Keeping Up With the Kardashians

Keeping Up With the Kardashians

Since its debut in 2007, E! Entertainment's reality series Keeping Up With the Kardashians has become one of the most successful ongoing reality series, resulting in seven seasons and at least three successful spin-off series. As a result, it represents one of the most prominent representations of Armenians in America, and can offer some insight into the representation of Armenians in general. Examining the first episode of the entire series and evaluating the implications of the show on the representations of Armenians in Los Angeles can help reveal how the show interprets the interpersonal relationships of the family it covers, as well as the way in which the publicity and public relations related to the show can actually serve to liberate Armenians by celebrating their ethnic heritage while appreciating its place in the larger media and cultural landscape of America.

The first episode of the entire series is an excellent example of the show's overall dynamic because of the way it focuses on both the family's history and relationships as well as the career of the ostensible star, Kim Kardashian. The show opens with Kris Jenner, the matriarch of the family, making fun of the size of Kim's butt, saying that she has extra "junk in her trunk," while the rest of the family laughs. This first scene is immediately followed by an introductory montage where each of the central characters introduce themselves. Kim begins by telling the audience "welcome to my family." Next is Khloe Kardashian, who says "my sisters say I'm a bitch, but I always have their best interest at heart." Khloe is followed by Kourtney the oldest of the Kardashian sisters. She introduces herself by saying that she is "the oldest and the most mature." Kris Jenner then characterizes her role as "the mom and Kim's manager," before introducing her husband, Bruce Jenner.

After the brief introduction of Kris and Bruce's youngest children, Kim describes her family as "the modern day Brady Bunch with a kick," with "a lot of baggage that comes with [them] but its like Louis Vuitton baggage: you always want it." This is followed by the introductory sequence which is included in the rest of the episodes, which features the family having a glamorous photo shoot on a roof before the roof is revealed to be a backdrop in front of their home in Calabasas, a wealthy suburb of Los Angeles, which constitutes one of the two main settings for the show. Kim's mention of the Brady Bunch is not simply for show; it actually applies, because like the Brady Bunch, the Kardashian family includes children from two marriages: Kris' first marriage to Robert Kardashian, a lawyer most famous for defending OJ Simpson, and her current marriage to Bruce Jenner, the patriarch of the show. Kim, Kourtney, Khloe and Rob, their brother, are all from Kris' first marriage, while Kylie and Kendall are from the second marriage. However, while only the older sisters and Rob are actually named Kardashian, the title of the series generally refers to the whole family.

The show generally takes place in a variety of locations, but the two most central settings are the family's home in Calabasas and the clothing store D-A-S-H, which is co-owned by Kourtney, Khloe, and Kim. In addition to the family and the various love interests of the Kardashian children which pop up throughout the series, the show often features a number of supporting cast members, from friends to stylists to plastic surgeons. The pilot episode does not feature as many of these supporting cast members as the rest of the series, but Bruce's experience getting his hair cut and the frequent presence of Kim's best friend Brittny Gastineau is at least representative of the kind of interactions which occur between the family members and those in supporting roles, both in terms of their screen time in the series and the particular service they provide (Gastineau and her family were also featured in their own reality series, The Gastineau Girls, which aired for two season, from 2005 to 2006). The inclusion of these additional characters serves to simultaneously diversify the cast as well as demonstrate the nature of the family's sometimes ostentatious lifestyle, which is a central focus of the series. Furthermore, the family's friends are often celebrities in their own right, which offers a kind of cross-branding, especially in the case of those celebrities with their own reality shows or product lines, such as clothing or perfume.

The first episode, entitled "I'm Watching You," has three central plot lines, because like most "reality" shows, each episode is actually carefully edited to draw out and shape a few distinct story lines from the entirety of the subject's lives. The first plot follows the planning and execution of a party celebrating Kris and Bruce's sixteen year wedding anniversary, while the second central plot focuses on Kim Kardashian's upcoming appearance on The Tyra Banks Show, and in particular, the likelihood of Tyra Banks asking her about the leaked sex tape featuring her and her former boyfriend, R&B singer Ray J, which aside from being Paris Hilton's close friend, was one of the things which initially led to Kim's widespread fame. Kim is reluctant at first, but ultimately decides that the chance to "set the record straight" is worth the potential discomfort. The final plot line focuses on the relationship between Kourtney Kardashian and her boyfriend Scott, whom Kris disapproves of due a belief that Scott has cheated on Kourtney in the past. The episode weaves these three story lines into each other, with footage interspersed with commentary by the characters as they discuss their emotions and thoughts during the sequences immediately preceding.

The party goes off relatively smoothly, except for the fact that Kris and Kourtney accidentally get drunk beforehand while trying out a variety of wines and liquors to serve at the party. The party also features Kris' attempts to drive a wedge between Kourtney and Scott by highlighting the difference in their ages, claiming that they likely have different intentions regarding the future of their relationship. Scott rebuffs her attempts, but Kris ultimately attempts to suggest that Scott has cheated on Kourtney in a roundabout way, which creates a fairly awkward environment. Although not prominent enough to be considered a full fledged plot line, the party also features a recurring theme where Kendall and Kylie Jenner, the youngest members of the family, engage in various behaviors the parents deem unsuitable due to their age, such as dancing on the stripper pole Kim has bought Kris and Bruce for their anniversary, or serving cocktails to party guests. As the party winds down the show features a conversation between Kim and Khloe where it is revealed that Kim's appearance on Tyra will be her first television interview.

Following the conclusion of the party, the show wraps up its other two central plot lines by following Kim's preparations for the interview and including the initial discussion of Kim's sex tape, which appears to go relatively well. Kris' concerns about Scott are alleviated in a surprising twist, because when she finally talks about her belief that Scott has cheated on Kourtney, Kourtney reveals that she is already aware of what Kris is talking about, and that she and Scott had not actually been dating at the time. The episode concludes with Kim and Brittny going shopping, and the family discussing how the interview went, before ending in group hug between the sisters.

Perhaps the most striking thing about Keeping Up With the Kardashians is the degree to which the show focuses on the relatively close, healthy relationships between the three older sisters. While they all have wildly different personalities, they generally cooperate fairly well and demonstrate a warmth and generosity that sets the show apart from many other series which follow the exploits of a celebrity family, such as The Osbournes or Hogan Knows Best. Their close relationship undoubtedly stems from their business relationship, and this can be seen in the way that D-A-S-H functions as setting for the action of the show, because it offers a special location in which the relationships between the sisters are fleshed out.

Although some episodes focus more heavily on the store itself, such as when the sisters give a makeover to a homeless man living behind the shop, the first episode is a useful example of how the store functions more generally as a meeting space outside of their home. Even though the sisters are frequently with each other, the interactions differ slightly depending on whether they are at the home or in the store, because the two locations carry slightly different connotations. The house serves to highlight the family as a whole, and as such Kendall, Kylie, and Bruce appear much more frequently in these scenes (even if Bruce generally says very little compared to his wife and stepdaughters). The store, on the other hand, highlights the relationship between the sisters relatively independent of Bruce and Kris, because as Khloe notes, "it's a place where [they] all kind of get to catch up and relax, and just gossip with one another." In order to see how this influences the show's representation of the interpersonal relationships of the family, one may examine a scene from the first episode, in which the editing choices serve to identify the shop as a particular kind of expressive space.

The special role of the shop as a space of differential relationships and conversations can be seen in the first episode when Kourtney and Khloe are in the shop discussing a dinner Kourtney had with Scott the night before, where Scott acted aloof and generally impolite. The two sisters discuss Scott's astrological sign and the way it relates to Scott's personality, and later, when Scott arrives, the three of them discuss the variability of Kourtney and Scott's relationship in positive terms, highlighting the fact that they can make up so readily. All the while, Kris has been in the store, but she does not speak throughout the entire scene except when the show cuts from the action at the store to a "confessional" sequence common in reality shows, where a character discusses the events of the show. There are repeated shots of her looking suspiciously at Scott, but because the store is the space in which the sisters' relationship is highlighted, anything she says in the store is not included in the episode, thus marking the store as a space exclusively reserved for the sisters.

This is worth noting because it demonstrates one of the central aspects of a reality show, which is the fact that each thirty minute episode is culled from hours and hours of footage in order to produce a succinct, coherent storyline out of the entirety of the character's lives. Recognizing this fact is important, because it allows one to appreciate how the show represents a piece of cultural and artistic production just as much as a fictional series, because the "characters" of Kourtney, Khloe, Kim, Kris and the rest of the family may actually be thought of as relatively independent of the real people themselves. In effect, the show portrays characters living in a world many degrees closer to reality than the average television sitcom, but which has important differences from reality, namely the inclusion of editorial control. Thus, the show is able to portray the communicative spaces of the Kardashian home and D-A-S-H as fundamentally different by highlighting who speaks and what they talk about, even if the distinction is likely not as dramatic in real life. For example, it seems reasonable to presume that Kris spoke to her daughters and Scott at some point during the filming of the aforementioned scene in D-A-S-H, but nature of the show allowed the producers and editors to exercise these portions in order to dramatize the experience and better identify the space of the store as fundamentally different from the environment in the home, where Kris remains the central and dominant character.

This editing has oftentimes been decried as something which renders reality television inherently less valuable than other forms of serialized entertainment, and indeed, a review of show in the Armenian Reporter claims that while "the show may be 'unscripted,' […] each episode is a choreographed self-contained train wreck where family members make up a cast of quirky characters who amplify their persona for airtime," claiming that "the staged scenes, amateur acting, and camera hogging are disengaging" (Gregorian, 2007, p. C19). The claim that reality television series are staged or otherwise not "genuine" representations of their subjects has been around since the genre first blossomed, and is a relatively easy criticism to make, but it ultimately is not worthwhile, because it does not do anything to uncover the meaning created by the show itself.

Thus, rather than complain that editing and possible staging detracts from the "reality," it is more productive to examine what is done with the ability to edit and stage scenes, because the importance of any cultural production does not lie in the degree of fidelity to objective reality, but rather the meanings created through the subjective interpretation of that reality. The fact that reality television series purport to represent reality is almost incidental, because they impact the cultural landscape in generally the same way as a scripted series, regardless of how closely it claims to represent reality. This will allow one to understand how the editing and particular choice of setting and content in reality television serves to implicitly and explicitly shape ideas and opinions about a wide range of subjects.

In the case of Keeping Up With the Kardashians, one of the most important cultural impacts of the show centers around the fact that the four older children are all Armenian, and thus the show represents one of the most prominent representations of Armenians in American entertainment and culture. While the name Kardashian is clearly Armenian, the family also takes ample opportunities to highlight their cultural and ethnic heritage, and the family's ethnicity is implicitly "characterizes the sisters' brunet aesthetic and also the tone of the show, which is anything but Presbyterian-genteel" (Merkin, 2010, p. 101). In particular, the sisters' Armenian background is explicitly brought up in discussions of their appearance, because the show's focus on fashion and Kim's career as a model makes the family's ethnicity a prominent factor ("Kim Kardashian is proudest of her Armenian genes," 2009, p. 14). In a television environment populated almost exclusively by Anglo role models and talking heads, Keeping Up With the Kardashians represents a celebration of Armenian ethnicity and provides a much needed diversity to the cultural investigations of reality television. While some might debate about the relative worth of the Kardashian sisters as role models, the fact remains that their embrace of their Armenian heritage serves to generate a positive image of Armenians in the public consciousness that is free from many stereotypes and assumptions.

In addition, Kris' role as the matriarch of the family hints at the family's roots, because of her first marriage to Robert Kardashian, whose family "was like the Armenian version of the Rockefellers," including a strong matriarch, Helen Kardashian, who embodied the idea that "Armenian women were there to run the household" (Bruce, 2011, p. 55). Kris was "especially close to Helen," and for over twenty years the older woman acted as a kind of mentor to her, such that Kris took on the same role managing the family and household embodied by Helen Kardashian, albeit with a contemporary twist (Bruce, p. 2011, p. 55). As the matriarch of a large family, Kris similarly represents this traditional ideal, but in a way that serves to expand the role of the mother and wife by channeling her management of household life into management of a media empire, to the point that in 2010, the family made "more money […] than what Angelina Jolie, Sandra Bullock, and Tom Cruise are estimated to have earned combined: a staggering $65 million" (Bruce, 2011, p. 48). Thus, Kris' role as manager represents a simultaneous reification of the traditional role of the matriarch in Armenian culture while reinterpreting that role in a contemporary context.

In some ways, Keeping Up With the Kardashians may be seen as a partially accurate picture of Armenian life in Los Angeles, because the family embodies some of the more obvious trappings surrounding a certain class of Armenians in Southern California, in that their cultural heritage is celebrated and expressed through the lens of their abundant wealth. In fact, the aforementioned review of Keeping Up With the Kardashians in the Armenian Reporter begins by saying "welcome to a world where everyone has silky long brunette hair, Range Rover SUVS, and a small dog. No, this isn't the parking lot of a private Armenian school in Southern California; it's the reality show called Keeping Up With the Kardashians" (Gregorian, 2007, p. C19). The connection between their wealth and their Armenian heritage is further highlighted by their charity work; in 2009 "the unlikely pairing of the Armenian Church and the sex-scandalizing famous party-girl-turned-celebrity Kim Kardashian helped raise more than $90,000 for the Etchmiadzin Children's Fund," a charity which supports Armenian orphans ("It Girl' Kardashian helps raise $90k for Armenian orphans," 2009, p. 10). This is just one of the public appearances and charity events related to the show, and because of the unique nature of cross-media branding in the twenty-first century media landscape, one cannot consider the show's representations of Armenians without additionally considering its effects on Armenian culture and society off of the small screen.

In this way, the show serves to represent the idea "that in California, Armenians cared for each other and [want] to move forward and progress together" (BBC Monitoring Central Asia, 2003, p. 1). In fact, California has a substantial Armenian population, and Los Angeles is "home to the largest Armenian population in the Diaspora," including "eleven Armenian day schools" and numerous Armenian cultural organizations and publications (Oshagan, 1993, p. 40, & Der-Sarkissian, 2005, p. 16). This has resulted in a number of organizations in Los Angeles explicitly created for the maintenance of Armenian culture and the support of Armenians domestically and abroad, such as the aforementioned charity and the Armenian Watch, "a Los Angeles group formed for the purpose of monitoring human-rights violations against the Armenian people" ("Armenian Watch Calls for Full-Scale Investigation," 1999, p. 16). The representation of Armenian-Americans in Keeping Up With the Kardashians serves to highlight the notion of Los Angeles as a place of robust Armenian culture, where traditional heritage and American styles can mix to produce success and happiness. This contributes to the sense of Armenian brotherhood (or in this case, sisterhood) which is an important part of Armenian history and culture.

As such, the show's frequent display of luxury items and the fact that Kim, Khloe, and Kourtney own their own shop serves to provide a positive image of Armenians in Los Angeles that in many ways accurately represents the success found by numerous Armenian families aside from the Kardashians. This is especially true because of the show's focus on the large family unit as the source of the sisters' success and potential, because it provides an example of a loving family that manages to retain a close relationship even as the children occasionally defy their parents, offering an image of the successful integration of traditional values in a contemporary environment. Furthermore, the fact that the show follows the Kardashians instead of a famous family from another ethnic background is important, because it serves to reveal the large Armenian population of Los Angeles to a wide audience. This is important because even though Los Angeles is the center of much cultural production in the United States, or at least television and film production, oftentimes the works produced their do not accurately reflect the ethnic and cultural diversity of the city or its residents. The Kardashian family offers the ideal subject with which to confront this lack of effective representation, because their status as a family "famous for being famous" serves to bridge the gap between Los Angeles' large Armenian population and the mass cultural production which occurs there.

However, the reader should recall that the representation of Armenian life in Los Angeles provided by Keeping Up With the Kardashians is only partially accurate, and this is because the Kardashians effectively represent one end of a socioeconomic spectrum, and while there are numerous Armenian residents of Los Angeles nearly as successful as the Kardashians, there are far more who have not been blessed with the same money and opportunities, so at the same time the show can serve as a positive representation of Armenian people in American media, it can simultaneously serve to cover up the difficulties faced by those Armenian residents of Los Angeles who are less well off. For example, Armenian Watch has highlighted the case of a developmental disabled Armenian immigrant beaten by police as a result of his inability to communicate with them effectively, due to his having moved to Los Angeles only three years earlier ("Glendale Police Beat and Arrest Developmentally Disabled Armenian," 1999, p. 17). This case highlights the issues faced by Armenian immigrants in the Los Angeles area when dealing with public officials, especially in cities like Glendale, which "has about 40% Armenian population" but where "perhaps less than 1% of its decision-makers are Armenian" ("Glendale Police Beat and Arrest," 1999, p. 17). Shocking statistics like this are common in areas with a high population of Armenian residents, but relatively little that has been done to rectify the situation.

This phenomenon has led to instances of racism and xenophobia directed against the Armenian population, but is the kind of thing likely not experienced in the Kardashian's hometown of Calabasas, which is considerably more wealthy than Glendale, and is home to a number of celebrities and other powerful people. Problems such as these, which arise from a lack of effective communication between the local government and the Armenian population, as well as the lack of representation in that government, also serve to further exacerbate problems faced by many of the Armenian residents of Los Angeles, because if a problem within the community arises, there is no means by which an immigrant with little knowledge of the legal system can rectify offenses.

Of course, one may point to the robust Armenian population and the variety of organizations aimed at helping Armenians (organizations supported by the Kardashians through money from the show) as a sign that these problems are likely not exacerbated by the show's representation of Armenians, and this is likely true. However, the show does provide an altogether rosy picture of Armenian life in Los Angeles by portraying it solely as a welcoming and ingratiating place where Armenians have found ample opportunities for success, but even this success is undermined by the experience of Armenians on the lower end of the socioeconomic spectrum, who constitute a much larger part of the Armenian population but who are entirely absent from the show's consideration of Armenians. In order to see why, one may examine the experience which faces many newly arrived Armenian immigrants, who come to America with the hope of financial success and ample opportunity as a result of the onstensibly supportive Armenian population, but who are met with bleak working conditions and exploitative practices.