The Real Housewives of Orange County: Reality TV Show

The Real Housewives of Orange County is a reality television program on the Bravo network. It is the first installation in the The Real Housewives of... series. Created by Orange County producer and Coto de Caza ("Coto") resident Scott Dunlop, with music by Chuck Hammer, the show was initially set primarily in the gated community of Coto and followed the lavish livestyles of five "housewives" and their families who resided within Coto McMansions, with the exception of one housewife (Lauri Waring), who lives in an executive estate in Corona, California townhouse. This housewife exception-to-the-rule was used in Season 1 as a foil to the (then) extravagant lifestyle of the other four housewives, who lived "behind the Coto gates". The show is a voyeuristic look into the wealthy lives of these housewives, as they shop, get plastic surgery, gossip, fight and live lavishly. The construction-real estate crash, the beginning of which coincided almost exactly with the first season's broadcast, has since trimmed the housewives' lifestyles with job losses, evictions, mortgage defaults, foreclosures, and marital stress—all recorded in progressive seasons of the show. Some have seen the show as a parable of the economic bubble and crisis as it portrayed a lavish consumerism, with American families living beyond their means, only to find themselves in serious debt when the economy soured.