by Suzanne Leonard
about Suzanne Leonard
Suzanne Leonard is Professor of English and Director of the Graduate Program in Gender/Cultural Studies at Simmons University in Boston. She is the author of Wife, Inc.: The Business of Marriage in the Twenty-First Century, Fatal Attraction, and co-editor with Yvonne Tasker of Fifty Hollywood Directors.
The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills
Abstract: Bravo’s popular reality franchise The Real Housewives participates in a larger zeitgeist where the term “housewife” no longer refers to a woman who labors primarily inside the home. In this new paradigm, argues Suzanne Leonard, the housewife’s job is to be a professional woman. The 2011 season finale of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills illustrates that housewives commercialize wifedom at the same time that they are commodified by it, as they work for a network that has staked its fortunes on cultivating an affluent consumer base.