Contrary to popular belief, it's not only money that makes the world go around. It’s also entertainment. And we, the viewer, sit firmly at the centre of it. We not only crave it, we expect it from most of the content we consume.
Top-tier reality TV entertainment is what I expected when I sat to watch the first episode of the third season of Netflix’s hit reality show, Dubai Bling. And I did what I always do when watching reality TV – ignore my immediate responsibilities to watch the lives of a group of Dubai influencers and entrepreneurs, though the actual 'reality' of what we see has always remained suspect.
Halfway through episode one though, I checked my email. Then I got up to make a snack, without pausing the show. I also noticed how messy my kitchen was and decided to re-organise my cutlery drawer. I wondered if I should bake some cookies. Then, a friend called and it was a good time to catch up.
"What is that in the background you’re watching?" she asked.
"Oh, nothing," I responded.
This is the greatest crime a reality show can make – not to be a worthy topic of conversation.
I don’t write this with joy. I was the biggest cheerleader of Dubai Bling season one and even season two, which I felt had its shortcomings that I hoped would get ironed out in season three. Wrong.
Things have gotten worse.
So what was the problem? After forcing myself to consume as much of the season as I could, I realised the issue was apparent from one of the first scenes in the first episode.
In the scene, entrepreneur Mona Kattan is hosting a New Year’s Eve dinner and invites the rest of the cast to start the year with positive intentions, and possibly heal relationships between warring factions in the group.
However, one of the cast members, influencer Farhana Bodi, refuses to greet fellow cast member Safa Siddiqui. Bodi, we soon find out, had earlier gotten wind that Siddiqui has been telling friends that Bodi does not own her Birkin bags, but rents them instead (writing that line was more entertaining than watching the scene).
The whole cast, more than 10 of them, are standing to discuss the issue with each other, while facing the camera. We already let it slide that this was a New Year's Eve party filmed sometime in the middle of last year, but this seemingly forced conversation, where everyone is breaking the fourth wall while looking at each other in a mock social set-up feels insulting to our suspension of disbelief.
This same dynamic is repeated throughout the season, where every scene feels staged beyond reasonable doubt.
To be clear, reality TV has long been by definition a manipulated medium, this we know. Producers and cast actively create artificial scenarios and contexts in order to generate or magnify existing issues and drama. This is all marketed as “real”, depending on your definition of what real is. I, like many others, choose to believe that a themed dinner party, a fashion show or a girls trip is the perfect place to bring up old gripes, such as not following the strict dress code at a wedding or dating someone’s ex.
Why? For two reasons.
First, cast members’ feelings in these moments are often valid to them and the potency of their truth is translated through the screen. Second, producers create realistic atmospheres where we as voyeurs feel as though we’re watching something that is intimately happening between a group of close-knit friends.
Whether this is accurate or not doesn’t matter. The illusion is so flawless, we choose to believe and be entertained by it.
But in season three of Dubai Bling, cast members have seemingly abandoned all pretenses of normalcy. Someone throws a funeral for a Lamborghini. And someone buys the trademark of another cast member’s business for the sole purpose of a storyline on a show.
What am I watching?
There is a true art to unfolding drama on a reality TV show and Dubai Bling turned it into a paint by numbers – it's two dimensional and boring.
It's a shame because there are some important life experiences that some of the cast members go through. From health issues to complications with divorce and co-parenting or balancing friendships and business partners, these are not boring topics. However, similarly to season two, these issues are not given the depth they deserve and each scene feels like a race to the next showdown.
From slow-motion entrances and the uncoordinated ways topics are brought up for the cameras, to the fashion – which, far from being avant-garde is mostly a case of tacky costume peacocking – it was all too much, too desperate, too transparent to be taken as good quality reality TV.
The point of this genre is to sit and enjoy frivolous, wholesome drama that is manufactured to our benefit. Not to watch something that feels so staged it insults our intelligence as viewers and feels like a farce.
