Desperate Housewives Tries to Give Monogamy a Bad Name

It seems a growing trend in Hollywood is to cater to an underserved primetime market, housewives. This demographic is well represented in daytime viewership of mindless soap operas and daytime talks shows, but until recently was not targeted by producers in the evening hours. The trend-setter was Sex in the City, which more closely resembled a reality show for dysfunctional sorority sisters than a regular sitcom. With its move from cable to syndicated television the mainstream idea of women behaving badly came with it.

Desperate Housewives follows the lives of women living on Wisteria Lane. The show is narrated by a former resident who killed herself and now looks down, or up, on the happenings in the neighborhood. Some of the wholesome topics covered in the past season involved spouses cheating on each other, a woman in love with two men, a young, homosexual teenager who lived on the streets as a male prostitute, a spoiled brat assaulting a police officer because her fiancé is the new mayor and she can get away with it, and of course don't forget the sweet old lady who talked to her husband's frozen body she kept in a chest freezer in her basement. Ah, now that's quality television folks! Even the "good girl," whose character is played by Felicity Huffman, has recently had an "emotional" affair with a man at her family business while her husband was at home recovering from a back injury.

With recent statistics indicating more women are committing infidelity, you have to wonder what effect these types of shows are having on the American female psyche. Could it be that these shows normalize subjects previously though taboo? Fans of the show would claim it is simply enlightening the rest of us on how women really behave. Oh really? I sure hope the women on my street don't start to behave that way. And talk about a double standard! Could you imagine a show where guys coveted the neighbor's daughter as she mowed the lawn half-naked? As gross as that subject is to think about, it was the focus of a couple seasons ago (with the sexes reversed) when a married woman slept with her teenage gardener behind her husband's back.

This type of "entertainment" has a subversive effect on the values we try to instill in our youth, and in morals we should be adhering to as adults. Marriage vows should not be cheapened by playing up casual sex between adulterers, especially not in the name of entertainment. Isn't it interesting that Desperate Housewives appears on Sunday nights? I have to wonder if this is by design because of the coveted Sunday night advertising dollar, or because the producers of the show are quietly laughing to themselves because the most popular television show on the Christian Sabbath is their raunchy comedy.