There’s a lot to understand when watching Bling Empire, Netflix’s latest reality show that at first looks like an attempt to capitalize on the “trend” for rich and crazy Asians to be crazy and very rich in real life. Ostensibly, is a real life reality show, with a group of fabulous friends who are all friends just because a producer suggested this, but also because they are rich. Like another big hit from Netflix, Selling Sunset, conversations, scenarios and stories in Bling Empire I feel mainly manufactured. But as I watched the drama unfold over the course of a few days, becoming one with my sofa cushions, it occurred to me that what defines Bling Empire in addition to other shows of the genre, they are undoubtedly babies: the real stars of a show where the family reigns.
I’ll take care of the babies’ status as icons at a time, but first, your parents and cohorts deserve some attention. Each main character in this program is a character, apparently removed from the mind of a brilliant casting director who watched Crazy Rich Asians and innately understood that real life is often better than fiction. Christine Chiu and her husband, Dr. Gabriel Chiu, run a plastic surgery clinic in Beverly Hills and are wealthy enough to close Rodeo Drive for a lunar new year party. Kim Lee, described as “Calvin Harris of Southeast Asia”, is a DJ with an authoritarian mother and fillers that make her look a little like Kylie Jenner. Kelly Mi Li doesn’t seem to have a job that I can immediately identify but he becomes entangled with Andrew Gray, best known for being the red Power Ranger, and now, after the debut of this show, for being a colossal idiot with manipulative and abusive tendencies.
Cherie, heir to jeans, is with Jessey, heir to furniture; your children, a child named Jadore and a newborn named Jevon, will be rich in jeans and sofas and will never want anything again. Kane, the show’s actual narrator, has a shoe cabinet bigger than most apartments and is rich enough to Admit for the scribes in Tatler that he doesn’t really “need” the show or the money that apparently came with it.
Completing this cast are the most intelligent and least intelligent characters (no offense), both of which are also the most attractive. Kevin Kreider is a tall, very hot model, with the heart and soul of a well-meaning golden retriever, launched like a fish out of water. (As he is not extremely wealthy, technically he is.) Anna Shay, the only person in this program with a piece of intelligence and common sense, has never encountered financial difficulties because her father, Edward Shay, was the founder of Pacific Architects and Engineers, a private defense company. Her mother, Ai-San Shay, exported pearls and silk flowers from Japan. When Anna’s father died, she and her brother inherited the family business and sold it for $ 1.2 billion to Lockheed Martin, all in money. It’s worth more money than most people will ever touch, and it’s eccentric as are the very rich people who never knew the fight. Her hair is horrible, she wears ill-fitting jeans with huge diamond necklaces and rides a Segway through Beverly Hills with her “French best friend”, Florent. She is yubaba from Spirited Away, flown out of the bathhouse for dirty spirits and a huge, possibly haunted, Spanish-style mansion in Beverly Hills. If I can’t be one of the iconic babies we’re going to meet, I would like to be Anna Shay.
Other reality shows, such as the previous seasons of Real Housewives of New Jersey, strongly focus on the family as a turning point, but in Bling Empire, everyone is very concerned with ancestry. Baby G, the robust and bouncy child belonging to Dr. Chiu and his wife, Christine, is the “heir” that Dr. Chiu’s parents so insisted on producing. Dr. Chiu is a direct descendant from the Song dynasty, and if the dynasties were still real, your handsome little man would be next on the command line. Dynasties are no longer real, and therefore this immense pressure does not weigh on baby G’s head. Bringing baby G into the world was not an easy task, but the fertility problems that plagued Christine and her husband were placed directly on their faces. shoulders – even if it was because of her husband’s “health problems” and not hers. Watching her burst into tears as she admits to lying to her husband to save her in-laws’ face is the most real part of the show. It also contextualizes the birthday party of the first baby G, which is, according to Anna Shay, a little “artificial”.
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Baby G is iconic because his parents are wealthy enough to literally sponsor an orphan in China for each guest who attends the Lunar New Year party, instead of the traditional Baccarat crystal paperweight gift bags. He is also an icon because, although he was forced to appear on camera in a video filmed by his parents asking his grandparents if they used a replacement to carry Margaux or London (the two Chiu embryos on ice), he still comes out on top, narrowly escaping the fate of being forced to hand the spotlight to a brother.
The other babies on this show, Jadore, Cherie’s son, and Jevon, whose birth is captured in surprising high definition, are also quite special. Jadore, who deserves more time on screen than she does, has my sympathy. “Jadore didn’t have a newborn photo shoot,” explains his mother Cherie, while helpers carry the props around her home in preparation for Jevon’s. However, I disagree: I don’t know what a complete newborn photo shoot really involves, but this picture of Jadore wearing a Chanel headdress looks like something to me.
It doesn’t matter that you are lying on the floor instead of hanging from a place of pride. That’s Cherie’s problem, and I’m not going to meddle. The photo shoot of Jevon’s newborn is a complete case, with the little angel wrapped in various fabrics like bread and stuffed in baskets. Nothing will surpass this look, which shows Jevon surrounded by red envelopes for luck, looking like he finally found peace, although he has been alive for maybe a month at most.
At some point during the show, Cherie spends time with Tyler Henry, the Hollywood medium, who confirms Cherie’s theory that perhaps Jevon is the reincarnation of her mother, who died before the show aired. As I watched Tyler Henry do what he does, which is doodling on a notepad and making vague predictions that affect people’s pain, I felt sorry for Cherie. Jessey, her boyfriend, is bland in proposing, and seems happy to exist without putting a real ring on her finger. That’s all she wants! Although this is perfectly resolved at the end of the series, preparing for a second season that I would like sooner or later, Cherie’s sadness makes me sad for no real reason except that it has been a long and difficult year. Reincarnation as a concept and practice is iconic. If Jevon, your little baby chest, is the vessel for your mother’s spirit, then he is the past, the present and the future. What could be more iconic than that?