Selling Sunset's Focus on Bodies is Damaging to Us All

And not just those of us who are postpartum.

I watched the fourth season of Selling Sunset this week.

Who am I kidding? I watched Selling Sunset, Selling Tampa, Y: The Last Man, the first three episodes of And Just Like That…, the whole of Squid Game and the first three episodes of The Witcher, season two, this week. I spend a lot of time sitting in the recliner, feeding or soothing or sleeping with my baby, and watching TV is easier than reading (look, ma, no hands!).

The premise of Selling Sunset is beside the point, but for those of you lucky enough to have missed its rise to Netflix’s top 10, all you need to know is that it is a “scripted reality” show from the same millionaire who brought us Laguna Beach and The Hills, and follows the “exploits” of a group of realtors working at a real estate brokerage in LA.

Like any “reality” TV series, Selling Sunset’s major plot points centre around its characters and their various quarrels and conflicts. (Selling Tampa, despite its heavy emphasis on tattoos and eyelashes, seems slightly more about real estate, in that almost every conflict we witness is in some way related to the selling or showing of houses.) Season 4 of Selling Sunset is no different to the previous three; its major plot line follows its anti-heroine, Christine Quinn, as she gives birth to her first child, returns to work and gets her “pre-baby body” back. (Okay, and there’s some serious interpersonal conflict in the office, but you don’t need to know about that.)

Actually, to say that Quinn got her “pre-baby body” “back” is slightly misleading (by the end of this essay I will be placing every single word in inverted commas, to indicate the fact that, though these are widely accepted turns of phrase, I do not agree with their meaning, on a moral or on an ethical level). It is fairer to say that Quinn’s body didn’t change much during, or after, her pregnancy, at least not according to the scenes we see.

There is an internet spiral we could go down that suggests that Quinn did not bear, or birth, her baby – but that is not, dear readers, the spiral we’re about to descend. That a group of strangers on the internet feel free to concoct conspiracy theories about this woman’s pregnancy is a testament to the ownership of a woman’s body to which we, as a society, feel entitled but, as I said, that’s not today’s internet quest.

In fact, my issue – when will the word “issue” become defunct? soon, surely – is not with Quinn. (I wouldn’t dare.) Whether or not Quinn’s body changed before, during or after the birth of her son is none of anybody’s concern except, perhaps, her own, and at that, she is entitled to not care, notice or acknowledge the same.

The fact is, the producers of Selling Sunset knew exactly what they were doing when they zoomed in on Quinn’s body, as she toured a luxury home in the hills the day before she gave birth to her son. The tight angle on her vertiginous heels, the slow pan up and down her torso, the lingering shot of her side profile – none of these choices was accidental.

While the camera is obviously honing in on her physicality, its focus is all the parts of her body that we might expect pregnancy to have altered: ankles, waistline, chest, hips. It’s an unsaid narrative: LOOK AT CHRISTINE! LOOK AT HER BODY! YOU’D BARELY KNOW SHE’S PREGNANT! (The latter statement emphasised by a shot that starts behind her, then slowly swings around to reveal her bump.)

There are moments where Quinn’s body becomes more obviously a part of the narrative, too; I lost count of the number of times fellow cast members exclaim about her tiny waist, her “amazing” physique, the speed with which she has “recovered”, as if pregnancy is a car accident from which some women emerge immaculate, unscathed.

I spoke about this on Instagram Stories, briefly (for me). I received many messages of agreement. Women who are more principled than I am told me that they had to stop watching after a handful of episodes because they found it so troubling; others, who had given birth and were struggling with their bodies as they were now, versus what they had been before, said that they were incredibly upset by what they had thought a very old-fashioned message.

In the year of our Lord 2021, one could be mistaken for assuming that we were past all that. Past putting pressure on women to “bounce back” from pregnancy; past praising women’s bodies above all else (Quinn’s son was born by emergency C-section when both mother and baby were, at various points, in critical condition; there is no doubt that Quinn accomplished more, throughout the filming of Season 4, than the wondrous feat of, er, remaining thin); past casting women in reality TV shows about real estate and instead making the entire storyline revolve around catfights and killer heels. (Okay, no one thought we were past that last part, but imagine a world in which, etc)

Though the majority of messages I received were from women who agreed with me, I should also acknowledge those who did not. “You’re clearly triggered by someone who’s thinner than you are,” read one, from a woman I’m very glad I’m not friends with IRL.

“These are your issues with being fat, tbh. Skinny shaming is not okay!” (Skinny shaming is not a thing, actually.)

I was not, I would say, “triggered” by Christine Quinn’s portrayal in Selling Sunset – at least, not exactly. I am definitely, for one obvious 11-week-old reason, more sensitive to the depiction of postpartum bodies than I would have been, previously. And, I admit, I have been surprised by how difficult I’ve found it to accept the physical changes wrought by the birth of my son, who is absolutely, 100% worth it, for the record, but I would be a jot happier if he could have left me with slightly less of a belly overhang.

Throughout my pregnancy, my body – swollen, big-bellied, wide of ankle – felt more beautiful to me than it ever has before. I took photographs of myself, naked, in front of my bathroom mirror, exalting in the roundness of my stomach, the obviousness of the life growing within. My body is a wonderland, I captioned one of the photographs on Instagram.

I have taken the same photographs, since, but I haven’t been able to face sharing them online. What was, three months ago, a vision of beauty – my cousin, who is an artist, sent me a DM after one such nude post, asking if I would mind if he painted the photograph; I was incredibly flattered, and of course said that I wouldn’t – now seems like evidence of some sort of destruction. But it’s the same body, is what I keep telling myself. It has done great things.

This thinking is not the fault of Adam Divello, or Selling Sunset. It is especially not the fault of one Christine Quinn. It is not my fault (although I can’t help but think I could try harder to resist it). It is the fault of a society that loads expectation upon expectation on women when it comes to our bodies, our selves, our nudes, our selfies, our stretch marks (or lack thereof), our waistlines… You get the picture. It’s all a lot.

But one thing’s for certain: popular media like Selling Sunset certainly doesn’t help.