Blyth Times

Desperately Seeking Housewives

I loved the first season of Desperate Housewives .   When certain prissy types were criticizing the show for having the leads parade around too often in revealing lingerie, I defended them.     I even played defender once on a TV cable news show against some woman who was complaining that the women of Wisteria Lane  were leading us straight to hell.  I didn’t think so.  In fact, since the show launched during the campaign of 2004 and I was sure that at least three of the four leading characters were typical “Security Moms,” the kind who would have voted for George W. Bush.

 My, my, looking back, weren't those innocent days and innocent housewives?  Certainly the television reality shows about the real housewives of Beverly Hills, Manhattan and Atlanta  portray a far more unsavory bunch than the characters played by Marcia Cross, Terri Hatch, Felicity Huffman and Eva Longoria. 

But sometime in season two or three the "Housewives," lost me as well as a good segment of their audience.    The show just wasn’t very good any more.  It seemed like an over-complicated and kind-of-dumb soap opera, too hard to follow and not worth trying.  And the real sub-text of the show, about the friendships of women and the concern mothers have raising kids in challenging times seemed to disappear with the Byzantine plot lines.

 But for some reason I have wandered back.   Maybe because its nine to ten time slot was a perfect lead-in to “Mad Men,” the only show I have considered “appointment TV” for the last couple of seasons.  Unfortunately “Mad Men” was a lot weaker this season than last.  It became so languid that the series’ story line and its main character, the extremely dishy Don Draper, both seemed to fade away. Even the Cuban Missile Crisis , the background to several episodes, didn’t energize ”Mad Men” very much.    While “Housewives” have come roaring back. Its ratings have zoomed up.   Heck, even my husband has started watching. 

The trick of the show is that it has moved ahead five years and the women are dealing with the problems of teen-age and adult children, which-- take it from one who knows--- is much more complex than dealing with younger  kids, no matter how bratty they can be.   Biggest change is the character Gabrielle, the super-attractive Eva Longoria plays.  In the past, she  was gorgeous and greedy.  Now, without make-up and with padding--- though red-carpet rumors has it she has really  packed on a few pounds---   she is a dumpy, bedraggled mom, saddled with two kids, a disabled husband, and a lot of money worries.   In a way, she was always the most interesting character on the show, as she reflected those shopaholic times. Now she, scrounging for cash for the grocery bills, reflects these times.   Rather prescient of writer and “Housewives” creator Marc Cherry who conceived of this season’s episodes last spring when the economy still seemed okay.

All the actresses in the show seem better than ever and each has a more interesting story line.   The show has also added some supporting characters including the very appealing Dana Delaney and, this season, Lily Tomlin   Edy, the witchy girl-next-door,  played by  Nicolette Sheridan  was the divorcee among the housewives. She was always on the look-out for a guy, even a neighbor’s husband,  but  now, poor Edy, is far more victimized than victimizing.   She has returned to town with a new husband, an absolute sociopath.  Through this season’s first episodes he has stalked the housewives’ elderly neighbor, the crotchety Karen McCluskey, a personal favorite.  Heavens knows,what he will do next.   That guy is dangerous!  Okay, okay, I didn’t say it wasn’t a soap opera but it is back to being a top-notch one. 

Americans have always needed a Sunday night show to end the weekend and to talk about at the office on Monday morning.  During these stress-filled times don’t we want something to distract us?   Rumor has it that Sarah Palin may even appear on an upcoming episode. So we’re back to watching “Desperate Housewives,” and its sweeps month.  I am glad the women of Wisteria Lane once again are  giving us something to talk about. 

 

The Day of the Thriller

Needed distraction so I watched movies I had never seen two nights in a row.  Both were thrillers.  First night I saw Mission Impossible III which I recalled had received pretty good reviews.  But it wasn't as successful as the previous Mission Impossibles because Tom Cruise's popularity was cratering at the time of its release.    Tom had just climbed on a chair to declare his passion for Katie Holmes and had also given Brooke Shields a tongue-lashing for taking medication to cope with her post-partum blues.   Women didn't like ( or believe) Tom in Love and, especially, didn't like Tom the Scientologist, sharing his advice on how to handle depression. So they had stayed away from the movie.

In fact, it was pretty good.  Lots of special effects, lots of glitz.  Tom, in pursuing Philip Seymour Hoffman, the villain, who was about to sell a doomsday machine of some sort to unnamed enemies, managed to blow up some post-modern Berlin architecture and climb various Shanghai skyscrapers.   There was even a black-tie party at the Vatican with champagne, canapes and one of Cruise's sexy fellow spies wearing a $6,000 Valentino.  Gee, I didn't know the Pope had boldface names in their fanciest attire over for drinks. 

The second night I watched Day of the Jackel a 70's movie, based on a very poplular novel , that  was a big hit at the time.   It is about an assassination attempt on Charles de Gaulle just after De Gaulle had given the former French colony Algeria independence.  Some,  in the Army, were enraged by this action and hire the killer to get De Gaulle.    The  French police  learn that an assassin has been hired.  They first have to learn who he is, track his movements, and finally thwart the assassination attempt.   Now, you know right from the start, he will not succeed because De Gaulle was not assassinated.  And yet the long, slow movie remains quite fascinating.

There is no glitz at all and the heroes are French and British police and intelligence operatives, all played by middle-aged character actors.  Even the star of the movie, the Jackal,  is played by Edward Fox, a slight, not particulary attractive British actor who, even then, was no leading man.  The women in the movie are quite ordinary, too.   The "bad girl" who seduces a French official to learn if the police are closing in wears, in one scene, a simple cotton dress and in another a nightgown that looks like she bought it at the Galarie Lafayette's bargain basement lingerie counter.   Yes, it is so believable that you check out Google just to make sure it wasn't all based on fact.

Real evil  like in "The Day of the Jackal" happens without special effects.  Lee Harvey Oswald changed history with a Carcano  rifle  and the terrorists on 9/11 were armed only with box cutters and enormous hate.   In the last decades we have watched superheroes and superstars battling  oversized villains.    That's entetainment and big box office.    But reality is  colorless killer who can do enormous damage facing ordinary nameless heroes, who I am sure right now,  are trying to protect us.   

 

The Mom of Mad Men

I like lots of things about "Mad Men" including Jon Hamm's dishy good looks.   What I find especially accurate is the portrait of motherhood, early 60's style.  The character Betsy Draper, Don Draper's confused and depressed wife is a very typical mother of the times.   Although it was an "Ozzie and Harriet" era where women stayed home presumably to take care of their kids and be happy homemakers, Betsy, like lots of moms during those days,  ignores her children.  She is  either scolding them about their manners  at the dinner table or telling them to turn off the TV, wash up and go to bed.  When they try to talk to her she doesn't listen.    

Like Betsy, mothers during the 50's and the early 60's didn't think they were supposed to be their children's pals nor their protectors.  They were not terribly interested in what their kids' felt or thought.  Betsy goes riding, drinks too much, and is angry at her husband.   Other mothers played cards, played golf, volunteered.   I remember the humor columnist Erma Bombeck once wrote a piece about hiring a baby sitter to mind her children when she went off to volunteer to read stories to her baby sitter's children at a child care center.   At the time it was considered  just a funny piece, not political  commentary. 

Mothering styles changed radically in more recent decades.   Today moms are intensely involved in their children's lives.  Today we are friends, confidantes, guidance counselors, sometimes even marriage counselors.   College  presidents complain about "helicopter moms" always circling around their kids, and always on the phone complaining.   Nowadays we are closer to our children and in some ways that's good.   But have you noticed,  it takes a lot longer for kids to grow up.    And once we teach them to tell us their problems, even when we don't want to, we have to keep listening.   

Paul Newman & Robert Redford

I never met Paul Newman but I did once put him on the cover of the Ladies’ Home Journal.   I think it was a desperate move when I had no one to put on the cover, a problem that magazine editors frequently face.   So I found some picture of Paul and cobbled together a story about him.   He may have been a terrific guy but he didn’t do much to move that issue.   Certainly not as well as the actor who in those days--the late 80’s ---could really rack up sales on the newsstand.  That was, believe it or not now, Tom Selleck.  Yes, magazine newsstand buyers of the time ought to be ashamed.  Newman did nothing, Selleck sold.

I did meet Newman’s pal, Robert Redford once.  In fact, Redford was one of my serious movie star crushes. I had liked Redford in "The Way We Were” with Streisand, liked him in "Out of Africa” with Streep,  just plain liked his golden boy good looks whenever I saw them.  So I was delighted when his longtime agent, Lois Smith, an old pal, wanted the magazine to interview him.   I didn’t assign a writer.   Heck, no, I would do it myself.    Shoot, the editor ought to get some perks. 

I arrived at the interview in his office with a box of chocolate chip cookies the food staff had baked because I heard he like chocolate.  Redford looked okay but just okay.   He was wearing a short-sleeved tee- shirt and khakis, not a great look for him. .  I knew he wasn’t very tall but what I didn’t know was that his arms were quite short, oddly short, it seemed.  Like the sleeve of his tee-shirt ended just above his elbow.   And his skin?  Ruddy, yes, but more than that.   Kind of like he had forgotten his sun block for a decade or two.  The interview was okay and Redford talked.  And talked.  And talked.   And yet nothing he said seemed particularly quotable.  When doing an interview you are always trying to find a few sentences that are worth quoting, that make a point. Redford kept talking. It wasn’t easy.

At the end of the interview, maybe realizing he wasn’t charming me as easily as his agent had told him he would, he suddenly smiled flirtatiously and said, “Why don’t you give me your phone number?  I might like to call you if I think of anything else.”   I was a bit startled and gave him the number.  Maybe he wasn’t that cute but wouldn’t he be cuter in a long sleeved shirt. When I went home I told my husband that Redford just might be calling.

“Oh, really,” my husband said.   “Well, if he does, I’ll say there is some actor on the phone.  I think it is Paul Newman.”