Branded Women in U.S. Television

This book examines how The Real Housewives of New York City, Martha Stewart, and other female entrepreneurs create branded televised versions of the iconic U.S. housewife. Using their television presence to establish and promote their own brands and product lines, including jewelry, cookware, clothing, and skincare, they become the primary physical representations of these brands. Peter Bjelskou explores their innovative branding strategies, specifically the complex relationships between their entrepreneurial endeavors and their physical bodies, attires, tastes, and personal histories. While their businesses are serious and seriously lucrative, reality television enables a certain representational flexibility, and allows Real Housewives to create campy and sometimes tongue-in-cheek personas. This ironic twist is increasingly part of the pop-cultural environment, and factors into these personalized brands. Generally, these branded women speak volumes about their contemporaneous political and social moments, and this book illustrates how they, and many other women in U.S. television history, are indicative of larger societal trends and structures.