Men love their 'Housewives'
By: Maria Elena Fernandez
Los Angeles Times
Nov. 12, 2004 04:50 PM
HOLLYWOOD - Those "Desperate Housewives" sure have a lot to hide, but
here's one dirty little secret that has caught the television industry
by surprise: Nearly 40 percent of the show's viewers are men. The gender
that supposedly has been fleeing broadcast programming to play video games,
surf the Internet, download music or watch sports on cable is tuning
in to the Sunday-night misadventures of Susan, Bree, Lynette and
Gabrielle on ABC.
Of the show's 22 million viewers, 8.2 million are men, making "Desperate
Housewives" the No. 3 show this season among men ages 18 to 34 and 18 to
49. Only "Monday Night Football" and two other shows -- "CSI" for the
older group, "The Simpsons" for the younger -- are proving stronger
draws for a gender that advertisers and competing network executives
predicted would ignore a prime-time soap with four female leading characters.
"How can it come as a surprise given what's on that show?" said Stuart
Fischoff, a media psychologist at California State University, Los Angeles.
"It's a babe show. A bunch of attractive women in various stages of
desperation and looking for love in all the right and wrong places.
This is a show for men of all seasons."
Mike Benson, ABC's senior vice president of marketing for prime-time
entertainment, designed a promotional onslaught of TV commercials,
billboards and print ads to attract women while subtly beckoning the
men in their lives, too.
"There are a lot of men who can relate to thinking that their wife is
desperate," Benson said. "I have to be careful how I say that, because
I'm married. But my wife also jokes now, 'I'm just a desperate housewife.' "
The idea, Benson hoped, was that women would bond with the cast the way
they did with Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte and Samantha of "Sex and the City,"
while men would be titillated by Nicollette Sheridan in short shorts or
Eva Longoria standing on her balcony in a dainty bra and panties -- and
stay around to find out why Mark Moses' character was digging a hole in
his pool in the middle of the night.
For Chris Martz, who circulates his "Desperate" videotapes to male
friends to try to get them hooked with him, all it took was the sight
of Sheridan, as predatory divorcee Edie Britt, trying to lure a man
she's competing for by pouring water over herself as she washes her
car. "The humor is just amazing," said the 33-year-old Indianapolis
magazine editor. "This show is far from a soap opera, which is what
I tell my friends. Quite frankly, this is a typical American neighborhood.
I am president of my homeowners association, and I can see this exact
show happening in our neighborhood."
Creator Marc Cherry, who has said he drew on aspects of his mother
and some female friends to fashion the inhabitants of Wisteria Lane,
said it's the pacing of his show that makes it more male-friendly
than daytime soaps, which revolve around conversations.
"It's more of a soap opera oriented toward the way a guy is thinking,"
Cherry said.
Cherry's housewives don't just sit around talking, they get into all
kinds of action-packed trouble. While arguing ill-advisedly with her
ex-husband wearing only a towel, Susan (Teri Hatcher) ends up naked
on the street, locked out of her house. Gabrielle Solis (Longoria),
who is having an affair with the teenage gardener, is caught kissing
him by a neighborhood girl and tries to buy her silence with a shiny
new bicycle. Lynette Scavo (Felicity Huffman) teaches her rowdy young
sons a lesson by driving off without them for a moment, only to
return and find them missing. Perfectionist Bree Van De Kamp (Marcia
Cross) doesn't want her friends to know she is in marital counseling,
but when her husband reveals it at a dinner party, she takes things
one step further by telling the group a humiliating sexual detail
about him.
But even Cherry wasn't prepared for such a robust male response.
"I'm thrilled that men love the show, but I'm also surprised.
Maybe I just bought into what the advertisers were saying back
in May, that men wouldn't be interested in this show."
"It's harder to reach men for broadcast entertainment programming,"
said Stacey Lynn Koerner, an executive vice president of ad-buying
firm Initiative Media. "The young male demographic had moved away
because it had become somewhat stale. They grew up with television
and understand the formulas and format. That's one of the reasons
they gravitate to reality, because it's unscripted and unknown.
But for the first time in a long time, we are seeing scripted
programming in 'Desperate Housewives' and 'Lost' that is not
predictable and that is intriguing."
Jeff Norton, the 30-year-old founder of Lean Forward Media, a
children's entertainment and educational production company,
said he tuned in for the show's premiere because it was impossible
to escape ABC's billboards this summer. There was "beautiful Teri
Hatcher and the woman who plays Gabrielle, who is absolutely gorgeous,"
enticing him to take a chance.
"To be honest, this show brought me back to watching TV," Norton said.
"It's really refreshing to see something that is invested in good
writing and acting. I call this show 'Sex and the Suburbs.' Felicity
Huffman is amazing. You don't see performances like that on television
very often."
But some male fans prefer to stay in the closet. Joey Aucion, a
26-year-old screenwriter who lives in West Los Angeles, watches
the show every week with his roommate. But don't ask his roommate
about it -- he'll never admit he's watching a "girl show," Aucion said.
"He's very sensitive about it when you talk about it, but he's the
first on the couch to watch it," Aucion said. "Guys are aware that
they're not the audience intended for the show. But that tongue-in-cheek
sensibility that it has makes us want to watch it. It kind of winks
at the audience and lets you know that there are cracks in this perfect
world."
Steve McPherson, president of prime-time entertainment at ABC, has
some experience with closeted male fans as well.
"A lot of times what test audiences tell you is very different from
what they actually do at home," McPherson said. "But I think that
people have to give men more credit in general. Men won't watch a
show just because some hot chick is on it. They're attracted to great
entertainment and story lines, too. If you ask a guy on the street
if he's watching this show, he'll say no. But when he's at home and
his wife or girlfriend is watching it, he's right there watching it,
too."
As Fischoff, the media psychologist, put it, "Men don't only think
with their genitals. They also have gray matter, and the reason they
don't drop off is because the story lines have remained clever and engaging."
OK, but what about the eye candy? Surely some men have noticed that
the housewives are as beautiful as they are desperate? Oh yeah, said
Aucion, whose 67-year-old father is as addicted to the show as he is.
"He likes that girl," Aucion said and laughed. That girl is Longoria,
the 29-year-old Texas native who is the least familiar face among the
cast. "That's basically all we talk about. That girl is ridiculously
attractive. We all went and looked up who she is."
Longoria, who is in high demand and made cross-country appearances on
"The Tonight Show With Jay Leno" and "Late Night With Conan O'Brien"
recently, said she's overwhelmed by her "hot" label and tries not to
dwell on that kind of attention.
"It's not just me, there's four other gorgeous women on the show,"
Longoria said. "When it comes to being the hot one and all this hype,
it's grounding to have my family and friends around me. I'm just
thankful that people are watching, because I hired a trainer since
I was going to be wearing so much lingerie. He's very happy his
work paid off."
In case there are any doubts, listen to Martz. "At the end of
'Desperate Housewives,' I'm mad," he said. "I want more! I need more!"
© Los Angeles Times 2004. All Rights Reserved.
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