As Kamp As Bree

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Notes

 1. The length constrictions of this article prevent me from exploring, more fully, Desperate Housewives' critique of “new momism.” For an in-depth analysis of “new momism” and the post-feminist debates surrounding motherhood see Susan Douglas and Meredith Michaels (2005).

 2. The trope of homosexuality as effeminacy is still an issue as evidenced by the recent Channel 4 “dating” show, Playing it Straight , in which a single woman must try to discern which of her ten suitors are gay and which are straight. The show is clearly intended to challenge homosexual stereotypes in a heavy-handed fashion as the most masculine of the men have been revealed to be the gays. For further discussion of Playing it Straight see my forthcoming “Effeminophobia meets Misogyny: The Politics of Channel 4's Playing it Straight.”

 3. See the forthcoming collection, Reading Desperate Housewives edited by Kim Akass and Janet McCabe, for further analyses of the series.

 4. Hysteria comes from the Greek word for womb: hystera. Archaic sexology saw hysteria as a random wandering of the womb throughout the body and popular treatment was the vile “smelling salts” which would drive the naughty womb back into its proper place.

 5. Noted critics of Sirk include Thomas Elsaesser (1987), Paul Willemen (1971, 1972–73), Fred Camper (1971), David Rodowick (1987), Michael Stern (1976), and Laura Mulvey (1987).

 6. The Verfremdungseffekte (V-Effekte) is usually translated as “distancation effect” but a better translation (closer to the German) might be “making strange effect” as the V-Effekte is asking the spectator to re-evaluate the image, to reconsider something (s)he had previously assumed to be normal, by momentarily making the image appear strange, odd or queer. (Although the director Bertolt Brech is often credited with the “invention” of the V-Effekte, he really only labelled and described it. One of the earliest examples of the V-Effekte can be found in Shakespeare's King Lear in the heath scene between Lear and the Fool.)

 7. See Brett Farmer's excellent analysis of the importance of “camp” women in popular media for gay identified spectators (2000).

 8. If Paglia is critical of second wave feminists, queer theorists fare even less well under her venom. I, apparently, belong to a “wizened crew of flimflamming free-loaders” (Paglia 1995, p. 70). Charming.

 9. In contrast to Lotz, Suzanne Danuta Walters argues that postfeminism is located within “reactionary feminism” (1991, p. 106) and indeed Sarah Gamble points out that Camille Paglia is often identified as “post-feminist” despite never employing the label herself (1999, p. 291).

10. Performativity is a term developed from the linguist John L. Austin (1962) which describes a “doing” or “utterance” that, within a recognised cultural regime, constitutes a being. The most often cited example of a “performative” is the marriage ceremony where the priest or vicar “pronounces” the couple to now be husband and wife. The priest's utterance or “doing” has changed the “being” of the couple.

11. In keeping with the Sirkian motifs of Desperate Housewives an intertextual reference could be made to Todd Haynes's recent homage to Sirk, Far From Heaven , in which his heroine is a character very similar to Bree Van de Kamp. Far From Heaven's Cathy Whittaker is also a beautiful, poised, upper-middle-class housewife and, like Bree, also finds that everything she cherishes (her marriage and domestic life) is slowly unravelling. Like Bree, Cathy can be read as camp but, in the same vein, it is very evident that maintaining her social role is the only thing supporting Cathy's sanity in her times of crisis.

12. For an alternative reading of Boys Don't Cry see Annabelle Willox's stirring critique (2003).

13. An intertextual reference can be made with another television domestic goddess: the utterly divine Nigella Lawson. Joanne Hollows explains that Nigella, in all her television shows, is represented as gaining a pleasure for herself in her cooking and domestic chores. Rather than simply cooking for husband and children, Nigella makes it very evident that she finds great joy and sensual pleasure in both cooking and eating scrumptious food (Hollows 2003).

14. One of the most terrifying images of male domination occurs in the episode “Children Will Listen” where Carlos bullies Gabrielle into signing a post-nuptial agreement. The threat of violence, which had always been bubbling below the surface of the Carlos/Gabrielle marriage, actually bursts into physical abuse. Carlos grabs Gabrielle, overpowers her and forces the woman to sign the agreement. So far, this has been the darkest image in the show and one which, undoubtedly, did not even elicit an ironic smile for the spectator.

15. The debates about “place,” “sexuality” and the “public/private” dichotomy are too numerous to review in this one paper. Needless to say, the sexual identifications facilitated by a “queer” metropolitan setting are very different from the limiting confines of heteronormative suburbia. For further developments of these arguments, especially in relation to metropolitan settings, see Michael Warner (2002).

16. Even I—a sex columnist—had not heard of “tea-bagging.” According to sexpert Samantha, “tea-bagging” is the activity of dangling testicles in the partner's mouth. Hence the image of the tea-bag.

17. Jane Gerhard's wonderful article (certainly one of the best on Sex and the City to date), entitled “Carrie Bradshaw's Queer Postfeminism,” analyses how Sex and the City's postfeminism borrows extensively from the paradigms of queer cultural politics (2005).