The Real Housewives of Atlanta

Few women of color are allowed to represent themselves on television with much nuance; frequently they are reduced to stock characters like mammies and Jezebels that deny them full, complex humanity.  Successful women of color are slammed with stereotypes of the "Angry Black Woman" or are forced to represent all women of their race as impossibly perfect standard-bearers.

Within this all of this, the Real Housewives of Atlanta become caricatured and over-representative of what we think wealthy black women should like like.

It's easy to point fingers at narrative television sometimes and claim the writers are foisting outdated and unfair gender roles onto the audience and therefore, by extension, society. Reality TV pokes a lot of holes in the Big Hollywood theory, because the people who thrive on reality TV are the ones who are crafting -- and benefiting -- from a stock trade in stereotypes.