Red Sluts, Blue Sluts: "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... 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. If that sounds like a scathing indictment of Bush time, it also plays as a critique of Godless narcissism. This two-edged tenor is what allows the show to cross over from red to blue. Housewives is liberal on the surface but conservative at the core."
MattyMatt and I were discussing this just this week. We are so zeitgeist!
