CHARISMATIC MEGAFAUNA

By Quiconque

Post-Colonial Theories

I have gotten hooked in PBS�s Colonial House. I have not seen the last episode, which aired last night. I have it safe on videocassette, ready for a time when I can savor each juicy minute.

I would not describe myself as a big fan of reality TV. I enjoyed "The Read World" and "Road Rules" when they were fresh and I was still young enough to consider auditioning. When I was alone and friendless in a foreign land, the television was my main solace. I watched "Le Bachelor, Gentleman C�libataire," "Gr�g, le Millionaire," "Op�ration S�duction," and "A la Recherche de la Nouvelle Star." Except for the last one, these shows were primarily dialogue-driven; so I could rationalize that I was working on my aural comprehension. My French improved greatly. I also learned some life lessons. For example, if you�re on a dating show and they take you to Morocco to ride a camel, you�d better pack your bags, because you won�t last to the end of the episode. It doesn�t matter how much of a good sport you are, what Sheltering Sky fantasies you may harbor, or how cute you look in that head scarf, the guy is not going to choose you. You will forever be associated in his mind with a redolent, spitting, stubborn beast of burden.

The American versions of these shows held no appeal for me. Then "The Apprentice" happened and it was such an unprecedented mix of greed, sleaze, mental illness, and bad hair that I could not stop watching. Shoot, I�d tune in every week just to see if Donald Trump�s coif would flutter in the breeze on the helipad.

And now we have "Colonial House." PBS has tried to make clear that their House series is not reality television. According to the network, the shows are a form of living history. They serve as learning tools and have myriad educational applications.

The series was aggressively marketed. Posters of young Jonathon, yoked to two buckets under the heading "Beer Run, 1628" grace every bus stop in Midtown. Instead of the usual ads for Aliz�, English lessons, dermabrasion, and ambulance chasers, my train car this morning was plastered with pictures of puritans. Oprah Winfrey even joined the colony for a few days, documenting her experience on her talk show and in her magazine.

What makes the show compelling is not that the colonists had to live without forks, panties, toilet paper, or electricity. It is that supposedly thinking people are just as petty, selfish, lazy, vain, treacherous, and ambitious as any other contestant on any other reality show. And these colonists aren�t even competing for a million-dollar prize.

Take Don and Carolyn Heinz, the Lay Pastor (and later Governor) and his wife. From the very first episode I�d identified them as the villains and I was gratified to see their villainy reveal itself further in each subsequent installment. He is a useless, vain windbag and she is an ambitious, conniving control freak. [Score one point for the thinking people: while on any other show Carolyn would have been called "a bitch," the colonists came up with the wonderfully fitting epithet, "Lady Macbeth."] Every one of their actions has been motivated by self aggrandizement. Heinz even managed to make Jonathon�s coming out story about him. And don�t get me started on the portrait Heinz commissioned and sat for while everyone else was cutting logs. I really, really wanted them to be devoured by wild animals in the night.

Then there�s the Voorhees family. I recognize that they are also evil, but can�t help being influenced by their physical attractiveness. They cut church to go skinny dipping! [Were I there, I would happily have worn the scarlet D for the entire length of the project in order to avoid hearing even one minute of Heinz�s rambling sermons.] We saw a glimpse of Michelle�s breasts! Her husband looks like Chris Cornell! But she is shrewish and he is henpecked and wimpy and they really should have spent the entire time in the stockade. I also was not impressed with how they strong-armed Amy-Kristina out of her belongings.

I was tempted to valorize the native Americans, but from last night�s episode it�s clear that many of the native young men are just as stupid as the colonists. How many times were they told not to break bread with the settlers? And why steal a chicken? Yeah, they deserved the chastisements. It was also viciously satisfying to hear the matriarch declare that she was not going to help the colonists survive the winter. Hurrah! A freezing death is too good for most of them.

Despite their grumbling and bellyaching, the colonists did not exploit two extremely effective methods of social sanction and protest: ostracism and witchcraft. Lady Macbeth should have been run out of town � la Anne Hutchinson and forced to walk to Rhode Island for her arrogance. And come on, didn�t any of these folks read The Crucible? Is someone giving you a hard time? Twitch and point and accuse them of witchcraft. Your enemy would be stoned and that means more corn for you!

Were the colonists successful? Would they have lasted the winter? I don�t think so, at least not without Jack Lecza�s intervention. [How many months went by before anyone noticed the clams?] Without the native Americans� help their chances look slim. After all, they were eating all their dry rations in the summer and had not figured out how to fish, hunt or gather. Some of the colonists did learn to read the New Testament in Greek, though: so whatever the outcome of the colony, it cannot be considered a complete failure.

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