Real Housewives

           Human beings are innately curious and inquisitive. That’s the reason toddlers always manage to get into the bathroom drawers and pour an entire bottle of lotion on themselves. Due to advances in technology, communicating, even with those on the other side of the world, is fast and easy. The human race is more interconnected and aware of each other than ever before. Humans like knowing what’s going on with other people and enjoy being able to see others’ lives unfolding right in front of their eyes. I believe that is why reality shows have been such a hit. People don’t want to a watch a scripted show with actors, when they can watch a show featuring “real” people. Think about it, celebrities aren’t just famous for their work anymore, they’re more known for their personal lives. Hence, our fascination with all those trashy gossip magazines and shows like E! News or Access Hollywood. Shoot, even the local news feels the need to report on the lives of reality show stars like those of MTV’s super hit, Teen Mom. We just love “being a fly on the wall”!

            To my chagrin, I cannot say that I too am not a fan of reality television. My favorite would be any of the shows from the Real Housewives franchise. There are currently seven different versions of the series which follow “the lives of relatively affluent, bourgeois housewives and professional women in the suburban or urban areas of several American cities, and the suffix portion of the title takes on the name of that city or suburban region” (“The Real Housewives of…”). There are currently Real Housewives shows in Orange County, New York City, Atlanta, New Jersey, Beverly Hills and Miami. The Real Housewives of D.C. aired in 2010 but was discontinued due to low ratings. Although many say that Beverly Hills is the best of the seven because of their obvious wealth and high social status, I definitely like Orange County the best; they’ve got spunk! I think the reason so many people tune in every week is because they like to see how lifestyles change according to location. You can immediately see how they differ from one another, yet are the same in many ways. The similarities they share with one another are also things that real housewives of the United States can relate to. Such as motherhood, their jobs, divorce, etc. And of course, Americans love the drama!

            The Real Housewives shows manage to bring in millions of watchers and have consistently opened or closed seasons with high ratings. There’s even an aftershow which airs after every new episode hosted by the creator of the series, Andy Cohen. It’s called Watch What Happens: Live and they have a new guest every week. The housewives themselves are sometimes the guests or celebrities that watch the series come on to discuss what they thought of the night’s episode. The series has been a huge hit so far, and Bravo is striking while the iron’s hot and is in the process of filming three international installments in Athens, Israel, and Toronto. One of the housewives from New York City, Bethenny Frankel, even got her own spin-off show, Bethenny Ever After. I don’t personally believe that Americans have had quite enough yet of the women and there’s no sign of Bravo slowing down with production.

“The Real Housewives Of…”. Wikipedia. 28 Apr.2011. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_Housewives>. 

I’ve always said that if I could trade lives with a celebrity for the day, I would be Snoop Dogg. Snoop is legendary and in my opinion, a pioneer in gangsta rap. He’s best known for being in the West Coast rap scene of the 90’s, as Dr. Dre’s protégé. You can’t really get much more gangsta than that. It’s exactly how gangsta he is that appeals to me. Twenty years later, he is still making and taking hits. Recently, however, he has taken more of a “music for entertainment” approach to his music but will forever be an icon.
 Snoop Dogg was born Calvin Cordozar Broadus Jr. at Los Altos Hospital in Long Beach, California. “He is a member of the Rollin' 20 Crips gang in the Eastside of Long Beach, although he stated in 1993 that he never joined a gang. Shortly after graduating from high school, he was arrested for possession of cocaine. Snoop Dogg's conviction caused him to be frequently in and out of prison for the first three years after he graduated from high school. Snoop, along with his cousins Nate Dogg and Lil' ½ Dead and friend Warren G, recorded homemade tapes as a group called 213, named after the Long Beach area code at the time. When he began recording, Broadus took the stage name Snoop Doggy Dogg” (“Snoop Dogg”). He was heard by big time producer, Dr. Dre, who called to invite him to audition.
 “Dr. Dre began working with Snoop Dogg, first on the theme song of the 1992 film Deep Cover, and then on Dr. Dre's debut solo album The Chronic with the other members of his former starting group, Tha Dogg Pound. The huge success of Snoop Dogg's debut Doggystyle was partially because of this intense exposure.To fuel the ascendance of West Coast G-funk hip hop, the singles "Who Am I (What's My Name)?" and "Gin and Juice" reached the top ten most-played songs in the United States, and the album stayed on the Billboard charts for several months. Gangsta rap became the center of arguments for censorship and labeling, with Snoop Dogg often used as an example of violent and misogynistic musicians. Doggystyle, much like The Chronic, featured a host of rappers signed to or affiliated with the Death Row label including Daz Dillinger, Kurupt, Nate Dogg and others” (“Snoop Dogg”).
 Two decades later, he is still a successful recording artist and one of the most infamously gangsta rappers of them all. His most recent album, Doggumentary, was released in March, 2011. He now focuses on his family and coaches his son’s football team on his down time. Naturally, his life isn’t as gangsta as it once was, but there’s no way he and his songs will ever be forgotten. If you forget just how gangsta Snoop was, just put on “Gangsta Party” to remind yourself.

Snoop Dogg. Web. 20 Apr. 2011. < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snoop_Dogg>

The Eminem Show

“Not only is Eminem accepted as a supremely skillfull practitioner of rap, many say he is the salvation of an art form that they say has been corrupted by a focus on Bentleys, yachts, and Cristal Champagne” (144). I think this is one of the reasons that teenagers across the country praised Eminem for “keeping it real”.  Born Marshall Bruce Mathers III, Eminem took the beginning of the 21st century by storm and became the number one selling rapper in the country; Quite a feat for a 30 year old white guy from a suburb of Detroit. Mathers doesn’t rap about all the money he has to spend on Ferraris and Patron or walk around with a blinged out grill on his teeth. He raps about his life and his feelings very skillfully and a way that many can relate to.  “You don’t see him wearing thousand-pound gold chains encrusted with ice,” 17 year old, Manuary Reyes, said of Eminem. “He’s always dressed regular in sweats like us. The sweats might cost more, but he ain’t frontin’. He’s not rapping about clothes, cars, and jewelry like all those other rappers. He’s rapping about life-you know, stuff that we go through out here. Some of it’s a goof. But some of it’s real, and it sounds like it comes from the heart, you know. A lot of us can relate to that” (144).

“Eminem is better than the best. In his own way, he is the best lyricist, alliterator and enunciator out there in hip-hop music. In terms of rapping about the pain that other disenfranchised people feel, there is no one better at their game than Eminem” (145).  Eminem is what I would describe as raw. He goes there, he says exactly what is on his mind and it usually has a hard edge to it. He uses his lyrics very skillfully and uses words to alleviate the pain that he and his fans feel.  Mathers divulges a lot of personal information in his songs. His album, The Eminem Show, describes his depressing childhood with a brutal parent and the hatred he has for his mother for not being loving or supportive. He pledges to never do that to his own daughter, Halie. You could say he has angry appeal and the fact that Dr. Dre was his mentor gave him credibility from the get go, but it was his unique touch that made him what he is. “It’s the kind of music that makes you stop and say, ‘Is this dude for real?’; He’s not like everybody else” (147). Lastly, teenagers love that Eminem is controversial. It almost seems that his albums have become even more controversial as time goes on.  Many elected officials and public figures have had bad things to say about the rapper, describing him as “vulgar, degenerate, homophobic, antisocial, misogynistic and ‘noise and mind pollution’” (146). What they need to understand is that that’s what teenagers love about him. Everybody loves a rebel, especially adolescents.