"All the other housewives, those passels of pampered, primping, social-climbing,
Botox-injecting spendthrifts in Orange County, Atlanta and New York, are not the real thing.
All those McMansions, swimming pools, boutiques, charity auctions and spa splurges have been merely rehearsals, introductory rounds leading to the apotheosis of the Bravo “Real Housewives” franchise, “The Real Housewives of New Jersey.”
The New Jersey housewives are more real and more riveting than their predecessors because, well, they are from New Jersey, and also because they so closely mirror the make-believe characters in “The Sopranos.” The best reality shows look like fiction. The five women who make their debuts on Bravo on Tuesday night are buffed and polished to resemble real-life versions of Carmela Soprano, loud, nasal, nouveau-riche wives who raise spoiled children and spend their husbands’ money in vast marble and onyx starter palaces in Franklin Lakes, N.J. They boast about everything, including how soon they qualified for the black American Express card. As Danielle Staub puts it, “I actually got mine before Madonna did.”
Viewers already know the milieu, the accent and the attitude. The rest is delicious: clannish sisters and sisters-in-law who squabble among themselves but band against newcomers.
“We’re a large Italian family and we’re tougher than most,” Caroline Manzo, the matriarch in the group, explains. “Before I like you, I don’t like you.”
Toughness is part of the pedigree. Caroline is married to Albert Manzo, owner of the Brownstone, a catering and banquet business in Paterson N.J., and the son of Albert (Tiny) Manzo, whose 350-pound body was found riddled with gunshot wounds, his arms and legs bound in plastic, in the trunk of his Lincoln Continental in 1983.
This may be the most preposterous “Housewives” edition, but it’s also the most believable. The suffocating family ties are an improvement over past incarnations, when producers often threw together women who were not really that close and whose frictions often seemed forced. These women actually do know one another well, talk every day and raise their children together (badly). The camera crew seems to be eavesdropping, rather than masterminding. Some of the women seem to have a sense of humor, or at least to enjoy the joke that is their lives on film.
Caroline’s baby sister Dina, a statuesque blonde, is married to Albert’s brother, Tommy, so they are sisters married to brothers. The sisters’ brother, Chris, is married to Jacqueline Laurita, a former Las Vegas cosmetologist, and Dina and Caroline treat Jacqueline as a younger, more biddable sister.
“Her heart is as big as her bubbies,” Dina says of her sister-in-law, meaning it as a compliment. (Bubbies is their preferred term for breasts, a topic that is always on the table.)
They are not directly related to Teresa Giudice, who is married to Joe, a self-described entrepreneur and the owner of a construction business, but they might as well be. Teresa, the mother of three small girls, is the biggest spender in the group, always shopping for new clothes and more ornate furniture for her family’s unfinished French-style chateau.
The economic slump is rarely if ever mentioned on “Real Housewives.” Partly, that’s because it’s a buzzkill for viewers hooked on the free-floating vulgarity. But the men and women who agree to be on the show have more prosaic motives than just vanity or exhibitionism — fame brings publicity, and publicity is good for business, be it catering, event planning or real estate.
So the recession is mentioned only in passing. “I hear the economy’s crashing,” Teresa says saucily on her way to another spree. “So that’s why I pay cash.”
Danielle, who is divorced and not a relative or even Italian-American, is the outsider. She befriended Jacqueline at the beauty parlor, and is on “frenemy” terms with the rest of the women. None are particularly prudish or reserved, but Danielle has no secrets, not even about phone sex.
Locations and accents change, but the faces (frozen) and the formula never alter. The humor lies in the editing, and one of the hallmarks of “Real Housewives” is its reliance on ironic contrast: a woman makes a boastful assertion that is instantly contradicted by tape of her doing or saying the opposite.
“I am so not a stage mom,” Teresa says, while the show turns to footage of her coaching her young daughter, Gia, who is made up like a pageant contestant for a dance recital.
Bravo has already shown a “preview special” that contains much of the material found in Tuesday’s premiere episode. It doesn’t matter. There is nothing linear to the show’s narrative; instead, cat fights and outrageous remarks are played and replayed in every episode in a continuous estrogen loop. Like
Nicholson Baker’s time-lapse novels, each season of “Real Housewives” can take weeks, and endless detours and heated arguments, to get from the nail salon to the fashion show.
“Housewives of New York City” seems to drag on forever because there is something so dismal and joyless about that clique of arrivistes. “Housewives of New Jersey” is more farcical, less phony and a lot more fun
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