The Woman's House

In the 18th installment of Mr. B Speaks! Pamela and Mr. B's sister battle over the family home. Until Mr. B married, his sister would have acted as his hostess, especially at the family home. However, once Mr. B married, his wife gained precedence. Although not a "lady" like Lady Danvers, Pamela will now rule her husband's house.

This issue of power and precedence did not occur just in upper-class households. Although it is now customary to picture all women of the past as house-bound, put-upon, dominated, one-dimensional housewives, the truth is that housewifery has a long and noble pedigree filled with strong, independent-minded women. In medieval England, and early colonial life, the housewife was part of the daily operation of the farm/business since the house WAS the farm/business. Many of these housewives--specifically housewives of traders--managed the family business while their husbands were away.

An updated pantry--but note the door.

In a house as large as Mr. B's, the pantry

would be kept locked. Can't have

servants sneaking food!

Not only did the housewife help run the business, she held the keys to the larder and pantry. In Ellis Peters' novel The Sanctuary Sparrow, there is a power struggle between the spinster sister--who has held the keys to the larder for years--and the new bride who wants the responsibility and the power that comes with the keys; just as with Pamela, the new bride ultimately wins. (Though Pamela will share the literal "keys" with the butler and housekeeper.)

This power-struggle may seem petty until one watches shows like Big Brother and realizes that control over the refrigerator is not only a lot of control but arouses fairly primitive emotions in the human breast.

This power dynamic would alter in the 19th century when businesses left the household (people went to work)--it is not that the household became less important in terms of necessary services but, rather, that the seat of power changed. People like Harriet Beecher Stowe tried desperately to revitalize the concept of the noble housewife by basically inventing Martha Stewart (and causing far more work to an entire generation of housewives than is actually necessary). But the concept of the housewife as power-base languished for many years.

It has revitalized in the 21st century, mostly because we now live in a society where service ain't cheap. Back in Pamela (and Jane Austen)'s day, and even up through the early 20th century, being a servant (nanny, governess, maid, cook, accountant)* was . . . there's no modern equivalent. People at McDonald's and migrant workers earn more money. And this lack of pay extended beyond servants. It is easy to get ecstatic about the "quality of work in the past" when you ignored that a carpenter of the past would be producing work that now-a-days would earn that carpenter several thousand dollars, not a few pennies.

*As Mr. B's wife, Pamela does not cook or clean. Instead, she supervises several dozen servants who cook and clean. She does keep the household accounts. And she spends a large amount of her time administering and supervising various charities, including a school and the equivalent of a health clinic. Taken altogether, Pamela is the equivalent of an administrative manager.

Being Pamela, she also wants to raise her own kids. So she keeps herself busy.

Dining Eighteenth-Century Style

Eighteenth-century novels are full of visits and dining between the gentry. For those of us who still have trouble distinguishing supper from dinner, it is helpful to note that the full meal of the day--dinner--would have been served in the mid-afternoon. A much lighter repast would have been served much later in the evening.

In the 17th installment of Mr. B Speaks! Pamela arrives late to dinner with the Darnfords. "Dinner" was more than just a meal, however. It was meant to be a full-day affair. Since the Darnfords live at least 45 minutes from Mr. B's estate, Pamela's schedule for that day would go something like this:

Learn more about English dinners at

the Maxwell House website.

11:00--Leave home
12:00--Arrive at Darnfords
2:00--Eat dinner
Afternoon--Discussion and walks
Evening--Cards
9:00--Supper
10:00--Dancing
11:00--Leave for home

This type of schedule would change in the nineteenth schedule as dinner moved later, to 5:00 or 6:00, leading to the introduction of "luncheon" at noon.

Because Pamela is trapped at home by Mr. B's sister, her new schedule becomes as follows:

11:00--Prepares to leave, sister arrives
5:00--Escapes
6:00--Arrives at Darnfords
7:00--Cards
8:00--Early supper for Pamela's benefit
9:00--Dancing
11:00--Leave for home

Both meals--dinner and supper--would have included mostly meat, soup, pudding, wine, possibly a vegetable, likely no fruit. From a modern perspective--despite Dr. Atkins--this is a rather appalling diet, explaining why the "master" in Manor House tried to get the resident chef to cook meals more in line with a late-twentieth-century diet than a still-meat-heavy late-nineteenth-century diet. The chef was rather annoyed at the lack of historical accuracy. But hey, a person's digestive system is a person's digestive system.

The Puzzlement of Batman (1966)

After having so much fun with the superheroes' list on the Mike-Kate Video Club, I decided to check out Batman (1966).

I didn't much care for it when I was younger; unfortunately, it is still almost unendurable.

It isn't the camp that bothers me. I quite like camp--I'm a huge fan of Lois & Clark which has a strong camp element--although I will admit that I prefer my camp to have a "wink wink nudge nudge" element to it.

And I don't especially mind the dorky costumes. Or the opening sequence, which is actually quite cool. Or the opening music which is fun because it reminds me of the hilarious song & dance numbers in Nero Wolfe: nah-nah-nah-nah-nah-nah-nah-nah-nah. 

My problem is that the camp seems more deliberate than fun. Sure, the phone is silly. And the poles are silly. And the information-packed dialog is silly. And the police are silly (and the most incompetent police in the history of television). And the fights--ZAP! POW! BIF!--are silly and quite fun. But the villains are often more clever than silly, and the scripts have an underlying self-awareness that seems focused, bizarrely enough, on undermining the show's iconic image.

In other words, Batman becomes the butt of the jokes rather than the villains.

And everybody seems to know this except Adam West.

Burt Ward is so aware of the self-inflicted camp, he pounces on every line with great panache and little self-consciousness ("Geewillikers, Batman, I never thought of that! Of course, you are right.") Consequently, he is completely annoying; I spent every episode hoping the bad guys would kill him off (yes, I know that doesn't happen).

Adam West is also entirely unselfconscious--even during Episode 1 in which he discos (reminding me irresistibly of the sequence in Angel when Angel imagines himself dancing and then winces)--but he appears to take the character of Batman seriously. He isn't a terrible Batman either though both his demeanor and his attitudes are more Superman-like than Batman-like ("Yes, Robin, we must respect the law!"). He often mentions the murder of his parents, but otherwise, he seems a quiet, unassuming person driven less by personal angst than by a love for gadgets.

But he takes those gadgets seriously. The character is serious about his seriousness.

The end result is a difficult-to-shake embarrassed feeling that maybe Adam West is starring in the wrong show. The show definitely lends one into identity-crisis territory--and by "one," I mean me, the viewer. I was so puzzled by the show that I kept watching despite my aesthetic pain. Is this supposed to be funny? Serious? After-school cartoon? Message-loaded television for tots? WHAT IS THIS?????

So I totally understand why people would begin to think that perhaps the entire show was something like a Beatles record played backwards--there must be a message in here. Nobody does this deliberately. Whatever "this" is.

On the other hand, I'll admit, the show grows on one after awhile--like a disgusting scab. A positive outcome: Batman (1966) helps explain the history/origin of the unrepentant camp of the Reeves' Superman movies. Superheroes have come a long way since then, thank goodness.