When you only get 45 minutes of the story on Sunday night, you have an entire week to mull the story over, think about the plot, etc. When you watch over 9 hours a day, your focus shifts to the more concrete and easier to think about plot. Resultantly, I didn't even think about heroism in DH until the essay was assigned. Before I settled on my final topic, I thought about writing my paper on the character of Bree Van de Kamp.
One challenge of analyzing the heroism in DH is that there at 8 seasons, which follow the characters lives rather than a story arc. So it's a bit harder to track a character's heroic arc.
Some background (spoiler alert, but since they TOOK IT OFF OF NETFLIX, it doesn't really matter). I'm going to throw a bunch of names at you, only really have to pay attention to Bree and Carlos.
At the end of season 7, a main character named Gabrielle's sexually abusive stepfather, Alejandro, found her after 20 years and began harassing her again. When he broke into her house - presumably with the intent to rape and/or kill her - her husband, Carlos, killed him. Then, Gabrielle, Carlos, Bree, Susan, and Lynette buried his body in the woods. Over the course of season, we see the coverup deteriorate to the point of Bree going to trial for a murder which she did not commit.
However, Bree decides that she is willing to take the fall for Carlos so that his family isn't torn apart. While all the women behaved heroically throughout the series, their sacrifices were mostly for their immediate family. Which I will come back to. But Bree's actions were to benefit her friends, and it stuck out to me as the most prominent heroism in the show.
Another thing DH does is highlight the inherent heroism in motherhood. By definition, mothers put their children before themselves, and time and time again, the women do just that. Interestingly, watching Desperate Housewives made me appreciate my own mother more, which isn't something you would expect from a show titled Desperate Housewives.
At the end of season 7, a main character named Gabrielle's sexually abusive stepfather, Alejandro, found her after 20 years and began harassing her again. When he broke into her house - presumably with the intent to rape and/or kill her - her husband, Carlos, killed him. Then, Gabrielle, Carlos, Bree, Susan, and Lynette buried his body in the woods. Over the course of season, we see the coverup deteriorate to the point of Bree going to trial for a murder which she did not commit.
However, Bree decides that she is willing to take the fall for Carlos so that his family isn't torn apart. While all the women behaved heroically throughout the series, their sacrifices were mostly for their immediate family. Which I will come back to. But Bree's actions were to benefit her friends, and it stuck out to me as the most prominent heroism in the show.
Another thing DH does is highlight the inherent heroism in motherhood. By definition, mothers put their children before themselves, and time and time again, the women do just that. Interestingly, watching Desperate Housewives made me appreciate my own mother more, which isn't something you would expect from a show titled Desperate Housewives.
I think it is interesting that you point out the heroism of the mother which is definitely a big theme in all kinds of hero narratives. Harry Potter is a really obvious example that comes to my mind. This sort of maternal instinct is definitely seen as heroic because it demonstrates such an intense level of devotion, to unflinchingly risk your well-being to protect your child. It's interesting to contrast this to the Odyssey though where there doesn't seem to be much respect for the mother, especially in Penelope, whose despair over Telemachus's disappearance appears to be an example of over-mothering Telemachus, instead of a heroic display of love. Nice post, although I'm still refusing to watch the show ;)
ReplyDeleteI'd always avoided the show because I thought it was another bad reality TV show, but now I'm kinda interested (but it isn't on Netflix so who knows if I'll watch it). I never really think about the heroism of characters in more realistic TV shows, but I can definitely see now how characters like these could be seen in that way. Mothers making a heroic sacrifice for their child is a common theme in entertainment (like Berit said, Lily Potter), and I feel like a lot of the time the heroism of the parents of the story's hero is often overlooked.
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