Mid-Season Catch-Up: You Need To Be Watching The Real Housewives Of Melbourne
Shine, shine, shine.
Last week a colleague told me “I can’t listen to this anymore” while I was mid-sentence. Thing was though, I couldn’t stop. I just couldn’t. I’d just seen The Real Housewives of Melbourne s01e05, and Gina had just called Lydia a cunt in the women’s bathrooms at a bar that looked like a refurbished RSL.
I took my co-worker’s dismissive tone with grace, knowing that I had other real friends to fall back on. Like Sonja, Ramona, Kim, Bethenny, Bethenny’s pre-mixed line of cocktails, Jill’s husband Bobby, Lisa’s well-dressed dog Giggy, Heather, Yolanda and now Janet and Gina.
I wasn’t always this unhinged. I used to watch mature television dramas about politics, drugs, royalty and top chefs. Now, however, I am a devotee of the (not very) Real Housewives franchise, following the Botoxic Avengers on largely mediocre adventures through their walk-in closets and inner labyrinths of crippling self-obsession.
Given that we’re now halfway through the first ever Real Housewives of Melbourne season, it’s time to catch you up on the series so that you too can bore your co-workers with inane chatter.
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The Housewives Franchise 101
The series started with Orange County in 2006 before moving to Beverly Hills, New York, Atlanta, New Jersey, Miami, D.C., and Vancouver (but who cares about Vancouver?). A messianic salt-and-pepper gay guru named Andy Cohen runs both the show and the entirety of the Bravo network. Though Cohen only appears in the end-of-season reunion episodes, you can now see him as the smiling, cloud-dwelling deity that he is whenever you like, thanks to — and I can’t believe I’m saying this — Lady Gaga.
For those unconvinced, noted fashion photographer feminist and academic Camille Paglia is a big supporter of the show, recently singing its praises on Julie Klausner’s podcast, and in essay form. Though yes, it is a very curious piece of work that can be examined closely at an anthropological level, mostly the show is just the perfect antidote to a hangover or when your job description includes watching a lot of Very Serious Cinema.
In New York and Beverly Hills alone (my favourites), the show has prompted: rehab, awareness of both lyme disease and canine alopecia, multiple bad dance singles, a suicide (pretty weird, that one), and the greatest comeback of all time, courtesy of former Disney star Kim Richards.
So far, there have been models, models, writers, models, models, wannabe models, an owner of a basketball team, business moguls, a countess (!), a princess (!!), and very few actual housewives involved. Although local reality spin-offs have a fraught history (remember when everyone was so polite on Australian Survivor that someone voted themselves out on the very first episode?), our nouveau riche are plentiful and their views expressive.
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Meanwhile, On Planet Toorak: The Real Housewives Of Melbourne
Although The Real Housewives of Melbourne is not quite as fast-paced as its American sisters, and each episode contains more filler than their faces, the level of cringe it brings is noteworthy.
Listed below in opening credits order (because who am I to mess with success):
Gina
Gina is your favourite and mine. Sister to Bettina Liano and… another famous Liano, she is a sharp-witted barrister with a predilection for drag realness. She (mostly) deals with fact and logic (let’s just forget about that time she talked about “the demonic”), and her bullshit-free speech is so refreshingly out of line with the rest of the series that I hope she is granted a spin-off, or at the very least an action figure. Gina is the one you will skew your answers towards in a ‘which Real Housewife are you’ quiz. Add her to your fantasy dinner party list and seat her next to RuPaul. Please.
Need to know: She recently left her “geographically impossible” long-term partner (rumoured to be a member of the Wu-Tang Clan) of ten years, which fortuitously coincided with Jackie telling her she would leave him during an impromptu psychic session. The fall-out of the situation was reality show gold for the producers, and they continue to drag it out every. single. episode. Once she called Lydia a cunt and then said “What the fuck’s your story mate?”, and who cares what else, that’s enough reason to greenlight a second season right there.
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Lydia
Lydia is just incredible. As in, not credible. Her accent! So wonderfully fake! Endlessly imitable. That time she talked about how she and her husband “share the pants… at home”! That time she thought the Louvre was in London! That time she tried to convince us all that she knows a thing or two about contemporary art! That time she talked about how her stepson is kinda hot!
Lady Lydia is a complete and utter mess, a reality screen dream, always showing off and then bitching about how all the other housewives are less down-to-earth than her. Not quite sure what’s down-to-earth about flying a private plane with your husband to King Island to buy some cheese though, when you can just pick up a wheel of brie at Woolies. If Chyka looks like she’s always about to describe something as “fun”, Lydia’s about to say “ooh… naughty.”
Need to know: Lydia’s a total turd stirrer (to borrow a David Sedaris phrase) who let down former ‘friend’ Gina by talking about her to Jackie. She’d like you to know that she is very good at skiing.
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Janet
Janet’s 55 and newly divorced, a former party girl who’s now on an endearing How Stella Got Her Groove Back rampage. A property developer, she is also the former wife of two nightclub owners, and looks like in a strong wind she may just be sucked into a champagne bottle headfirst a la I Dream of Jeannie. Except, with her raspy voice/blonde bombshell/young man fantasies combo, it’s more like I Dream of Jeannie Little.
Need to know: Janet called Lydia “friggin’ brainless” on a recent episode, which was divine. She is currently at the end of her sequined tether with Gina because of her perpetual tardiness, though clearly the two are destined to grow old together.
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Jackie
This one’s reality gold, and she knows it. A professional psychic, she’ll have you know that she is a rockstar’s wife, married to “Ben from Silverchair.” Not quite sure if he counts as a rockstar, but I’m not one to quibble.
Jackie has come up with the completely non-organic catch phrase of “shine shine shine”, which she yells out willy-nilly throughout each episode to fill the space so that producers don’t have to edit in that ye olde [crickets] sound effect. Who knows what Jackie is ordering to shine? Presumably she is quite blind, given that she described her husband as looking like “Johnny-fucken-Depp” in the first episode.
Jackie is not from Toorak, she’s from Newcastle, which means she is “real” — but she would also like to remind you that she lives a “rockstar” lifestyle and likes to throw “rockstar parties” in her “rockstar” house. You know, just a humble “rockstar”. She appears to enjoy racially insensitive headwear and orange jumpsuits that billow around the middle, creating a The Brood-like yonic effect. She is protected by angels. Do with that what you will.
Need to know: Jackie had an epic falling out with Gina when Gina used fact and logic on her. She’s now launching a tequila company and is busy ruining other people’s artwork.
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Andrea
Andrea’s a total snake in the grass who believes that nannies are evil cold-sore spreaders that need to be punished with to-do lists, that other women judge her purely because of her capability and success and – best yet – that she is incredibly funny. (She’s not.) Andrea runs a beauty spa and her husband is a plastic surgeon (hence her opening line) but we don’t get to see him very much. She has a couple of posh kids and a pooch named Poppy Dog, in case she forgets what species it is and tries to give it a chemical peel in the middle of the night.
Need to know: She is endlessly irritated by Gina and has no other story line except that she’s writing a very boring ‘how-to’ book that will no doubt end up lining op-shop shelves in two years, having served their purpose as an ironic gay gag gift. Perhaps the most boring housewife in the history of the franchise; feel free to use her scenes as your bathroom break.
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Chyka
Bless Chyka, left til last. Her face is always poised as if to describe something as “a bit of fun”. A powerful business woman, she appears to be happily married to a snag who is also her work partner. She enjoys cooking for her son and his friends, who I hope one day grow up to also use words like “scrummy.”
Need to know: Oh, nothing really. She went on a date with her husband?
Next episode: Lydia gets turned on by a helicopter, Jackie wears a bikini, Andrea tries to move her forehead, Janet turns snitch, Gina doesn’t give a shit and Chyka… is probably in there somewhere.
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The Real Housewives of Melbourne airs each Sunday night at 8.30pm, on Foxtel’s Arena. You can catch up on YouTube here.
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Kate Jinx is an artist, writer and broadcaster. She is the National WATCH Editor for The Thousands and picks all the films at Golden Age Cinema in Sydney. You can find her on Twitter @katejinx, and watch her hypnotise a rabbit at katejinx.com