Seeing Stars- Our dysfunctional relationship with reality TV stars

I admit, one of my guilty pleasures is the “Real Housewives” series on Bravo.

I love almost every show on Bravo, especially the creative shows like Top Chef, Million Dollar Decorators and Project Runway (before it moved to Lifetime), but the “Real Housewives” series sucked me into the drama of a bunch of random women, that I feel I know.

I have a little deal with my brain. I give my brain a little dose of dumb dramatic reality TV now and then, with the understanding that it gives me no negative mind-chatter or chaos in my personal life. It works for me and I have a chapter dedicated to it in the book I’m writing, “Teaching Your Brain Who’s Boss.”

I do feel like I know the housewives, which of course is the addictive draw of the show, so the recent suicide of Real Housewife of Beverly Hills Taylor Armstrong’s husband, Russell Armstrong, feels very personal to me and I’m reexamining everything I thought I knew about them both.

Russell Armstrong was found dead as a result of hanging on Monday, August 15.

Actually I have met both Taylor Armstrong and NeNe Leaks, which adds another layer of dellusional relationship fragments in my brain. I also wrote a story about an upcoming production, Real Housewives of Malibu, that gave me a bit of insight into the selection process.

I’m not alone in this personal involvement either. I’ve spent time discussing these women, their children and husbands with my real friends. It’s mostly innocent gossip.

I feel like I have an understanding of our love for reality TV. I saw on the Science Channel, that 70% of the human brain’s computing power is dedicated to recognizing other human beings and our brains don’t know the difference between those we meet on TV, film or even the radio. Yes, there’s a part of your brain that understands you don’t really know people you’ve seen on TV, etc., but there’s another part that recognizes them so well on a cognitive level that we psychologically respond to their drama in the same way as if it were a friend’s or family member’s drama.

Just go on twitter and type a search of #RHOBH to see what I mean.

The human brain recognizes the face, the voice, the mannerisms and storyline of these reality stars and movie stars too for that matter, as being a member of our own tribe. I’ve heard psychologists speak of this too, so it’s not just my idea.

Successful reality stars are authentic and expressive. Love them or hate them, the ones we get hooked into have huge personalities and some have huge egos to go along with those. Emotions are worn on their sleeves for the world to see. They aren’t afraid to show their truth, even if twisted, on camera. In essence, they behave all the time as if they are on camera. They fulfill the viewers fantasy that anyone (even me) can be a star. We sit back in our living rooms, lightly entangled in their drama and judge them.

My judgement of Taylor and Russell Armstrong after watching one season of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, was their values were hugely out of wack and their marriage was in big trouble.

There was an episode where Taylor spends $60K on her toddler’s birthday party, that made me sick to my stomach, but because Taylor candidly spoke on camera about growing up dirt poor and had witnessed her mom being abused by her step-father, it was easy to see where she got her need to keep up with the 90210 Jones and why she picked such a controlling husband.

Also, observing the way her sullen, moody husband interacted with her made me sympathize with her. She seemed like she had given up joy for money, but now it seems from news reports, their oppulent lifestyle was an illusion and her husband physically abused her, which is textbook abused child dysfunction.

It is now being reported on Radar Online that the Armstrongs didn’t own a thing between them and didn’t have a working credit card during the taping of the first season of the show. Russell had raised a lot of money for charities over the years but who knows if that was just to position himself with the wealthy.

Many of the other housewives have been outed as broke but Bravo really pushed the Beverly Hills women as being the real deal. Adrienne Maloof and Camille Grammer clearly are filthy rich.

At the end of the day, we don’t know these people. Our brain plays a clever trick on us as we get involved in these people’s TV lives. Nevertheless, I feel very sickened and sad for Taylor and her daughter, but will I watch the season that is now being reedited? I could lie here but I won’t. Without a doubt I will watch the season. Inquiring minds need to know and I’m only human.