Sex And The City vs. Desperate Housewives

Now I’m entering dangerous territory, a GUY discussing two shows almost certainly, almost exclusively, written for, and targeted at, WOMEN.  No, I do NOT watch soap operas, but I make an exception for DH.  Why?  I don’t know.  I suppose it’s because “Dallas” ruined me, yet DH is more irreverent and loopy than most soap operas.  So let’s talk about the two of them.

 Sex And The City.  This started out on HBO from 1998 to 2004 (six seasons), then got syndicated to basic cable, and was recently turned into a movie with all four of the main characters.  I’ve only briefly had HBO, so most of my earlier experience watching this was chez Leila, who loved it.  I saw the movie with her as well, and was probably one of 5 men in a movie theater packed with women. 

 It takes place in Manhattan, but none of the characters have a New York accent.  They talk about sex, their relationships, their lives, etc. all the things that women who don’t live in Manhattan do.  They talk about having children, but Miranda is the only one who gets married and has any children.  As a matter of fact, they view children as something “other women” have, who live in big houses in Connecticut.  And for that matter, the suburbs might as well be another planet.  They live for shopping, for cocktails, for parties, for the single life in trendy, fashionable Manhattan. 

And of course, it’s fashionable, trendy New York City, so Carrie has a gay friend, what’s-his-name.  I’ve noticed in a fair amount of these movies and TV shows, every trendy, single woman has to have a gay male friend.  His primary role seems to be to give her advice about men from a man’s perspective, without the bias of being a straight guy who might actually be interested in her.  He’s also supposed to pass judgment on the various men who she dates, and when the “right one” comes along – as the plot decided – he’s supposed to say something provocative like, “you go, girl!” or “if you don’t take him home, I certainly will!”  What’s funny is that I never see men seeking out lesbian women as sources of information on straight women, so why should women consider gay men a reliable source on straight men?  To me, gay men have a different way of thinking than straight men, closer to ...women! Not completely the same, something like half-way, but sufficiently different to make their analysis somewhat flawed.  Anyhow.

 Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) is the columnist who narrates the damn thing.  Eventually, after various different boyfriends – she was never promiscuous – she ended up with “Mr Big” (Chris Noth), whose name doesn’t seem to be mentioned until the movie.  Nor is it clear what the hell he does for a living, except that it’s important and well-paid.  She herself is fairly normal, well-adjusted, and has no particular defects or hangups.  She’s likeable, I suppose, but I don’t consider SJP particularly attractive.

 Samantha (Kim Catrall) (GRRRR) is the publicist with a naughty mouth and even naughtier mind.  She is by far the most promiscuous, attractive, and exciting of the 4 – and by far my favorite. 

 Charlotte (Kristin Davis) is an art gallery owner, previously married to a man played by Kyle MacLachlan, who I recall had some “performance” issues due to Charlotte’s squeaky clean persona.  She is very cute, but also somehow the “innocent, naive” girl of the bunch, although she is not a virgin.

 Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) is my least favorite.  In addition to being the least attractive, she is about as much fun as a dead rock.  She’s the hyperintelligent, hyperserious, overachieving corporate lawyer.  She hooked up with the RADAR kind of guy and they have a baby.  ZZZ.

 Desperate Housewives.  This is much more recent, starting, and continuing, on network TV – ABC.  It takes place in suburban California (Fairview) and is narrated by Mary Alice Young, who killed herself before the series started, and her full story was only revealed much, much later.  Typically you find that SOMEONE is hiding something at some point, and the creepy people turn out to be (A) misunderstood but good or (B) MUCH creepier than you ever imagined.  Here’s the irony – there seems to be more fucked-up stuff going on behind closed doors in suburban California than there is in Manhattan, New York City. 

By the way – what is with Chicago??? The way they describe it, the city is Sodom or Gomorrah.  “Remember Chicago” seems to be invoked with the same menace as The Alamo, Pearl Harbor, or Auschwitz.  Bad things happen in Chicago.

Bree Van de Kamp (Marcia Cross).  The red-headed supermom.  I loved it when Rex (late husband) complained in the first episode, “I can’t live in this...detergent commerical.”  She has two kids, Andrew (still gay, but no longer a total fuckup) and Danielle, now married – formerly referred to at school as “Van de Tramp”.  She’s now married to Orson Hodge – played by Kyle MacLachlan (!) (I still think of him as Paul Atreides, aka “Muah D’hib” from “Dune”).  She’s still trying to be perfect, and annoyingly so.

Susan Meyer (Teri Hatcher).  I love her hair, although she acts pretty stupid most of the time.  She’s actually pretty normal, except that to her immense shame, she can’t cook to save her life.  As of week 2 of season five, she’s currently in some torrid affair with the housepainter, after her relationship with plumber/ex-con Mike Delfino ended – we STILL don’t know why.  Her ex, Karl (a lawyer) still comes by now and then to taunt her or show off his latest twinkie girlfriend 15 years younger than Susan.  I guess daughter Julie is off somewhere, as she was pretty damn smart and probably didn’t need 5 years to finish college.  Son MJ – I guess they stuck with “Maynard” (come on, listen to Tool) but fixed the issue by calling him MJ – still lives with her, with Mike taking him for weekend visitation so she can bang the paintboy.  For his part, Mike lost his memory for some time, and it took till season 4 for the romance between them to finally result in a wedding.

Lynette Scavo (Felicity Huffman).  Married to Tom, who now runs a pizza place; he bears a slight resemblence to Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age.  She’s had to quit her Type A personality ad agency job to look after the kids – Penny, Parker, Preston and Porter.  She survived cancer and getting shot, so she’s a tough bitch.  For his part Tom had a love child, Kayla, with some white trash bitch, but now the white trash bitch is gone (shot dead in a supermarket), and Kayla is gone too, thank God (we knew it couldn’t last, her name doesn’t start with P).  After starting out with the same type of job Lynette originally had, then switching with her to be Mr. Mom (because Lynette cost him his job) he finally followed his dream and opened a pizza restaurant.

Gabrielle Solis (Eva Longoria Parker).  I suppose I should hate her, being so high maintenance, but she is still my favorite.  Now Carlos is blind and she has two kids – when she swore she’d never have them.  No more modeling in New York, no more Maserati.  But even with extra pounds and less makeup and glamour, she is still the dazzling little bunny.  This couple started off rich and arrogant, and went downhill since then: Carlos ended up in jail, Gabby had an affair with John, the gardener, then Carlos ended up blind.  But they have each other, and now two chubby little girls who may never end up as models. 

Edie Britt (Nicolette Sheridan).  Blah.  She’s the odd one out, the predator bitch realtor who never had a husband of her own, she just tried to steal the men of other women.  She had hooked up with Mike Delfino when he had amnesia, had a more recent and substantial relationship with Carlos, and now has a creepy husband (guy with really weird eyes who was in “Band of Brothers”).  I really don’t find her attractive, nearly as much as Gabrielle.

Katherine Mayfair (Dana Delaney).  The new kid on the block since season 4, the closest thing Bree has to any serious competition.  In fact, they’re partners in a catering firm, partly to keep each other’s ambitions in check.  She survived a murderous ex-husband, Wayne Davis (played by Gary Cole, best known as Bill Lumbergh from “Office Space” – “Uh, yeah, Katherine, I’m going to like, kill you, m’kay?”) and is now doing fine.  I always thought Dana Delaney was stunning, ever since “China Beach”.

“Desperate”?  “Housewives”?  To me “desperate” in this context would mean “sexually frustrated” or “dissatisfied with her husband or life for whatever reason”.  “Housewife” is simply “wife who stays at home, with or without children”.  I suppose a housewife can work from home.  Do these really apply?

Edie is a realtor and worked for herself – she’s not even a housewife (until now).  She was not so much desperate as predatory.  Even now I don’t see her desperation.  Susan doesn’t appear to be desperate, as it’s Julie who encourages her to be more active socially – partially out of concern for her mother’s well-being, but also so she herself can start having a social life.  The only desperation I saw was more exasperation over Mike’s incessant tendency to keep secrets from her and test her trust. Nominally she’s self-employed as an illustrator of children’s books, but I haven’t seen any evidence that her career is active during the show, which by now seems to span 9 years, 5 of which is the gap between seasons 4 and 5.  But she never refers to Karl as paying her any spousal support – or, for that matter, Mike.  If you don’t work, your ex-husband doesn’t support you, and you’re not sitting on a ton of money, what is your source of support?  Typical TV land unreality.   But she is a “housewife”.  Bree was not only a housewife, but prided herself at being what she considered the perfect housewife.  Desperate? Hard to tell.  She wanted to win back Rex, was never in love with the creepy pharmacist George, and eventually fell in love with Orson, and got back together with him after some extended estrangement.  If anything it was Rex who was desperate.  Lynette was “desperate” so long as she was a housewife, but this was the latter definition, frustrated at trying to raise 3 uncooperative boys and a baby girl while Tom was at work having all the fun and traveling all the time.  But when she went back to work after getting Tom fired, and they switched roles, she was no longer desperate and no longer a housewife.  With Tom & Lynette both running the pizza parlor, she’s no longer a housewife, and does not appear desperate.  Katherine was a housewife, but “desperate” doesn’t seem to scan: more like terrorized by ex-husband Wayne and trying to keep her past from her daughter.  Thanks to Mike, she’s no longer desperate.  Gabrielle is the one who truly fits the description: bored and lonely because Carlos was off all the time wheeling and dealing with the Japanese boss, so she started an affair with John.  She briefly tried working when Carlos was in jail, could quit when she married Victor Long, but seems to be a housewife now taking care of blind Carlos and looking after their two chubby daughters. Best to call the show “Desperate Housewife”.  Since she’s dead when the series began, Mary Alice doesn’t really qualify, but she was a housewife, and desperate enough to commit suicide. 

Around the world.  Now there are international versions of the show, including no less than 3 Latin American variants.  The Brazilian version, “Donas de Casa Desesperadas”, keeps the name Gabrielle Solis, changes Susan to Suzana, but completely changes the names of Bree, Lynette, and Edie.

Bicha alert.  In season 4 Wisteria Lane welcomed (?) its gay male pair, Bob & Lee.  Bob seems normal enough, but I suppose after “Will and Grace”, gays are sufficiently well represented on network TV that we are now presented with, drum roll please, a NEGATIVE portrayal of a gay man.  Lee comes off as a super smart-ass, arrogant, contemptuous of those around him he perceives as not being as culturally sophisticated as he is, particularly towards women.  He also epitomizes the effeminate mannerisms we usually associate with gay men. I also noticed that while Mike, Tom, and Carlos sometimes hang out together – though far less often and regularly than the women with their card games – I didn’t see them hang out with Bob or Lee, nor are either of them part of Blue Odyssey, the band the guys put together.  There appears to be a limit to our acceptance of gays: as Mr. Garrison would put it, “simply because you tolerate something doesn’t mean you have to like it!”