Avidly presents a special issue, guest co-edited by Olivia Stowell and Jay Shelat!
In honor of the 11th season we have brought together a group of Vanderpump Rules superfans who also happen to be academics to mobilize our collective brainpower to make sense of why Bravo’s Vanderpump Rules is the greatest show on television. From thinking about comedy or labor or domestic strife to mapping the contours of bimbohood or SUR’s back alley, this cluster of essays offers a preliminary investigation into VPR’s Saturnalian ethos and bonkers exploits.
So, welcome, initiated and uninitiated readers, to the world of Vanderpump Rules, a sexy unique restaurant of a show. We hope to spark a robust conversation about the many meanings of Vanderpump Rules; however, we mostly hope this somehow gets us on Bravo’s Watch What Happens Live.
— Olivia Stowell and Jay Shelat
These Are the Worst Days of Our Lives
“This recursive pattern of domestic and romantic instability is Vanderpump Rules’ biggest draw.”
— Jay Shelat
After nearly three hundred years, the moral of these stories remains the same––women must take care to never make a mistake and be prepared to absorb a disproportionate share of the responsibility for men’s mistakes.
—Ashley Rattner
Who’s Afraid of the Back Alley of SUR?
Spaces accrue more substance and significance over time, experience a deepening of their being, and even undergo irreversible ruptures.
— Oishani Sengupta
Jax’s sadness is human, the motorized cooler mechanical; the mechanical elaborates upon the sadness, making it seem childish, silly, perhaps insignificant, and, crucially, funny.
— Eleanor Russell
“After becoming reality TV stars, why does VPR’s cast want to work at all?”
—Ranjodh Singh Dhaliwal & Sahana Srinivasan
Before we even enter the hallowed halls of TomTom and SUR, we’ve already inched closer to Vanderpump’s orbit.
— Olivia Stowell
