Vanderpump Rules isn’t typically a show one looks to for role models of any kind. The cast drinks heavily, cheats on each other often, fights like it’s their job (which, I guess it literally is), and sometimes steal shades from a Sunglass Hut in Hawaii. Oh, and they occasionally work at S.U.R, Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Lisa Vanderpump‘s West Hollywood lounge and restaurant. Watching Vanderpump Rules brings the same kind of joy people find in delicious soap operas, like Dallas or The Young and The Restless—which, ironically, one of the former cast members has starred in. (Remember Vail?)
So imagine my surprise this season when I found myself rooting for cast member Lala Kent. At first, Lala wasn’t somebody I’d consider a feminist role model for our times. She’s a more recent addition to the cast—joining the show in season four as a recurring character—and initially she seemed to be filling the tried and true reality show (and soap opera) archetype of the pretty newcomer who arrives to stir up trouble. She wasn’t afraid to flirt with whoever she wanted and she didn’t back down from the show’s own Mean Girls-like clique of Stassi, Katie, and Kristen. Though to be fair to them, Lala didn’t endear herself when she chastised them for not “working on their summer bodies.” Lala even walked away from the show for a chunk of last season after rumors (that continue, even now) that she’s seeing a married man were brought up. (Recent reports claim he’s now officially divorced and once previously filed for legal separation in 2015.)
But it turns out Lala was so much more than any of us—or the cast of Vanderpump Rules, frankly—bargained for. The more I see of Lala, the more I love her. She’s a pro-woman, sex-positive, body-positive badass who isn’t afraid to own her beauty…or anything she does to enhance it. There’s nothing wrong with Botox and fillers, if that’s your choice as a woman. “I’m not the type of person who’s going to walk out and be like, ‘I’ve had nothing done! My face just changed like this,'” she told Bravo’s The Lookbook. “I’m pretty open about things like that.” She’s also unapologetic about asking for—and getting—what she wants, and, yes, that includes flying on private jets and making her friends sign non-disclosure agreements. That doesn’t always sit well with some on the show, but I love that she doesn’t feel obligated to please everyone.
Now that Lala is back, she’s fiercer than ever. After (re)securing her hostess job at S.U.R., she has unleashed a fury of feminism. She has no time for the crappy behavior exhibited by the men on the show, most specifically the cheating Jax and Tom Schwartz. When the married Schwartz makes out with a friend of Lala’s during a night of blackout drinking, she tells his wife, Katie (no friend of hers, mind you), that she “needs to feel safe” in her relationship. When Jax cheats on his live-in girlfriend Brittany, Lala shares a recording of him speaking horribly about the relationship to the woman he just slept with. Some might find this mean (the guys on the show certainly did), but I think it’s information Brittany needed to hear. Lala even rallies the other women around Brittany, to the point where the men are exiled from the party they’re all at together. “God forbid women stand together…We’re not going to deal with your bullshit,” she shouts as the men scurry away. “I’m so sick of these guys thinking they can get away with whatever the fuck they want!” Even Andy Cohen gave Lala props for her “Norma Rae moment” on Watch What Happens Live, saying, “Lala should be on the #MeToo committee, I feel like she could get some stuff done.” The show’s so-called mean girls have come around too, joking on social media that they’ve signed the NDAs her boyfriend requires—from his private jet, no less.
And then there’s the way Lala so openly accepts others. The new transgender hostess, Billie Lee, calls her the “only one I can like kick it with after work.” That feeling is reciprocated by Lala, who says, “I love and adore Billie. She’s genuine. She’s open about who she is. She just embodies everything a human being should embody. She has great tits too.” When Ariana confesses to Lala that she’s battling insecurities that stem from a past relationship, Lala will not stand for it. As she says, “Every woman [should] know her worth.” This inspires the best moment we’ve seen of Lala yet: She admits she looks in the mirror every morning and talks to all of her body parts to say, “I love you.” While her mantra might not be the same as yours, damn if it’s not incredible: “I don’t love my feet, but I thank them because they walk me around. My hands, even though I think they’re man hands, they give great hand jobs. I thank my little kitty cat because it takes that D like a champ.” Owning your body and your sexuality—isn’t that something we should all strive for? I sure think so.
I certainly took this final message of Lala’s to heart, “So maybe getting in that routine of like, ‘I’m a fucking badass and not one thing that someone says to me is going to make me think otherwise.'” Keep doing you, Lala. I am here for all of it.
Source link
