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Until recently, my experiences of reality TV have been limited. I’ve watched the odd dating show, and a few episodes here and there of the Kardashians, but it wasn’t until lockdown 2021 that I started to get obsessed with shows set in realities far away from mine. For some reason, I found myself particularly drawn to the Botoxed, wealthy white communities like the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and, most recently, Selling Sunset. It’s like a flipped ethnography (watching these white ladies’ dramas is cathartic, and a bit like going to the zoo), but it also ignites my inner boss-bitch. It makes me want that neoliberal capitalist notion of ‘success’ I’ve personally never been driven by before. And that’s kind of fantastic.

When it comes to the cast of Selling Sunset,I like to think of myself as an Amanza sun with a Chrishell moon. But, to be honest, I’m probably more Christine than anything (we are both Libras, after all). I fantasise about being her as I Sell Pōneke: long fake nails, tiny skirts hugging an ‘ass you could crack an egg on’, handing out Botox at each open home, driving my yellow Ferrari up to multi-million-dollar houses and flicking my butt-length hair extensions out of my eyes. I’d push open sliding glass doors and say confidently to prospective buyers, “It has great indoor–outdoor flow,” and “Could you imagine waking up to this view every day?”

I’ve never wanted to be a Christine type of girl before. The truth is, I’m completely happy being my gorgeous, cellulite-thighed, Indigenous self. But I can’t help wondering what it would be like to be someone like her for just one day. To live the kind of life where you have a net worth and host parties with circus performers and live zebras.(I know it sounds dumb, but c’mon, it’s Omicron time, and we all need a bit of escapism.)

I, for one, love to imagine waking up in a Beverly Hills mansion, swimming in my infinity pool, hosting parties on the patio, hiring a professional chef because who has the time to cook these days? I’d start drama and act innocent, and, in classic Libra fashion, would charm everyone into purchasing my listings. I’d want to be the best there was. To show the world that a wahine Māori can sell luxury as well as anyone.

But LA is far too far away, and for the moment I’m here in Pōneke renting an Aro Valley flat that triggers my asthma, with the sound of car horns and police sirens blaring through my dreams. So I do what I do best – play make-believe.

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Sinead slips into a summer dress and flip-flops. She scrunches product into her hair, applies tinted sunscreen and mascara, and slides into a two-door Mitsubishi Mirage. She speaks candidly to the camera as she drives.

“I’m going to see a couple apartments in Hataitai. They’re both in the same building, priced at around 700,000 each. I think they’re really charming.”

Energetic pop music plays as she pulls up to the building. We see her struggle to parallel park, and almost run over the curb. The music stops and she giggles, letting us know that she’s charming and not easily perturbed. A voiceover starts, in which Sinead outlines her background in real estate, and why it’s important to her (cue Chrishell-inspired ‘I grew up in the hood’ monologue, where we realise she didn’t come from luxury, she’s a self-made woman).

Sinead slips into a summer dress and flip-flops. She scrunches product into her hair, applies tinted sunscreen and mascara, and slides into a two-door Mitsubishi Mirage. She speaks candidly to the camera as she drives.

“I’m going to see a couple apartments in Hataitai. They’re both in the same building, priced at around 700,000 each. I think they’re really charming.”

Energetic pop music plays as she pulls up to the building. We see her struggle to parallel park, and almost run over the curb. The music stops and she giggles, letting us know that she’s charming and not easily perturbed. A voiceover starts, in which Sinead outlines her background in real estate, and why it’s important to her (cue Chrishell-inspired ‘I grew up in the hood’ monologue, where we realise she didn’t come from luxury, she’s a self-made woman).

The camera follows Sinead through a maze of rooms and stairs, and up a tower to eventually reach the apartments. She opens a door and takes us in.

The apartment is 60 square metres and has two storeys, with wooden floorboards and an open-plan living and dining area. Portal windows throughout give the property a quirky edge, while a spiral staircase gives the living room a sculptural element.

“You could put shelves under here.” Sinead gestures to the space below the spiral staircase.

Upstairs, there are two bedrooms with slanted attic ceilings.

“I love the beams,” Sinead says. “It’s really unique. And the skylight brings in some amazing natural light.”

Sinead walks back downstairs and opens the sliding glass door to a small balcony.

“You could definitely host parties out here, sitting and looking out at that amazing view.” She gestures to Mt Vic, and the motorway below.

“This building was designed by the architect Roger Walker. A lot of people know it as the ‘weird shapes building.’”

“My dream is to one day own a home myself,” Sinead says in an interview to the camera.

“Do you think that’ll ever happen?”

“I’m determined that it will.” Sinead smiles confidently.

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I can’t help but interrogate my motives, as a Māori and takatāpui person, while I watch this stuff. Why do I love it so much? And is that problematic? Should I be watching something more, erm, woke? Then I start to realise that Selling Sunset,for me, is the ultimate escape from my reality. While we fight for landback in Aotearoa, Selling Sunset’scast members drive from luxury home to luxury home trying to make consecutive six-figure commissions. While we try to combat racism and make others aware of their underlying assumptions and privileges, Christine takes a bitchy dig at Chrishell by naming a cocktail at her party ‘Chrishell’s two-face tonic’. And while we work to decolonise the various structures and systems that have been imposing on our lives and livelihoods for the past centuries, Jason Oppenheim recites poetry at his dog’s birthday party. Maybe we need these escapes (no matter how shallow or silly) to get some relief from the heavier stuff we have to carry.

Plus, as problematic as this show might be, it is in some ways aspirational. Or maybe it’s just fun.

I watch the entire series in the space of a few weeks, and I start to feel absorbed in this world of wealth and luxury, loving every minute of it. To be honest, it’s no wonder that anyone would find an odd satisfaction being transported into a world where the only things to worry about are whether you should invite someone to your wedding or not, who should intervene with Christine spreading shit, or whether to serve Botox and burgers at the next open home.

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Sinead saunters into the office, Prada bag tucked under her arm.

“Hi ladies!” she says to her colleagues, then sits at her desk, closest to the front of the room.

“I can’t believe she sold that house for two million dollars. There is no way anything in the Hutt’s worth two million.”

Sinead rings the bell while shrieking excitedly.

“I don’t want to ring my own bell or anything,” she says in a side interview, “but who am I kidding? I’m totally killing it this year. If homes can go for this much in the Hutt, then anything is possible.”

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Sinead pulls up to an estate in Brooklyn, on a hill overlooking the harbour. The camera pans from her heels, to her dress, to her face. She flicks hair from her eyes and takes her sunglasses off in one move.

“This place is owned by two property moguls. For the past five years it’s been a student flat, but the owners have decided to sell.”

Sinead has staged the house beautifully. A client walks in and they banter back and forth. Sinead shows them through the house, pointing out the wooden flooring, the Italian cabinetry, the sliding glass doors, balcony and amazing master suite.

The buyer is charmed. He decides immediately to buy the home.

They shake hands. Sinead is quickly becoming a force to be reckoned with in the Selling Pōneke offices.

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Selling Sunset captures me so much that I take up a new hobby – open homing. I go with my friends to see new houses, and trawl through listings online. It’s a fun new activity to do when ‘going out’ isn’t exactly what it used to be.

And as this new world of open homes presents itself to me, I see myself, a vision, in the future, signing my own deed on a house. If I can’t sell a sunset, at least I could maybe try buying it, one day.

And as the red-light setting descends on the country, and Omicron numbers skyrocket – and ‘those people’ tear up Parliament’s lawn, buy up Wellington’s supply of tinfoil, and burn up all their tents – I cancel my plans to go to open homes in the coming weeks. Instead, I go to the pharmacy, buy Covid supplies from the bare shelves and prepare to settle into a new routine. And because the pandemic is getting too much to think about, and because I want to avoid this reality we’re living in, and because, goddamn it, Marie, it does spark joy, I tuck into bed and press play on the latest series, Selling Tampa.

Feature image: Nuanzhi Zheng 郑暖之。