Keeping it real

Until Joburg got its own version of The Real Housewives, I knew there were a whole bunch of Real Housewives out there, but I didn’t realise just how many.

In the US alone there are nine versions of the show: The Real Housewives of Orange County, New York City, Atlanta, New Jersey, DC, Beverly Hills, Miami, Potomac and Dallas. In case you’re wondering, Orange County was the original show and the template for all to follow. Of the nine, only DC and Miami have wrapped up for good. The rest are still going.

Most other, less-important countries have to make do with only one version of the show each, the exceptions being Australia, which has two, The Real Housewives of Sydney and of Melbourne; and Canada, which also has two, based in Vancouver and Toronto.

The others are The Real Housewives of Athens (Greece), Cheshire (England), Auckland (New Zealand), Hungary and, lastly, our own version, Johannesburg. All of these seem to have finished airing already except for Melbourne and Cheshire – and ours, obviously. Then there’s The Real Housewives of Isis – oh yes, I’m not kidding, this actually exists. OK, so it’s not an actual show using the format; it’s a British sketch parody showing hijabclad women tailoring fashionable suicide vests and other terrorismrelated parodies. It has received a fair bit of flak, but it also has its defenders, who argue that in an ideal world nothing should be safe from lampooning.