AND HIS MOTHER GOES TO MEETINGS, WHILE HIS FATHER PULLS THE MAID<\/strong>: Uh, on a totally different note from the posts below, I\u2019ve recently become addicted to Desperate Housewives<\/em>. (Some spoilers for s2 follow.) I\u2019ve only watched the first two seasons\u2013and yeah, the second season is weaker than the first (more on that in a moment), but really, this is a great series. It\u2019s really, really rare that I find a TV show\u2013or really anything popular, sigh\u2013that I think genuinely respects women<\/em>. The women in DH <\/em>are crazy people, yeah, but awesome <\/em>crazy, in a way we can root for. I was kind of reminded of Absolutely Fabulous<\/em>; which is pretty much my highest compliment. (OK, yes, AbFab <\/em>is much better. That\u2019s not the point.)<\/p>\n It\u2019s also (and I don\u2019t think this is unrelated) a deeply conservative show, at least in the first season. It\u2019s bourgeois without being complacent. And it manages (again, more in the first season) to evoke empathy for people on both sides of real, painful conflicts. Even Andrew the sociopath and even <\/em>Susan the child-woman (yeah, not a fan of hers) have a deep poignance and resonance. It\u2019s a ferociously pro-motherhood and pro-marriage show, it\u2019s moralizing in that noir way, and it takes religion (especially Catholicism, she noted with a fierce partisan nod!) very seriously. It\u2019s also, and I\u2019m not sure why it took me until now to mention this, totally hilarious. I would recommend at least the first season to everybody.<\/p>\n In the second season, some of the pacing is off. And the show decreases both its conservatism and its empathy. Sometimes the lessened conservatism really works\u2013I think it\u2019s part of what was going on in the tragically underutilized Bree-and-Justin sub-sub-subplot. And sometimes the lessened empathy works too\u2013Sister Mary Hotpants was probably my favorite subplot of the entire second season, and she\u2019s really just a villain. (ZOMG, the church catfight is better than chocolate!!!) She doesn\u2019t have an inner life. But that\u2019s okay because she\u2019s hilarious and provokes a lot of fun, interesting stuff from the main characters. \u2026But, and maybe I won\u2019t be able to back this up if people challenge me on it, I felt like the first season was less willing to encourage viewers to root for the Wisteria Lane ladies against <\/em>women in equally complex and vulnerable situations. The Solises\u2019-birthmom storyline was the one where I really felt that most strongly: The birth mother is in a morally dubious, complicit, vulnerable position, not unlike Gaby Solis<\/em>, so why is she a class-based caricature? Ugh.<\/p>\n Nonetheless. For the most part<\/em>, this show is funny, sharp, and\u2013I hate that this is so rare\u2013actually in favor of, you know, women. And so I am in favor of it.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" AND HIS MOTHER GOES TO MEETINGS, WHILE HIS FATHER PULLS THE MAID: Uh, on a totally different note from the posts below, I\u2019ve recently become addicted to Desperate Housewives. (Some spoilers for s2 follow.) I\u2019ve only watched the first two seasons\u2013and yeah, the second season is weaker than the first (more on that in a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1071,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n