The Reality Above Reality, Part Two
#Scandoval and a New York Times profile exposed just how deep into surreality its participants have fallen, leaving us to ask, "What would André Breton have made of all this?"
To comemmorate the Surrealist centennial on October 15, 2024, I am removing the paywall from “The Reality Above Reality” Parts One and Two for a week. Enjoy!
Part of what made #Scandoval so thrilling was that the news broke as season 10 aired; viewers were able to watch the season unfold and search for any hints, clues or inklings of Leviss and Sandoval’s affair. TikTok and Instagram became flooded with fan theories, speculation, and clip replays not unlike the ones that follow sports games. The affair was having an effect on the show’s real-time and retrospective viewing experience; an undeniable fact, especially when considering that Sandoval, Madix and Leviss were all at events promoting the show the very night that Madix uncovered their relationship.
The false reality that the show had created and the ‘reality above reality’ collided with each other. The fourth wall – which Bravo, before this, had fastidiously maintained – was demolished. The cast acknowledged the show while on the show; the process of making the show became a part of it. Never has it been more surreal. As season 11 has aired, the main focus has been the fallout from #Scandoval, and how the dynamics of this group of people – who are, concurrently, the cast of a TV show; a group of friends; co-workers; and figures of niche public interest – have shifted, seemingly beyond repair.
Madix, for one, is out of step with her cohort as she maintains a no-contact rule with her ex, despite the fact that they still co-habitate in their shared home. Her castmates increasingly question her boundaries, insisting that it would be healthier for her to forgive him and move out – it’s clear, though, that Madix appears to be living in a different reality, one which is closer to the one inhabited by the show’s audience. In “real life”, a devastating breakup would not be followed by a camera crew and expectations of continued interactions with both the perpetrator of the heartbreak and the people who helped facilitate it (as it was revealed that one of Madix’s castmates knew of the affair and helped conceal it).
But Madix is still on a reality show, and the cracks in the foundations of her friendships are on full display. Her greatest allies, Lala Kent and Scheana Shay, has been the subject of endless online ire as they have seemingly betrayed Madix by expressing cordial, if not friendly, behavior towards persona-non-grata Sandoval. But what has yet to be said is the fact that Kent and Shay’s motivations are proof that the relationship between these people is neither built nor exclusively maintained on their friendships anymore. They have not been a struggling group of bartenders and waitresses for years, and their most recent successes – the financial windfall that came to Madix, Shay and Kent in the wake of #Scandoval is rumored to be in the millions of dollars – are entirely due to the display of reality that they create for an audience hungry to consume their conflicts.
On February 20, 2024, the New York Times Magazine published an in-depth profile of Tom Sandoval and the current state of Vanderpump Rules written by Irina Aleksander. It’s one of the most fascinating pieces of writing I’ve read in recent times, and a particular anecdote of Aleksander’s was the inspiration behind this essay you’re currently reading. In it, she describes the dissolution of the line between reality and television in Sandoval’s life; no longer is there a division between what’s television and what’s real, for him. From arranging the lighting in his home to be best suited for cameras, to making sure all conversations, even minor, are suitably captured, it appears as though Sandoval has fully disappeared into the surreality of his own life. “He talks about his life not in years but in seasons and episodes. Sometimes he pauses midsentence and stares into the middle distance, like a doll whose windup key has jammed, until whatever ambulance, helicopter or other sound-interfering entity has passed, and then he continues as if nothing happened, even when there are no mics or cameras on him,” Aleksander writes.
On May 7, 2024, Bravo aired the season finale of season 11 of Vanderpump Rules. Many were swift to note that the episode felt like a series finale; in the final minutes of the show, cast members acknowledged and fully broke the fourth wall by airing their grievances regarding Madix’s boundaries towards Sandoval. The scene offers a fascinating Sliding Doors-esque parallel view into how this group’s dynamic has dovetailed into real-life friendships, separate from their working relationships. Madix is acknowledged as being a good friend “IRL”, but a frustrating-at-best colleague.
Madix, who has made career choices that seem to indicate that her time on the show may be coming to a close (she placed third on the most recent iteration of Dancing With The Stars, fronted a sold-out and extended run of Chicago on Broadway, has a Los Angeles-based sandwich shop opening soon and will be hosting the next season of the equally surreal Love Island), faced criticism from her colleagues over her refusal to fully participate in filming the show in the same way they do. It gave me the impression that Sandoval, Shay, Kent and their ilk, it seems, may never exit their surreality, and want Madix to stay with them where they are – instead of returning to some form of a healthier, actual reality.
Over a montage of the cast preparing for their first confessional interviews – their faces remarkably younger, less Botox-ed, infinitely more natural and naïve, if not downright innocent – Kent pontificates about their roles on the show: “We’ve been doing this for most of our adult lives. We’ve all experienced high highs and low lows. There’s a responsibility that comes with living your life on camera. You have to be truthful, even when it’s extremely uncomfortable. I’ve watched [my co-stars] live their authentic lives. I feel I have [...] I don’t feel [Sandoval and Madix] were ever honest about their relationship until [Sandoval] was caught cheating. And you think you get to be honest for one moment, and then you get to pack it all away and all is good? Fuck that.”
Recently, Sandoval has doubled down on his insistence that he was truly in love with Leviss, who has blocked him from contacting her. As she maintains her no-contact policy, Sandoval has become markedly more cruel towards her in public, including calling her a “coward” for not returning to the show. Their dynamic rings of the one between Breton and the semi-fictional title character of his novel Nadja. In it, he meets the beautiful Nadja, a wild young woman who enthralls him for a short period of time. After a chance encounter, they traipse around Paris, discuss art, and have an innocent romance. Breton breathlessly discusses her philosophies and opinions regarding life and creativity – until it’s revealed that she’s a mentally unstable sanatorium escapee. The spell undone, Breton falls out of love and ceases contact with her, finishing the book with the famous statement “La beauté sera convulsive ou ne sera pas” (“Beauty will be convulsive or not at all”).
What Breton meant, in this statement, is that in his view, beauty is found in moments of involuntariness, in moments of wildness, much like the now-classic early episodes of Vanderpump Rules, when inhibitions didn’t exist and the cast – hungry, striving, and wild – lived their surreal lives on the show, but not for it.
However, while it may seem that Vanderpump Rules is over – and that the ceiling of the “reality above reality” has been reached – Bravo recently announced that production on the next season of Vanderpump Rules is on hiatus until the cast can “live [more of] their lives”.
Whatever that even means.
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À très bientôt,
Chloë Helen America Cassens