Book Clubs, Oprah, Women and the Middlebrow

Abstract

The book club is a paradigmatic instance of the new literary middlebrow, and a popular target of disdain across twenty-first century culture. A biting example of critique comes in an early scene of Desperate Housewives, a camp blockbuster TV comedy that won multiple awards and gathered a global audience of millions. Centred on the turbulent lives of four residents of Wisteria Lane and archly narrated by their dead neighbour, Mary Alice, the show juxtaposed dark melodrama with a glossy façade. Marc Cherry’s script gleefully inhabited suburban clichés from competitive lawn growing to spying from behind curtains, and in one brief scene in Season 1, he skewers the book club. This scene open with..