I want the Kardashians to be stupid again

Viewers spent years begging the family to be more self-aware. Now, I wish they hadn't.

The Heart Truth via Wikimedia Commons

By Alina Jaffer

As a lover of so-called trash TV, I don’t miss the era when pop culture consumers dismissed pretty girls as airheads. Seeing Kim Kardashian go from being a supposedly talentless sex symbol to a marketing mastermind has been surprisingly heartening. What I do miss is the era when each Kardashian-Jenner sister was as delusional and out of touch as the next. I miss their unabashed vanity and affluence, which led to moments like Kris Jenner getting an actual chimpanzee to alleviate her empty nest syndrome, or pregnant Kim booking a glam squad before a delivery room.

After an impressive 20-year run on E!, The Kardashians rebooted itself on Hulu, recycling the original format, following the influential family on their day-to-day in thousand-dollar loungewear and barely lived-in mansions. Its third season portrays Kim, Kylie, Khloe, Kendall, and Kourtney as self-made millionaires increasingly aware of and concerned with the public’s criticism of their over-the-top lifestyles. But it’s the type of self-awareness that makes for phenomenally boring TV and risks alienating the show’s core audience (like me) who turn to the sisters for escapist entertainment — not for self-reflective analysis. 

Reality show confessionals are short and sweet for a reason — watching things go wrong is funnier than hearing about why exactly they went wrong. Hearing Kendall Jenner reflect on her failure to cut cucumbers is way less captivating than watching her actively struggle with them in the kitchen. 

And yet that didn’t stop producers from airing Khloe and Kim’s recounting of a Variety article that criticized their willingness to share intimate moments on camera in previous episodes. The season two critique was published on November 14, 2022. The episode in which it’s discussed — “Don’t Want It, Don’t Need It, I’m Done” — aired on June 1, 2023. In that six-month interim, viewers had made peace with the second season’s low points. Rather than continuing to beat that dead horse, the Kardashians could have finally revealed what happened to Donda Academy or what Kris sees in Corey Gamble. I’d even prefer another scene of Kourtney and Travis Barker’s extreme PDA — anything to avoid the tired, meta-commentary. 

Producers continued to waste airtime on outdated drama in an episode titled “I Have Some Very Important News.” Kim and Khloe join Scott Disick — Kourtney’s ex and the father of her three children — over Mexican food at Los Angeles' Casa Vega. He announces that the internet is ridiculing the sisters for allegedly photoshopping tears in a season two scene that aired in September 2022. Khloe denies the accusation, angrily calling whoever made it up, “Some fucking loser that has all this time on their hands.” She also takes issue with viewers accusing her of photoshopping fingernails, saying, “Leave me alone. You guys have been fucking nitpicking me since I’ve been on TV.” 

Public scrutiny isn’t the problem. Khloe’s response isn’t new or unexpected. It entirely echoes her Tweets from February 2021. At this point, watching her rehash a scandal that Twitter had long forgotten is like getting a text today with your friend’s take on Olivia Wilde, Harry Styles, and the Don’t Worry Darling premiere – you just want them to move on. 

But the Kardashians aren’t stupid. Their refusal to move the plot forward and their insistence to relitigate every slip-up are likely conscious choices. When Keeping Up With The Kardashians first aired on E!, none of the cast members were tied to corporate labels. The Hulu reboot, however, is essentially a giant marketing campaign for the sisters’ various cosmetic, skincare, clothing, and food brands. 

In order for the Kardashian sisters to market their goods effectively, they must also market themselves. This might explain the show’s hyper-focus on myth debunking. It’s harder for Kim to convince consumers that the secret to her snatched waist is a Skims shaping bodysuit if everyone believes the product ads are photoshopped. So, from a business standpoint, spending valuable on-screen minutes convincing viewers that photo editing claims are bogus is a smart move – unfortunately, that doesn’t make it any less boring.