The Affects of Racialization in Real Housewives Franchise

For this post I decided to connect it back to my final project that I am working on. For my final project I am comparing the Real Housewives of Atlanta and the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and how scripted conflict is racilized in the two series. The Keywords reading for affect is studied through the lens of emotional labor and media work. It states that, “media and bodies appear as vectors, and affect itself as the primary communicational medium for the circulation of ideas, attitudes and prescriptions for action among them.” I chose this definition because it shows how media affects the way people view certain things. In the case of Real Housewives of Atlanta because of the way fights are shown, and how it gets physical, the viewer can have their attitudes shaped towards a specfic race, in this case it would be geared towards black people since the cast majority is black. They may view the way they handled conflict negatively. I contrasted this clip of the RHOA with the RHOBH fight. The Atlanta fight started out fast and turned physical really quick whereas the Beverly Hills fight started out slow, at a restaurant and when Kim so much as to pointed her finger at Eileen, Eileen got offended. Though the RHOBH fight is intense with foul language and finger pointing no physical contact was made.

In the Gray reading it was stated that, “The media are a vital and vibrant scene of subjection for crafting and performing selves, engaging in cultural practices, and branding and circulating identities based on discourses of market choice, consumer sovereignty, and self-distinction.” I believe that the RHOA franchise has racialized the cast and has protrayed them as angry black woman which is much different than hthe other Real Housewives franchises I decided to end this with a clip of Andy Cohen claiming that there is not a lot of racial issues on the show. This clip is teaser for what I would like to unfold in my final project.