Camera pans across vast desert before focusing on an artificial island dotted with luxury homes in Persian Gulf. As if warning viewers, eerie music blares out as if to warn them: This is not your Real Housewives of Orange County.
The American franchise that has been a fixture of reality TV for 16 years will now take its glamour and soap opera overseas, specifically to Dubai, a skyscraper-studded country. The Bravo network has never produced any of the Bravo franchises, despite the fact that the franchise has been sold in numerous global spinoffs, from Vancouver to Lagos.
The Real Housewives of Dubai debuts Wednesday. Six new women are inducted into the network’s crown jewel of marital meltdowns, catfights, and sex that is loved, binged, and hate-watched all over the globe.
Dubai may be 13,000 km (8,000 miles) from California’s gated community, where the reality-show empire first premiered in 2006. A cameo by camels makes this clear in the teaser.
However, Dubai’s “housewives”, who gossip and eat lavish meals, squabble over stem glasses, and arrive at informal gatherings engulfed by designer logos, turns out that they are not far from Orange County.
This is a message that the women wish to send. Cast members claim that displaying their lavish, party-hard lifestyles on screen discredits stereotypes about United Arab Emirates, which is a Gulf Arab federation where Islam reigns supreme.
Sara Al Madani, a serial entrepreneur, single mother, said that this was an opportunity to show the West, or the entire world, what a modern Arab woman could be. She spoke from her villa, which is decorated with portraits of her favorite tokens, and a room filled with trophies to commemorate her career.
Al Madani chose a wide-brimmed suede cap instead of the black abaya. She was first to admit that she wasn’t your typical Arab or Emirati with a nose ring and tongue piercing.
Al Madani is the Emirati only cast member, a surprising ratio in a country that has nearly nine times as many expatriates than locals.
Other “housewives”, however, found Dubai’s glamour from far away. Caroline Stanbury, a reality TV star and drama queen who starred in Bravo’s “Ladies of London”, moved to Dubai with her children after she divorced and married a former soccer player.
Caroline Brooks, a Massachusetts-based Afro-Latina businesswoman, has achieved success in Dubai’s competitive real estate market. In the trailer, she says that cheating on her is very costly. “Ask my exes.”
Nina Ali, a glamorous Lebanese mother with three children, started Fruit Cake, a fruitcake company. Lesa Hall, a Jamaican designer and beauty queen of luxury maternity clothes, posted a picture on Instagram recently showing an ice cream cone with a 24-karat gold-leaf.
Chanel Ayan is a Kenyan-born model, who overcame prejudices to walk for European fashion houses. In an interview with the AP, she described herself as “outgoing”, funny, crazy, and extremely hot.
