The ethical dilemma of reality TV

Last night was the episode of Real Housewives of Atlanta that fans have been waiting for since last June, featuring Kenya Moore allegedly showing p-rnographic images of her cast mate, Brittany Eady, to attendees of the grand opening of the Kenya Moore Hair Spa. 

After last week’s episode, in which Brit repeatedly referenced her pistol after getting into a dispute with Kenya at a group dinner, which you can read more about here, most people agreed that Brit was the one who was out of line, out of pocket, and doing entirely too much to get ‘a moment’. But after last night, the same can be said about Kenya, and we’re seeing people double down in terms of where they stand on this issue – a testament to the ethical rollercoaster reality TV fans ride. 

Brit, who was among the last to arrive at Kenya’s grand opening event, alongside castmate Kelli, approached Kenya and offered her flowers and a card as well as an apology straight away – but Kenya was having none of it. She rolled her eyes at Brit, dismissing her, which Brit took as her signal to leave. She quickly said her goodbyes, leaving her gift behind, which Kenya instructed to be “given to a homeless person outside”. 

It’s important to note that as a former Black Miss USA, an entrepreneur and a long-standing real housewife, Kenya, whether we like it or not, is pretty revered and has a massive following, particularly in Atlanta. So there was a ton of media interest and presence at this event, along with friends, supporters and former castmates. In a way, all of this heightened the stakes for Kenya, increasing the impact of her decision to either promote the hell out of her new spa, or leverage the attention and turn it into an opportunity to humiliate a castmate. 

As Brit was leaving, Kenya asked everyone in the room for their attention. She launched into a long-winded speech, which, instead of being about the process of opening the salon, her hopes for it and a thank you to her supporters, became about her haters (read: Brit). She revealed to the room what occurred the night of the dinner, informed everyone she had been threatened with a pistol, and explained that she had her private investigators look into Brit, and would be sharing what they found with the room.

She then pulled out a series of poster cutouts – the first of which was a collage of blurred photos, which we can assume were images of Brit pre and post plastic surgery because Kenya alluded to her looking differently in each photo. This move prompted a few people to start walking out of the salon so as to not look like they were complicit in Kenya’s quest for revenge. Finally, she revealed a poster cutout, which, based on the faces of the guests in attendance, was the p-rnographic image that has long been a topic of conversation – prompting even more people to pour out of the salon, horrified by Kenya’s actions.

Immediately upon the episode finishing, I shared a story to my Instagram page. In it, I said nothing. It’s just a video of me looking into the camera, awestruck, captioned:

RHOA. IYKYK.

I started receiving messages and the post-mortem began. My followers and I posed questions to each other, looked on the pages of each women, checked X to see what other people were saying, and we continued like that for at least an hour. This is a typical part of the consumption process of any hit show, past and present – from Survivor to Game of Thrones to Grey’s Anatomy. People love the conversation because it brings a sense of community.

But this morning, it’s dawning on me that there is an extreme sense of irony in the fact that what brings a huge sense of community for me and so many others often comes at the dissolution of community in the groups portrayed on shows like Real Housewives – which is a consequence that doesn’t exist for fictional, scripted shows like Game of Thrones or Grey’s Anatomy. And the consequences of this can be dire. 

From the conversations I had on social media last night, here is a sample of some of the questions that were asked:

Do you think production knew? Why was Brit still outside? Was production trying to make her stick around for a confrontation? Do you think Kenya will ever be allowed back on the show? If Brit did in fact do p-rn in the past, are those materials not fair game? Does this actually fit the criteria of revenge p-rn? What would have happened if Brit didn’t leave the building? 

But perhaps the most important question – the one asked in this situation and in so many heated others: 

Whose side are you on?

Needless to say, the discourse these shows lend themselves to is endless. And as an audience, we enjoy having these conversations. I’ve even taken up a Reddit subscription for more access to these conversations – because the thoughts people share there are not restricted to the character counts. And as I’ve written before, we enjoy finding out whether we’re on the right side of history in our judgement. 

But there is a surprising amount of people who feel that they are on the right side of history in siding with Kenya on how she handled this situation. As a long time Real Housewives fan – and reality TV fan in general – every time something big happens, you think you’ve seen it all. I wrote above that the consequences that exist with unscripted TV shows are next level – and that’s because it creates a sort of framework people feel obliged to operate within to establish the exact same reaction this episode did. When whatever mess you cause during an episode causes it to be the most talked-about thing, it’s a high you chase, unhealthy or not. And who is making it the most talked-about thing on the internet if not the fans? 

That same framework is what’s operating to make newbies like Brit, or Real Housewives of New Jersey’s Rachel Fuda go after OGs like Kenya and Teresa Giudice. They are wanting to make an impression. But after spending years on the show, women like Kenya and Teresa have become virtually desensitized to hitting below the belt. It’s second nature to them.

In that sense, I think part of the obsession is seeing just how low cast members will go in the name of bringing us entertainment, which as we have seen, sets a very dangerous precedent – because as we saw this week, there are no boundaries for some of the women cast on this show.

But that means we’re assuming they are doing this for entertainment purposes. According to Kenya, though, she’s doing this to take a stance. She’s doing this to show people that when you f-ck around, you find out. So then we find ourselves asking questions like, did Brit have it coming to her? And I think the mere fact that so many people are in agreement that she did is an indication that the boundaries are becoming erased for the audience, too. 

The surface question may be about whether Brit had it coming to her, but the true question is about whether we as women, as fans, as human beings, can agree that a dispute that never became physical in the first place warrants this level of humiliation. If an act like this is ever warranted to begin with. 

And though it shouldn’t be an ethical dilemma, for a lot of people, it is. With reality TV normalizing such below the belt behaviour, we, like Kenya, are also becoming desensitized. We’re losing our ability - or perhaps not our ability but our willingness - to see beyond just what is being presented to us and to understand the implications, the consequences, and mustering up empathy – or not - for people, who, despite being reality TV stars, are first and foremost human beings.