These women are 'Real' bad

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — Given that the "Real Housewives of Orange County" and "Real Housewives of New York City" (10 p.m., Bravo) humiliated themselves on national cable television, how could you possibly get anyone to do it again?

Because, apparently, rich, spoiled, mean, spiteful women don't recognize how they're perceived.

The "Real Housewives" concept is simple. Cameras follow rich women around and capture what we're supposed to believe is their everyday behavior. And their everyday behavior is, in large part, bad behavior.

They are under the impression that money translates into class. It doesn't.

To be kind, all of them are sad. To be more on point, most of them are pathetic.

The nicest of the bunch is DeShawn Snow, who proclaims, "I always knew I was destined for greatness."

Well, it's nice that you've got lots of money because you married NBA player Eric Snow, currently with the Cavaliers, but that doesn't make you "great."

And Snow is a breath of fresh air compared to the foul stench rising from some of the other women.

Lisa Hu Hartwell, married to former NFL player Ed Hartwell, seems to care about nothing but making money. Sheree Whitfield, in the process of divorcing former NFL player Bob Whitfield, considers herself "among Atlanta's wealthy elite," although all her money came from her ex. NeNe Leakes gets her money from her wealthy husband. And Kim Zolciak gets hers from an ex-husband and "mystery multimillionaire" who "prefers to remain anonymous."

What, is he married? Whatever, it's clear she's not being paid to do any actual work.

Whitfield is a horror, obsessed with her own birthday party. Leakes proves that you can be rich and trashy at the same time. As does Zolciak, whose behavior is downright repulsive.

And they're proud of themselves. The women on the show are under the mistaken impression that people watch "Real Housewives" because they admire the women on the show.

They actually think they're role models of some kind.

"Usually there's somebody within a cast that you can identify or someone that you want to aspire to be like or to have what they have," Snow said.

Plenty of people want to be rich. But few want to be portrayed like the, um, witches we see among "The Real Housewives of Atlanta."

"I think a lot of women view the show and they live vicariously through all the women," said Leakes.

"Maybe they experience something they would never experience in their own lives," Hartwell said.

OK, so maybe there's an element of envying the money. But these women think it goes beyond that. They think the show's appeal is "just the independence and the strong-ness of the women," Leakes said. "There's a lot of women who have strong, successful men. They're usually just home with the kids. That's not what we do."

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