The Real Housewives of Dubai Recap: Girlboss, Gaslight, Gatekeep
Dubai is very good at showcasing the Housewives version of the normal things all of us experience.
There are many befuddling things about life in the Dubai Housewives universe — the fact that the live-in staff exists in the background of scenes like ambient furniture, the emphasis on procreation, the incoherence in dress codes for group events — but where the franchise truly shines is in portraying bizarre versions of what should be very normal events. It puts regular activities in a kaleidoscope, throws a bunch of gold dust and class exploitation on top, and regurgitates it back onto our screen, saying, “Wealthy people! They’re just like us!” Are you curious to see how miserable it can be to move into a house before it’s move-in ready? Caroline Stanbury can show you life in a construction zone, but instead of IKEA furniture next to the blow-up mattress, It’ll be a custom 18-year-old bonsai tree and a one-of-a-kind marble TV stand. Interested to see if it’s any easier to get along with in-laws when money is no object? Stanbury will show you just how far she will go to avoid spending time with the family she married into, including a luxury vehicle automobile race in the desert. There’s even something morbidly hilarious about Stanbury’s abject disinterest in raising a child — you know that her age-gap marriage with a baby-desperate husband will only end in disaster. Still, something is fascinating in watching the slow-moving car crash as it starts to lose control. It is quotidian housewife hijinks dialed up to 11, with religious, cultural, and social exoticism mixed into the mystique.
At times, this approach works well. For example, when women work to untangle their relationship with motherhood, homemaking, and family rearing. Take Taleen, who purports to be living the life of her dreams. Despite all the success in the world, all the help that she could dream of, and support from both her family and her in-laws, she still very visibly feels trapped by the gendered obligations that come with cis-hetero marriage. She feels adrift in her life and career after uprooting herself for ten years to live the life she wanted with her husband, attempting to restart a fitness career after abandoning a promising life as a songwriter. Yet despite the visible anguish that she has expressed and getting comfortable in her life and her body again, the dominant question amongst her husband and her family is a Game of Thrones-level demand for her to deliver a male heir to continue to develop the family business of erecting skyscrapers and other glittery, exploitative, constructs of the Emirates. Her anguish is real and relatable to anyone who has committed to a partnership in life, only to find themselves a shell of the individual they used to be. Most people, however, usually aren’t stressing over this with the added assistance of live-in nannies and chefs.
Sarah is caught up in the same limitations and trappings of talent but in a different capacity. Despite all of her public self-help mantras, she is still focused on healing the wounds of previous relationships through finding new successful partnerships. Now, do I approve of her trying to repair that legacy with a man as fine as her new German-Muslim paramour? Certainly, but even in her attempts to lean into the process, she finds herself confined to a performance that she feels is essential for her image. Despite being blatantly interested in the new guy for vain and superficial reasons — his six-pack abs, for one — Sarah still feels contempt, compelled to perform the rituals of modesty. And etiquette for both her circle as well as the public. She fawns over him shirtless but can’t publicly admit to kissing him or in being interested in dating him. As someone who is intimately familiar with the rituals of Muslim dating, none of this is a surprise to me, but watching it play out plainly and swept under the rug as a cultural expectation, as opposed to gendered orthodoxy, is illuminating to see from a third party. Hopefully, it all works out and dash. Sarah’s son is cute as a button and seems eager to find a new father after so many bad male role models, And I would hate to watch the kid’s heartbreak in real time.
Meanwhile, Brooks does not openly detail any romantic overtures. We are visibly watching the full-time girl boss expectations (with, of course, the extensive assistance of live-in help) take its toll. She has spent the past six months focusing on successfully launching her business, and the wear is starting to show to her and her close friends. She has lost weight; she’s increasingly irritable; her emotions escalate quickly with minor amounts of alcohol. Not only has it taken a toll on her self-admitted pressures to show up as a mother, but it has also impacted her ability to be a major player in her job as a reality show cast member. While she was once crafty with her machinations, her lack of attention to the shifting divisions has made her sloppy and imprecise. Where it previously took eight episodes to figure out that she was the source of unnecessary divisiveness and conflict in the group, it has now taken Taleen one phone call to confirm that she was being misled about her relationships with the other woman by the person who she thought was her main ally in the cast, to hostile results.
As the story goes, Brooks called Taleen and suggested that Stanbury affirmed to Lesa that she doesn’t like Taleen after their one-on-one touchpoint at the Queens’ dinner. When Taleen called Caroline and Lesa to corroborate, she put together that Brooks wasn’t so much paraphrasing as much as she was sharing her creative interpretations of subtext. In a private meeting with Brooks, Taleen attempts to hold her accountable for how her misstep was a mistake, only to be forcefully rebuked by her longtime friend, who wraps their scene up instead of attempting to reconcile differences. It is a classic game of telephone gone wrong, with Brooks refusing to accept her role in the confusion.
The tension extends to Caroline’s day trip to the desert to escape Sergio’s parents — a curiously timed event that takes place in the middle of Ramadan while some of the cast is fasting. Incapable of co-existing in the awkwardness, the situation quickly explodes into an argument between the two friends in front of the cast, as Brooks attempts to double down on nonchalance and indignance to Taleen attempting to hold her to task. It makes for fabulous tension, but Brooks’ resistance to owning her failures is a classic case of someone held in the clutches of her anxiety — she is overwhelmed and trusts no one, and therefore chooses to attempt to control everything she can, an impossible task that results in disappointing everyone over a series of 2 a.m. calls. You can feel the cast struggle to deal with her pivot this year — it will be rich to watch them navigate the shift as the season develops. Next week, the Eileen Davidson accords are up and we will be discussing both newcomers. See you then!
Golden Nuggets
• Lesa is doing postpartum skincare now? I support her in all her endeavors, but I thought her main goal was to turn her ready-to-wear maternity line into an accessible and beloved brand for all women.
• This week, we got a real glimpse at how Sara operates behind the scenes. In two different scenes, she set up her new paramour to be grilled by her friends while pretending that wasn’t her intention; she cornered Ayan to try to speak something negative about Lesa, who refused to take the bait. I have a sneaking suspicion that, barring a massive breakthrough in spiritual healing for the group, her devious machinations will come to bear fruit as the season progresses.
• There’s another version of this recap where I write a thousand words on Yasmine’s eldest-daughter complex and how it is interfering with her mother’s self-mythology and victimhood in their dysfunctional family trauma, but I will save the psychoanalysis for later in the season.