Book Review: Branded Women in U.S. Television: When People Become Corporations, by Peter Bjelskou

Abstract

Branded Women in U.S. Television: When People Become Corporations. Peter Bjelskou. New York, New York: Lexington Books, 2015. 146 pp. $75 hbk.The empirical nucleus of Bjelskou's study is Bravo TV's Real Housewives of New York City (RHONY), one iteration of reality show franchise that began in Orange County, California, in 2006, and spread to six other cities. Bravo, a leader in cable TV's lifestyle showcasing, is an apt forum for author's meditations on conflation of product promotion and entertainment.Viewers of show will be well familiar with its wealthy housewife protagonists. Bjelskou explores development of women's brands, emphasizing focus on their bodies as vehicles they discipline and control to achieve financial success and fame. Skinnygirl Bethenny Frankel is poster woman for reality TV success with her empire of books, talk show, skincare line, and more. Non-viewers will nonetheless find this textual analysis provides insightful commentary on reality TV and contemporary media culture.By investigating individual personalities from show-and particular circumstances that presumably ushered way to their brands-Bjelskou describes how each presents herself and how her behavior fits into larger category of branding at work in media universe. These women have joined a swarm of Bravolebrities and, clearly, are not traditional iterations of term. Celebrity is a major subject here, especially its current run of democratization, engendering, author posits, unrealistic expectations, and entitlements. Wealthy lifestyles are implied to be attainable via array of commodities presented, so that reality TV is complicit in the neoliberal Promised Land, as Bjelskou writes in his introduction, where wealth and fame are available to all who desire them. Race and class-in RHONY's case, quite pronouncedly, White and monied-dominate these narratives.TV is increasingly fictionalized, as author notes, but whereas a drama like 1980s' Dynasty is aspirational perhaps but more pointedly escapist, RHONY and its reality ilk are self-referential to an equally extreme degree. Because we see process of these women making successes of themselves-whereas Dynasty's Carringtons were offered up as an already completed project-the desired message delivered by housewives is that it is possible for viewer to emulate them, approximating manner of a self-help program. It is reminiscent of that other guidebook from 1995 bestseller, The Rules: Time-Tested Secrets for Capturing Heart of Mr. Right, which also inundated women with behavior directives, that is, Do this and you will be successful like me. Both resources are strongly and purposefully biased and easily become a target of vitriol or comedy. With regard to extremes, Bjelskou also spends some warranted attention on levels and uses of camp in RHONY. In so doing, he compares its aesthetic values with other shows like Sex and City, Queer Eye for Straight Guy (an early RHONY progenitor on Bravo), and Desperate Housewives (of which RHONY is an ironic comment). …