Season finale airs on Bravo, sets scary precedent

Jul 23, 2014 16:21 GMT  ·  By

Reality television thrives on drama, and when there’s none to be had in real life, producers manufacture it for the cameras. Last night, Bravo aired the season finale for Real Housewives of New York and set a scary precedent by showing one of its stars, Aviva Drescher, throw her prosthetic leg at another woman.

Yes, you read that right: we now live in a world in which we see “reality” shows picturing catfights in which artificial body parts are used as weapons and / or to prove a point. Perhaps even worse is the fact that this isn’t some Jersey Shore-type of reality show with youngsters looking to get senselessly drunk and hook up: this is a show about rich, successful, arguably educated, grownup women.

Right.

A teaser for the full scene is included below: it’s the first video. The second one is an Extra interview from a month ago, in which Aviva explains how she came to be provoked into removing her prosthetic leg and throw it at castmember Heather Thomson, who had been taunting her for some time.

You can see that she finds the whole thing amusing, even dropping a couple of puns about how “my leg can sometimes get away from me” and “I lost my… leg.” You can also see that the fact that she would do that on the season finale was known a long time in advance so, if you think about it, the season finale wasn’t as “shocking” as the teaser would have you believe.

However, knowing that something would happen and actually seeing it happen are two different things. And seeing Aviva actually slam down her prosthetic leg on the table and then throw it at another woman was awkward, low, and uncalled for.

It has also set a precedent: in an industry that thrives on scandal, feuds, and the shock factor, this opens the door to a whole new range of possibilities to have reality stars deliver for camera. If Aviva threw her prosthetic leg, who knows what the Snookies or the Kim Kardashians of the world will do next for attention?

We’ve already seen Snooki drunk-dancing with a potted plant (and apparently trying to make out with it as well), and the Kardashians get bikini waxes or discuss details about certain bits of their anatomy in front of the camera.

Other reality stars, like Tori Spelling and Kendra Wilkinson, work on their marriages after a cheating scandal (admittedly fake too) while the cameras are rolling, while Lindsay Lohan also turned to reality TV to prove to the world that she was dead-serious about her comeback post-rehab.

Thanks to reality TV, we’ve seen celebrities give birth, make love, fight, break up, get drunk, attend funerals, have parties, and everything else you could ever (ever!) think of. It is like an open door into these stars’ life, with the notable distinction that many of the things we see are actually scripted, faked for the cameras.

The more we see, the more they have to do to keep us interested – it’s just how these things work. Conflicts escalate, punches are being thrown left and right, parties turn into ragers, details become more graphic, and now – thank you, Aviva – we also have women using prosthetic body parts as the punchline in an argument.

The worst part of it all is that, now that Aviva has done it, other reality stars will have to top it. I shudder to think what will come next, but in many regards, I can’t but feel that reality television as an independent branch of entertainment can’t go out of fashion soon enough.