Fantasies of domesticity.
By Govindini Murty. Despite what seems to be the ever-increasing leftward trend of Hollywood’s cinematic output (consider how unthinkable a film like Avatar would have been just a decade ago), there are strange and interesting signs of latent conservatism in the popular culture. Just look at the success of all the various ‘housewife’ TV shows: ABC’s “Desperate Housewives,” Bravo’s “Real Housewives” of New York, Atlanta, Orange County, and New Jersey, Lifetime’s “Army Wives,” VH1’s “Basketball Wives,” etc. The ‘housewife’ shows are hugely successful and are often the major revenue earners for their networks – despite the fact that they are also highly politically incorrect. What has happened to Hollywood’s liberalism and progressive feminism that it should be creating TV shows with such apparently ‘reactionary politics’ as these housewife shows – shows that seem to offer a vision of traditional domesticity straight out of the Eisenhauer era of the 1950s? Obviously these ‘housewife’ TV shows answer a deeply-felt need in women today, but as an independent-minded career woman myself, I’m not sure whether to laud this development or decry it.
The reality versions of these shows – Bravo’s “Real Housewives,” VH1’s “Basketball Wives” – generally feature women who did not earn their money themselves, but married wealthy and successful men who support them in lavish lifestyles that allow them to spend their days gossiping, shopping, getting their hair done, and throwing parties for each other. While some of these women have launched part-time careers as clothing designers, book authors, or beauty and lifestyle impresarios as a result of being on these shows, the bottom line is that few of them have regular 9-5 jobs like the rest of us. I suppose that is part of their decadent and escapist appeal: like Clare Booth Luce’s The Women, the ‘housewife’ shows allow us to peep into the lives of women who are in most cases completely unlike ourselves. There are times when I watch the Bravo “Real Housewives” series and feel like an anthropologist staring at a foreign tribe: how can these women behave like this – and on national TV!
My favorite ‘housewife’ series though, if I can even say that I have a ‘favorite’ – is the “Real Housewives of New York City.” At least this series features women with slightly more interest in having productive careers and doing charity work than the housewives of Orange County, Atlanta, and New Jersey, who seem to be ruled by little more than appetite and ego.
Spectacles of narcissism.
In any case, the news this morning is that the ‘housewife’ shows continue to score big. The “Real Housewives” of New York City” spinoff “Bethenny Getting Married?” aired its season premiere this past Thursday night, and according to Variety, the show “drew 2.1 million viewers Thursday night to make it the biggest series premiere of any show in the cabler’s history.”
I watched the season premier of “Bethenny Getting Married?” Thursday night, and I found it reasonably entertaining. At least its star Bethenny Frankel has an independent career – and a sense of humor – that makes her somewhat more engaging than the other housewives. I still can’t relate though to how she or any of the housewives treat their husbands/fiancees/boyfriends, who seem to be little more than doormats. I remember one telling episode of “The Real Housewives of New York City” from this past year in which Frankel poses nude on a rooftop in full view of all of New York; when her fiancee mildly complains about this, Frankel blows up and complains about how ‘conservative’ he is! I mean, really, the poor guy isn’t allowed to be a little concerned about his future wife posing nude on a rooftop in New York? This now makes him a raging ‘conservative’? This is the sort of alternate reality these housewives live in. I suppose this is the ‘liberal’ or “progressive” element of these shows – these women may be housewives, but there are no limits to their behavior and thus they are ‘liberated’ from the rules that apply to normal people.
Meet the "Army Wives."
In other ‘housewife’ news, The Hollywood Reporter states that Lifetime’s fictional series “Army Wives” is getting closer to creating a spin-off show. The spin-off will be a crime drama that will follow one of the wives as she returns to her career as a police detective. In my view, the creation of a new TV drama that features women in professional roles is an advancement over these housewife shows. However, Hollywood Reporter reports this amazing fact: “Wives” averages 3 million viewers an episode and ranks as the top-rated original drama on ad-supported cable among women 25-54.” Obviously women love these shows.
It’s interesting that the foremost of the ‘housewife’ shows – ABC’s massively successful “Desperate Housewives” – was launched during the Bush years. “Desperate Housewives” premiered in 2004 – a year of extreme cultural polarization in which both Fahrenheit 9/11 and The Passion of the Christ come out to widespread controversy and success. Now in the early years of the Obama administration, the popularity of these ‘housewife’ shows seems to be picking up steam. It shows that no matter how much the left might try to reverse or eliminate traditional gender roles, those roles keep sneaking back in. I will continue studying these subterranean bubblings of traditional, even ‘reactionary,’ values in our popular culture – and what they mean for the future of film …
Next up – an examination of this spring/summer’s fashion trend of ‘military chic,’ and what this reveals about the ‘liberal’ fashion industry’s inner conservative yearnings for discipline and order.
Posted on June 14th, 2010 at 9:26am.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Mr. K, Libertas Film Mag. Libertas Film Mag said: New LFM Post: Housewife TV Shows Scoring Big: A Sign of Latent Conservatism? … See: http://bit.ly/bcweDX [...]
It used to be women aspired to be ladies, not housewives. And what kind of housewives are these anyway? They rarely seem to be in their homes, and what are they doing to care for their children and husbands?
Thank you for your comment M. Riva. I agree with you that these housewives do not often act in the traditional “lady-like” manner, but they still do seem to address many of the concerns of women today. I just wish that there were reality shows about professional women pursuing careers – I would personally find that more interesting – but I’m just glad that there are shows like this at all on TV that feature women. The fact that all these shows are so successful is a big vindication of the fact that women are the largest audience out there and Hollywood could be making a lot more money if they catered to them more.
I think people enjoy the housewife shows, even though they may not lead lives like the rest of us, because there is so little good programming on TV or in the movies that addresses the concerns of women. That is why “Sex and the City 2″ was also so popular, even though it got ripped to shreds by critics. Many women who don’t want to just watch the usual teenyboppers are just glad to see women their own age on the screen.
Very true Prehistoric Woman – just look at my reply to M. Riva above. All these shows are a vindication that actresses/real women in their 30s, 40s, and 50s can still make it in the popular culture and draw in audiences. Classic Hollywood really used to cater to this audience in the ’30s, ’40s, and ’50s with the films of Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Katharine Hepburn, and others, but seems to have forgotten about this audience in recent decades. I chalk it up to the ongoing Baby Boom rebellion of the 1960s that advocated the abandonment of mature adulthood and of the related insights that mature women bring.
I’d like to make a distinction between Army Wives and the rest of the shows you list. The Real Housewife shows are kind of like watching a train wreck…as, in some sense is Desperate Housewives–funny, soapish, with moments of absurdity and moments of pathos. Army Wives is a different animal. While, critically speaking, this show is pretty well written and dramatically compelling–and it casts light on a somewhat closed society about which the rest of us ought to know more. It shows spouses–men too, as it happens–placed in a difficult position–keeping households running, in effect, as a contribution to our nation (in the same way that the spouses of police and firefighers do). They face low pay, bureaucratic insanity, and of course, long absences, sudden relocations, and the constant fear of losing their loved ones. It shows not just the burdens of duty, but also the pride and the courage in that dedication. And by the way, I’m a dyed-in-the-wool liberal, which in no way excludes me from thinking our armed services are important, or from feeling truly grateful for the costly contributions we receive from our military personnel and their families. Not too many episodes of Real Wives of Orange County make me feel that way.
Thank you for your comment Josy. Yes, I would certainly agree with you that “Army Wives” is different from the reality-TV ‘housewives’ shows such as those on Bravo and VH1. My focus in this piece was more on the the reality ‘housewife’ shows that are egregious in portraying a fantasy ‘housewife’ lifestyle of shopping, gossiping, partying, etc. that seems to be remote from the experiences of average working women. Certainly the characters on “Army Wives” do not lead that kind of lifestyle.
And I would heartily second your comments about the valuable contributions army spouses – both female and male – make to our nation. A few years ago I had the opportunity to speak at a California-wide women’s conference that was organized in honor of military wives. There were hundreds of military wives in attendance, and I was honored to meet a number of them. Two things amazed me about them – one was how young many of them were, and the other was how strong and cheerful they were even in the midst of difficult circumstances. Truly, more films and TV shows should be made about their daily sacrifice.
Finally, since this is primarily a film site, I must mention the many classic films that were made in the 1940s that honored the women left behind on the home front – whether they were the wives of servicemen, as in David O. Selznick’s “Since You Went Away” (starring Claudette Colbert and Jennifer Jones), or women who rallied their families and fellow citizens – as in the Academy Award-winning “Mrs. Miniver” (starring Greer Garson).
In any case, thank you for your comment. We welcome a diversity of viewpoints here at Libertas and enjoy the exchange of ideas.
You mention in this article that there are “signs of latent conservatism in the popular culture”. There is nothing latent about the conservatism of the US. The only thing latent is the acknowledgment of conservatism in the US by Hollywood and the liberal media in general. If you look at talk radio and cable news, you will see that conservative formats always do better. Look at movies that portray the military in a good light and in a bad light and see which ones do better in the American markets. America is a center-right country. Try as they might, Hollywood can’t change that.
Thank you for your comment M. Brewer. I do make the distinction that there is a difference between the left-leaning output of Hollywood and what the ideological beliefs are of the rest of the country. That said, I think one can speak of the popular culture and say there are “latent” signs within it of conservatism because the popular culture is really generally quite liberal – just look at the movies, music, TV, fashion magazines, etc. The overall political culture of the US may lean toward a general conservatism (and that includes amongst people who may call themselves ‘liberal’ but often still have quite conservative values), but the artistic ‘popular culture’ which is created by the Hollywood-New York nexus is really quite left-leaning. That’s why I find it all the more interesting that there are so many of these ‘housewife’ TV shows being made that seem to express a quite traditional, ‘conservative’ (in the sense of being old-fashioned) view of women’s roles in the world.
Of course though, I completely agree with you that anytime there is a movie or TV show that espouses patriotic or conservative values, it does better. If Hollywood had any common sense, they would make many more pro-American, patriotic movies and TV shows. And I believe these movies and TV shows would do just fine and make plenty of money in the rest of the world too.
I will agree with your statement “if Hollywood had any common sense”. Sadly, I see very little. I also agree that the Artistic efforts coming from the Hollywood-New York nexus (well phrased, btw) is heavily left-leaning.
However, when I see the root of music, fashion, and TV, I do not see liberal left. True it is not exactly “family values”. That said, music, fashion, magazines are all about the _individual_ looking good, or “getting paid”, or having the latest “bling” to stand out from the crowd, or tuning in to the latest episode of XYZ show so that you can be entertained (with commercial breaks of course). That is all right leaning capitalism.
In spite of themselves, liberal Hollywood-New York espouses liberal “common good” ideas that help even the lowest person, yet make millions and live in expensive mansions. Then they go to exclusive parties and talk about how much good they have done by donating a couple hundred thousand to ABC charity without really looking into said charity to see how the money is really spent.
Apologies if it sounds like I am ranting.
Govindini, how delightful that you are commenting on another of my favorite TV shows, “Desperate Housewives”. Like “Sex and the City” a major feature of the series is the friendship between four women. This does seem to be a great formula for success as each episode features a story for each woman, a story that is often, but not always, interwoven with the story of each of the other women. There are secondary characters who are often featured as well, but you are always aware of who the main characters are. Am I conscious of anything politically conservative or otherwise as I watch this show? Rarely…although they have tended to be women who live comfortably because of a good income based on what their husbands do, this is not always the case. Or, to put it more accurately in terms of how the story has developed in the six years since “Desperate Housewives” first appeared, sometimes the men have problems that prevent them from earning a good income and the woman has to step in to make it herself. Lynette, for example, did give up working for a while when she started having children, but then had to go back to work when her husband was having career problems. They have both had many career ups and downs since and never really had a marriage in which the husband totally supported the wife. Gaby’s husband lost his sight in an accident and could only work as a masseuse in a country club after losing all of his money after the number of a numbered account was blown away in a windstorm. After regaining his sight, however, he was able to move back into an executive position where he could support her comfortably again. Although Bree’s first husband, a doctor, appears to have left her comfortably off after he died, she married again, this time a dentist. Unfortunately he had a stint in jail and during this time she created her own catering business and started publishing cookbooks, both of which were very successful financially. Even Susan went to work as an art teacher’s assistant when she wanted to have her son go to a private school and couldn’t afford the fees. Her plumber (second) husband is currently having financial problems so they decided to rent out their Wisteria Lane house and go live somewhere that was cheaper. Perhaps the story is becoming a parable of current American life as many deal with difficult financial circumstances due to the recession. It does deal with the occasional social issue like gay relationships (in one case the desire of one gay couple to find a egg donor for a surrogate mother and in another, Bree’s gradual acceptance of the sexual orientation of her gay son, Andrew.) Occasionally, and lately, the series has gone off the rails a little bit in that it had not one but two murderers on the show. This raising of the threat level seemed so unnecessary. As a lover of mystery stories I feel that a writer has let me down when they introduce more than one killer in a story. Multiple murders are within the bounds of reason, but not multiple murderers. In fact there has been another scary character on the show recently…so there are three people to be afraid of. Don’t quite know why the writers have been doing this as the show doesn’t need all this drama. Have not watched any of the “Housewives” reality shows but for sure will be watching the Salahis in “Real Housewives of D.C.” (Some of us have low tastes.) In retrospect, can’t help but have a grudging admiration for their brazenness…in addition, she certainly looked spectacular in her beautiful Indian dress. Let’s see what they are like on reality TV. There are a lot of us housewives out there to enjoy these shows!
Hello Looksoverpark, thank you so much for your impassioned comment in defense of housewife shows! They are certainly a form of entertainment that, while often escapist and occasionally unrealistic, do nonetheless address the real concerns of women. There is so little to enjoy nowadays on TV if you’re a woman, and these shows certainly seem to fill a void. I would personally like to see more reality shows that feature successful working women, but all these shows are good for promoting women at all on TV. I will have to watch more episodes of “Desperate Housewives.” It certainly sounds like they have been upping the drama on that! I generally wind up watching more of the Bravo “Real Housewives” series because it happens to be on when I’m eating dinner, and also I generally like Bravo as a network since it is focused more on artists, etc. The only “Real Housewives” show that is remotely watchable though is the one set in New York – the ones set in New Jersey, Atlanta, and Orange County are just too absurd for me and I just can’t relate to those women. I will have to check out the Washington D.C. installment though, it sounds like it may be amusing. Thank you for commenting!