Challenge - Day 22: "Guilty Pleasure"

I have several guilty pleasures, but most of them are just "a little ping of conscience" rather than full-blown guilt. Stuff like eating Jack in the Box tacos and unplugging the phone when I don't want to talk to anybody. But here it is, my truly guilty pleasure -- I watch "Real Housewives of Atlanta" (RHOA.)

These women are crazy and I just love watching them get closer and closer to the straight jackets.They are all beautiful women who deck themselves out in designer fashions, loaded with class, who then fall into hollering and fighting every time they get together. So far I haven't heard any of them scream, "Prostitute whore," while turning over a table in a restaurant like Teresa on Real Housewives of New Jersey did, but this season's "Donkey Booty" controversy is cracking me up. One of the women, Phaedra, is a tiny woman with a really big booty and she's very proud of it. She and her husband, Apollo, decided to produce an exercise video to show women how they could get a "Donkey Booty" like hers, and that's what they called the video, too. Another of the ladies, Kenya, is a former Miss USA. (Don't say Miss America or you'll get bitch-slapped.) Apparently Kenya has all kinds of movie and production experience, although no one has seen anything she talks about. Kenya tells Phaedra she can help her produce the video and proceeds to "make some calls" to her contacts and "has a deal on the table" that she brings to Phaedra. Now Phaedra is an entertainment attorney and starts asking for specifics about this "deal" because Kenya is asking for a pretty hefty percentage of the video proceeds as payment. The fur flies, as you would expect, and the next thing you know, Kenya is producing her own video about how to get a great butt and calling hers "Stallion Booty," because a stallion is SO much more classy than a donkey. Can you see why I'm mesmerized? 

Another big deal is that one of the original cast members, Kim, walked out mid-season and left the show. Kim is married to a NFL player and just had her second child with him, a boy, who she named Cash. Another of the "Housewives," Kandi, who is not and has never been married (figure that out) had told Kim that if she ever had a boy, she wanted to name him Cash. Kandi mentions this on one of the episodes after Kim has left the show and now Kim has challenged Andy Cohen (who moderates the "Reunion" show at the end of each season) to bring a lie detector to the reunion taping so they can see who is lying about the name "Cash."

I can't find any redeeming qualities to the show, yet still I watch. I watch "The Real Housewives of New York," too, and feel the same way about them. What is it in me that makes me not only watch these crazy women but actually enjoy it? I don't buy the explanation that people watch this kind of stuff so they can feel morally superior. I don't feel morally superior, I just feel entertained. I never tell people I watch RHOA. Whoops, I guess now the cat's out of the bag. Guilty. I guess people like me are why Bravo is such a success. You gotta' love it.

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