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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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To: FITZ

I watched "Sex in the City" once, out of curiousity about what all the fuss was about. Maybe it was simply a bad episode, but I found it boring and humorless.


21 posted on 01/15/2005 1:41:36 PM PST by My2Cents
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To: NorCalRepub

Oh yeah, absolutely right.

Not for little kids, at all.

I'm looking forward to each new episode, and was dissapointed during the holidays when is wasn't aired.

I guess I'm hooked.

(and it's at least a year until Season 6 of The Sopranos)


22 posted on 01/15/2005 1:42:30 PM PST by WhiteGuy (The Constitution requires no interpretation, only enforcement.)
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To: livius

You should have asked that 60s-throwback, "What do you know about normal?"


23 posted on 01/15/2005 1:43:10 PM PST by My2Cents
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To: The Loan Arranger
Who advertises on this review page? Check out the "Don't blame me, I voted for Kerry" bumper sticker ad on that page.

None of these women are Mrs. Cleaver, but it's an adult show. It's funny.

If you haven't seen it, watch it for yourself. If you don't like it, turn it off. Other than news, I may watch two to three hours of television a week.

This show sure beats those "reality" shows, talk shows, and major network news shows.

24 posted on 01/15/2005 1:43:21 PM PST by World'sGoneInsane (LET NO ONE BE FORGOTTEN, LET NO ONE FORGET)
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To: Steel and Fire and Stone
I never call anyone a derogatory name like "slut"; that'd be a liberal idiom.

So is apparently the word "faggot," which he also used in the article.

25 posted on 01/15/2005 1:46:34 PM PST by My2Cents
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To: Polybius
Did he also believe that Harry Potter told you exactly how students in boarding schools really lived?

LOL...He probably also thinks Indiana Jones is a typical archeologist.

26 posted on 01/15/2005 1:48:53 PM PST by My2Cents
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To: FITZ
Usually when the story line is sex sex and more sex it's really a pretty boring show after the first episode.

It's not all about sex. You may watch the show and hate it, but I wouldn't rely on this imparticular review as the grounds for not watching it. It's along the lines of Peyton Place, come to think of it. However, there's less sex here than was on Dallas, or your average daytime soap. There's no cursing. You should watch it for yourself, before you decide to hate it.

27 posted on 01/15/2005 1:49:23 PM PST by World'sGoneInsane (LET NO ONE BE FORGOTTEN, LET NO ONE FORGET)
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To: livius
Let me say that I haven't seen the show. But after that description, I really didn't want to.

It's really a pretty good show.

I assumed it was another stupid "reality show" and I would never even think about watching it.

I was sitting with my wife when it came on a couple weeks ago and watched it with her. It's actually very good and very funny.

I would describe it as a bit of a spoof on the daytime soaps. Where daytime soaps take a year to have a character change their shoes, Desperate Housewives has about a years worth of living crammed in before the opening credits.

28 posted on 01/15/2005 1:50:54 PM PST by RJL
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To: My2Cents

Probably what she learned from "Peyton Place."


29 posted on 01/15/2005 1:51:07 PM PST by livius
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To: The Loan Arranger

The creator of Golden Girls calls himself a Republican? No liberal has ever so succeeded at keeping persistent liberal preachiness on the air! I say he is simply lying, like when the owner of CBS claimed to be a Republican in spite of massive donations to strictly Democrats.

Golden Girls was as predictable as Gilligan's Island:

Some younger relative of the Golden Girls would come out with a bizarre perversion, which would initially shock even Maude. But then everyone would learn that if they really were loving people, they would not only love the pervert, but whatever bizarre and wicked perversion they had.


30 posted on 01/15/2005 1:56:23 PM PST by dangus
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To: The Loan Arranger

My tv stays on the history channel, Food Network and the Travel channel. Am I missing anything? Probably not.


31 posted on 01/15/2005 2:00:15 PM PST by ezo4
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To: livius

I agree, that was my impression from the previews as well. Only dopes believe there is some seedy underbelly. I think I believed that garbage when I was a liberal too. But many liberals think anything out of Hollywood is real so what did we really expect?


32 posted on 01/15/2005 2:00:27 PM PST by cupcakes
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To: WhiteGuy

Another thing:

The article is sorta right about religious conservatives being entertained by immorality, just as long as their is punishment, at least in my case. But it's not that I enjoy seeing punishment. What I don't like are the lies that destructive behavior has no consequence, or can even be positive (liberating, empowering, etc.). So long as the show doesn't make immorality heroic, I can laugh at something which is funny.

Desperate Housewives isn't all that funny to me, but that's possibly simply that it doesn't strike close to home. It does seem to be a well-made and even intelligent show. (I also have to note that it is overly explicit at times.)


33 posted on 01/15/2005 2:01:45 PM PST by dangus
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To: Izzy Dunne

I would wager it's fairly popular amongst Bush supporters from what I've read here. I've never seen the show myself, but a lot of freepers seem to like it.


34 posted on 01/15/2005 2:01:58 PM PST by Melas
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To: spodefly

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

Me to, I'd rather be watching "24"!


35 posted on 01/15/2005 2:07:50 PM PST by VastRWCon
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To: The Loan Arranger

Yet more proof, as if any more proof were needed, that television watchers are seriously defective.


36 posted on 01/15/2005 2:16:30 PM PST by Iris7 (.....to protect the Constitution from all enemies, both foreign and domestic. Same bunch, anyway.)
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To: The Loan Arranger

Since when did the hoity toity pseudo intellectual metrosexuals who work for The Nation watch ...'GASP'.....broadcast television?


37 posted on 01/15/2005 2:17:40 PM PST by finnman69 (cum puella incedit minore medio corpore sub quo manifestus globus, inflammare animos)
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To: All

FYI

those who enjoy Sci Fi, should definitely be watching the new Battlestar Gallactica on Sci Fi. It's better than the original.


38 posted on 01/15/2005 2:19:21 PM PST by finnman69 (cum puella incedit minore medio corpore sub quo manifestus globus, inflammare animos)
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To: RJL
I agree...it is funny. I AM a Bush supporter and a values kind of gal. No kid of mine would watch this show. But it makes me laugh and appreciate my sane life with my hubby of 32 years! We watch it together! It is a parody of life in suburbia, and well done.
39 posted on 01/15/2005 2:29:01 PM PST by Bekki4Bush (Proud to be a Bush Zonie!)
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To: World'sGoneInsane

I don't even know when it's on. I probably won't watch it --- 24 Hours is about the only show I can sit through --- but there is some show on some night --- "House" I believe that I probably could watch.


40 posted on 01/15/2005 2:43:59 PM PST by FITZ
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