Real awful

When I saw my teenager cohabitants watching Real Housewives, I was concerned that they might be corrupted. The revolving cast of women who populate these reality shows are seen sitting about in their beautiful, airy houses, flying off to other continents at the drop of a hat -- in private jets, of course -- sunning themselves on mansion-sized yachts and always lunching, lunching, lunching. Occasionally they may do a bit of "work" -- a hobby such as running a little clothes boutique or making a cameo appearance in a TV soap or chat show.

How does the extreme wealth come to them? Easy. You either hold your nose and marry a man 30 years older -- "What first attracted you to your multimillionaire Grammy-winning songwriter husband?" -- or you simply work as an estate agent for a few years (or, rather, your husband does) and the dollars come rolling in. The treasure is easy come, never likely to go.

I feared my daughters might be sucked into the money-worshipping ethos of the show, along with its counterparts, envy and dissatisfaction. But as I glimpsed the odd five minutes of the show now and again, I realised the opposite was the case: you could not make a better advertisement against being wealthy. You might almost imagine it was government propaganda to keep the title people happy with their lot in life.

For, as you see the "housewives" dementedly flying off to Japan to chaperone their "model" daughters at a fashion show, as you see them always picking fights with one another as you see them having a drink with an actual friend and letting their guard down, you see the unhappiness and what they have put themselves through to become a "real housewife". They have all had ruinous work done on their bodies and faces. They all desperately signal their success at every opportunity -- one never refers to her husband except by his full name, to remind her comrades she is married to a famous actor (though I doubt you'll have heard of him). And always the fear that it could all vanish, this Croesus-level wealth that doesn't even make them content.

The Beverly Hills variant that has been airing in my house is peopled by various Hilton derivatives and an unlikely number of people called Richards. The heroines of the show are the housekeepers: patient, calm, supernaturally efficient women who run their employers' wardrobes, kitchens, parties and children. Many of them seem to be of long standing, and the relationship is one of parent and child: a stoical mum humouring a demanding toddler.

If there's one thing that stands out, it's the infantilising effect of great riches: you outsource the pedestrian, logistical, complicated parts of your life -- the parts that make you and adult -- and regress into childhood. One character in the show has forced herself to marry a succession of ancient, moneyed men so that she can live out her childhood fantasy of being Britney Spears. She new goes "on tour", giving concerts of her dreary songs like a catastrophic drag act, accumulating an ever-expanding entourage of gay men. Does she ever look content? She does not.

What about the children? The housewives are all of a certain age, and some, having pushed themselves through a succession of marriages, each a springboard to the next exponential of wealth, have children of wide-ranging ages. These poor tykes don't seem to understand they live in a hideous parallel reality, don't appear aware of the freakish deformations to which their mothers have subjected themselves, apparently believe it's entirely through merit that they are invited to model at international fashion shows -- and are paid for it. No one seems to know that salutary proverb: from clogs to clogs in three generations.

But, as with the housekeepers, the older children, who predate the revolting ostentatious wealth and the reality-show celebration of it, have taken on something of a carer role over their psychologically spavined parents. One hopes they'll be OK. But the younger ones, who are toted on the show like trophies, deprived of anything remotely like a normal childhood, seem destined for the same life as their mothers.

Yes, I know Real Housewives is heavily scripted and confected, but you can discern at least some of the reality behind the reality TV by comparing the women. There is a British one, very much like a Jackie Collins parthenogenesis, who does genuinely seem to enjoy it all. She has been a successful businesswoman, she has a husband who has been with her since the pre-wealth days and she indulges herself principally by tending a bizarre menagerie of beasts not all the most fortunate specimens. She has life in her eyes. She has, uniquely on the show, a sense of humour. And she blows the other "real" housewives off the stage.