I should hate the Kardashians

I know a lot of things about the Kardashians.

They have their own “Kollection” for Sears (which is wildly overpriced, if I may say).

They  speak like Valley girls despite being well into their thirties.

I know Kim married a man named Kris (keeping with the “K” theme) and the family was scandalized.

I know Khloe has issues with her body image, and Kourtney‘s relationship with her
baby daddy is dysfunctional at best.

Why do I know all of this about people I don’t actually know?

“It’s something called polarity,” Tyra Banks once said in an episode of “America’s Next Top Model: All Stars.” “The opposite of love isn’t hate. The opposite of love is indifference.”

Everyone knows that if Tyra says it, it must be true.

That’s the key to the Kardashians: They’re polarizing. We simultaneously love them and love to hate them.

I should hate the Kardashians. As a feminist, I think their rise to success represents backward progress for women everywhere.

Yet I have a soft spot in my heart for the antics of Khloe and her incessant attempts to prank her sister Kim.

Bruce Jenner reminds me of my own father, and the fights the sisters have with their mother in almost every episode are somewhat humanizing (even if they’re likely staged).

Ironically enough, the part of the show that rings true with me is the most controversial.

The way they deal with their newfound fame and balance it with their family life is honest and many times
blundering.

For all the careful editing and partial scripting, that part comes across genuine. Behind the layers of trashiness, the show is a painstaking (and possibly the only) study in how celebrity molds a group of people in our media-drenched culture.

If anything can make the Kardashians relevant to society, it’s that.

­— kelfritz@indiana.edu