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Red Sluts, Blue Sluts (Lefty Desperate Housewives review)
The Nation ^ | December 16, 2004 | Richard Goldstein

Posted on 01/15/2005 1:11:52 PM PST by The Loan Arranger

The first pop phenomenon since the election is that salacious howler of a prime-time soap called Desperate Housewives. At this writing, it's the top-rated show on television, and the media are galvanized by its success at a time when red-state reverence is seeping into everything.

Despite its gleeful attitude toward fornication, this show is popular in Bush country. It even grabs men who never watch such sudsy stuff. One reason is its subject: babes behaving badly. These sexy suburban sisters don't have faggot friends--or careers, like most women in sitcoms today. And this trad but funky set-up suits the Monday Night Football crowd just fine (as the risqué locker-room visit by one of the show's stars, Nicollette Sheridan, attests). Yet Housewives also appeals to gay men and feminists: the Sex and the City set. How can the same package attract such a diverse audience? Even more remarkably, how can it succeed in such a chastened cultural climate?

At first glance, Housewives is a pungent rebellion against the ideal of America the Wholesome. Set in the proverbial suburban byway of Wisteria Lane, the show features more unhappy couples than a Doctor Phil special. With a knowing smirk, it showcases infidelity, treachery and outright schadenfreude.

(Excerpt) Read more at thenation.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: bush; morality; sex; thenation; trashtv
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1 posted on 01/15/2005 1:11:53 PM PST by The Loan Arranger
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To: The Loan Arranger

When outside to smell the overflowing sewer to clear my head.


2 posted on 01/15/2005 1:17:02 PM PST by handy old one (Never confuse the facts with the issues!!)
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To: The Loan Arranger

Interesting review.


3 posted on 01/15/2005 1:17:42 PM PST by Tax-chick (I think the world needs a drink!)
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To: The Loan Arranger
Despite its gleeful attitude toward fornication, this show is popular in Bush country.

This guy thinks that everybody in "Bush country" is a Bush supporter.
Is it popular among Bush supporters, I wonder?
That's a completely different question.

4 posted on 01/15/2005 1:21:44 PM PST by Izzy Dunne (Hello, I'm a TAGLINE virus. Please help me spread by copying me into YOUR tag line.)
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To: The Loan Arranger

I had some aging hippie nitwit cashier at Barnes and Noble's tell me it was just the most wonderful show, because it told you exactly how the people who supported "traditional values" really lived. In other words, they told the world they were just were stay-at-home moms taking care of their kids, but they were really torrid sexpots sleeping with the meter reader.

Let me say that I haven't seen the show. But after that description, I really didn't want to. It looked to me like a stealth attack by the blue staters on the red states.


5 posted on 01/15/2005 1:22:12 PM PST by livius
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To: The Loan Arranger

It's a good show.

Lots of interesting twists and turns, 5 good looking babes, and a Sunday lineup of "late to the post" competitors equals a popular show.

The point being made (poorly) regarding the new "panties in a bunch" movement in this country forgets that after all, it's just a TV show.


6 posted on 01/15/2005 1:22:39 PM PST by WhiteGuy (The Constitution requires no interpretation, only enforcement.)
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To: The Loan Arranger

Haven't seen the show.


7 posted on 01/15/2005 1:25:18 PM PST by My2Cents
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To: My2Cents

I haven't seen the show and WON'T see the show.


8 posted on 01/15/2005 1:26:11 PM PST by srm913
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To: The Loan Arranger
Desperate Housewives has the same lurid venality, the same cartoony ambience and the same over-the-top bitchiness.

The TOP THREE THINGS one looks for in a TV show !!!

9 posted on 01/15/2005 1:26:19 PM PST by Izzy Dunne (Hello, I'm a TAGLINE virus. Please help me spread by copying me into YOUR tag line.)
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To: The Loan Arranger
Despite its gleeful attitude toward fornication, this show is popular in Bush country.

Excuse me, but with Kerry getting anywhere from 35-49% of the vote in "Bush country," this TV show is popular with Kerry voters in Bush country.

10 posted on 01/15/2005 1:26:43 PM PST by My2Cents
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To: The Loan Arranger

I'd never heard of the show until the flap over the ad on the football game. Haven't seen it still.


11 posted on 01/15/2005 1:27:39 PM PST by gitmo (Thanks, Mel. I needed that.)
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To: WhiteGuy
smut smut smut I think the next time I see a negative characterization of female business owners I will sue like the Muslim's sued Fox and have them give me free commercial time to promote my business.
12 posted on 01/15/2005 1:30:22 PM PST by mammer
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To: mammer

Excellent plan.


13 posted on 01/15/2005 1:33:07 PM PST by WhiteGuy (The Constitution requires no interpretation, only enforcement.)
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To: livius
I had some aging hippie nitwit cashier at Barnes and Noble's tell me it was just the most wonderful show, because it told you exactly how the people who supported "traditional values" really lived.

Did he also believe that Harry Potter told you exactly how students in boarding schools really lived?

14 posted on 01/15/2005 1:34:59 PM PST by Polybius
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To: The Loan Arranger
The media and pundits have gone overboard on this red/blue state thing. This puritanical takeover of America. What a CROCK of sh*t.

Bush voters fall into many categories. Conservatives, libertarians, South Park Republicans, Democrats-with-brains...

These analyses are statistical nonsense, it is stupid even to try. It says alot more about the authors, than of the subjects.

15 posted on 01/15/2005 1:35:04 PM PST by Paradox (Occam was probably right.)
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To: The Loan Arranger

I am proud of the fact that I have not seen one second of the "top-rated show on television".


16 posted on 01/15/2005 1:36:12 PM PST by spodefly (This message packaged with desiccant. Do not open until ready for use or inspection.)
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To: The Loan Arranger
"Religious conservatives are perfectly willing to be entertained by immorality; they only require that it be punished, at least eventually."

Naw, God is a God of grace and mercy. He only punishes the vain, unrepentant, self-obsessed, who mock Him, like your ordinarly, average liberal.

"As for wives who trespass against their husbands, bring 'em on--as long as they act like sluts rather than sexual adventurers."

AAwaa, he's one slick guy. He's got me there. I didn't know there was a difference. But then, how would I know. I never call anyone a derogatory name like "slut"; that'd be a liberal idiom.

"Such creatures are inevitable in a world where faith has been forgotten along with the knowledge of right and wrong."

Why do arrogant liberals feel that they can speak for others. Why do they feel superior when the falsely project motives to those they hate, which are actually their own.

Knowledge of right and wrong? Heck, I don't even have to be a Christian to know what's right and wrong, just an unbiased historian.

Faith forgotten? This guy has embarassed himself, and he doesn't even know it. There's plenty of "faith" going around, not always a useful faith, or "saving" faith in the eschatological sense. He may have no faith in anyone other than himself, but many in this nation have religious faith, and act consistently with their religious convictions.

In fact, they even tolerate a fair amount of harassment in the public place by ignorant fools like the guy who wrote this article, and have the grace to chuckle about it.

SFS

17 posted on 01/15/2005 1:36:28 PM PST by Steel and Fire and Stone
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To: My2Cents

It sounds like another show I'm not likely to watch. Usually when the story line is sex sex and more sex it's really a pretty boring show after the first episode. I'll stick with 24 hours.


18 posted on 01/15/2005 1:36:55 PM PST by FITZ
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To: WhiteGuy
I agree.......I've watched it from time to time. It is actually pretty funny but I would NEVER have a child watch it nor feel it is material for many. I'm a mature adult and know it is just entertainment, it won't corrupt me anymore than watching "Saving Private Ryan" makes me want to kill everyone. If you put it in perspective and don't pontificate about it virtues or vices and keep it in perspective than you should be ok........LOL........
19 posted on 01/15/2005 1:37:08 PM PST by NorCalRepub
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To: WhiteGuy

Exactly; unfortunately for the blues, Bush supporters CAN discern between fantasy and reality.


20 posted on 01/15/2005 1:39:12 PM PST by E=MC<sup>2</sup> (...And on the 666th day, satan created the demonrat party.)
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