30 minutes. And I think that even though those aren't moments that make for “good TV” on paper, those are the things that are completely relatable to viewers at home. I mean, there's a bunch of examples, but Love and Hip Hop deals with a lot of dysfunctional and really unhappy, tense relationships between Black mothers and Black daughters. And it's just a thing that happens every season with whoever they happen to cast. And I've always really appreciated that because I think particularly within Black film, and Black (scripted) television, Black mother figures are exalted and kind of deified. But there's something that I really like about seeing these complicated, far from perfect Black mother-daughter relationships that I hadn't seen anywhere else. The thing that I also hype is that because Love and Hip Hop and reality TV, in general, are shows that are never going to win Emmys unless it's Survivor or The Amazing Race, they've never really been that invested in the politics of respectability. And so you get all kinds of characters, you get all kinds of storylines. I've been saying this forever, Love and Hip Hop has featured queer characters of color for a very long time, and not like in these one-off [roles] but as regular cast members whose drama, sometimes is about their identity, but most of the time is not about their identity. And it always kind of bothered me that the show didn't get any acknowledgement.
You mentioned this in your book, this idea of reality TV being produced. Real Housewives, for example, is built on the idea that these people know each other or know of each other so it’s [meant to be] authentic. But I think the more popular the show becomes, it doesn't remain that way. And then production has to do what production does. I'm just curious if you can tell me, as a professor and as a watcher, do you ever watch and think this is not the reality TV that I enjoy because it's a little too produced? Or what does it mean [for reality TV] when production starts to do production?
I mean, it’s always a little disappointing when it’s overproduced. However, I never actually feel disappointed for terribly long because I would argue that reality show producers, reality show cast members, and reality show audiences are some of the smartest, most savvy sort of media people because the show always gets ahead of it. There's a way where you watch now, and they're talking about the show on the show. Like the constructiveness is now actually just part of the reality of it. [For example] this season on The Kardashians, they're just talking about the show [and] what it means to film the show. I started noticing reality TV getting much more meta like 2011/2012. That's at least when I started noticing that the shows were acknowledging themselves as shows, but in these really smart ways to get ahead of the argument that it was all phony. I saw that with Love and Hip Hop, I saw that with Mob Wives.
Can you give me an example of what that looks like?
Love and Hip Hop did this thing and they had Mona Scott Young sitting in an editing room, and she would bring each cast member and they would talk about the season and she would show them clips. So there was a great moment where I believe Erica Mena was like “you all edited me to look like I was angry” and Mona runs the [raw] tape and is like “explain that.” At least for me, as a viewer, and as a scholar, it seems like we've hit this point, with Twitter, with Facebook, with social media where stuff is leaking, right? And so the show can't keep up. The show isn't controlling the dissemination of information. So what do they do? They've got to get ahead of it. And so now part of the drama that's now baked into the show is about the making of the show, which I thought was pretty brilliant.
A big thing we saw on Potomac last year was this fight between Monique and Candiace. And one thing that played out on the show and outside the show was their [feelings about the fight and the pressure being Black women], and the world around them that was kind of molding them to feel like they couldn't be themselves in that way. What were your feelings about that?
I remember the reunion show after Porsha’s first season and she was basically talking about not knowing how to do the show. And I always remember Nene saying, I’m paraphrasing badly, “New York girls had the OC girls come before them, we didn’t have anybody.” So it was very consciously framed as we are the first like Black housewives franchise and it's different for us than it is for like the white women. I also remember on the first season reunion, Andy Cohen asked them, “were you all thinking about how to represent Black women?” And I remember Shereé being like, “yeah, it was absolutely on my mind the whole time.” I think that part of what you saw this past season in Potomac is like the heaviness of the burden of representation.
I understand the argument, but I also disagree with the argument because people aren't racist because of The Real Housewives of Potomac. They're not upholding 400 years of perceptions about Black people and structural racism. I understand why they would feel like that. I don't agree with it, but I get it.
I would like to talk about Nene. I remember scrolling through Twitter and seeing that she retweeted something about being the only housewife to be featured in the National Museum of African American History and Culture. There are so many Nene memes, she is a reality TV icon in so many ways, and I’ve been thinking about her. This whole [conflict] with Bravo, I miss her on TV and I keep trying to think about what she represented [for us]
I think that first season Nene kind of cemented something for us because earlier season Nene was different than latter season Nene. She was likable, she kind of felt like your homegirl, she was fun, she was just shady enough. And she felt familiar, like somebody’s funny aunt. And for a long time, Nene was like the success story of the Housewives. I mean, she was the only person of The Real Housewives to really translate the success on that show to success in scripted television with her role on Glee, the New Normal, and hosting the Fashion Police. And I think that kind of trajectory, and that success story, the girl from reality TV who made a legit entertainment career, is a pretty big deal.
Yeah, and as a Black woman at that. But now that she has left the show, there is talk that she experienced years of racism from the network. There’s also Mariah Huq from Married to Medicine [who is making similar claims and is apparently fighting over ownership of her show with the network.]
I think we're in a sort of bizarre time in terms of media writ large where you can have fame without any ownership, you can be known without any kind of copyrights or any kind of like ownership of your intellectual labor, your intellectual property. So, it's fascinating to think about meme culture within this conversation that you can be the most memed person, but you don't make money off of that. At least the Kardashians own those Kimojis. But I can post countless memes or GIFs of Nene Leakes and literally use her performance, which is what that is on the show - her facial expressions and catchphrases - and she makes no money off of that. I taught a reality TV class, and I showed them the episode of Real Housewives of Atlanta we're Shereé she gets into a fight with the party planner says “who gonna check me boo,” and then we go on Bravo's website and we look at all of the “who gon check me boo” shirts and coffee mugs and all those other things and the Bravo store is just housewives catchphrases on merchandise. It's the problematic labor of reality television. If you think about reality television getting its start, at least in its most modern incarnation, as the result of a writers strike - so the desire to take advantage of unpaid labor. And then you see these women being creative, being funny, coming up with these phrases, which somebody who's not them is profiting off of. And so in that regard, I think that what Mariah from Married to Medicine, but also, what Nene is frustrated by is Bravo, yes. But, it's really like any industry where a check is supposed to be kind of compensation for your creative and intellectual labor. But somebody else is making money off of that. That's that's kind of how I sort of understand that situation, that it's just inherently unequal, it is inherently unfair.
Do I think that there's racism involved? Sure, because it's America. Like, why wouldn't there be, but I do suspect that a larger issue is the issue of labor. It's the issue of uncompensated labor and what's counted as labor and what's not counted as labor.
Social media stars can have millions of followers and book appearances, but if you do the math based on [how much of their likeness is being used] it doesn’t even add up.
I'm thinking about if you're a musician who comes up with a really cool rip, people have to pay you to sample it. And if they don't pay you to sample it, they get sued. I mean, that's creative labor, right? Or if you write something, someone can't just plagiarize and steal it. They have to, at the very least, cite you in some form, which establishes your expertise. But it just strikes me that reality TV, especially if you're thinking about kind of the rise of social media and GIF culture. Tiffany Pollard from I Love New York and Flavor of Love is a really good example of that. Like, where her image is being used and is being used for like a very long time when she was not actually working. And there's something really striking about that and that the gifs that were circulating were being circulated by people who've never even seen the show, like they're just completely removed from any kind of context, which is a like a kind of weird, bizarre thing to think about.
I don’t know if this is the intent, but I wonder if there’s a way to watch reality TV more ethically.
I don't know. It's a good question. I think that the process of viewing is a dynamic process. It's like the relationship between the producer, the text itself, and the viewer. So, for instance, there are some shows that I feel differently about watching depending on who I'm watching with. I think there are some shows I have to opt-out of, because the show had crossed a line for me. I felt that [with] Southern Charm. I remember I tuned in the first couple episodes, and then I was just really struck by how much of it was about this adulation of old money, white Southern people as if it isn’t just slavery…that’s where it all comes from. You don’t get to be old money in the South unless someone was on the plantation, that’s literally what it is. And for me, it wasn't the show itself, it was the way that I saw the show obfuscating that reality that felt ethically icky to me. I haven't watched Love and Hip Hop for a couple of seasons when they put Joe Budden in the opening credits, and when it began to center around him as if we didn't know that he beat Tahiry and that was the subtext of the previous season. That was the point where I was a little checked out.
I think that even with the Southern Charm example, it makes me think about the limits of reality TV when it comes to engaging in conversations that really need to happen. In Beverly Hills, New York [and reportedly New Jersey] they are bringing Black cast members to [lead these conversations]
I hate the tokenism of the casting. I was actually always completely fine with Real Housewives of New York being completely white because I feel like those women don't have non-white friends. [And] I'm fine with that, for me, it always felt like a weird form of like exoticism of the other except my other is like, rich white women on the Upper East Side because I live in Brooklyn. So I don't like the tokenism of it because I think it feels very like whatever this moment we're in right now, like very DEI. Very, how can we pretend to be addressing these issues? People have been talking about the lack of diversity on the shows for a really, really, really, really, really long time. And their solutions to cast like a Black. And, of course, if you cared about diversity, you could have [recast] half the cast. But they don't, It's like we're casting to check the box. And then that poor cast member has to do all of the work of educating people.
Which is exhausting and uncomfortable for us to watch!
I don't want a person of color explaining Black Lives Matter to a white cast [member] I want to see Ramona and Luann sit down, that’s what I want to see. That's what I'm curious about. I want to see them sitting down and trying to decipher this amongst themselves. But, you know, I also don't believe in the teachable moment idea of television. So, just casting the one token and having them explain all the things is not pleasurable for me.
they (w)rote.
For the LA Review of Books, Dr. Gates wrote about what Snooki and Joseline [Hernandez] taught her about Race, Motherhood, and Reality TV.
For The Cut, Shamira Ibrahim writes about Eboni K Williams’ debut on Real Housewives of New York.
Amy Wallace writes this illuminating profile of the world’s favorite actress, Kathryn Hahn for Vanity Fair.
For Harpers, Barrett Swanson writes about collab houses and the Tik Tok generation.
This profile of US Congresswoman Katie Porter is beautifully written by Rebecca Nelson for California Sunday.
For The Undefeated, Evette Dionne writes about what it means that Black women are now more visible than ever.
Imani Perry writes about Samaria Rice for The Cut.
Thessaly La Force writes a reflection on meals, growing up, and gathering for SSENSE
(w)rite back.
Tell me, what’s your favorite Real Housewives Franchise, and why? Send me an email with your thoughts on this month’s newsletter and what you’d like to see in the next one.