THE REAL HOUSEWIVES OF NEW JERSEY — Pictured: (l-r) Jacqueline Laurita, Teresa Giudice, Danielle Staub, Dina Manzo, Caroline Manzo — Bravo Photo: Virginia Sherwood
Recession What recession If there’s economic insecurity out there, it apparently hasn’t made its way to Franklin Lakes, N.J., the setting for Bravo’s latest Real Housewives docu-reality series. The Real Housewives of New Jersey, which premieres Tuesday night at 11, exists in what seems, to many of us, an impossible world of French-chateau furniture and backyard waterfalls. Watching its five main characters kvetch and spend is like entering a fantasy world, or traveling down a wormhole to some earlier gilded age. It’s also totally believable, from start to finish: For all of its absurdity, this series feels more “real” than other popular docudramas such as MTV’s The Hills, its characters completely authentic. Some reality stars seem completely aware of the images they’re building every conversation feels calibrated to serve some future career in fashion, publishing, or reality TV. The varied “Housewives,” by contrast, have built their lives and amassed their fortunes already. Now that they’re fully realized, they feel they deserve recognition. Their lack of self-awareness is intoxicating it makes Tuesday night’s premiere the most engrossing hour of pure TV escapism I’ve seen in a very long time. I watched nearly every moment with jaw agape: Don’t they hear themselves saying things like, “My whole house has nothing but marble, granite and onyx” Don’t they know that hating rich people is a quintessential TV experience Do they care They don’t care! It’s fabulous! Compared to its predecessors in Orange County, Calif., Atlanta, and New York, The Real Housewives of New Jersey is the apotheosis of conspicuous consumption. Set in a town where every house has a hangar-size foyer with a massive chandelier, it follows what might be the closest to a group of true housewives the series has seen. “I think I’m one of the last generations to have the old-school attitude,” one character, Caroline, says. “I live for my children, I live for my husband. My career is secondary.”
This isn’t Bruce Springsteen’s New Jersey, but it’s Jersey nonetheless.