I had never seen the show House before, but my new roomate likes it so I've gotten a chance to watch a few episodes. After seeing roughly four and a half shows, I am thoroughly convinced I live in the twilight zone. How is this show so popular? The overall story is the exact same for every episode. I know that comes with the territory in TV, but this show is ridiculously simple...
...somebody is sick, House figures out what's wrong with his contraversial methods, and then it has some sappy sentimental ending. What's worse is that the little things between the characters are the same in every episode too (or at least the 4 and a half I saw). His helper doctors always question his methods the same way even though he always ends up being right. And their dialoge is never witty or compelling, it is always drab and conventional. The female helper doctor is always trying to get House to show his feelings because she thinks he is too guarded or too self-centered or something. And in every show I saw, it is apparent to the audience that House has done something for a patient that shows he really does care. Awwwwwww...isn't that nice.
Maybe this program seems so stupid to me because it's just not meant for my demographic. Most network shows are targeted toward females now; I guess that's why I have such a tough time relating to anything on free TV. Thank god for cable and old movies.
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I don't really like this show either but it has never seemed stupid to me. In the episodes I have seen, the explanations for patients' illnesses tend to be medically quite sophisticated (if bizarre and implausible) and the dialogue, especially the main character's, is clever and often funny. Many critics actually praise House for being smart.
"Most network shows are targeted toward females now." Is this the whole story? Very high-profile prime-time dramas like Lost, 24, and CSI certainly appeal to both men and women and get high ratings. And although hits like Desperate Housewives and Grey's Anatomy have a soapy form that makes them seem more like female-type programs, they couldn't be rated as highly as they are without a substantial number of male viewers. The networks need to reach large numbers of viewers in prime-time and they can't target all of their programming at just one gender. I don't know what kind of numbers House gets, but I would guess that millions of men watch it and, presumably, like it, even if they are a minority of its audience.
It is interesting how we often associate certain cultural forms with certain audiences: video games and comic books with boys, soap operas (daytime and prime-time) with girls/women, action movies with guys, romantic comedies with girls, etc. But these are idealizations of an audience; they are stereotypes that we attach to these forms and that marketers use to try to appeal to viewers. The reality is not nearly so neat. People are often reluctant to admit that they like cultural products that don’t seem to be “for them” but that doesn’t mean they don’t seek them out and get pleasure from them. This is a way of saying that even if much of network TV (and cable too) seems to be targeted at girls/women, many such programs are seen and enjoyed by boys/men too, just as many girls/women play video games and read (and write) comics.
Max raises the thorny issue of taste. Is your taste uniquely yours or is it a product of your social identity, i.e., your class, race and ethnicity, gender and sexuality, age, etc.? Of course it is both. If you were 70 years old, would you like Jackass? If you were black, would you like Laguna Beach? Maybe. Maybe you would be less likely to like those things, but who is to say? Our selves are in many ways the products of these social identities, but they are not totally determined by them. There is, as always, a tension between structure and agency.
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