While late-night television hosts such as Jimmy Kimmel, John Oliver and Stephen Colbert have become advocates for progressive liberal democracy in the age of Donald Trump, the late-night landscape remains as painfully regressive as the regime it resists in one prominent way: almost all hosts, save for Samantha Bee of TBS’s Full Frontal, are men.
And so when Bravo – the cable channel known for its female-focused reality programs such as Vanderpump Rules, Million Dollar Listing and the Real Housewives franchise – announced it would be launching a new late-night offering, one might assume this new show would be hosted by a woman.
Instead, the network will debut Real Men Watch Bravo, a late-night show which will not only have a male host, but, according to a press release announcing its debut, will only have male guests and panelists.
The show will be hosted by Jerry O’Connell, an actor whose career highlights include featuring prominently in the music video for Mariah Carey’s Heartbreaker and starring opposite Anthony Anderson and a CGI marsupial in the film Kangaroo Jack, for which he was awarded a Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice award for “favorite fart”.
In March of this year, O’Connell served as the unlikely guest host of Wendy Williams’ eponymous chat show, unique among daytime shows for its coverage of African American issues – displaying an oddball sensibility and madcap enthusiasm that quickly made him a fan favourite.
In a press release, the network described O’Connell as “a walking encyclopedia of Bravo history”, stating that the actor will appear “alongside a panel of male celebrities, comics and tastemakers, discussing the buzziest Bravo moments”. The panelists, the release assures us, will be “unapologetic Bravoholics” who will provide “the male point of view pertaining to all things Bravo”.
In other words, Real Men Watch Bravo is meant to be a bit of meta-counter-programming, featuring men talking about Bravo’s TV shows in a presumably manly way. The question of why women will be excluded from the opportunity to provide commentary on Bravo’s programming went unaddressed in the press release.
According to figures from its parent company Comcast, which also owns Bravo’s sister channel NBC, Bravo was the most-watched cable network among women in 2017 and the seventh-most watched cable network overall; other industry data places its viewership as two-thirds female.
The O’Connell-hosted show is the network’s latest attempt to evangelize to male audiences in recent months – the network currently sells T-shirts bearing the slogan ‘Real Men Watch Bravo’, and they ran TV spots during the Super Bowl and Winter Olympics featuring a man watching Vanderpump Rules, a reality show about the vapidly hedonistic waitstaff of a restaurant owned by former Real Housewives cast member Lisa Vanderpump, in a state of rapture.
It seems that Bravo believes that in order to expand its market share, it has a better chance of winning over men rather than attracting even more women. However, it’s also completely possible that Real Men Watch Bravo’s content could have the effect of alienating its current female audience. Cheerful and genuine a host as O’Connell may prove himself to be, the type of male celebrities, comics and tastemakers who end up making the late-night panel show rounds tend to be a cynical and mean-spirited bunch. It’s very easy to envision Real Men Watch Bravo as a show where journeymen celebrities – the likes of Daniel Tosh and Steve-O – ruthlessly skewer mostly-female reality stars. In such a scenario, it’s easy to imagine Bravo’s existing audience being unhappy.
A Bravo representative declined to discuss the intent behind Real Men Watch Bravo, specific potential panel guests, or who its intended audience was. O’Connell, however, seems gung ho about the project, tweeting in reference to the announcement: “I AM GONNA BUY A BIGGER DOORMAT NOW!”
