Gulity Pleasure Confession

Lately television shows are really horrible. I know they always have been, but usually there is one or two that are fairly entertaining.* Last summer there was absolutely nothing on T.V. worth watching. For someone who is isolated out in the middle of no where, good television is a welcomed escape. I can live someone else's life for one hour.

 

In September, the Fox show Utopia began airing. I liked the idea of a group of strangers getting together to start their own society. Like an eco-village or a permaculture community. I think this is a great idea for aging baby boomers and/or chemically sensitive people as a practical support system so I was intrigued.

The first show I thought, Oh, good gawd, this is so bad. Why am I watching? OK, sometimes I even screamed it aloud. I knew why I was watching: there was nothing else on TV to watch! I remember thinking, Is this what my life has come to?? But the longer I watched, the more interesting it became. I like shows about interpersonal relationships probably because I don't have any.

The show was based on a Dutch television program that is getting the highest ratings of any Dutch reality show, so producers anticipated much success. To become a utopian, candidates needed to create three-minute audition videos and subject themselves to a casting process. Producers selected the first fifteen people based on their wide range of skills and experiences much like a microcosm of society.  There were lawyers, doctors, convicts, ministers, construction workers, plumbers, survivalists, hunters, chefs, hillbillies, and one pregnant woman.

My favorite utopian was the single, cat woman who demanded organic food, lectured on the use of cancer-causing microwaves, passionately supported organic gardening, sold watercolors on ebay to help support the group, and showed all kinds of evidence of being an earth-worshipping goddess. Everyone thought she showed all kinds of evidence of being a little off her rocker, too. She got a lot of flack for talking to herself, but since cameras were on them 24/7, I argued she really wasn't really talking to herself. Hey, I talk to myself so what's the problem? I loved her self-affirmations. She sometimes hugged herself.

I wondered whether these people were what they claimed to be and if it was really unscripted. Some viewers did online digging into the former lives of the utopians and found them to be actors, models, and have fake names so it's questionable how staged this "reality" show was. I wonder how much they got paid? Anyway, with this personality mix, there was bound to be interpersonal conflict regardless of whether it was staged or not. This made it fascinating. For instance, during hot weather the girls walked around naked or went skinny dipping in the pond while the minister sat on the edge of society with his hands over his eyes crying. That was priceless. Some utopians were useless and lazy while others worked constantly. Some were easy-going while others were volatile.

 

On occasion, one of the utopians would be forced to leave due to injury or family emergency. Others walked out in frustration. Once a month one person would be voted out with viewers contributing online votes and utopians voting from America's pick. Then two more candidates would stay for one week and the remaining utopians would vote one of them in as a replacement. One candidate was a topless housekeeper. HA! If I wasn't chemically sensitive and gluten-free, I might have auditioned to be a utopian just for the fun of it! If I lived in California, I would have paid to go on the tour.

It was scheduled two days a week and had planned to continue for one year. The show schedule was then reduced to once a week due to low ratings. This went on for two months, then it disappeared for two weeks during the World Series. I don't think that was a good move as it lost a lot of viewers during this hiatus. I also think they should have aired it during the summer when it had no competition from the big fall line up.

Although Fox sunk $50 million into production, property development, website construction with viewer passport and participation options, and 24/7 streaming feeds, ratings were so low they dropped it yesterday without warning. No closure sucks. We didn't even get to see them get the news or watch them pack up and leave. It's hard to believe they paid so much for this show and then instead of finding a way to make it pay for itself, the whole thing just disappeared overnight. I've read some of the comments on the website. Many viewers were very disappointed explaining they are home-bound and disabled and watching the feeds 24/7 became their entertainment. It became their life. I never got into the feeds, but I think it might have been just a matter of time!

No, it wasn't good T.V. but it was entertaining to a certain degree. Now I'll have to find a new guilty pleasure.

Not much to choose from....



*Cable television has some excellent programs, but they aren't free on Hulu.

Utopia???

 

 

Have you ever dreamed of the perfect community? Chemically-free houses in a chemically-free neighborhood surrounded by chemically-free neighbors who are like-minded and GET IT? Living together, respecting each other's needs for a safe, unpolluted, non-electromagnetic environment with organic food at the local grocery store? That's my dream. I've been looking...

 

 

 

 

I think I found one! There is a community in Snowflake, Arizona that started in the late 1990s and it is now up to thirty houses. I've heard many of the houses are on their own twenty acres. Organic food stores, no commercial agriculture in the area, and plenty proactive committees writing and signing petitions to control the government use of herbicides and pesticides. MY PEOPLE! I've been told land runs about $1,000 per acre. Granted, its location is in the high desert, but with some creative landscaping I could live in a cute little adobe house with a brick patio surrounded by fruit trees! My own personal oasis.

I lived in Arizona once so I'm somewhat aware of desert living. I asked about icky things one might find in a desert like rattlesnakes, scorpions, and poisonous spiders. The real estate agent I spoke with said they have bull snakes (eeewww!) but bull snakes are good because they are harmless and eat the rattlesnakes so there are very few rattlesnakes. I would like it if they ate dogs, too. The elevation is too high for scorpions. They have tarantulas, but they are more ugly than dangerous. Maybe they'd eat dogs, too.

 

OK!! I'm ready!

Oh, wait a minute. The real estate agent says he gets calls from all over the country from people who are looking for non-toxic housing options. There are long waiting lists for rentals and even longer waiting lists for contractors. I'm brainstorming options. Buy a chemically-free trailer and live in it? Or a tiny house on wheels? I'd rather live in a cute adobe house like a modern Anasazi.

Every now and then I search online for updates on chemically-sensitive housing to see what's new. This is the first full-scale community I've found, but there are some chemically-free apartment houses here and there. All of them have long, long waiting lists, so long the waiting lists are closed. This is a huge, untapped market. It surprises me a developer doesn't buy up some land, build some cute little sustainably "green" houses and sell them. Many of us are willing to buy....maybe there isn't enough money in it since so many MCSers are disabled and low income? If I had lots of money or a whole bunch of land, this is what I would do. But even now if I could just find a group of like-minded people, we could get one started. If I am willing to do this, there must be others? All we'd need to do is decide on a location and call others to us. I'd build two little houses on my lot. One to live in and one to rent. There is cheap land in eastern Oregon, but I don't know if it's cheaper than Arizona.

I also found an online snippet about a community in the process of forming called the Portland Tox-Free Community, but there isn't much information. I'm hoping someone will answer my requests for information so I can find out more.

If any of you would be interested in joining a chemically-free utopia, let it be known in the comments.