Guest Post: What To Send That Homesick American For Her Birthday

or Why All Americans Eventually Go Home by Christine

I don't watch much t.v., not because I'm on some sort of anti-t.v. bandwagon or anything,  I think it's just because of where I live.  You see t.v., ummm regular t.v. in France that is, really seems like something produced in somebody's basement.  It positively reeks--trite,  propped-up, pathetically sarcastic hosts doing talk shows, interviewing the same people over and over week after week.   Ugh! It's beyond horrible and makes a person either a) lose consciousness for long periods -or- b) rub their eyes really hard until they  can't see straight and yawn over and over searching frantically for air -or- c) all of the above plus dry retch vomiting.   I prefer to simply stay uninformed if it means wading through that load of crap.    Oh sure I may watch something once in a while, like something on Arté which sometimes airs top notch programs of The Discovery Channel variety or Bon Appetit Bien Sûr, a really good daily cooking show featuring regional French chefs,  but on the whole it's a big waste of my t.v. tax* euros to be paying for what amounts to a glorified video/dvd monitor.  That's all I really use my t.v. for these days anyway.

Every year on my birthday my mom mails me a box, just as she's done for the past 5 of the 7 years I’ve been living here. It's a box usually full of "mom things," carefully wrapped socks packets and bangled earrings from The Limited, but if I dig frantically enough through it all, I will always without fail find tucked in the bottom of the box a video of the most recent Oscars and if I dig deeper I’ll probably find a video goldmine of some new, totally addictive reality show or hit sitcom everyone in The States has been hooked on for months, but that I get to discover over the course of three consecutive nights. Now that my friends is television worth watching.

One particular year the hit show she'd mailed off was The Sopranoes, the entire first season. Unfortunately mom being first and foremost a "mom" taper, taped The Sopranoes on three different tapes and all of the episodes were in the wrong order. I gave up about three episodes into the whole mess and threw my hands in the air. That's not the sort of show where you want to see the body floating in the river and then see that it's so and so's wife who's still walking around the kitchen making lasagna in the next episode, you fuckin' know what I mean ya prick...

This year along with the Oscars I got the entire second season of Bravo's Project Runway. I was ecstatic. I got completely hooked on the first season of Project Runway last year and I was waiting with bated breath for the next season. Mom had done a pretty good job and had taped the first season of Project Runway in not-too-mixed-up-mom-order. Imagine my surprise when a few months ago I found five missing episodes of it on a tape she'd accidentally labeled as The Country Music Awards. It was like a junkie finding a hit lying on a park bench. I was in heaven and it just spurred me on wanting more.

Why is this show so appealing you ask? Well, it features these supposed-up-and coming designers on a mission to make it to Fashion Week in New York. They're mostly overly flamboyant gay guys, soccer moms with Singers in the basement or dowdy home-ec girls who glue spangles on everything. They’ve all gone through some sort of community college program and now they find themselves staring eyeball to eyeball with fashion design guru Michael Kors, who consistently rakes them over the coals. Model Heidi Klum is the host of the show; the fashion director of Elle magazine, Miss Nina bitchy-somebody-or other is a judge. The students are usually given about 15 hours to sketch and make their uh, err creations, usually with a catch like they can only shop for fabric supplies at Best Buy or they have to make an evening gown out of garden moss. The show is a riot! I find it hard to stop the tape and go to sleep before the next episode begins. I did however miss the first five episodes again and I'm wondering what other tape they're sandwiched within. I'll have to keep searching. Maybe the Oscars will be cut short, maybe very short. Maybe I'll find them on The Hallmark Christmas Special tape. When mom tapes you just have to be grateful for what you get and not ask too many questions.

The thing that really gets me laughing on these tapes are always the commercials. I get a huge overdose of Americana just by watching these thirty-second blurbs. Like since when did Claudia Schiffer start hawking wrinkle cream? I suddenly feel very old. Is she considered old now? And since when does the American Medical Association have commercials? This is weird. They need to advertise? What for? And then there's what I like to call America’s Over the Top Anal Obsessions, like the Crest Age Defying White Strips for Seniors. Can't they just use the normal white-strips!? And why is there this continued obsession with ultra-white teeth anyway? And then there's the Febreeze Noticeables Air Freshener that changes scents to "let you know it's working," I suppose satisfying that compelling need for a dual scented air freshener is high on everyone's list these days. I often have to rewind these commercials to make sure I heard what I heard, and to laugh, and to remind myself that it's good to look at my country from a certain vantage point so I can keep reality in check. I wouldn’t want to lose touch.

A huge thank-you for the tapes, mom. I'm looking forward to next year's package in whatever order you want to send them.

*In France you have to pay the government for the right to have t.v. reception. It 's about 100 euros or so and it actually funds these awful t.v. channels! How unjust is that to have to pay for this drivel?

Comments

[cmhl]

I love project runway too-- fun...

[Monty]

Good choices. I'm addicted to Project Runway, and i don't do fashion at all.

[edieraye]

Living outside of the 'States gives you a different perspective - and appreciation - of your own pop culture. I remember watching tapes of Fame and Magnum P.I. obsessively. Now that I can get U.S. television anytime I'm not near as obsessed with it.

[Margaret]

I would miss the TV if I couldn't watch it, but ignore it most of the time. That's pretty strange.

[Meredith]

I am laughing over here. I have my family do the same thing, send tapes of american tv. Last year, I asked my mom for sex and the city, and instead, she sent 8 consecutive hours of Dr. Phil. Not knowing who he was, I started watching, and then insomniac that I am, I watched it all. How strange he is! I get very desperate for american TV, Dr. Phil is proof...

[Daisy]

*shudders at the thought of Dr Phil*

Isn't it funny how tv commercials are very much of the moment? I went through some old video tapes the other day in a(nother) declutter session and myself watching and enjoying the adverts rather than the programmes.

[Uranus]

I can understand you Ali. I do not have TV at home and I don't subsidise the crap French TV (whcih invests a lot of airtime critisising American culture!). I do watch TV from other countries using this very cool website (all free):

http://wwitv.com

Courage!

Uranus