Southern Charm mines the nostalgia for the most shameful time in American history, whether Bravo will admit it or not

The Muse

When the Bravo reality show premiered in 2014, "the cast would spearhead Bravo’s efforts to romanticize a whitewashed vision of Charleston with boozed-up hunks and pretty-faced blondes, the show’s theme song announcing what could be expected from its new generation of Confederacy sympathizers," says Joan Summers. She adds: "This marketing push in 2014 seemed manufactured to fill a 'conservative' hole in Bravo’s lineup. The network was then best known for The Real Housewives, as well as more high-brow reality shows like Project Runway and Top Chef. The marketing for Southern Charm contrasted with the recently debuted Vanderpump Rules. One featured oiled-up and horny Los Angeles waitstaff; the other, equally horny yet more conservative-friendly, 'genteel' Southern gentleman and 'proper' ladies. This strategy, however, was made only more dire by the election of Donald Trump two seasons in. The language of the show seemed to mirror the framing of Trump’s campaign—namely the 'return' to a past America, when slavery was legal and black people and women couldn’t vote. Its cast members aren’t just propped-up party fiends with trust funds and powerful families; they are the South as many still wish it to be."