Soap Opera Meta-Analyses

Monday night we got around to watching Sunday's episode of Desperate Housewives that was stored on our TiVo. We hadn't seen last season and had no idea that Bree's strapping young buck of a son was a member of the Empire. The scene with his new beau in his bedroom playing X-Box passing the anticipated moments before homo coitus was hot. I don't care if the characters are underage it was hot (I hope the actors are at least 18 otherwise I'll feel dirty). Then the scene changed focus and we learn that Bree's son is out for revenge on his mom. We got to thinking and we arrived at a conclusion.

All of the characters on Desperate Housewives are flawed but it seems that some are more flawed than others. The white heterosexual characters do terrible things to people. Bree didn't call an ambulance when George Wilson overdosed on pills and thus let him die because she knew he killed her husband. Susan sent that kid to Utah in order to protect her daughter even though he was the biological child whom her boyfriend was seeking to reconnect with. Lynette is always manipulating people at her place of work to the advantage of her and her family. Yes the white heteros on Wisteria lane all have good reasons for doing bad things. But what about the other characters?

Lets take a look at the sultry Gabrielle and her husband Carlos. Together they are portrayed as selfish materialistic social climbing latinos. They care nothing for people or families but only for things to fill their empty lives. Gabby forged a paternity test to prove that the illigitimate child she was carrying was her husbands so that she wouldn't get divorced and left with nothing but her young gardener boy toy. Message: Latinos want nothing but money and they'll use it for depraved purposes.

Then you have the newest additions to Wisteria lane, a single black mother and her son, Betty (played by one of my favorite moral stoplight actresses Alfre Woodard) and Josh. They're secret is that they hide Caleb, supposedly another child of Betty's, who murdered a young white girl. Both are involved in a shady subplot to keep their secret and are seasoned in the art of deception. No motive of redeemable nature is mentioned in their plight though. Message: Blacks are shady and have no respect for the law

Finally you have the gay son of Bree Vandekamp, Andrew. Because he feels betrayed by his mother for not accepting his sexuality, he vows that once he learns a dark secret of hers he will "take her down so far that she won't be able to get up again." We see yet again the emergence of the gay uber-villian who will stop at nothing to not only defeat his nemesis but publically humiliate them. Message: Gays are evil.

I'm just making an observation and I cannot make any conclusion if the framing of the characters is on purpose. I'll leave that up to GayProf. Subliminal messages that are placed in mainstream entertainment that uphold archaic gender roles and stereotypic racial and cultural profiles are damn entertaining though!