If you don't already know, the show is about a polygamous family (gasp!), which is pretty much it's only selling point. The protagonist is Bill Henrickson, who owns a large hardware store and lives in a suburban neighborhood with his 3 wives, who basically take care of the kids and bicker all day long.
Bill was initially just married to Barb (the woman to his immediate left in the picture, and who's his age). They both grew up in Mormon families but left the compounds to lead a more "normal" life. When Barb got cancer, Bill suddenly decided he wanted to by polygamous and have more wives. Barb loved him so much, so she agreed to the arrangements. So Bill married 2 more women, Nicki and Margene, who were young enough to be his daughters.
I'm not going to argue that polygamy is bad. I'm not so interested in this issue of morality, although polygamy is widely frowned upon -- which is what makes this show so seemingly interesting. No -- what I'm interested in is how HBO decided to shape these characters and represent the polygamous relationship.
They could have made strong female characters, where perhaps one of the wives was his business partner, or they could have had jobs. Instead, all three of the women stay at home and get in petty arguments. Nicki (far left in top picture), for instance, shirks all of her household chores, doesn't take care of any of the kids, and to top it off, has a spending problem. A major focus of the first 3 episodes is Nicki's shopping addiction, and how she amassed a debt of $60,000, hiding the receipts in a cardboard box under the bed. And while this is all happening, the show expects the viewer to cringe and say, 'Poor Bill! I can't believe he has to deal with all of this! He works so hard and these women just spend his money.' Margene is similarly petty. A focus in another episode is that the three women were fighting over who would be able to take the car out, since they all have to share one car. This scenario seemed to me like an argument I would have had with my sisters when I was 16. But it's true --- the women act like poorly behaving teenagers. The show has taken these three women and infantilized them.
These characters all fall into the gender roles described by Holz Ivory, Gibson, and Ivory (2009). Namely, the women show high commitment to relationship, are homemakers/unemployed, perform household tasks, and take care of children. Bill makes the decisions, works for pay outside the home, gives orders, and financially supports all three wives and their numerous children.
The show portrays Bill as so exhausted having to keep up with work and family life, and on top of it all, he has 3 women always wanting to have sex with him! How exhausting! Poor Bill! This is really the attitude conveyed by the show, and Bill ends up having to take Viagra since he's so exhausted he can't get aroused anymore.
This was perhaps the biggest turn off for me (pun intended). I just couldn't sympathize with Bill, or frankly, care about his emotions. The whole premise just began to seem like some stupid male fantasy -- having 3 different women always wanting to have sex. So much sex, in fact, that he couldn't handle it any more! That's when I laughed at the show and stopped watching it.
It's interesting to consider that the 2 producers of the show are men. Even more interesting is that these two male producers are also the two primary writers of the show. No wonder this show just reads like an insipid male fantasy -- it is one!
Never heard of this show Mary, but it sounds very interesting! It almost seems the exact opposite of some of the stuff we've been reading. Instead of fearing for commitment, he's actually running towards more commitment! This runs contrary to Kim et al. (2007) and their findings about male commitment. Instead of shirking the commitment to have sex, he's giving himself more committed responsibilities. This show reminds of of that show "Sister Wives" on TLC (I believe it was TLC). A guy had 4 wives (only 1 of them was legally his wife because by law you can't have more than 1) and something like 16 children combined with them all. What I found most sickening about them was how they worked the welfare system. Because 3 of the wives weren't technically his wife by law, the other 3 mothers collected welfare checks as single-unemployed mothers. Talk about a scam! I really liked the post and I'll have to check this show out sometime!
ReplyDeleteMary, I thought this was a very interesting blog post! I have never heard of this show before, but my mind instantly compared it to TLC's show "Sister Wives" as well. Probably because the women are in a very similar situation. I totally agree that it sounds like the show infantilized the women by making them seem passive in the sense that they are there to serve and pleasure their male partner, but the one wife who spends all of her husband's money reminded me of a debate we had in class a while ago. It reminded me of how we were debating Holz Ivory, Gibson & Ivory's (2009)study on gendered relationship roles on television and whether or not the fact that she can spend all of the money her husband makes and not have to lift a finger could be seen as more dominant because she's reaping all of the benefits of her husband's working. I would have to agree with you in this instance that it is passive, though, because you said she hid the fact that she spends his money from him by hiding the receipts. This would lead me to believe that she is fearful of him knowing that she spends his money, implying that she knows she is not allowed to do it, and therefore shows the husband's dominant status over her in this case. I think that it is interesting that even though it would seem that the women could have more power, simply because it's 3 against 1, that the man still indeed holds all the cards. I'm curious to know if this power struggle will last throughout the show!
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