Introduction
The development of pop culture through media has been going forward at a steady gait for the past five-six years. Any separately taken culture is several set traditions, ways of living, social orders that are inherent in a specific group or nation, changing under the influence of external and internal factors, like mass media. The themes of popular culture, though being enormously diversified, are inclined to talk about the feminist role within the society of the twenty-first century, as it is unveiled in the TV show, Desperate Housewives. The show has gained huge popularity among the public: both housewives and working women. Surprisingly, every woman in the United States can probably identify herself with one of the ladies from Wisteria Lane. Significantly, this is what pop culture stands for: reflecting the image of a contemporary woman and allowing having a look at oneself. Moreover, Desperate Housewives show has indulged in depicting the most important part of women’s lives – sex, maternity, money issues, and what begets it all – love. As such, this paper will elaborate on the way housewives’ love undergoes difficulties, challenges, and changes. Therefore, housewives, having various images of love implementation, are not only forming their own family’s traditions but rather creating the overall popular image of the family throughout America contributing to the historical family heritage, which imposes a great role on women carried through the notion of love.
Desperate Housewives: Implication of Love
Love is probably what strikes every person on the Earth at least once in their life. However, different people experience love differently, as well as they put different meanings into the notion of love, hence they are likely to exercise love in the ways other people would never do. The understanding and ability to carry out love depends on the love model a person had in childhood, the actual partner attitude and the current life circumstances. Although the model roles of the family during one’s childhood are considered to be mainly important by psychologists, the latter two features present the utmost interest to us within this exploration. Desperate Housewives TV show explicitly showcases the number of several life circumstances and the partners/husbands women have. The love is implemented differently by the women, each one of them has her own micro space, her own skeletons in the closet, and special feelings derived from their upbringing and shaped by the beloved ones. So, although love can refer to kids and men, this paper will elaborate on how the main characters of the show carry out and understand their love towards their men only. However, the issue of love towards kids is an integral point in this topic’s investigation.
Bree Hodge’s Perfectionism
Among the four ladies under consideration, Bree is the most elegant and the one considering herself perfect. This kind of perfectness imposes on every layer of social and personal life. Sometimes it is hard to show perfectness outside being completely thrown about inside. Therefore, it is possible to say that Bree Hodge is the woman holding her greatest fears right behind her cute and mighty appearance. As such, having a set of fears always ready to pump out, a perfect conduct hinders the true love. Bree is a sort of woman who cannot let society think her family has any drawbacks. Mrs. Hodge is an embodiment of elegance: her house is spotless, everything is in its place, her outfit is pressed, and her hair is always adorably done. The same is with her attitude towards expression of love and family intimate problems: “Let’s just say I put them into an imaginary box and don’t plan on looking at them for a while”, (TV Show 7, n.p.) which unfortunately happens to not just be a perfect way of managing the personal affairs, rather it has another facet – the avoidance of admitting you have problems. Now, does Bree seem that perfect to the audience? Not really, as well as her ability to love, whereas at first hew family is shown the most decent and respectable. The love of this woman is nothing more than the implementation of fears for her family, hence for their overall image within the society. She is fiercely loyal and will do anything to protect her family, even though they are making mistakes. Of course, inability to face the problem is not the best feature in the love context; however, this traces Bree in the best light as the woman who tries to save her love boat at least from outside invasions of gossips since she is not able to fix the situation from inside. Her husband, Rex, cheated on Bree and she seemingly struggles to forget it by not thinking about the problem. Yes, she is afraid to face the pain, though this is her love – the protective love, a feeling that eventually fails to cover everybody with care. Still, it is worthy of respect.
Susan Meyer’s Unbalance
Susan Meyer is the woman that most women would refer to. It is surprising how she falls in and out of love as quickly as lightning. Her character represents a woman who is able to get up and continue walking after being seriously knocked down. As such, her love is an intention to prove that she deserves a better man. This of course, is what many young and even elderly women think to themselves, too. Surprisingly, but many women consider their destiny to be not very fair even being aged. The reason Susan is so whimsical and unbalanced lies in her childhood and origin. Being cheated on by her husband Karl, she further finds out that she is a result of her mother’s one-night affair. This merely brings Susan’s self-esteem to zero. However, she stands up and tries to get out of this vicious cycle of events by seeking love with Mike Delfino. This is what Susan is all about – continuous struggle to find a better life no matter what. She falls in love with Mike due to her complete clumsiness, which is also funny in regard to her boundless kindness and golden heart.
Lynette Scavo Bears Maternity Cross
Finding same characteristics in Lynette is somewhat sad, but many working and non-working mothers really find that irate feature in themselves, too. Lynette is depicted as a mother first of all, who daily strives to make her home a nice place while the mischievous twins give her a hard time continuously. So, Lynette is an embodiment of motherhood in the TV show. However, it is important to mention, that as with any other woman, Lynette also has a man she loves – Tom, her husband. This is another facet of her life – a man, whom she gives care, has sex, and eventually grants love. However, this kind of love has to be understood correctly: Tom is another baby in her family; he needs to be treated as the sixth child, unfortunately, which is a distressing factor for Mrs. Scavo. This is the woman who has to hold everything under control, which would not be possible without such trait as being bossy. This is her kind of love – totalitarian in a good sense. The life circumstances make her feel like she is the only one to do everything about the house and with kids, and to do it right. Therefore, Tom and the kids force her to be the way she is – rigorous. Unfortunately, everything Lynette does is taken for granted. This is the reason why Lynette’s love is far from a warm and cozy attitude – nobody gives it back to her.
Gabrielle Solis: Love versus Money
Gabrielle is portrayed as shallow, vain, and materialistic. Importantly, her childhood speaks for the perception of this life in a material way: no one believed she was sexually abused, neither did her mother believe the stepfather assaulted her. Therefore, it is evident that Gabrielle was not going to seek justice or understanding from people who treated her so fiercely unfaithful. That is why love of any kind is excluded from Gabby’s relationships perception. So, she decided to marry Carlos Solis for his money – the only love she has a good image of. However, later on, we can see that Gabby does build the wall to keep everyone else out, though she happens to be very kind and a very good friend. Above the deep views into Gabby’s soul, we see a woman who is not likely to stop at anything to achieve her goals. This is exactly what her love eventually appears to be. When Carlos loses sight, she stays loyal and reliable without money and pride that is so inherent to her character. Gabby’s love is something ascending from mistrust veiled by money addiction to true feelings and loyalty. If it was possible to take a love course in school, Gaby’s experience would have been a sort of lesson of getting rid of hang-ups and achieving the true meaning of what the woman is created for – love and care.
Conclusion
Within the theme of feminism, it is important to note that feminist movements are frequently taken wrong. Women do not try to take the position of men or replace them; their only purpose is to change the attitude to what men take for granted. As such, Desperate Housewives is a wonderful TV show that reflects women’s ability to love no matter what and disregard the circumstances of their lives, and the husbands’ attitudes. Of course, the four women discussed above are amazing examples of societal archetypes of women. All four of them have different kinds of love and this difference is caused by personal and social issues. The latter is a great impact put on women, which they process through their family traditions and release to the world as new popular culture. Therefore, love is a great tool for women since they can implement it variously at the same time contributing and changing the overall image of family traditions and heritage throughout decades.
Work Cited
TV Show 7. Love Is in the Air. Desperate Housewives. Season 1 Episode 14. Web.