One might argue that the 1950s (or really, any decade before that) featured a more traditional concept of the American Housewife than the ‘60s, what with all the technology and feminism and counterculture of the decade. But, if they did, they’d be arguing with Bravo, the Housewife Network itself, and that seems like a real fool’s errand, doesn’t it? As the Wrap reported earlier today, one of the eight new series picked up by Bravo seems, at first glance, to be yet another addition to its extremely successful reality-TV brand. However, Real Housewives of the 1960s is, in fact, a docuseries, in which actual women are plunked down into a version of the past in order to experience “the ultimate era of the American Housewife.”
There, the network says in the series’s synopsis, “the cast will discover if more time spent together, traditional husband-and-wife roles, and no digital distractions might actually improve their chaotic lives and even fix their relationships.” While the concept smacks of a fondness for “the good ol’ days,” we can definitely get onboard if the cast is made up of women who could also fit into one of the other Real Housewives shows. How would a Luann or an Erika Jayne do with no seat belts and only three television channels, we wonder? You can read the series’s full description below.
In this imaginative docu-series, a cast of modern women will be sent back to the 1960s to experience the ultimate era of the American Housewife. Living in a cul-de-sac of authentic Sixties homes, these women and their families will be transported back into a traditional decade where men made the money, women made the home, and teenagers actually did as they were told. In living through the ‘golden age’ of Sixties family life, the cast will discover if more time spent together, traditional husband and wife roles, and no digital distractions might actually improve their chaotic lives and even fix their relationships.
