Desperate Housewives

With the plethora of shows in my arsenal deciding where to begin was always going to be tough. So, I’m starting at the beginning, with the show that started it all and captivated one little girl’s attention: Desperate Housewives. Picture perfect American Suburbs, Wisteria Lane, home to four femme fatales, Bree Van de Kamp, Gabrielle Solis, Lynette Scavo and Susan Mayer. The younger me was enthralled with Gabrielle’s glitz glam and sass, but, with time comes perspective and upon much to and froing trying to decide who to focus on and what to write, I kept coming back to Season 5 Episode 2 – We’re So Happy You’re So Happy.

A chilling scene where Bree comes home after a long, hard yet rewarding day’s work to find her husband, Orson, sat at a set dining table, demanding she makes him the pot roast she promised. A preposterous request as she pleads for sleep, but he has persecution in his eyes and a tone that women know all too well. It’s the don’t try me because you won’t like the consequences tone, the one women have been inherently trained to identify – even fictional women it turns out. As Bree straightens, concedes, and sets out to make a meal that normally requires a day’s worth of attention, we women watched with horror making ourselves silent promises to never accept treatment like that. 

My tv watching career started at a very young age, six years old when I found the box sets and started making my way through them. You might be reading this thinking, yeah right, no parent allows a six-year-old to watch all things drama, but I grew up as one of five and in a foreign country. So as long as we were safe and not crying, we were free. While my brothers chose to explore the French mountainsides, I chose to escape Narnia style, into the fictional world of Wisteria Lane. But even at that age, that scene sat wrong and looking back, I remember thinking, I never want to be like Bree. But isn’t that the way, to find fault in the women, excusing the men from all and any responsibility? I’m horrified my anger fell with Bree and not Orson, a man who couldn’t deal with the stereotypical power balance being ‘out of whack’ and needed to not simply humble Bree, a blossoming new business owner on her way to success but humiliate her in her own home, reminding her who’s boss. Orson felt wronged, he was no longer his wife’s priority (her sole purpose was no longer to please him) and leveraged implicit discomfort and violence of some kind to disempower and punish her. 

So, what they don’t tell us is despite the promises we make to ourselves, they’ll come a moment when you’ll be doing something and look up and think, how did I allow myself to get here, making my version of a pot roast? What they don’t tell you is you’re going to be Bree someday and you’re going to have to decide. And you might not choose right the first, second or even fifth time because change is scary and there’s nothing more unsettling than breaking script, resisting, and choosing the path of most resistance. Saying no to something that doesn’t serve you is the first step to freedom, and often for women and girls, it involves saying no to a man we know, trust, and love.