Is it time to close the bar for Vanderpump Rules?
Once, Vanderpump Rules truly did rule
Welcome to Following Studies — an adventure through subcultures, obsessions, and the things that bring people together. I’m glad you’re here. If you think someone else would have fun hanging out with us, be sure to share. Spoiler alert for Vanderpump Rules if you are not current to at least season 10!
Happy Vanderpump Rules Day to all who celebrate! As we all hold our breath for another episode to drop tonight, I offer a few musings on the state of the show. It feels like we may be on the end cycle of Vanderpump Rules that not even the reality show CPR (a cheating scandal) could revive.
It was 2013 when Vanderpump Rules first aired. We were wearing huge owl necklaces and high-low dresses. We were heavy on peplum shirts. Instagram was only three years old and hadn't completely permeated our lives. We were still posting with abandon and sepia filters. Gaslighting hadn't wholly entered our relationship lexicon. We were introduced to the VPR cast with their inability to work shifts at SUR without fighting and their devotion to goat cheese balls.
They were servers and bartenders, and maybe that’s why we loved them. They were a little like all of us – they were young, trying, and working for something else. They wanted to be actors, singers, and models. They worked as models sometimes, were going on castings, and some had even shown up on other reality shows for brief moments (Tom on The Hills during a model casting?! Does anyone else remember that?!). Scheana wanted to be a pop star. Tom wanted to be an actor. The VPR cast were all dating each other, cheating, breaking up, getting back together, rinse and repeat. Their backdrop was Los Angeles.
For those who say, “Okay, but this is a reality show. Who cares?” I respond with this:
“An often ridiculed form of entertainment, seemingly marginal to the serious business of life, reality TV is in fact a pop-cultural touchstone that illuminates our everyday experiences and can help us to make sense of complex social forces. The genre is a fun-house mirror, to be sure, but one that powerfully reflects the contours of our social world. It takes the elements that are central to our culture—our collective preferences, our norms and taboos, and the jagged edges of our social inequalities—and beams them out to us in frenetic detail. The idea that pop culture can teach us about ourselves is nothing new. Media researchers have long suggested that television reflects our values as a culture. More than any other medium, they have argued, TV is our collective storyteller. While other forms of media are also shaped by public tastes, mainstream television programs must appeal to vast swaths of society or risk cancellation. Their content is indicative of our broadest social patterns and values.”
— True Story: What Reality TV Says About Us by Danielle J. Lindemann, PhD
Time, as it does, has kept going. Social media has developed, and we can argue that it hasn’t been kind to every cast member. We are on season 11 of VPR, and last season was rocked by Scandoval, a cheating scandal of the most intense proportion. If you managed to escape the drama, long-time cast member Tom Sandoval (who had previously been with long-time cast member Kristen, though not currently on the show*) cheated on his long-time girlfriend Arianna (who had been previously accused of cheating with Tom when he was with Kristen) with Raquel (or Rachel as the cast members have pointed out is her actual name and was previously engaged to James who once cheated with Kristen when she was with Tom).
THE WEB THAT WE WEAVE.
We’ve been watching the VPR cast cheat on each other for most seasons of the show, but there was something different about this particular scandal. Sure, Arianna and Tom had been together for ten years, but it was different than watching the betrayals of the early years roll out weekly on TV - we were seeing it play out on social media.
Maybe that’s the tragedy of reality TV in today’s social era. Even with the most heightened stakes, it falls a little flat. Our access to the cast members via their different social channels was once exciting but now has diluted the impact of the storyline.
It feels like this season is creeping along on a ventilator. It’s not just VPR. Today's reality stars must stay relevant and show their lives to their audiences (followers) and keep engagement up (to ensure they have brand deals, opportunities outside the shows that made them famous, and invitations to be cast members back on those shows). But when we see the drama unfold on our phones outside of the confines of the show, it turns out that watching the edited version after the fact is not as interesting. It’s kind of the reason, for example, that watching The Kardashians feels more like watching a long infomercial about each Kardashian/Jenner sister’s products rather than the family chaos of the early Keeping Up with the Kardashians days.
This might not be shattering to some, but maybe we really are at the end of VPR’s era. It seems like every show has a natural expiration date, a point when it simply can’t be reinvented with new cast members or a new drama. The charm of VPR and why the show worked were not just their interpersonal issues. It was also this earnest belief that they were just one more casting, waitressing, or bartending shift away from that big Hollywood/LA dream of making it. And they have made it, just in a different way. The cast are getting brand deals, opening restaurants, and starting companies. Scheana is still dropping new versions of her 2013 song, Good as Gold. If they are Ariana, they are starring in a Broadway show, getting invited to the White House Correspondents Dinner, and doing the salsa on Dancing with the Stars.
And maybe that’s why, at least for me, the show is winding down. We’ve seen the cast chase their dreams (and cheat on each other) and have their dreams of stardom transition into another type of stardom. It feels time to let this show go even though Scandoval revived it for a moment. But for a while, in a brief sparkling reality show land, as Scheanna sings, it was good as gold.
*Kristen (along with cast member Stassi) was fired for racist actions against a co-star.
Tell us, what reality shows are your favorite and why should we be watching them?! If you’ve watched VPR, do you think the show has run its course?