Reality TV Has a New Recipe for Success: Trauma

New York Times

4 days ago

Almost a decade ago, in the early years of Bravo's reality-TV hit 'Vanderpump Rules,' one of the show's storylines involved a cast member's sex tape's being shopped around by her vengeful ex-boyfriend — until the show's eponymous restaurateur, Lisa Vanderpump, protected her young employee by purchasing the tape herself. At the time, this was one of the show's more serious subplots, sown among seasons of rather frivolous blowouts that always seemed to resolve eventually, as was the custom on reality TV back then. 'Vanderpump' may have built its name on drunken hookups and hysterical squabbles, but its moral universe was one in which the audience, guided by the producers, knew the ex's actions were vile.
These days, that unambiguous ethical line seems to have disappeared from the Bravo network's flagship shows, giving way to something blurrier. Yes, the audience should still know that things like domestic and sexual violence are criminal — but now we seem interested in watching the resulting pain play out. It no longer suffices to laugh at trivial antics, judging cast members on scales of pettiness and cringe. We want to ogle chaos and trauma.
So the producers of Bravo's reality-TV mainstays are, increasingly, building storylines out of crimes perpetrated against the women on their shows. Rape, sexual harassment and domestic violence have all been tantalizingly woven through the network's programming recently. Fans accustomed to giddy live-action gossip and vodka-fueled mischief are now subjected to trauma plots that feel designed for rubbernecking.
On 'The Valley,' a surprise-hit spinoff featuring aging 'Vanderpump Rules' stars and their 40-something friends, a major nexus this season has been the destructive behavior of one cast member, Jax Taylor. The cast is constantly monitoring him, staging attempts at intervention, begging this 45-year-old man to manage his violent outbursts — reminding him that it is not, for instance, OK to throw furniture when you're angry. (A table he flung bruised his wife's knee while the couple's toddler was nearby. 'I felt like I was the Russian in 'Rocky IV,'' Taylor later reflected — 'I lost all control.') When cast members are not talking to him, they're often talking about him: huddled in restaurants or family rooms, mulling over how Taylor has hurt his partner emotionally and now physically. Eventually Taylor checks into a rehab facility and seeks help for mental health and addiction. But when the cast goes on a trip, viewers are privy to the bombardment of angry text messages he sends from treatment, accusing the wife he hurled a table at of ruining his life.
If you've always looked to reality TV for light, frothy entertainment, it can feel disturbing to watch it swing toward domestic trauma. But Bravo seems committed to that turn. Another 'Valley' storyline involved Daniel Booko, the most wholesome of the bunch, admitting to groping other cast members. On the season finale of 'The Real Housewives of New York City,' which aired in January, a fight boiled down to uncertainty regarding whether one remembered another's rape disclosure. The victim, Brynn Whitfield, cried about having experienced an assault and claimed to have told another cast member, Ubah Hassan, about it. Hassan did not recall this. Audiences chose sides: Team Brynn vs. Team Ubah. Bravo promoted the confrontation as a blockbuster drama, with the executive producer Andy Cohen teasing on his late-night talk show, 'It's a finale like we've not had on the 'Housewives' before.'
It's as if the pleasure offered by reality TV relies on gender-based agony.
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