"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation."
"Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new."
Henry David Thoreau, "Walden", 1854
Heh.
"Honey? Are you watching TV before finishing your homework!"
"No, mom, I'm participating in subversion of the dominant paradigm!"
"What? Who told you that?"
"Arthur Chrenkoff, mom."
"Oh, he writes for the Wall Street Journal! Keep participating, honey."
"Sweet!"
Darnit, where were you when I was a kid.
I can't believe people liked that garbage! I had such high hopes but it's so cliched and over the top. The characters are just cardboard cutout stereotypes. Bland. Very, very bland.
Now, "Lost" on the other hand, is an exciting exploration of man's interactions with power, the notion of authority as an arbitrary quantity, and the eternal battle between nature vs. nurture. Plus it has a chics permanently in bikinis and monsters. I'm in!
I am watching Lost and trying to figure out how Canadians and Polar Bears got onto an island full of mentally disturbed people under 30, and why the Canadian is the evil guy (although I think now he's dead.)
As for the Housewives, just hooter girls growed up. I'd rather watch Supernanny, who is teaching the Hooter Moms how to make their children stand in the corner.
Just don't go down the Andrew Bolt route; a hysterical imitation of a postmodern deconstruction that angrily reduces the women in the show to bitching harpies and monsters.
I just think it's cheesy and light, and doesn't take itself too seriously. And also Eva Longoria makes it worthwhile for the male/lesbain viewer...
I'm too busy watching the new Battlestar Galactica to bother. It's the best new SF series in a looooong time...
I'm likin' your critique, Arthur. And yes, it's been a couple of months since I stopped in; my new promotion has been keeping me busy.
So I was participating in the subversion of the dominant paradigm when I watched "Desperate Housewives?"
Funny, I thought I was just entranced with the way their shirts cling to their full, rounded...
What was I saying? Oh, yeah, you're right. It's the Lefty chic, hidden behind a mask of aggressive sensuality. One of the oldest tricks in the book for those guys.
I have never, as far as I know, seen a second of Desperate Housewives.
I watch:
House, M.D.
Monk
Crossing Jordan
Strong Medicine
The Dead Zone
Law and Order: SVU
Law and Order
The pilot's title was Disparate Horseflies.
I'm a "24" woman.
They don't have it on their website, but socially conservative Christian activists Saltshakers have actually been encouraging people on their mailing list to campaign against Desperate Housewives.
Peter Stokes writes:
Sex and seduction are the on-going themes. Adultery is portrayed as commonplace and illicit sex is the 'norm'. And as the group of housewives discusses male genitalia over coffee, we’re given the impression that all men are worthless philanders.
ACTION:
“Desperate Housewives” shows Channel 7's desperation for ratings. We want to make them desperate for revenue by reducing their advertising base.
We are going continue to use the campaign tactics started last year - Challenging the advertisers as well as Ch 7.
I have not seen Desperate Housewives, because I just assumed it was picking up where Phil Donahue left off demeaning being a wife and mother. Too bad shows like MacLeods Daughters is not more the norm!!
A proud wife and mother!!
When a show becomes ridiculous (am I being redundant here?) it's termed "jumping the shark" in reference to Fonzi water skiing and jumping a shark in an episode of Happy Days. The show in it's first season was quite passible. It quickly tailed off. remember how good MASH the tv show was the first season or two before it became unwatchable dreck? All most all tv show eventuall jump the shark.
Disparate Horseflies...that's pretty great! I agree with Arthur that the coherency can't hold. This is because the tension of the product is in the Big Secret, and continuously revealing new layers without exposing the secret.
X-files became a gymnastic miracle in its pursuit AND obfuscation of the Big Secret, but eventually fell apart. It had the advantage of being about the paranormal, whose ruleset goalposts are constantly shifting (i.e. debunked UFO myths are now held up as fabricated gov't conspiracies)...so that show had more rope.
I love the Big Secret plotline, but I prefer it in novels (like Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose), because the ultimate revelation in so satisfactory (coming, obviously at the climax of the plot). TV series go on and on...either people get sick of waiting for the Big Secret, or it is a disappointment when it happens...and then there's nothing left.
Good grief. I just realized that I could have been describing John Kerry's presidential campaign.
I've watched a portion of one show and it was BORING. Now if I were a guy maybe it wouldn't be quite as boring but I still think it would be boring. Now 24 - well hey, that's a whole nuther story. I just finally started to watch it this season. Woo-what a good season to start. Now, I'll go back and watcht he previous seasons. BTW - this is the only fiction I watch on network tv. Most of it is just lame and boring. Course, I'm addicted to my computer so I'm not sure which is worse.
The left has been disgusted with the bourgeoisie ever since their political reforms (or revolutions) made it possible.
They carp about the "masses" or "the people," but when "the people" actually own some property and find some peace and accumulate a little capital they become objects of ridicule.
The 19th century was obsessed with the bourgeoisie (Marx's whole project was its elimination; workers of the world unite!).
The bourgoisie sent Neitzsche into paroxysms of rage -- wither the Superman? Sartre and Camus saw zombies walking the streets of Paris, and now the postmodernists tell us the metanarratives of the middle class have died (alert WalMart posthaste!).
How many times must we listen to the inane proclamations of Apocalypse? Its like living in 1st Century Palestine.
Fun thread Arthur, thanks. In addition to the latest TV dreck on this subject you could have lumped in Hollywood's subtler slaps ("Far From Heaven," "American Beauty," etc.) at the seething repressed bourgeois.
Since this has been going on for decades (at least) I'd expect the creative lefties to come up with something better than warmed-over 'Peyton Place' -- but given their fossilized politics I can't say I'm surprized. I agree with many of the other postings: this stuff is just plain boring. Since the plotting bears no relation to reality we're left with a one-note tittalation tune -- which even the voyeurs will tune out after a few viewings. True soap operas keep 'em coming back with emotional manipulation through their *characters*, of course.
I'll keep hoping for more Tim Burtons (he of lovely Burbank, CA) who at least have some *fun* with this idea. In the meantime I wouldn't worry too much about supporting a "subversion of the dominant paradigm". We subu
..rban rubes have moved on.
(dern characters limits!)
did someone say hooters?
can you say hooters around here?
A nice TV foil to the "serene suburbia as third circle of hell" motiff is MTV's "The Osbournes."
It attempts to portray the family unit of the Osbournes as conventionally and dramatically "anti-Suburbia"...a mockery of the "plastic" family.
Because, you know, the Osbournes are real. And they genuinely care about each other, unlike the suburban drone families, right?
The have so much love, solidarity, and healthy interpersonal relationships with one another! Each equal member of the family is so in tune with the needs of other members that whenever one member becomes hopelessly addicted to drugs, the other family members notice!
Often, they'll even transport the current addict to rehab in the family limo! Also, they all faithfully agree to deceive one another only to a certain degree.
What was clearly intended as a satire unintentionally became a PSA for traditional family roles, mores and functions.
You linked the Bolt rubbish? The right winger as postmodern deconstructionist, renaming aggressive sex against a woman's expressed wishes "hello sex"?
Well, that deserves a trackback..
There is one simple rule that too many people have forgotten in this dicussion: American TV is ALL crap.
No, Toryhere, not all American TV is crap. Just 90% of it or so...
I can proudly say that I have never watched a single episode of Desperate Homewreckers. Just about all I can stand to watch on TV anymore here in the States is the Fox News Channel, Alias, CSI and 24.
And, frankly, I'm about to give up on 24. Since the scriptwriters got the bright idea to write Kim out of the show and reveal that Jack was actually the one who was on drugs for the previous three seasons, 24 has pretty much jumped the shark...
I think that the big secret CAN work with TV shows, but it has to be designed as part of a well-thought-out story arc (Babylon 5 comes to mind) so that the revelations can be planned out ahead of time.
I just remembered. Not Peyton Place, but Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, at his school in the beginning. There's quite a bit going on in that school, as anyone who read it will know. Okay so it's not American, but still...
TORYHERE- We AGREE!!
"There is one simple rule that too many people have forgotten in this dicussion: American TV is ALL crap."
And DH is just a light piece of semi-entertaining crap, which is why Bolt's nuthouse take on it was frightening.
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