“I'm Very Rich, Bitch!”: The Melodramatic Money Shot and the Excess of Racialized Gendered Affect in the Real Housewives Docusoaps

Abstract

This article examines Bravo's Real Housewives franchise (2006–) to theorize the aesthetic, affective, and performance qualities of docusoap televisuality. It argues that the franchise functions through a financial and affective economy of “money shots,” or moments of predictably unpredictable antisocial affective engagement among cast members. These scenes generate a thrilling anxiety that encourages serialized watching and potentially endless interpretation by viewers, creating a ratings economy out of an affective one. Through a reading of The Real Housewives of Atlanta (2008–), this article demonstrates how the program's interest in staging the excess of racialized gender is structured through a white racial imaginary, which is contested by cast members in each season's reunion episode. The article ends with a consideration of the way in which queer of color camp affectively reimagines the thrilling anxiety of these money shots through humor.