It’s the worst-kept secret that the men ofSouthern Charmare afflicted with Peter Pan Syndrome in a city like Charleston where perpetual immaturity and self-indulgence is rewarded. It would be easy to say any of the men are the biggest villains on the show, and of course, viewers can’t forgetaccused predator and convicted felonThomas Ravenalis truly the worst of themeven though he was fired years ago. While the men deserve condemnation, much of their toxic behavior is rewarded and puppeteered byPatricia Altschul,the grand-matriarch of the show and the true villain of the show.
Patricia was initially seen as this delightfully acerbic Southern grand dame who had an aspirational lifestyle with her picturesque Charleston mansion. Many of her scenes include having dinners with her sonWhitney Sudler Smith’smuch younger guy friends, where she holds court while they behave like frat boys. She took pleasure in bullying 21-year-oldKathryn Dennis,who has made terrible decisions of her ownbut was still a victim of the Good Ol’ Boys System that dictates the South. She picked her apart for dating around and breaking the hearts of several men on the show, including Whitney, who is almost 30 years older than Kathryn and also functions as the executive producer of the show.
Patricia Has Been Ostracizing Women From The Beginning
It’s impossible not to have romantic overlapwith your friends in a small, incestuous city like Charleston, yet Patricia always had something to say about it when any of the women do it. Kathryn volleyed between much older men and ultimately ended up with Thomas, thereby embittering Whitney. Patricia alienated Kathryn from the cast for years, calling her “a scandal,” and suggested repeatedly that she was preying on older men from prestigious, monied families. She even reiterated that Kathryn, who didn’t even have a fully formed frontal lobe, was the one manipulating and preying on Thomas, who was a middle-aged convicted felon.If anyone was being manipulated and preyed on, it was Kathryn.
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Patricia further eggs on this flawed social hierarchy by raising a son like Whitney.Whitney is almost sixty years old and coasts off his mother’s financial and social capital. He bullied Kathryn since the beginning of the show after having a fling with her because she was the one who left him. He then went on to bullyCraig Conover, who suggested that Whitney was in love with Kathryn and that’s why he antagonizes her. Patricia preaches about etiquette to the point where she acts like she wrote the book on it —oh wait, she literally did publish a book on it in 2017 — but then she doesn’t mind when her son chides his ex-flingMolly O’Connellfor having a cupcake in front of an entire dinner party.
Patricia Altschul Is A Puppetmaster To This Day
Patricia still fosters the misogyny that permeates the Southern Charm cast, even though it’s the reason why people have found the show unpalatable as of late. She picked apartTaylor Greenlast season for sending her son sexy photos while she was intoxicated andgoing through a horrible breakup with Shep. During the most recent episode, Patricia was scrutinizingShep’s recent girlfriendSienna Evansfor matching with Whitney on a dating app, speculating she’s a “stalker” because she matched with two men from the show on Raya. Young single girls acting like young single girls isn’t weird.What’s weird is that much older men are talking to them, and her much older son isgossiping with his mommy about itwhile still pursuing them.
Almost every woman from the original cast has left the show because they outgrew this boys’ club while Patricia relishes it. It’s the perfect crime to make the grandmother figure of the show the ultimate villain, and it’s why she’s gotten away with it since the beginning. What’s even more poetic is that her son Whitney is the executive producer of the entire show, andhe’s unwittingly putting his mommy issues on display by insidiously making his mother the villain. While this show ishaving a lackluster season, Freud would certainly enjoy it. Southern Charm is available to stream on Peacock in the U.S.
Southern Charm
