Vanderpump Rules Season 10 Exposes the Tragedy of the Reality TV Generation

When Andy Cohen, the host of Watch What Happens Live and mastermind behind the reigning iteration of reality television, was approached with the idea for Real Housewives of Orange County, he realized it could fill the vacuum left by the dissolution of the soap opera’s popularity. His theory would bear out, attracting a similar demographic of viewers drawn to the larger-than-life characters whose reactions and responses were always a few degrees exaggerated. Just like soap operas, the medium also attracted a certain kind of performer, whose skill set could be thoughtlessly derided but remains difficult to manufacture. It has come to define a generation of reality TV personalities—and viewers.

It all started with Lisa Vanderpump, the ideal housewife, who was emblematic of Beverly Hills’ ostentatious wealth and gaudy apparel and had a cunning ability to create drama and then covertly pin it to other less established housewives. The idea to create her own spinoff show was a true no-brainer for Bravo, which was determined to latch onto her widespread appeal. For someone seemingly driven by self-obsession, the decision to skew the spotlight to focus on the staff of her LA restaurants was unexpected, but it has proven to be the most astute business decision she could have made. If Real Housewives was reality TV’s response to the soap opera, Vanderpump Rules was positioned as reality TV’s sitcom. 

Like a sitcom, Vanderpump Rules is fuelled by the ever-shifting dynamics of relatable figures, dappled with the dramatic milestones that make up these 20-somethings’ lives. While Real Housewives extends their subjects enough grace to follow their families, their marriages, and their parents, Vanderpump Rules was captured with a more voyeuristic lens. Just as the sitcom, with its canned laughter and limited settings, traps the audience in a parody of human behaviour, there is an inescapable closeness builtin to this series. As viewers we are rarely granted access into the lives that stretch beyond the scope of LA, instead we spend time with them in their grimy apartments and messy hotel rooms. And of course, we follow them as they angrily chain-smoke in the alleyway behind SUR—their Central Perk. 

If Real Housewives drew viewers by peering in at the unbelievable scope of these women’s lives–their homes, their closets, their egos–then Vanderpump Rules nursed a different impulse. Everyone remembers working a restaurant-type job or having a less-than-perfect relationship; this was a reality show that encouraged you to project your memories onto the onscreen drama and covertly measure your own impulses against their imperfect responses. In recent years this appeal has been dulled by the shifting stakes of the show. The cast were solidified as TV stars (well, reality TV stars), their paychecks inflated, and they gradually trickled out of service work into seemingly steady relationships. They bought million-dollar homes in The Valley (all within a 15-minute walk from one another), and started to have children with kitschy, off-kilter names and independent Instagram accounts. If the engine of Vanderpump Rules was relatability, then it had seemingly exhausted itself. 

Then came Season 10. For those of us who sat through the monotonous, interminable Seasons 8 and 9, which felt like being held hostage at one long over-perfumed, outdoor engagement party (every couple got engaged within months of one another and had a minimum of three pre-wedding events), Season 10 was an answer to prayer. Three of the 5 main couples divorced or broke off their engagements, all stomping into this season with rampant, unchecked emotions that could leave them sobbing or screaming at a moment’s notice. In other words: a return to form. All of this was before it was leaked that one of the other couples in the show had broken up post-season after the male party had been caught cheating on his partner with another cast member who had been carrying out a romance with their newly divorced co-star. To truly explain the depth of this messiness would require a whole other article, or a TED-talk style lecture complete with visual aids. Needless to say, it set the Bravo-loving corner of the Internet alight. 

But it also reframed the show. Viewership numbers have skyrocketed in the wake of this scandal, securing the show’s future for at least another few seasons. Clearly their relatability doesn’t have a shelf life, or was relatability ever the key to Vanderpump Rules’ success? Season 10 has clarified something about the show’s gnarled, overlapping roots and evergreen appeal: Perhaps it was never reality TV’s sitcom, it was always reality TV’s take on a tragic family drama.

In its original iteration, Vanderpump Rules captured the malaise and scattered ambitions of a generation reeling from the recent financial crisis. The cast were made up of wannabe actors and models, all burned by the intangibility of success in a country ravaged by financial precarity, determined to party their way through the existential oblivion. In doing so, their real-life makeups and break-ups were monetarily and socially compensated, and through this they made running away from workaday responsibilities into a fully-fledged career, unwittingly embodying the dream of a generation. With the over-documentation of their lives efficiently monetized, this cast became the first online influencers.

But in 2023 this success, however lucrative, has curdled into something distancing and uncomfortable. These people’s relationships have been platformed in such a major way that the ability to ascertain real from fake is nearly impossible. For this cast, now 10 seasons into this job, the comfort of real friendships must feel indistinguishable from the warmth of the spotlight. 

Without meaning to, Vanderpump Rules has become the most astute, televised summation of the problems thrust upon millennials. The cast members have been fooled into thinking they are progressing when they are caught in a perpetual cyclical motion, switching partners and allies endlessly, needlessly. As they continue to get their hearts broken in increasingly cruel and bizarre ways, it is becoming obvious that to overcome this they may need to abandon the entertaining infighting, and cast their anger towards the executives who first gave them this platform.

London-based film writer Anna McKibbin loves digging into classic film stars and movie musicals. Find her on Twitter to see what she is currently obsessed with.

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