Dirty Martini Summer
pt 1: reality tv food ordering post-fourth wall
My house has officially deemed this summer a dirty martini summer. I know this because we have a pic of Emrata on our fridge declaring martinis as her ‘thing’. Over the past six months my roommate ‘O’ has slowly trained himself to enjoy the acquired taste of the cocktail, moving from slowly sipping one drink for over an hour to actually enjoying the taste of olive brine, vermouth & gin (never vodka). And for my birthday my other roommate, ‘S’, made me violet martinis with pink sugar rims & a lemon twist. Fridays after a theory program I started last September, we’d meet for drinks, decompressing with martinis ordered from a ‘build your own cocktail’ menu that knocked a dollar or two off of the listed cocktail. Prior to this past year aka my grad school years, my drink of choice was the humble gin & tonic. A dirty martini symbolized my newly minted status of late 20’s New York living adulthood, I’m official & multi-degreed, unfortunately still broke so need the most bang for my buck, but also I’m too old for shots. There’s an element of timelessness with the drink, “the martini harkens back to so many things that were so solid and representationally correct.”
According to the NYTIMES and TikTok the drink of this summer is the Dirty Shirley1 (Temple), a mocktail turned grown up via vodka spiking. I personally won’t be ordering one just like I’ve never had an espresso martini (GAG) but that’s beside the point. Also, in case you were wondering, to make a drink dirty is to ‘slightly change the color and taste by adding or changing some of the essential ingredients’.
So, I follow this instagram page, @realhousewivesorders, where they have archived the franchises’ various food orders before the wives segue into their various confrontations, divulging of secrets or just family time2. On The Kardashians (solely watching for research purposes atp) they’ve apparently become foodies; but not in the we eat salads from HealthNut way and definitely not in the I ate no sugar or meat for 3 weeks to fit into an archived dress way. No, they are ordering sides of mayonnaise, lobster pasta, ranch dressing, onion rings, craving blueberry pie & eating pretzels in the streets that they clearly don’t even want3. On one level this is clearly an attempt to be relatable when they are very much not. It reminds me of Buzzfeed quizzes…”which ___ are you?” or Nancy Pelosi et al wearing graduation kente cloth while taking a knee at a George Floyd memorial event last summer.
We can acknowledge the obvious, both of these shows have completely shattered the 4th wall at this point. On a deeper level, this on-camera food ordering maintains the illusion, not of reality, but of a stage.
They know that we know producers are stepping in to direct every scene even if it’s unscripted. Smaller bits of supposed authenticity are allowed to sneak in via ordering spinach artichoke dip instead of a wedge salad . Food is such an effortless marker of time; breakfast/lunch/dinner/acceptable drinking hours. It’s also a marker of place, you’re not going to expect a great butterfly branzino at a place that specializes in fried chicken.
Food ordering is about emotional states, when Ashley Darby confronts her now-soon-to-be-ex-husband Michael at a restaurant she doesn’t order her her regular Corona to go with her crab cakes but a Pacifico. It’s a small sign that she’s breaking away from Michael; who orders a Corona. Similarly, when everyone orders hot toddys after Erika Jayne, Sutton remarks that the wives are trying to prove their loyalty instead of confronting Erika about stealing money from orphans & plane crash victims.
What I love about this trend is the mediation. To be in the midst of an intense conversation and have a server’s hand enter the frame and bring something from the ‘real world’ into the ‘unscripted’ world is brilliant! They are literally consuming products brought in from the outside world4, what can be more intimate & authentic than that?
I leave you with this excerpt from Ultimate Girls Trip, a Real Housewives Spinoff that I’ll definitely be deep diving into soon because it’s corny in a good way and follows the ~all stars~ route that shows a hint of the desperation that comes when the creative wells start running dry:
*Part 2 coming out next week: On Constructing Taste in our Niche Obsessed World*
xoxo, Sydney
Since I was a literal child I’ve received spam mail for Shirley Shavers. She apparently has the same birthdate as me & everything.
I love their supercut of Denise Richards ordering Casamigos Reposado & Erika Jayne’s recurring hot toddy order.
https://www.the-sun.com/entertainment/5329001/kardashians-resturants-food-where-jenner-kim-kylie/
https://032c.com/magazine/trump-balenciaga-complex (I will reference this article FOREVER, read read read).