Real Housewives got me through a terrible month – science says bingeing reality TV can be the antidote

There are people who dismiss reality TV as bad for the brain, but they underestimate how helpful it can be in the tough times

Please forgive me if I seem a little distracted, because while my body is in my flat in London, my mind is in Beverly Hills with a group of women I’ve never met. I have spent the past four weeks lying on a sofa having what I call, with classic British understatement, “not the best month ever”, after experiencing two big losses and a surgery within a couple of weeks.

In difficult times, people often submerge themselves in escapist TV. For me, it was the Real Housewives franchise. Although I am a reality TV devotee, I have never watched it (please don’t be angry at me, Real Housewives fans) and there are hundreds and hundreds of episodes, so I knew I’d be back on my feet before I ran out of viewing material.

In between a funeral and hospital visits, and then an operation, I watched hours of the show each day, morning until night. It felt good seeing rich women 5,400 miles away in LA lounging by swimming pools, drinking rosé and sometimes chucking it at each other in fury. I liked seeing them get emotional over their tiny dogs wearing tiny dog outfits.

One of the few times I properly laughed last month was when one of the Housewives (Yolanda Hadid, mother of supermodel, Gigi Hadid) said to the group that she and her husband going on holiday to the Amalfi coast every summer had “become like a job”.

There were near fist-fights, there were accusations, there was so much drama – all that anger pumped some energy into my veins. Yet what kept me watching wasn’t the conflict, but seeing the women do ordinary things like going for a walk, gossiping, and drinking a bit too much wine – all with a Rodeo Drive sparkle.

I felt a warmth towards these sun-kissed, Botox-ed strangers – even though they were often behaving badly – limply raising my mug of tea in solidarity as they raised their champagne flutes at yet another charity dinner.

For all the escapism the show brought me, I did wonder on occasion whether the grey matter might be shrinking by the minute due to the sheer rate at which I was consuming this TV programme during all my waking hours.

THE REAL HOUSEWIVES OF BEVERLY HILLS -- "Gag Gift" Episode 812 -- Pictured: (l-r) Teddi Mellencamp Arroyave, Camille Grammer, Lisa Vanderpump -- (Photo by: Nicole Weingart/Bravo/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images)
Teddi Mellencamp Arroyave, Camille Grammer, Lisa Vanderpump, three of my companions for the last month (Photo: Nicole Weingart/Bravo/NBCU)

At such a hopeless-seeming time, shouldn’t I be engaging with something more wholesome, with less conflict, with a more hopeful message? A nice wildlife programme, for example. Something about the universe?

A 2019 UK neuroscience study in the journal Scientific Reports suggested that regularly watching more than three hours of TV each day could lead to cognitive decline in language and memory.

The researchers found that during the six-year period, people who watched 3.5 hours of TV each day experienced a greater decline in verbal memory – independent of other factors including socioeconomic status, overall physical health, and depression.

But what about binge-watching Real Housewives for a more limited period of sofa-sadness? Was there perhaps something more worthwhile in escaping like this?

Professor Bethany Klein from Leeds University, who has specialised in social issues and entertainment television, thinks reality TV can serve an important purpose at certain times of life, and that we underestimate how useful it can be to us.

“There’s something about the comfort of being able to watch real people without having to participate,” says Professor Klein. “You’re getting some type of para-socialising, but without having to put in the effort. If you’re very tired or grieving or shy or anxious, a show like this could be quite a comfort.

“I had that myself as a viewer when I first moved to the UK from the US. Big Brother was a sanctuary for me and it was partly because I felt like I really got to understand British people without having to answer questions about myself or be aware of myself. I could completely relax into getting to know them and making sense of how they fit culturally.”

The company of real people, but at one remove, can be soothing to a troubled mind, she says. “There is also a kind of pleasure, if you’re grieving, because perhaps there is some desire to be around people or in touch with people in the usual way, but this kind of reality TV can be contact-lite.

“You’re experiencing real people but you don’t have to do anything other than watch them.”

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There is a tendency to dismiss reality TV – which is a meaninglessly broad term encompassing shows from The Great British Bake-Off to Naked Attraction – as bear-baiting for people who love to watch people have a terrible time. Plenty of shows certainly have their ethical issues.

But Professor Klein agrees that there is more than meets the eye when it comes to our desire to watch reality TV, and that often we just want to connect and empathise with people on screen, not see them humiliated.

“One of the points that I’ve made to people in recent years who are dismissive of something like Love Island,” says Klein, “is that as an invested viewer, you get past the unrealistic bodies very quickly and just see [the contestants] as people.

“I’m not sure reality TV can be dismissed so easily, because actually, maybe despite ourselves, when we get to know people through television, we do invest – and for the most part, we want what’s right to prevail.”

Professor Klein points to Big Brother as a case in point, where the people who were deemed nasty were evicted and people who were good were kept in. “It depends on the show, but serious reality TV viewers don’t on the whole have such a casual and dismissive relationship to the people on screen, you get wrapped up with them.”

I have now transported my mind from Beverly Hills and back to London to engage with my actual friends and family and colleagues. I need to get to a local restaurant quickly to remind myself I don’t actually hang out at SUR [Sexy Unique Restaurant], the West Hollywood restaurant run by lead Housewife, Lisa Vanderpump.

I’m back to reality now, but if you’re ever looking to put reality on hold, even just for an episode, you could do a lot worse than hang out with Ms Vanderpump, who once said: “Life isn’t all diamonds and rosé, but it should be.”

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