Are You Ready for "Wall $treet Wives"?

Reality show entertainment is obsessed with the lives of housewives, or at least wives of interesting men such as mob-affiliated criminals or basketball stars. Devon Fleming wants to know if the reality housewife brand can expand to Wall Street. According to “Searching for the Wives of Wall Street” by Kevin Rose, Devon Fleming is a wife of a Deutshe Bank wealth manager and introduced “Wall $treet Wives” as an idea in 2007.

According to Fleming, “They all wanted this ugly cat-fight scenario”, which is a common feature in the reality TV housewife brand. It’s suggested that Fleming turned down the offer in 2007 but decided to re-pitch the show and is now casting. Fleming and Sammi Mendenhall, friend and co-producer, want the show to exhibit “fabulous lives”, “intelligent women who hold it down” and “women behind the men of Wall Street, some of whom were victims of the recent financial crisis”. The article mentioned other examples of Wall Street reality shows: “Wall Street Warriors” which I have watched and the first season has a cast displaying different roles from Wall Street; and Bravo is “developing ‘The Women of Wall Street’”, a behind-the-scenes show of women on Wall Street.

As someone who enjoyed the first season of “Wall Street Warriors” and a previous documentary on Oxygen showing women who worked on Wall Street, I would have some interest in watching “Wall $treet Wives”. But if “Wall $treet Wives” displays a typical dramatic catfight plot, it wouldn’t do much in differentiating itself from other reality housewife shows. Considering Wall Street is still trying to recover from its damaged image due to the financial crisis, a glitzy platform could turn people off and possibly turn the women, their husbands, and their husbands’ employers into marked public enemies. But it is reality entertainment; it might not be possible for Fleming and Mendenhall to create a sympathetic and entertaining reality show void of a few cat fights or sacrificial scripted villains. The only problem is reality entertainment is becoming saturated with the housewife brand. So, “Wall $treet Wives” should attempt to premiere at the height of the housewife obsession (now) or change some of the concept to not seem played out and overdone.

Labels: entertainment, media, wall street