Entertainment and the Longhouse
A seven point treasise on what the cultural longhouse is, and examples.
1. What is the Longhouse?
Citing Lom3z, "More than anything, the Longhouse refers to the remarkable overcorrection of the last two generations toward social norms centering feminine needs and feminine methods for controlling, directing, and modeling behavior."
The part of this fairly non-slanderous definition is the last part; methods for controlling, directing, and modeling behavior. The goal of the Longhouse is social control of a group of people using feminine methods. These methods are indirect, manipulative, and work around social hierarchies, observations, and other elements that are often contrary or deliberately confusing to masculine methods. The head of the Longhouse is most likely the matriarch, the woman who is in charge and is the focal point of the social network.
The difficult part about addressing the Longhouse is twofold. First, the term and concept are generally used in a derogatory fashion, and involves a large amount of inflammatory language and undeserved misogyny. Secondly, the term itself is malleable and amorphous, and pressing on its for a specific definition changes it. Sure, most are going to be matriarchial in nature, but there is no reason that a highly social non-aggressive man couldn't function as the matriarch.
2. Bridgerton
First a series of books and then a controversial Netflix series, Bridgerton explores a world of galas, balls, and romantic intrigue set in a historically inspired costume drama. Bridgerton is aesthetically pleasing, the soundtrack is engaging (or repellant depending on the viewer's stance on historical reproductions of modern songs, the best example I can think of is a player piano pelting out Soundgarden in HBO's Westworld).
How is Bridgerton Longhouse?
The most powerful figures in the series are the Queen and the various 'Mamas' of the different houses. The Mamas are in the business of getting their children matched well and their daughters bred, while the entire thing is a great game for the Queen. The King is an invalid, none of the mamas really have a patriarchal papa, and its all drama, intrigue, and the rest. Then enters the narrator and agent provocateur, Lady Whistledown. In truth a short, pudgy, dowdy unmarriagible woman, she exposed the movements of the Longhouse. Who is shunning who, who is gossiping with who, and the rest. She makes a scandal of exposing the machinations of the Longhouse, frustrating the mamas, and infuriating the Queen. This is in itself just another function of the Longhouse model, because it is one spurned woman, being catty, exposing and spurning other women, to their collective schadenfreude or shrieking rage.
What else?
There are no strong men, no masculine men.
Why does that matter? Given the time period that Bridgerton is set in, the British Empire is very busy, violent, and dynamic. The colonies (America) have revolted, Europe is being torn to hell by Napoleon, the East Indies Company is a thing. What are the men of Bridgerton doing? Scampering around avoiding their mothers, or bending their knees to profess their deep and boundless adoration for the maidens of the Longhouse.
Sure, there is sex, and tiddies, and all that, but it's not been made for men. This is emotionally loaded drama for women, not for men.
3. Harlots
The first season of this show is deceptive, as a superficial viewing gives the notion that it is a cheap and tawdry costume drama made for third and fourth-tier actresses to get dressed up for historical drama and then spend a good deal of time with their breasts exposed, showing bottom, and lots of leg. The Longhouse lurks in the petticoats. The madams vie with each other, the whores work to create their circles of peers while slashing the reputations of their rivals, all the while painting the men who visit their establishments. There are strange mother-daughter relationships between the madams and working girls, parasocial relationships with the regular clients, some of whom are influential or important, or abuse their positions.
By the time the third season rolls around, the main actress is being phased out of the story due to conflicts of scheduling (she entered late game The Walking Dead, so if you are a TWD fan, watch Harlots and you can see Alpha's mom-bod blue veined big ole boobies), and the story has become a complete ball of yarn. Different people are being shamed to the point of suicide, being stalked by scorned lovers, societal rejection, and everyone is at everyone's throats. Where the first season was a boobstravaganza, the end season is a slog of emotional trauma, manipulation, and social abuse.
The Longhouse.
4. Outlander
Don't get me wrong, please don't take my calling the Longhouse means I don't recognize its value. I particularly enjoyed Outlander, the premise of a WWII combat nurse falling back in time to the Scottish Rebellion era, and becoming wed to a roguish highlander with a violent temper. I'm sure this a reinvention of your grandmother's bodice-ripper romances with pirates and ... highlanders? Something about a churlish violent man in a plaid skirt?
Bannocks
JAAAAMIEEEEEEE
CLAAAAAAAAAAARRRRGH
You get the gist of it.
The main axis of the story is that Claire is an at time, completely insufferable turnip of a woman, and that Jamie continually stumbles over himself and his historical perspectives to accept Claire's 1940s sensibilities, when most of the time all of the issues they have could be solved with a small bit of forward open conversation. But forward, honest, and open are not the way of the Longhouse, and they are not the way of period dramas. Claire has to overreact to Jamie's 17th century positions, and she has to obfuscate the issues, because then how else could he prove himself worthy of her than to wade through her bullshit and earn her affection?
CLAAAAAAAAARRRRR
JAAAAAAAAAAAAMEEEEEE
I digress.
I did enjoy the show, the first novel, and have two of the show's official cookbooks.
5. Barbie
I will say two things about this first. If you have an overwhelmingly strong opinion about the movie, extreme love or hate for it, calm down, take a walk and come back when there isn't smoke coming out of your ears. Second, I actually really enjoyed this movie.
Barbie and Ken have a Longhouse relationship. It doesn't matter what Ken does, is he really homeless living on the beach while Barbie has her social parties all night, and goes to a do-nothing glamor job all day? Sure, that's the Longhouse reflection of The Patriarchy (tm) (r) because we don't want to get sued. The movie is fundamentally longhouse as it chases down the source of Barbie's malaise, the fact that a middle-aged woman has fallen out of love with herself and is borderline estranged with her daughter. It is also almost aware of itself in that Ken's struggle with Barbieland and discovering men with testosterone showing how the Longhouse by deliberate action emasculates all of the men within its boundaries.
Its getting thin, I know, bear with me.
Gloria and Sasha, the demoralized mother and estranged daughter, have a positive and present husband and father, America Ferrero's actual husband. He is only in the film to drive a vehicle and be corrected for using another language, chided for cultural appropriation. The Mattel corporate staff are hilariously all men, lead by Will Farrell. They are caricatures of men, wearing suits but being sillly and devoted to the ideal of Barbie as a girl's inspirational toy that it comes across as brilliant satire.
Or I am exceptionally dumb about this?
All I really know is that I am Kenough.
6. Fifty Shades of Gray
Oh yeah.
Total Longhouse.
Yes, there is a lot of questionable sex, long treatises written about how it is a bad representation of the bondage community and all that. I've read the book and watched one of the movies, and that was enough. The Longhouse doesn't hate sex, it quite welcomes it. It does require things from its trysts, there have to be strong emotional components, and these components have to be so strong as to visibly warp light.
Christian Gray is a billionaire bad boy who for some nonsense reason decides that a non-descript clumsy forgettable brunette is the love of his life. They do not have chemistry, they do not have a healthy relationship, and they have a lot of allegedly hot sex. Why does this matter, how is it Longhouse? It is at its core manipulative and controlling. Sure, Christian is dominating, and into bondage and a bunch of other stuff, but somehow his entire lifestyle becomes under the gravitational control of Anastasia Steele.
She tames him and brings him into her emotional sphere of control.
The real-world equivalent of this would be some completely average mildly ethnic low/middle income woman seducing Tom Cruise and convincing him to sell his toys for charity and giving up Scientology to attend her blandly generic non-denominational church and then have several children after giving up the Hollywood career to get a regular job.
7. Mean Girls
Gestures broadly.
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? Responses (1)
Thank you for explaining why modern television, for the most part, is crap.