The Real Housewives of Beverly Hill (2020-21)

The Real Housewives of Beverly Hill is an original puppet show that takes place after an unspecified mass revolution where capitalism is overturned. Marissa Fenley (PhD candidate, English & TAPS) and Blair Bainbridge (PhD candidate, Anthropology & Conceptual & Historical Studies of Science) follow six housewives-each represented by a 14” rod puppet-who live on Beverly Hill, the only hill left in the one-time playground of the rich and famous, Beverly Hills.
Beverly Hill is, to the housewives, a safe haven from the revolutionaries who brought about the end of capitalism and their own personal apocalypse. As we follow the housewives, we learn about how they have managed to construct modes of capital accumulation among themselves (namely a canned bean economy) and a patriarchal hierarchy they can wield in order to re-subject themselves and each other (they all share one husband to preserve the symbolic order of wifeliness without the inconvenience of having to maintain a marriage.) Thus, the series has two dramaturgical registers: on the one hand, it is a satire of the conventions and characters of The Real Housewives franchise. However, it is also an anthropological look at how specific dynamics of capitalism infect the construction of upper-class female identity.
Faculty advisors: David Levin (Professor, Cinema and Media Studies, Germanic Studies, TAPS) and Michael Rossi (Associate Professor, History of Medicine, the Conceptual and Historical Studies of Science, Stevanovich Institute on the Formation of Knowledge)