For 20 years, The Real Housewives have made TV—and The Traitors—better

Ever since Bravo abandoned its Queer Eye framework—building shows around individual tentpoles of cooking, fashion, grooming, interior design, and celebrity—it has devoted almost its entire lineup to shows that create celebrities out of wealthy, privileged women.

You don’t have to watch or enjoy The Real Housewives to appreciate what it’s done to pop culture, nor love every cast member to appreciate that its cast adds to the richness of television.

The formula has worked for two decades because the franchise’s cast members have enviable wealth and are often miserable people who either behave terribly on screen and off (hi, Ramona Singer!) or have a sneaking suspicion their fame will catch up to them and they’ll end up in prison (hi, Giudices!). Others just have to deal with the Ramonas to retain their fame on one of the last cable networks.

Thus, we can lust after their vacation rentals and still feel superior. Call me immature, but in an era of extreme wealth inequality, I don’t mind some televised schadenfreude directed at rich, famous people. Corporate media sure isn’t going to give us any relief, since they’re too busy lapping away at tycoon teats.

I love watching petty, inconsequential behavior that’s comically blown out of proportion, which was essentially the entire first season of The Real Housewives of Rhode Island. I can laugh and no one gets hurt.

Yet during its two decades, the dozen Real Housewives series and more than 25 spin-offs haven’t just given us scapegoats or jesters. They’ve given us rich storylines to follow.

Episodes contain tender moments between friends or enemies, or unexpected turns, sometimes into the bushes. They get drunk and fight, and get hurt and cry.

The shows’ stars have to be strategic, sharing enough of themselves to be vulnerable and interesting without appearing performative. That’s hard enough, never mind when producers tell you when to hang out.

And they’re not good enough actors to fake all this, so despite all the surrounding production, the cast have room to be actual human beings, with all the complexity that entails.

Just watch the most-recent premiere of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City. Its cast came together after Mary Cosby’s son’s death, all stunned out of their petty conflicts from last season’s drama.

The Real Housewives brings something to TV scripted shows rarely do: women over 40, centering the women who Hollywood continues to underrepresent.

The Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University found that, in the 2025-2026 TV season, “female characters in speaking roles and major roles featured on original broadcast and streaming programs were substantially younger than their male counterparts. The majority of female characters were in their 20s and 30s, whereas the majority of male characters were in their 30s and 40s.”

The representation The Real Housewives offers is not always flattering, but it is often revealing. There’s friendship and fame, anguish and micro-aggressions (hi, Vicki Gunvalson!) They are opportunities for us, as viewers, to examine, question, and push back—as people are doing with Vicki.

There are patterns and systemic issues worth addressing. Did Bravo segregate its casts? Is franchise executive producer Andy Cohen “deeply misogynistic” as a producer and host, “cashing in on the humiliation and hatred of women”? Does he get a pass for being a white gay man?

I will stop attempting to summarize, because after 20 years, more than 100 seasons, and thousands of episodes, that’s impossible. That’s one reason it’s silly to dismiss all The Real Housewives with a hand-wave. It’s a complex ecosystem.

The latest entry in the franchise, The Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip: Roaring 20th, doesn’t even begin to explore this with any kind of depth.

Its title is longer than the 14 days its six cast members spend together, and it’s less a show than a highlight reel with some reunion spliced in.

The roaring the title references is, I think, the sound of shouting from all the clips of fights from 20 years. That makes this Bravo show a flawless piece of evidence for those who have disdain for The Real Housewives.

The irony is that Peacock’s The Traitors is a better argument for The Real Housewives than Bravo’s 20th anniversary celebration season.

Housewives members are no longer confined to Bravo, venturing out to other NBCUniversal properties such as The Traitors, guest judging other reality shows, or (Thankfully, none are in any positions of power in the federal government yet, like a noted imbecile from MTV’s The Real World.)

Earlier this year, Joe Reid argued in Vulture that “The Traitors Needs to Ban Housewives.” The headline did its job in grabbing attention but didn’t really reflect the essay’s core argument, which gave credit to some players and ultimately asked for “[j]ust one season of The Traitors that lets the Gamers play against one another instead of in a team-warfare setting against moneyed socialites.”

As a Survivor fan, I’d love to watch just Survivor players attempt The Traitors. But I disagree with Joe about The Real Housewives cast’s presence as being a detriment.

What I love about Peacock’s version of The Traitors is the chaos that comes from mixing distinct reality TV worlds: strategic games, docusoaps, and shows where people have been cast because they look good in a swimsuit.

The CBS gamers may be frustrated by having to adjust to the Bravo reality stars. But that’s the game. Look back at the four seasons of Peacock’s Traitors and imagine removing Housewives cast members. That’d delete some key strategy and entertainment.

Thanks to the BBC’s The Traitors UK, and now NBC’s The Traitors: New Blood, we get the best of both worlds: a raw game between strangers, and an immediately charged game built on relationships and expectations based on fame and prior reality TV show experience.

The Real Housewives are an integral part. To approach a game strategically and find yourself among people playing emotionally or chaotically is at the core of the drama of reality TV competitions, from Survivor to Big Brother, Extracted to The Traitors.

The Real Housewives on The Traitors—soon, Cynthia Bailey, Gizelle Bryant, and Bronwyn Newport—are seen as an intractable unit. That’s the way the game might start, but it’s not the way the game goes. The expectations others have for them, or that they have for each other, crumble in the face of suspicion and the knowledge that the game relies on some of them to lie.

The Traitors has its origins in the party game Mafia, and its creator, Dimitry Davidoff, told Wired that it’s about “the uninformed majority versus the informed minority,” and that “[p]ast connections will always lose to future collaborations.”

When Peacock’s The Traitors delivers that, it’s incredible television. Earlier this year, we watched man meat Rob Rausch from Love Island connect with and then outmaneuver Candiace Dillard Bassett and Lisa Rinna, both smart women known for their ability to debate and argue on Real Housewives.

Of course, Rob was also helped by other players’ “blatant dedication to being dumb,” as Candiace said on Watch What Crappens. “My flabbers were gasted.” Mine too, especially as Rob was given such a free pass, perhaps for being young and white and cute and showing his nipples.

That’s one of reality TV’s strengths—not the nipples, but the anthropological opportunities. Surprises emerge from relationships, games unearth real issues. And The Real Housewives keep doing that, wherever they are on our TVs.

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