Fantastic post - I too am tragically a Selling Sunset enjoyer (tho I haven't watched Season 8 yet). Your description of Emma's "violent femininity" was spot on and made me lol. She freaks me out and is hands-down my least favorite cast member.
Your exploration of the clothes made me think about the interplay between fashion and architecture/interior design on the show as they've both evolved. The version of real estate presented on the show is obviously beyond morally indefensible - enormous, environmentally destructive mansions being bought and sold by people who view them as financial assets more so than places to live, largely leaving them empty in a city with a massive housing crisis. Relatedly, my favorite moments on the show are when they (infrequently) run up against real-world checks on the speculative real estate market, always framed as an unfortunate barrier to be overcome by hustling - the mansion tax, absurdly high fire insurance, etc.
As the show has gone on, they've had to come up with more and more huge and expensive houses to maintain shock value, but I can never get over how identically soulless and styleless all of these places are. They are ugly!! Though I too have looked at the real estate agent commissions with envy (lol, duh), I don't think I've ever once wished that I got to live in one of these enormous, slapped-together, beige, digital-rendering-ass mansions. The clothing and the real estate have escalated in tandem, revealing a deep vacancy at the heart of the world that the show depicts: enormous, expensive houses vacant of style or beauty; outlandish, "sexy" clothes vacant of real sex appeal or clear relationship to the situations in which they are worn. I've noticed that the women actually make pretty frequent reference to the costumeyness/practical difficulties of whatever insane thing they're wearing. The ugliness/homogeneity of the houses, however, cannot be acknowledged in the world of the show because ostensibly the O Group is an actual business. Anyway, I didn't think I was going to write a multiple-paragraph musing on Selling Sunset today, so thank you Eleanor for providing the opportunity haha!
Yes to alllll of this!! I didn’t even touch on this aspect but I also have no desire to live in any of those houses (I ask myself would I rather have this house or my 800 sq ft apartment and I choose the apartment every time)
I was obsessed with how grave of an issue the “mansion tax” was a couple seasons ago
Holy shit this is one of my fave newsletters to date?! I have never seen the show (though obv I *have* read multiple articles abt g-flip & chrishell and Also Stan) but now I want to watch just to observe the dynamics, so that’s some incredibly persuasive writing!! Also “violent femininity” is just a perfect descriptor for this brand of aggressively performative and explicitly transactional femininity. Such a great read 💯💯
This was a wonderful post! Hilarious and terrifying, like the entire show. I would like to humbly submit the term "pant-opticon" for your consideration. My friend used it once to describe the prison that is denim but I think it applies here as well!
Selling Sunset gives me a headache, but I find it watchable if I leave on low volume playing in the background while I cook or do the ironing. Amanza wears clothes so well - she can pull off the loudest outfits but she never looks overwhelmed by them. I think she might be my fave cast member. It was shocking when Alanna joined, her clothes were looked so refreshing normal (in an IG influencer, Frankie Shop kind of way), also hilarious that she "owns" a town, which reminded me of Schitt's Creek (which taught that you can own towns in the US). Emma's style irks me the way her personality does, your description of her is spot on! The houses in the first season were the best (that beautiful A-frame house, the pretty cottage-y one that Mary found for her client). Everything after that felt so blah and pointlessly expensive.
This post is so good. The rival empanada dump! I too am an Amanza stan--I loved when, hooked up to a lie detector, she admitted with a small smile that she's the prettiest agent in the office
Fantastic post - I too am tragically a Selling Sunset enjoyer (tho I haven't watched Season 8 yet). Your description of Emma's "violent femininity" was spot on and made me lol. She freaks me out and is hands-down my least favorite cast member.
Your exploration of the clothes made me think about the interplay between fashion and architecture/interior design on the show as they've both evolved. The version of real estate presented on the show is obviously beyond morally indefensible - enormous, environmentally destructive mansions being bought and sold by people who view them as financial assets more so than places to live, largely leaving them empty in a city with a massive housing crisis. Relatedly, my favorite moments on the show are when they (infrequently) run up against real-world checks on the speculative real estate market, always framed as an unfortunate barrier to be overcome by hustling - the mansion tax, absurdly high fire insurance, etc.
As the show has gone on, they've had to come up with more and more huge and expensive houses to maintain shock value, but I can never get over how identically soulless and styleless all of these places are. They are ugly!! Though I too have looked at the real estate agent commissions with envy (lol, duh), I don't think I've ever once wished that I got to live in one of these enormous, slapped-together, beige, digital-rendering-ass mansions. The clothing and the real estate have escalated in tandem, revealing a deep vacancy at the heart of the world that the show depicts: enormous, expensive houses vacant of style or beauty; outlandish, "sexy" clothes vacant of real sex appeal or clear relationship to the situations in which they are worn. I've noticed that the women actually make pretty frequent reference to the costumeyness/practical difficulties of whatever insane thing they're wearing. The ugliness/homogeneity of the houses, however, cannot be acknowledged in the world of the show because ostensibly the O Group is an actual business. Anyway, I didn't think I was going to write a multiple-paragraph musing on Selling Sunset today, so thank you Eleanor for providing the opportunity haha!
Yes to alllll of this!! I didn’t even touch on this aspect but I also have no desire to live in any of those houses (I ask myself would I rather have this house or my 800 sq ft apartment and I choose the apartment every time)
I was obsessed with how grave of an issue the “mansion tax” was a couple seasons ago
The mansion tax plot line was sooooo funny
"Vacancy at the heart of the world" is such a great phrase for this show- actually maybe what makes it so compelling lol
Holy shit this is one of my fave newsletters to date?! I have never seen the show (though obv I *have* read multiple articles abt g-flip & chrishell and Also Stan) but now I want to watch just to observe the dynamics, so that’s some incredibly persuasive writing!! Also “violent femininity” is just a perfect descriptor for this brand of aggressively performative and explicitly transactional femininity. Such a great read 💯💯
Thank you!!
This was a wonderful post! Hilarious and terrifying, like the entire show. I would like to humbly submit the term "pant-opticon" for your consideration. My friend used it once to describe the prison that is denim but I think it applies here as well!
Pant-opticon… brilliant
I stopped watching and have considered going back — but this is much better!
Honestly I still think it’s worth watching 😂
OMG this post! Yes yes yes
Selling Sunset gives me a headache, but I find it watchable if I leave on low volume playing in the background while I cook or do the ironing. Amanza wears clothes so well - she can pull off the loudest outfits but she never looks overwhelmed by them. I think she might be my fave cast member. It was shocking when Alanna joined, her clothes were looked so refreshing normal (in an IG influencer, Frankie Shop kind of way), also hilarious that she "owns" a town, which reminded me of Schitt's Creek (which taught that you can own towns in the US). Emma's style irks me the way her personality does, your description of her is spot on! The houses in the first season were the best (that beautiful A-frame house, the pretty cottage-y one that Mary found for her client). Everything after that felt so blah and pointlessly expensive.
I watch it (with subtitles) while I’m sewing!
This post is so good. The rival empanada dump! I too am an Amanza stan--I loved when, hooked up to a lie detector, she admitted with a small smile that she's the prettiest agent in the office
omg I missed that moment but I believe it