You’ve probably heard by now that wealthy people are actually very sad. It’s the premise of nearly every HBO show now, The Great Gatsby, the David Fincher movie The Game, Lana Del Rey’s music catalog, etc. It’s also surprisingly become the theme of the current season of The Kardashians.
Since launching their Hulu reality show two years ago, the Kardashians have struggled to make their overly opulent lives look fun. Most episodes show the clan milling around their colorless mansions and attending work meetings in distressingly beige offices. The family’s “fun” activities, like randomly learning how to drive stick and taking illegitimate health tests, are noticeably staged. For the most part, it doesn’t seem like anyone really wants to be on camera, besides Scott Disick.
Watching this current season, however, I’ve noticed that The Kardashians isn’t just dull anymore. The vibe of the series has gotten a lot more bleak and, dare I say, self-reflective. That’s particularly true of the past few episodes, which find Kris, Kourtney and Kim reckoning with the amount of success they’ve achieved and how it’s corrupted their family.
Out of everyone, it seems that Kourtney has finally seen the light, thanks to a beef with Kim over their respective Dolce & Gabbana deals. This D&G fight is largely silly and deeply unrelatable. But it leads Kourtney to ask her money-hoarding family something they’ve probably never considered before: When will enough be enough?
In the latest episode, Kourtney finally confronts Kim about the Dolce & Gabbana collection she curated the same year as Kourtney’s famously hideous D&G-sponsored wedding (after sobbing to literally everyone in Calabasas about it). It seems like Kourtney thought she had a closer relationship with the Italian designers (who are famously horrible people, by the way) than other celebrity collaborators, including her younger sister.
The fact that the duo not only approached Kim so soon after the wedding but also gave her access to their ’90s archive, as they did with Kourtney, added more salt to the wound. On a simpler, more catty note, Kourtney accuses Kim of copying her.
The way Kourtney articulates her grievances is admittedly confusing. Even if she had a long-standing friendship with D&G, their work on her wedding was a business venture, first and foremost. It’s kind of embarrassing watching her try to project sentimentality on to what was essentially sponcon for a floundering fashion house. Plus, the fact that she only feels comfortable discussing her frustrations with Kim and not her alleged BFFs, Domenico and Stefano, proves they aren’t really that close.
Ultimately, Kourtney makes a solid point, which is that Kim, with all of her success and endless opportunities, didn’t have to accept the deal. Meanwhile, everyone Kourtney discusses this issue with seems flabbergasted that she would expect Kim, an actual billionaire, to turn down money for once in her life. Kris, who negotiated the deal, straight-up refuses to take a side in the argument. And when Kourtney asks Kim what else she’s driven by besides money or what her end goal is, Kim doesn’t have an answer.
Kourtney Kardashian and Travis Barker: pop-punk royalty.
Gotham/Getty ImagesThis scene of Kim and Kourtney trying to come to an understanding is actually pretty funny. When Kourtney, who’s dressed in a black hoodie with an anarchy symbol, tells her sister that she feels like she can’t have her own identity, Kim argues that she does, now that Kourtney’s married to a blink-182 member. “No one else is trying to, like… rock out,” she says rather rudely.
Kim also goes into this hilarious-but-dead-serious monologue in her confessional about Kourtney stealing ideas from her wedding to Kanye, which included a performance by her “favorite male singer of all time,” Andrea Bocelli. (Is Kim just casually blasting Andrea Bocelli songs in her Range Rover?!)
Despite the fact that no one in the family really takes Kourtney’s side, they all seem disillusioned by their enormous fame and obscene wealth in a similar way. For instance, the same man who elevated Kim’s career and her entire family’s social status is also making her life a living hell, due to his embarrassing antics, and Kim can barely talk about her ex-husband without having a panic attack. Khloé, on the other hand, has hardly been the fun, chaotic sister we’re used to, ever since Tristan Thompson wreaked havoc on her life. Meanwhile, Tristan’s profile has only risen—at least amongst rappers and other athletes—because of his public infidelity.
Kris also seems more fed-up than usual. In another recent episode, she goes on a long but vague monologue about the hardships of being in the public eye, as if we can’t just Google all of the family’s controversies. “Sometimes I feel like I’ve helped build something that can sometimes be a curse,” she says. Um, “helped?”
At the end of the day, these women are never going to abandon their privileged lives or disappear from the public. At this point, I don’t know if they’ve all been brainwashed to believe they can’t live any other way or signed some Faustian deal with Kris as soon as they popped out of her womb.
However, if I’m rooting for anyone to make a Prince Harry-style escape and never look back, it’s certainly Kourtney. She mostly wears clothes from Hot Topic now or whatever holey T-shirts her husband has in his closet. I’m sure she’d do well living off of blink-182 royalties and whatever her dad put in her trust fund.
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