Ugh, I hate Jerry Seinfeld so much:
Voiceover backed by wacky music: Based on a true story. [image of elderly white man standing in yard, shirtless] In 2003, a man trying to avoid date night with his wife [image of elderly white woman in bed, with rollers in hair, eating popcorn] started a fire in his backyard [video of raging fire being futilely doused with water from hoses] and accidentally burned down his house. [image of woman looking angry (?) coupled with image of man in mug shot] If only they had “The Marriage Ref.” From executive producer Jerry Seinfeld. Coming in March to NBC.
First of all, who prepares for date night by eating popcorn in bed? Yick.
Second, SACK UP, asshole, and if you don’t want to go out on a date with your wife, just tell her and take the consequences. Which will probably be her being upset, because surprise surprise, she likes you and wants to spend time with you and DOESN’T THAT SUCK.
Sigh. I do not know what to do with people who do not know how to say what they want. We have a limited amount of time on this planet, folks. We do not have the oxygen for people to continue being all, “I didn’t ever say what I wanted but he or she should just KNOW and stop doing what I think but never say annoys the crap out of me” and passive-aggressively huffing around. If we didn’t spend so much time dealing with shit like this we could cure cancer, famine, stupidity and death.
I think the reason this show looks to me like it will suck is that I’m not gonna be the marriage ref. I’d like to be the marriage ref. Just the commercials for this thing, which I endured while waiting to see Sherlock Holmes in the theater (OMG GO SEE IT NOW I WAS SO WRONG IT IS GLORIOUS), made me want to brain everybody involved with a cast iron frying pan. It’s a really good thing I didn’t go into psychotherapy. The ERs are already overcrowded.
This comment for the win, though, because it encapsulates what I really think is the problem with shit like this:
This is another one of the ways in which patriarchy sucks: it insists
that het marriages must be miserable, taxing, contests of endurance in
which the “battle of the sexes” is central. For the many many people
who buy into this at some level, it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy (which
is not to suggest that there aren’t other patriarchal factors at work,
of course). As someone in a happy het marriage, who knows other people
in happy het marriages, this just bums me out.
I have younger friends who insist they never want to get married because marriage has to be X, or mean Y, and it seriously makes me sad, not because I think everybody has to be married or even should be married, but because I think everybody thinks marriage is one thing and it’s constantly fighting over the toilet brush and giving up everything you want for a life of drudgery. Like there’s a right way to live with anybody. Like everybody doesn’t figure this out on their own every day differently. But there’s very little room for that in the current culture. Go get a house only you know how to clean the right way. Dammit.
And shows like this are really just a way to congratulate ourselves, anyway: Hey honey, at least I don’t burn down the house by way of avoiding fucking you! Hey honey, at least I don’t make you live like these people! Let’s ignore our own problems because we could be THIS instead! Hee hee! I don’t like watching miserable people be miserable. It’s why I hated Jerry Seinfeld’s other show.
A.