Dear Bravo,
YOU’RE AWFUL.
This Sunday while Shady Sunday is underway, our friends from Australia will be shine, shine shining unto their continent the third “series” (which is Australian for “season”) of Real Housewives of Melbourne. Actually, they are so ahead of the times, it premieres Saturday night. And yes you can throw that Draconian idea at me that they’re a “day ahead of us in time zones,” but to those naysayers, in what time zone did God create the World in 7 days? Because it seems like in Australia, it would’ve taken 6 days and that’s why they take vacations the length of a desert walkabout. What I’m trying to convey is that we are in the dark ages as to why this show has absolutely NO hint of returning to Bravo. I’ve even set a Google Alert awaiting the press release and so far I’ve just gotten a bunch of piecemeal quotes from Andy Cohen on his little YouTube channel that he’s never even WATCHED the show, which raises the biggest question mark because our Queen Brother in the Highest Seat in pop culture has given this show prime time treatment in all of its American markets last year and now he’s acting like Nene did to Marlo and when asked about it simply goes, “Melbourne Who?”
The Chinese Whispers going around point fingers to FOXTEL breaking your trademark agreements this season given its booming success. Others say FOXTEL feels NBC isn’t honoring its advertising agreements in the States by not furnishing kickbacks from our high price tag advertising slots and we’re salting away those funds from the Australian people (well, FOXTEL, so don’t feel that outraged). Most likely it’s a pissing contest between two competing studios that’ve grown disproportionately large over the years and it’s a matter of détente because one network underestimated the booming success of how the architects of these Frankenbrides would play in a country that historically exploits people in their unscripted formats, but FOXTEL had the foresight to see the slightly political implication of championing rich women while goading them from every corner and winking at their comedy of manners, so they’re visionaries of this show in their own right. Apparently rich Australian women of a certain age also enjoy being puppets for an unknowable production team most likely made up of gay sociopaths and their Blackberries.
Whatever the #TRUTH and #JUSTICE lies, we demand this show return to our tellies because it’s a shame and utter disgrace that helm of this ship won’t even dignify it to its cult followers.
Don’t act like you’re not willing to take the risk. As we speak, we now have two new Housewives franchises to brush up against the legs of like a cat, mind you, in parts of our country most men and women of a certain age only brag about leaving in their adulthood and now we’re dealing with your insufferable custody battle like a 17 year old, thumbs lapping our iPhone screens up and down while we listen to you split hairs about residuals and time slots and kickbacks and branding and who gets Andrea on the weekend, all the while Foxtel/Arena are shine, shine shining (It’s catchy ! SORRY ITS NOT BLOOP or GRRL BYE) while the roof is still open by forging ahead with the show this Sunday and we’re the ones on the ground kneeling for our contacts trying to find some hint of clarity into why the mother who birthed this creation is silent and giving it the Kenya Moore treatment, Detroit style.
We’re not the ones who are supposed to be asking you to catch us up to speed on our stories. You’re the Affluencers, I thought. You steer this operation, Bravo. Don’t let Arena outfox(tel) you and let this show speed down the carpool lane and we have to paddle through TORRENTial rain that even a PIRATE couldn’t BAY So don’t make us find this show on the never-never, as they say down under, and just air the damn thing. Let’s show them who’s boss here, or need we remind you the Jetsons were the ones who visited the Flintstones, not vice-versa.
We should be happy for our ladies from Down Under for striking gold in their own domestic markets. They are far and away the best thing to happen to this franchise since you decided to slice the bread of this concept in the first place. Now that Arena and their production team, Matchbox, has found it’s own voice and established a slightly Chykier, slightly naughtier, slightly innocuously racist tone that only Australians seem to pull off (or ignore, it’s a very tone deaf culture sociopolitically, so I can’t say), it is our right [citation needed] to see this show because it’s delightfully rich with Easter eggs from the story editors.
Normally I don’t queen out over such injustices on the interpersonal persuasions of rich women but since I’m a gay man who understands the narrative of these shows far beyond the superficial veneer of female in-fighting and rumor mongering, these shows are about the gay male gaze. It’s all the gussying up and the overtures that go into the event that make us excited. We remember sitting on the make up counter while our moms were on speaker with her girlfriends talking shit about coworkers, us just happy to be in their presence. We enjoy these vacations to resorts we will never be able to purchase a hand towel from, moreover, watch a gang of eight women get cabin fever and lean on their benzodiazepines a little harder than the bottle might advise.
But most of all, we want Gina. I don’t like to coronate any Housewife because I don’t believe it’s healthy for any of these women to feel any sense of entitlement for succeeding at being branded a term as patronizing as “favorite Housewife,” but the first season of this show was like going through the motions of high school all over again only to realize you turned out to be the fucking awesome one and all these bitches are selling stories to the Daily Mail or Scoopla. The image of Gina walking out of a court house in a barrister dressing costume with a powdered wig in tow was enough for me to call in sick to work that day to finish the remainder of that episode (WHICH AIRED AT NOON, YOU ASSHOLES. I HOPE YOU DON’T PULL THAT SHIT AGAIN. EILEEN DAVIDSON’S GOT YOUR DAYTIME SHIFTS COVERED, BRAVO).
So stop blue balling us from Down Under and bring them back across the other side of the pond and into our TV sets because you risk, I hate to say Andy, being behind on all the pop culture that we gays could throw into your tithing basket by streaming it on Bravo NOW and obediently watching your JP Morgan Chase paywall ads that are always shot in black and white on the corner of West 4th St & 6th Ave around NYU. You know very well that by the end of this weekend, nearly all of the gay men worth their salt will be stealing the communion Masqara to drink the blood of Jackie while we celebrate Our Patron Saints of Melbourne, and it will be by divine intervention we seek it out
So stop being awful and give us that Brother Sun, Sister Moon moment you won’t give us with Jill and Bethenny and do things above board. AND QUICKLY. Have gratitude in your attitude, FOXTEL and NBC, for having such hangry queens who swallow this nonsense whole after working 80 hours to afford our sky high rents and addictive weekend spending. It’s not like we listen to Silverchair on Spotify the moment we exit the parking garage or reread our advance copies of Switch the Bitch (not to be confused with “The Bitch Switch” by Omarosa Something or Other). We just want our tales from the script, only in Australian accents (or Silinese/Dutch Australian). Let us just enjoy being in their presence, like a dinner table catered by Chyka and her pygmies. All we ask. #ToorakWivesMatter
Yours truly
Your Geographically Impossible Partner
(PS: I would like to give a shout out to Janet, Lydia, Gamble, and Suzie, who I couldn’t figure out a callback pun for so don’t think you’re not rightly loved in our warm queer embrace).
(PSS: Alex Perry and the sunglasses. Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice, I’m going to have to see if you’re an actual fashion designer with documentation from Australia’s branch of Newport Imaging)