Now I Know What to Look for in a $700,000 Home!! Thanks, “House Hunters”!
I watched an episode of “House Hunters” on HGtv. I watched on the actual channel (channel 40 on my TV, we have cable). I chose this show mainly because I guessed few others in class would pick it. I’ve seen bits and pieces of other episodes of this show (it seems to be on all the time late at night) but this was the first time I watched an episode in its entirety.
While it may be the case that this show strives to profile people looking to buy a home in all socio-economic situations, people of color, or people in pairings other than hetero marriages (or single people buying homes for that matter), but this episode focused on a couple where were clearly wealthy (their “budget” was no more than $800,000), white, and were a male/ female married couple. The realtors working with couple were also white and seemed to be at least upper middle class.
The city the couple was looking at condos in was Seattle, which I would guess as a major metropolitan city, would have some ethnic and socio-economic diversity, but none was shown in this episode. They were specifically looking in an area they were calling “The Pearl District”, which looked a heck of a lot like the up and coming (gentrified) Nicolet/Franklin developments.
The couple performed their genders very, very well. The wife, with her long hair and perky personality, wanted more than anything, a nice kitchen “with stainless steel appliances and granite counter tops” and a space to “entertain”. The husband wanted a home office (they both worked office jobs, but only he seemed to mention his work) and a porch or deck to grill on. So, girls cook in the kitchen and have friends over, men grill out and work.
There was no debate about what it means to spend that much money on a home (a small condo, nonetheless) or why they were so desperate to live in an “urban area” as they kept calling it, but were obsessed with “safety features” like a doorman, or wanting to be in the Penthouse instead of ground floor so nobody could break in.
The show is 30 minutes, the last five of which show the couple settled into their new home, about 4 months after the footage was shot of them looking at the three different homes. They are shown entertaining in their fancy new kitchen, the wife serving white wine to her girlfriends, and the men all outside admiring the new grill.
While no products were specifically highlighted during the show (other than, of course, the joy brought in fulfilling the American Dream), all the ads during commercial breaks were for insurance, expensive cars, diapers, HomeDepot, ING financial, and Target which tells me that the targeted audience is men/women, ages 25plus, and a wealthy, or at least of an upwardly-mobile mindset.
I have to say, if the show’s agenda is to make a viewer want to go out and boost the local economy by buying an over-priced condo, it sure works. I suffered a bit of ennui after the show- I was still sitting in my over-crowded apartment, surrounded by toys because my son’s room is too small to hold them all, and thought “well, geez, if it so easy to go spend almost a million dollars and get a nice condo, then I’m in!” But, then I remembered that I don’t have that kind of money, and that I don’t want to live in a Penthouse, and changed the channel. Luckily, there was a re-run of “A Shot at Love” to cheer me up…….
--I'm editing to add a bit about theory from the readings. My show is a bit different than the other reality shows in that it isn't a contest- just a couple buying a home, they are looking and choosing between three houses, but there is no humiliation, no chance or suprise element. But in the reading "Normalization of heterorelations in the Bachelor" by Yep and Camacho, there is an idea that totally applies to "House Hunters". The authors of this essay quote a passage from another scholar that says "heterogendered division of labor and heterosexual supremecy are well preserved in TV." This is dead-on to how the couple presented themselves on the show (or, were edited to seem like this is how they presented themselves) - wife wants kitchen, man wants grill and work space.
Sienna Moore