“Levy’s defense is that most people are looking at The Real Housewives as a linear text, like a movie, television show, or a novel. Scholars analyze the shows individually and in a self-contained manner, reading them from start to finish. Anyone with a DVR clogged full of Bravo content knows that this is not the way that the shows are aired or how they are consumed by most people. There is always more than one franchise of The Real Housewives on at any given time, sometimes more than one on the same night. That means the shows shouldn’t be seen as a straight line but as a matrix, where one show can correct the bad impressions made by the others.”
