Reality show embarrassment

If you don't believe people are endlessly interesting and bizarre, you are obviously not watching enough reality TV. During a dinner party last night at our house, the topic of reality television somehow popped up. It was clear we were all a bit uncomfortable about the topic at first, perhaps not wishing to divulge potentially embarrassing viewing habits. A younger member of our dinner party group jumped in to share unabashedly the reality shows she loves to watch. I felt it safe to come clean about my latest favorite reality-show addiction, Bethenny Getting Married.

I blame the beginnings of my reality-show addiction on my daughter-in-law. While on a visit to see Ivan and Joanna a few years back, I came into their television room one evening to find my high IQ, science-editor daughter-in-law watching Housewives of New York. Bethenny Frankel was one of the "stars" on the show, even though she was single and had no children. Reality is sometimes subjective. Joanna gave me a little background about the series as I comfortably settled in to watch it with her. I was hooked.

My love affair with any and all things New York began when I was sixteen and took a week-long high-school trip to the Big Apple with my English class. I often flash back to that trip, arranged by my favorite English teacher, Miss Sanquist. We saw several Broadway plays and went to the Statue of Liberty, where we climbed the original wooden steps to the crown. Miss Sanquist also took us to the Copa Cabana. She ordered us all Shirley Temple cocktails while we watched Diana Ross and the Supremes. I had no idea who the group was but thought they were pretty good. On one of the days when we had free time, I took the subway and walked the streets of Manhattan on my own for hours, stopping only to eat a bagel with cream cheese and to drink a cup of coffee. I had never seen skyscrapers, nor had I eaten a bagel, being the good Nordeast girl I was. (It may be a surprise to younger readers, but when I was sixteen, the Foshay Tower was the tallest building in Minneapolis.)

Housewives of New York was a real fantasy. I loved it. The neurotic, glamorous, wealthy New York City housewives took cabs, not the subway, wore expensive clothes, drank martinis with lunch and engaged in constant cat fights with each other. An example of a real problem these housewives had to deal with was deciding which exclusive, expensive private school would be best for their spoiled brat children. I quickly decided that if this show was good enough for my high-IQ daughter in law,then I was allowed to watch it.

Reality shows are bigger than ever, a staple of the vast television wasteland and the term tasteless is hardly adequate to describe the things that happen on these shows. Nothing is censored. Bethenny Frankel has her own reality show this past year: Bethenny Getting Married. In one of the episodes, we find Bethenny peeing into a silver champagne bucket just moments before her wedding ceremony. She is seven months pregnant and unable to get out of her skintight wedding dress fast enough to go to the bathroom properly before she takes her vows. With cameras rolling, her wedding planner and personal assistant help Bethenny hike up her gown and place the silver vestibule between her legs as she does her best to squat down to relieve herself.

You watch in horror, asking yourself whether this is really happening. This series had the highest ratings of any of the Bravo channel reality shows. Is it any wonder? And yes, I was right there with all the other millions of viewers watching every single tasteless episode. Harry, always curious, would ask just what this show was about. I told him to leave the room and just leave me alone, there was no way to explain this show.

Some reality shows are a bit darker, like the one about hoarders. One weekend afternoon I found myself transfixed watching as a team of "experts" tried to help a woman whose house was piled so high with stuff she could barely move around in her own home. I got up when the show ended and put together a large bag to take to the Goodwill. INSPIRATIONAL viewing to say the least!

The funniest and most shocking part of the dinner party confessions came when Harry suddenly told the dinner party ensemble he enjoys watching wrestling, just a little, from time to time, though he would prefer to call it an unreality show. I thought, oh please, don't go there! Is nothing sacred (as Joseph Welch once asked)? This is really embarrassing!!! (As if watching New York City Housewives and Bethenny Getting Married is not!) He says he enjoys watching Monday Night Raw because it is a modern day version of the centuries-old morality plays. Any excuse. It does help though, when he begins to criticize some idiot reality show I am watching, to mention Monday Night Raw. I have to admit though I do enjoy it when wrestler girlfriend Vicki gets mad every week and throws herself into the ring only to be picked up and swirled around by one of the bad guys who have been fighting unfairly with Her Man.

Of course Bravo invited Bethenny back for a second reality show season, given the success of Bethenny Getting Married. The title of her show has not been released yet: Bethenny got married after all, and reality shows are nothing without new hype. For those of you not following Frankel's meteoric rise, she came in second place in the terrible show Skating with the Stars last December. She couldn't really skate and the judges hated her, but her fans kept her coming back till the end, when she came in second to someone who could skate. (Bristol Palin, anyone?)

Bethenny has taken every opportunity to make boat-loads of money. (Mama Palin?) She has written a New York Times bestseller using her talents as a trained chef to promote healthy eating, produced a yoga video featuring the routines which explain her killer body, and she has skillfully marketed her SkinnyGirl Margaritas, now available in most liquor stores nationwide. Frankel begins a whirlwind tour of several cities this month, billed as An Evening With Bethenny Frankel. I have considered flying to take in her stop in Milwaukee ..... but that would really be embarrassing.