The Real Housewives of Schadenfreude

Are rich people OK?

            Let’s say I put you in a windowless room with a closed door and tell you that the door is locked; you are trapped, and you will die of hunger/thirst.

            Despair, grief, wailing, crying, screaming—all these reactions are perfectly rational given that you accept what I’ve told you. But what if the door was never locked? Would you ever try to open it, or would you resignedly accept your fate and wither away? We all walk around with beliefs that we “know” deep in our hearts to be true: Pleasing others is more important than my own well-being. I need specific other people in my life for me to be OK. A shape-shifting vision of success is the thing that will finally make me happy. But while these beliefs feel like they’re written in stone, they’re actually quite malleable. It took repetition and practice to engrave them in your mind—and practicing something else can help you break free.

            Toxic beliefs, no matter their origins, create mental cages. If you believe staying in a certain relationship is the most important thing, then disregarding or suppressing your awareness of red flags and contrary feelings is logical. Have you ever lamented your self-destructive patterns, throwing up your hands and thinking you must be irrational and defective to keep winding up in situations you abhor? You’re not irrational at all; you’re behaving completely reasonably under the burden of deeply ingrained toxic beliefs. For various reality show cast members, validation via fame is the brass ring they grasp at, hoping it will deliver peace: an end to the mental chatter that insists something elusive and outside themselves will save them. We may snidely dub them “thirsty,” but the sentiment is relatable to all of us suffering with the suspicion that mental peace and contentment exist behind a paywall.

            Brandi Glanville, former “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” star and occasional “friend of,” said it best: Though the stars of “Housewives” are ostensibly already well-to-do and thus needn’t chase entertainment paychecks, “(t)he only thing that you can’t buy is fame.” By enlisting to star in a reality show, are they tacitly admitting they aren’t good enough at anything to become famous for it, or do they simply want to be famous for who they are and not what they do? Most people, including the most privileged, struggle to soothe a pernicious internal ache, a hole in the soul that cries out for attention, validation and approval. Beliefs instilled in us over time from a variety of sources create conviction that external factors—a relationship, riches, notoriety—will finally alleviate our gnawing hunger.

            Money—or, to be more precise, wealth—is highly useful for specific things, like providing for one’s basic needs and as a tool to procure shelter, food, objects and experiences. It’s when we ask or expect money to do things it simply can’t—like create self-worth, inner peace and contentment—that we run into brick walls of frustration and wind up chasing a dragon that somehow seems always just out of reach (even for megabillionaire Elon Musk, judging by his Twitter meltdowns). If happiness is perennially seen to lie in the next million, the next luxury trip, the next mansion, in some future acquisition, we’ll never reach it. Humans can adapt to anything, and whether that’s crushing or exhilarating news depends on your perspective.

            We’re in what some historians are calling a new Gilded Age of opulence existing beside desperate poverty. What if 1890s tenement-dwellers, packed like sardines in dank hovels, working and dying in squalor, could somehow have a window into the lives of “robber baron” industrialists? Would they be more satisfied to see the rich lounging in blissful luxury, or torn up about petty squabbles over caviar in cold marble manses?

            Schadenfreude might ease the sting of feeling like a mere cog in a machine that creates fabulous wealth for a small segment of society. Today, our eyes are on the wealthy’s foibles along with their baubles, and Bravo’s production has shifted more toward focusing on fights and failures than on straight-up lifestyle porn.

            Some savvy marketers have parlayed their star turns into increased attention and success for their businesses; one shining example is Lisa Vanderpump, whose bars and restaurants have benefited from her stint on “Beverly Hills” and its spinoff, “Vanderpump Rules.”

            Still others have tried to hit similar notes and failed (an infamous example being Lynne Curtin of circa-Great Recession “Real Housewives of Orange County,” whose brief time as a woozy cast member and line of gaudy jeweled cuffs were insufficient to stave off the eviction notice delivered to her teenage daughters—who later became adult film performers—on camera).

            Similarly of note is New York Housewife Luann de Lesseps’ transformation from prim, pursed-lipped Countess-by-marriage to garish bio-drag queen drunkenly bucking in the back of a police cruiser, slurring, “I’m gonna kill you!” The plain absurdity and loneliness of her ascent from a working-class background to privilege and semi-fame is mirrored by the lives of the other ladies who invite cameras into their homes, some unwittingly recreating “Grey Gardens.” Sonja (Tremont) Morgan, a loud, sloppy woman living in a grand yet crumbling Upper East Side townhouse, is a perfect example, with her life even compared to the Beales’ by her castmates. From humble beginnings as a bubbly restaurant hostess, she secured her fortune by harpooning financial whale John Adams Morgan (33 years her senior—but who, hairless and wrinkled, looks even older in photos of the couple). When their union crumbled, Sonja found herself millions in debt from a failed and likely fraudulent stab at Hollywood producerdom and trapped in a loop of reminiscence and regret, often triggered by her frequent heavy drinking. As she traverses the spectrum from an endearing eccentric to a tragic and repellent broken record, viewers and castmates alike lampoon and guffaw at her unraveling. In one season, her winking tagline: “There’s nothing grey about my gardens.”

            If RHONY is cult classic “Grey Gardens,” RHOBH carries the mantle of darkly camp “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?” Central figures from the beginning are the Richards sisters, Kyle and Kim (and Kathy, Hilton-by-marriage, who smartly resists the cameras for the first ~10 seasons). The three sisters’ mother pushed them into child stardom and marrying rich, precipitating trauma and addiction in Kim, who spends much of the first two seasons on camera visibly intoxicated. The toxic relationship between Kim and younger sister Kyle is a persistent thread during the seasons in which they both feature. An iconic season one moment sees Kim and Kyle in the back of a limousine in black tie attire, with Kim lashing out: “You stole my goddamn house!” Kyle hisses, finger in the air: “You’re a liar and sick and an alcoholic!”

            These women (and Elon) prove that fame and money alone are not enough to heal from the inside out, but healthier beliefs—ones that serve rather than hobble us—might be. So, whether you’re a bedazzled TV star, parked on the couch with the remote in one hand and a glass of chardonnay in the other, or somewhere in between, you can find mental peace—and be OK. Today I might choose to revel in snark, but tomorrow I might bask in a kind of enlightenment where I take less pleasure at other people’s pain and am happier for it. Whatever we decide, I’ll be watching.