Hailing the "Real Housewives" as "intelligent and sophisticated documentary filmmaking that really needs to be honored," Camille Paglia argues that "pornography of female spite" is the exactly its point:
[T]hese shows are archetypal bitch fests! I read a few months ago that Gloria Steinem hates "Real Housewives of New Jersey" and would be glad to picket it. Well, there’s the big difference between Steinem and me. She sees the show as a distortion of women, while I see it as a revelation of the deep truth about female sexuality. Right there is the proof of why feminism has faded. Those second-wave feminists had a utopian view of women — they constantly asserted that anything negative about women is a projection by men. That’s not what I see on "Real Housewives"!
It’s like the Discovery Channel — sending a camera to the African savannah to watch the cheetahs stalking the gazelles! What you’re seeing is the primal battles going on among women. Men are marginalized on these shows — they’re eye candy, to use Obama’s phrase, on the borderlines of the ferocity of female sexuality.
Since Camille is a brilliantly insightful gay man resplendent in a female body, I'm not surprised by her delight in the trivial viciousness on display. My own view remains the same. Reader thoughts on the series here.
(Photo: Cheetahs' scent marking their territory, Moremi, Botswana, Southern Africa. By Tim Graham/Getty Images.)
The Dish 