Page 134 - A Handbook Genre Studies in Mass Media

CULTURAL CONTEXT

American Dream but who, in the words of Henry David Thoreau, “lead
lives of quiet desperation.”

• Lynette is a stay-at-home mom whose life is defined by her family:
three bratty little boys, an infant daughter, a husband who continu-
ally travels on business.
• Susan is a children’s-book illustrator who was devastated when her
husband left her for his secretary.
• Bree is obsessed with maintaining the façade of good living—to
the extent that it’s a source of unhappiness and discontent. Her son
complains, “Do you always have to serve cuisine? Can’t we just
have food?”
• Gabrielle is a wife whose husband seemingly gives her everything
she wants; yet she has an affair with the teenage gardener.

The humor of the series stems from the female characters’ desperate ef-
forts to find diversion in this world without meaning. Cherry explains:

This show is really about, at its core, the choices we make in life. When
you get what you’ve chosen and you’re still not happy, then what do you
do? All these women have chosen this life, and [it’s] going wrong. They’re
making some bad choices, which is where the fun comes from. 24

The popularity of Desperate Housewives reflects the degree to which
members of the audience identify with the pressures that drives these
characters to acts of desperation. Felicity Huffman, who stars as Susan in
the series, observes that her character finds motherhood largely stressful
and unfulfilling:

It so enrages me that there’s one way to be a mother in America . . .
and that’s basically to go, ‘I find it so fulfilling and I’ve never wanted
anything else.’ Suggest anything different and you’re considered a bad
mother. . . . What I really appreciated about this character is I think it
gave voice to that other experience. I mean, if you’re fulfilled, fantastic.
But if you’re not, that also has to be OK. 25

Although the worldview of environment reality shows like Survivor
and Big Brother ostensibly values community, the programs are set up
in ways that undermine this community for dramatic purposes. The rules
of the contest call for the members of their “community” to throw out

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