Is TV’s bling obsession dangerous?

Hate-watchers rejoice! Two series make their debuts, each featuring the vapid behavior of aggressively vain and seemingly wealthy personalities drawn from the most grotesque stereotypes of their particular subcultures.

Streaming on Netflix, “Bling Empire: New York” follows a group of fabulously wealthy Asian-Americans as they date, mate, break up and pursue delusional dreams of much younger and “hotter” lovers. It seems half the dialogue has to be bleeped out and the rest is pure cliche. Lines like “I’m single and ready to mingle” are what pass for wit here.

Over on the other coast, “The Real Friends of WeHo” (9 p.m., MTV, TV-14) follows a group claiming to reflect some kind of gay power elite in West Hollywood. Like “Bling,” this “Real Housewives”-inspired exercise does not leave a stereotype unturned.

This being a contrived show about gay men, there is an aggressive, near-pathological need to be clever, catty, bitchy and mean without a scintilla of what used to be called wit. If there are members of a gay anti-defamation society they should be picketing this minstrel show.

Apparently, some people are already complaining about “WeHo.” From the trailers made available, they not only find it dumb and kinda sad, but are contending that its very existence is cutting into the running time of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” on MTV.

Both shows raise the question: Are shows exclusively about rich people stupid, or do they merely appeal to an unthinking and uninteresting audience?

These materialistic distractions are not limited to Netflix’s “Bling” zone or MTV’s feather-weight programming. PBS recently announced that it will import the limited series “Marie Antoinette” from the U.K., starring Louis Cunningham from “Bridgerton” as the hapless Louis XVI. From the 1938 biopic starring Norma Shearer to director Sofia Coppola’s stylish 2006 romp, the story of the doomed Russian-born French queen has long provided an excuse for lavish sets and costumes, not to mention outlandish behavior and excess.

With the exception of the occasional staging of “Les Miserables,” our entertainment culture rarely tries to understand the existences of those on the receiving end of grotesque inequality. These spectacles ignore the vast starving majority who cheered with much lust and passion when the queen’s severed, bloodied head dropped into the basket.

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