HGTV: Satan's Channel
By Bruce Eaton
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Illustration by Josh Flanigan.
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Ever since the Garden of Eden, the Devil has constantly looked for new ways to disrupt marital bliss. From golf and television remotes to in-law living quarters and secretaries named Brittany, Lucifer has introduced many concepts that have driven once-happy couples to divorce court. With the divorce rate slowing down, the Evil One needed a new force in his battle against Good. And so, several years ago, Satan emerged from his underworld workshop with his most potent weapon yet: his own cable television channel. In a medium where a Little Brown Nun gets seemingly round-the-clock face time and Donald Trump has his own television show, this development went unnoticed at first. No more.Under the deceptively harmless moniker of the House and Garden Channel (HGTV for short), Satan’s Channel—as it is known by all married men—has unleashed a torrent of powerful spells on the women of America, breeding all sorts of domestic friction and fraction. Far from being a benign source of ideas for do-it-yourselfers, it has perpetrated a most insidious collection of delusions on matters domestic. While scholars will devote volumes to these in years to come, here’s two of the big ones.
Delusion Number One:
You Can Do Just About Any Household Project In An Afternoon, If Not The Half-Hour It Took To Do It On Television (subtext: Just Get Busy, You Stubborn Bum).
Of course, if you have an entire crew of experienced professionals with all the necessary resources at their fingertips, no cell phones or cigarettes within reach, or other jobs to pull them away from yours, you too can get a lot done in a day. But the staged ease with which projects are breezed through on Satan’s Channel have convinced most women that virtually all household remodeling projects can be completed between Justin’s and Jennifer’s Saturday morning soccer games and early evening cocktails on your picture-book deck. Even the Big Kahuna of renovation—the kitchen remodel—can be successfully pulled off in a single weekend, with every imported tile set perfectly in place by sundown on Sunday, if only the man of the house is willing to put aside his petty pursuits for a few days. But men’s reluctance to begin house or garden projects is not due to the fact that they will take up precious time. It’s just that men are fully aware how much time and money it will actually take to bring a project to completion. And while they usually don’t have a precise answer, they know the bottom line: it’s way more than you think. If HGTV had any interest in presenting a more balanced view, we might see the following shows:
Home Depot Hell. The show’s guests are assigned a project and then head off to Home Depot to plow through disorganized, grimy stock in an attempt to find the necessary materials. After failing to find the materials or even a clerk who can answer a simple question without shunting the inquiry elsewhere, the participants leave in utter frustration and head to a local bar.
Color My World. On Satan’s Channel, paint and walls are like crayons and coloring books; the time between whim and “coloring out” (one of a plethora of oft-used annoying buzz terms) can be measured in seconds. I’d suggest a painting reality show, demonstrating in real time the hours of prep work and priming (not to mention the trial and error of picking the right color) before the cheerfully smug host picks up a paintbrush.
What Do You Need? Any man can tell you that most projects that involve more than changing a light bulb require multiple trips to the hardware store before you have what you need. Handheld cameras allow viewers to go along for every mind-numbing ride.
There’s Always A First Time. A successful spin-off, First Time shows otherwise competent adults undertaking a simple home project for the first time. There’s a lot of comedy in watching an accountant replace a sink faucet, but the show is rated VL for language and violence against inanimate objects.
But what if you don’t even know where to begin in turning your mundane hut into a showplace? That’s where Beezlebub hits with a left hook.
Delusion Number Two:
There Are People You Can Hire To Decorate Your Home Who Have Style and Taste (subtext: Of Which You Lack Even A Smidgeon).
Nothing puts a married man’s stomach in a knot faster than the word “decorator.” It means that you are turning over your living space and wallet to either a Fab-Five wannabe playing dollhouse with your home or a woman who has some secret girl-thing pact with your wife to stick it to you big time. Either way, you’re a loser.
Only stockbrokers can vaporize perfectly good money faster and more efficiently than decorators. One of the most galling moments on Satan’s Channel comes when a decorator shows off a completed project and smarmily declares “and we were able to use this one thing actually belonging to the owners”—a clever way of saying “we spent all we could.” And my unofficial tally is that ninety-percent of the “afters” look worse than the “befores.”Fortunately, the Evil One is destined to be an eternal loser and a determined man can ward off the spells of Satan’s Channel within his house with a little initiative. Stay tuned.
Bruce Eaton is a jazz programmer and music critic.
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