Dream Facades: The Cruel Architecture of Reality TV

Morley, managing editor at Dwell, debuts with an astute exploration of the homes featured on reality TV shows and what they demonstrate about American identity, culture, and desire. The multimillion-dollar single-family dwellings of reality stars “offer windows into the good life at a time when the good life is increasingly out of reach,” Morley argues, analyzing TV shows like Selling Sunset, The Kardashians, The Bachelor, and The Real Housewives. In Selling Sunset, which follows realtors who sell luxury properties in Los Angeles, homes with scenic views of the city are coveted symbols of success and power. Morley asserts that their glossy exteriors and infinity pools offer a veneer of progressivism—but exclusively “for people for whom progress means crypto, Teslas, and the unfettered flow of capital, not the liberation of working people or some other utopian end.” Meanwhile, members of the Kardashian-Jenner family film The Kardashians in their modern farmhouse homes in Hidden Hills, Calif., evoking the independence of homesteaders. But while the “American pioneer dream” seems to work for them, “retreating for comfort into a fantasy of hard-working competitive isolation doesn’t seem that great for the rest of us,” Morley writes. Insightful and deeply researched, this exposes the false reality behind the alluring backdrops that keep viewers coming back for more. (Mar.)