Lauri Waring
by: Margaret Guleke
In the majority of reality TV shows, the media or the network provides for the show's participants financially, in some way or the other, as an incentive to be on the show. For example, in MTV's The Real World , the people are taken from their normal lives, put in a mansion, given a job, and they don't have to worry about rent or any financial obligations because the show has paid for it. Just the same, on The Biggest Loser the contestants are taken to a luxurious ranch, which is secluded from society. They do not have to pay for the services provided by the physical trainers or the costs of staying at the lavish resort. However, in The Real Housewives of Orange County the financial problems are not an issue because of the wealth of the show's participants. Bravo tries to play off of this fact by portraying the five women as the stereotypical wealthy, fake housewives, but these women are in fact real. Lauri Waring, is the one woman out of these five divas that doesn't live in the notorious gated community of Coto de Caza. She used to live in this "paradise", but due to a recent divorce she has downsized to a townhouse just outside of the neighborhood in which the other women live. The show tries to make us, as the audience, laugh at Lauri. According to Media Images and the Social Construction of Society , "Media frames make a difference in how a viewer interprets what they see," and the producers of this show frame Lauri as an airhead who tries to keep up her once extravagant way of living, but struggles to interact the way she once did with the members of her former clique. So it is hard to see due to the way the media portrays her, but in actuality Lauri really does work hard to deal with her new lifestyle. The producers strategically attack Lauri, attempting to get the audience to laugh at her, in three different aspects in her life: her work life, home life, and social life.
One of the main ways the media tries to make Lauri seem desperate to be back in the "Coto life" is by focusing on Lauri's job, and especially who she works for. According to the New York Times , "because of the divorce, [Lauri] has been exiled from the mega-mansions of Coto de Caza and has to find a place to work," and ironically, Lauri ends of going to work back in Coto de Caza. Bravo tries to show Lauri's "desperation" by, instead of pointing out that Lauri works for one of the most successful insurance brokers in California, the show is edited to concentrate on the fact that Lauri works under one of the other "housewives," Vicki, and in her home in Coto de Caza. Vicki's insurance business is extremely well known, but Lauri is continuously belittled by the media because of the fact that she is now an employee of one of her ex-neighbors. Even the show website concentrates on Lauri working under Vicki. In a bio of Lauri, on BravoTV.com, it says, "... after a bitter divorce, Lauri is making ends meet by working at the home office of the successful Vicki Gunvalson." Coincidentally, the media does not direct attention towards the fact that Lauri's new position is a respectable and well-paying job. Another way Lauri is put down through her work life is in episode two when Vicki makes an utterance about how she was concerned that her new employee (Lauri) was not going to be committed to work. The network uses this to make it seem like Lauri is focused on other things like money by stressing that even her employer thought that she was preoccupied by something. However, Vicki says this after seeing Lauri for the first time and stigmitizing her as a blonde bimbo. In later episodes, Vicki comes to realize that Lauri is in fact a hard worker, but the network only lightly brushes on this and does not show nearly as much attention to this part of the spectrum as it did to its counterpart.
The second aspect of her life that is imposed upon is Lauri's home life. As Lauri adapts to taking care of her children as a single mother, the show tries to make her look irresponsible. When Lauri's sixteen-year-old son, Josh gets sent to Juvenile Hall for having drugs and alcohol at school, the main thing the viewers see is a negligent Lauri who failed to hire an attorney for her son. What the viewers barely see is that Josh's dad would not have anything to do with the case and because of Lauri's financial situation at the time, she could not afford a lawyer. She did however, meet with the public defender and she continuously fought to get her son out of Juvenile Hall as fast as possible. The show also dwells on the arguments that occur between Lauri and her daughter Ashley, and in doing so, making Lauri seem like she would rather be shopping than parenting. In one of the first episodes, Ashley moves back in with her mother and the show makes it seem like this burdens Lauri. As if a recent divorce wasn't stressful enough, a twenty-year-old daughter coming to live with her is just what Lauri needed to add stress into her life. The media makes it seem like Lauri and Ashley are always fighting when, according to the OC Register , "Ashley and Lauri are best friends, they just butt heads because they are so similar." Thus, the show uses editing techniques to cut out some of the clips, including some in which Ashley and Lauri are getting along really well, and leave the ones in which they argue to give the show that extra level of entertainment that is added when viewers watch a mother and daughter argue.
Although there is evidence in both her work and home life, Lauri's social life is most used by the media to cause the audience to laugh at her. The network often shows Lauri doing things that are extravagant and expensive. This makes it seem like she is trying to keep up with the other women, but she is really just hanging out with her former friends. One, very prominent, example is when Lauri and Vicki have a home Botox treatment before they go out of town. The show zeroes in on all of the extravagant things that Lauri does before she goes out of town, but they hardly highlight the fact that she is going out of town for a business trip. They also do not portray the idea that Lauri could be acting the way she is in order to bond with her boss and get on her good side, so that she can further her career. Another great example of when the audience is supposed to laugh at Lauri is when it focuses on her and her best friend going through a lot of trouble in order to get invited to a Playboy Party. Instead of focusing on the fact that it is tradition between the two of them to see if they are still sexy enough to get into the party, or the fact that Lauri had been working extremely diligently before she went to the party, they make it seem like she is just going for the sake of partying. She is portrayed as a women living in the past, but she is just carrying out a tradition that is an inside joke between her and her best friend.
After taking a deeper look into her work, home, and social lives, Lauri is more real that we originally imagined. In fact, all of the housewives are more real than Bravo perceives them to be. On the cover they seem to be stereotypical hot, rich, housewives but "... you can catch these wives being human in the moments when they are not simply playing house." (Patterson) Meaning, if you watch hard enough you can see past the "reality TV" entertainment ploy and see that these women do have real issues to deal with.
