Taking a break between cleaning my kitchen and editing photos from a recent session, I decided to TV-surf and stumbled across a jaw-dropping, train-wreck of a show: Big Rich Texas on the Style Network.
The premise of this (un)reality show seems to be rich women in Texas at a particular exclusive country club trying to out-shallow each other and prove to the rest of us how undeserving the wealthy in America are of their money and status. This show actually makes the "Real Housewives" series look substantive. These women are classless, insincere, and reeking in wealthy-bad-behavior stereotypes...think Marie Antoinette's supposed "let them eat cake" attitude...times twenty. Appearance isn't just everything in this twisted world, it's the only thing.
On this particular episode, one rebellious rich girl shocks the club's women with a beloved "Cunt" tattoo on her foot, then gets it removed when her plastic surgery-addicted hottie PhD mommy bribes her with the promise of a lip job. Meanwhile, a new woman tries to join the club, but first has to navigate the volatile and cramped personalities of the other club women while simultaneously ingratiating herself amongst the group - none of whom seem to share one redeeming human quality between them. Looking down their noses openly at "outsiders" and privately at each other, these women epitomize the worst of the top one percent of this nation who possess 90% of the wealth (and all of the tax breaks).
Pompous, hypocritical, judgmental, shallow, classless, and inhumane. This is what our reality TV shows promote. What a lovely image for the rest of the world to despise.
Reality TV just keeps getting worse and worse. Where is originality? Where is true creative thinking? Where is tolerant humanity? You know what would be a fun reality show? Take all of these women and their insufferable offspring and take all of their money away, dump them sans credit cards and designer wardrobe on a street corner in the middle of America, and wish them luck as they have to get a job and navigate people who will naturally abhor them as they try to survive. Now THAT is a reality show I would watch.
I think it's time to storm the wealthy castles of America and start tearing them down.
