Real Housewives

In my law journal office, we realized that nearly all of our conversations can come back to the Housewives of OC, NY, Atlanta, and now New Jersey. All of us, male and female, from all across the country are obsessed with the show. We talk about the people on the show like we actually know them and all have our favorites (my roommate and I casted our all-star team as Jeana, Bethanny, NeNe, and Jill).

We all know it is trashy television and that it perpetuates stereotypes like how OC trash talks behind everyone's backs because they are fake in California, whereas NY has in-person arguments because they are more confrontational. But then there was an article in the Washington Post by Robin Givhan this week about how the show does remind us of certain things in life. It does capture exactly what I am thinking on Tuesday nights as I watch the show.

"But if the housewives offer any lesson, it is that all the money in their lives does not succeed in making their lives enviable. It only seems to make their homes more crowded with stuff and their behavior that much more appalling.

The most valuable lesson to be learned from "The Real Housewives" may be that we still have the capacity to even be appalled. This is different from being morally outraged or incensed by man's -- or woman's -- inhumanity to man. And we're not talking about the kind of angry disbelief that accompanies, say, the reading of financial news these days.

With "The Real Housewives" we are reminded that we can still be astonished by rudeness and incivility. And perhaps that's a good thing. Our jaws can still drop over the little things: the snide comment, the social climbing, the disingenuous behavior, the inability to say 'No, thank you, I have enough.'"

Who would have thought that this has been one of the longest shows that I am still watching (a picture in honor of the original cast, back in March 2006). And the show only seems to be gathering more steam with NJ officially premiering in May, the night after my last final. You know what I will be watching this summer to get me through studying.