Comments on: And I’m Not Even Going To Discuss The Toilet

By: jf

jf — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 01:04:10 +0000

mrs. JF is using clean green squad, they are nice and we are both happy with them. DPCS, I agree with you, seeing different pieces of technology used in ways that they just don’t work is quite jarring to me. CSI Miami for example.
Next time I watch Supernatural I’m going to check out the faucets.

By: DPCS

DPCS — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 00:48:25 +0000

One thing that is a problem for me these days, though I suspect it slides past most people, is the depiction of bathrooms and kitchens. I work in a very high end bath and kitchen reno shop, and it pulls me out of the moment A LOT, when I’m watching a movie or show…Supernatural, for example, and the characters are in a “dive” that happens to have thousand dollar faucets.

Product placement, soft and hard, is also distorting what we see. These fixture companies offer their stuff for free to increase visibility. Most people could never afford them for their place.

By: Gayleen

Gayleen — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 17:10:45 +0000

Making such a big deal out of the Metallicar is a smart move for Supernatural. They don’t have familiar sets (except in the sense that all the hotel rooms look similar and of course in the sense that Vancouver-area locations can be awfully familiar), so the car stands in for the apartment or office or secret spy base or whatever location viewers might have gotten attached to on another show.

You know, aside from it being an awesomely cool car.

By: Gayleen

Gayleen — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 16:52:05 +0000

I /think/ it’s called ‘Ultimate House Cleaning’ or something like that

Interesting–I’ll have to check that out.

By: Cori

Cori — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 16:50:19 +0000

With crunch last year, I finally broke down and let Dave hire housecleaners for the house, and I’ve gotta say, I love them. I /think/ it’s called ‘Ultimate House Cleaning’ or something like that. His house is giant, so it costs a fair bit, but for once a month it’s actually a pretty good price.

He got their reference from Deb, whose sister also used them.

It turned out to be quite the blessing, really, as I was away for 2 months in the spring, and then laid up for two months in the summer, then back in crunch in the fall. So we’re keeping them.

By: Thunderhowl

Thunderhowl — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 11:47:48 +0000

I find myself more and more looking at the residence of a character as one of the characters of the show in it’s own right or as an interesting facet of a character of said show.
On Supernatural for example, The Metallicar is a character to me, as are the various divey motel rooms the guys stay in. I also point to the the vibrant colors in Pushing Daisies.
While sometimes I find it distracting, usually to me it works like the music does in a movie by enhancing the mood or tone of the show.

By: gayleenfroese

gayleenfroese — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 23:01:22 +0000

The extent of the blow to one’s self-esteem may depend in part on what you think is expected of you (or what people around you do, in fact, expect.) So, if you’re a scientist (mad or otherwise) and your house is a mess, well, you’re an absent-minded professor. Your messy house is practically a credential.

If you’re a business executive, though, and your house is a mess, that gives a poor impression–as if you don’t have it together, or don’t have the money to pay people to get it together for you.

I also think a lot of people still look to the woman as the bad housekeeper when they walk into a messy or dirty home. True or not, and conscious or not, I think a lot of people consider the woman the one who dropped the ball.

So, a male scientist can shrug off all those perfect home images… but a female businessperson might find it more difficult. And she might also find that, even if she doesn’t have those expectations for herself (heck, even if she never watches TV), other people have absorbed those expectations and are putting them onto her.

By: James

James — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 22:18:33 +0000

There is currently a narrative going on in U.S. politics in which the liberal commentators and media personalities claim that the conservative outlets are airing narratives which aren’t true. Simply by airing them, this thinking goes, they are reinforcing the false story in the minds of people and creating more viewers who believe the lie. Examples of this are Fox news pundits labeling Obama a socialist, and a Kenyan. Now without delving into the truth of these claims, I do find an analogy to the clean house thing.

I don’t think that these shows are causing many people to consciously question the perfection of the homes on TV. I’ve certainly never though about cords and lampshades and where they find the 20 hours a day to clean the place. The subconscious implications seem to be less clear cut though. If we watch a show does it provide even a tiny blow to our self esteem? I don’t know. I know that I certainly feel like a slob sometimes when I see the portrayal of other living spaces on TV. Is this negative reinforcement, and, if it is, is it harmful?

Personally I think that the analogy to body type self esteem is apt – for some people. From a story prospective though, it’s interesting to wonder what the cluttered set would take away. Would we be less involved in the story if it were presented on a gritty and cluttered background? How many people would be caught up in the background enough that it detracted from the story? Do we want to see idealized people and sets that reinforce our cultural ideas about life and society in such a way as to make the story more understandable? Does a clean view of the story make it more enjoyable to us opposed against the dirty view reminding us of doing the laundry and dusting the mantle? All a fine can of worms to think ourselves out of.

The show I’ve been watching lately, Numb3rs, shows a man who is arguably a savant doing all kinds of crazy math to solve crimes. The thing that they clean up to make the story enjoyable is all the time that goes into setting these things up. They love showing all the chalkboards full of arcane equations, but sometimes they talk about entering thousands of data points to solve a crime in an hour or two of time in the story. That is completely unrealistic. Would I be happier with an unsolved crime while the protagonist spends 9 hours grinding a few thousand points of data into his computer? Of course not.

I can see positives and negatives from the sets for shows being clean and idealized. From the point of telling the story, I think that showing a clean frame is helpful. When I think that some people may be getting higher and higher expectations about what the clean set means for their own lives, and don’t realize that we all have to live with some clutter, then I think that damage can be done.