“You Put Everybody Down to Make Yourself Look Good”: The Real Housewives of New York City and Audience Imitation of the Dynamic Neoliberal Hierarchy
Location
Ponderosa Room D
Presentation Type
Presentation
Presentation Topic
postfeminism, neoliberalism, reality TV, The Real Housewives
Start Date
3-3-2023 10:10 AM
Event Sort Order
19
Abstract
The Real Housewives of New York City (RHONY) portrays its female cast as competing neoliberal postfeminist subjects. The women gain superiority by surveilling others’ self-discipline and demeaning the failed subjects, creating a dynamic neoliberal hierarchy. A subject’s place in the hierarchy is contingent upon their self-discipline in each aspect of their life, how others perceive their neoliberal performance, and with whom they associate. In this presentation, I examine a RHONY post-watch Reddit thread to determine the extent of the audience’s internalization and imitation of the show’s postfeminist neoliberal values. Ultimately, the viewers’ Reddit posts suggest they perceive themselves as superior neoliberal postfeminist subjects and imitate the characters’ enforcement of the neoliberal hierarchy.
“You Put Everybody Down to Make Yourself Look Good”: The Real Housewives of New York City and Audience Imitation of the Dynamic Neoliberal Hierarchy
Ponderosa Room D
The Real Housewives of New York City (RHONY) portrays its female cast as competing neoliberal postfeminist subjects. The women gain superiority by surveilling others’ self-discipline and demeaning the failed subjects, creating a dynamic neoliberal hierarchy. A subject’s place in the hierarchy is contingent upon their self-discipline in each aspect of their life, how others perceive their neoliberal performance, and with whom they associate. In this presentation, I examine a RHONY post-watch Reddit thread to determine the extent of the audience’s internalization and imitation of the show’s postfeminist neoliberal values. Ultimately, the viewers’ Reddit posts suggest they perceive themselves as superior neoliberal postfeminist subjects and imitate the characters’ enforcement of the neoliberal hierarchy.
Presenter Bio
I am a first-generation college graduate and an English graduate teaching assistant at the University of Nebraska Omaha. I teach Composition I to first-year students at UNO while working toward my master’s in English. I previously taught eighth-grade language arts for Omaha Public Schools. I strive to be a lifelong learner and share my knowledge with others. My area of interest is feminist media studies, and I am considering pursuing my Ph.D. to work in this field. Regardless of my academic trajectory, I plan to continue my work as an educator after graduation. One of my interests is collecting and listening to vinyl records. I have a large, expansive collection with records from most genres, excluding contemporary country, but I enjoy classic country artists like Johnny Cash.