On hit show, disparate times call for 'Desperate' men

Joanna Weiss - The Boston Globe: "Rest in peace, Mary Alice. The voice from beyond that we really ought to hear narrating this season of ''Desperate Housewives" is Rex's.

You remember Rex Van De Kamp, the long-suffering husband who rebelled against an over-perfect wife, revealed a secret sexual fetish, covered up a son's hit-and-run, and died in the season finale at the hands of an evil pharmacist.

Did any woman on the show have an arc so intriguing?

That's the odd truth about ''Desperate Housewives," the runaway hit that starts its second season tomorrow night on ABC. The most desperate characters -- the ones who least succumb to stereotypes, who face problems least-explored on mainstream TV -- are actually the men.

Carlos Solis (Ricardo Antonio Chavira), cuckolded and proud, contended with a mama complex, a white-collar conviction, a temper, and a paternity debate. Mike Delfino (James Denton), a plumber-slash-avenger, discovered he had a teenage son. Tom Scavo (Doug Savant) couldn't compete with his wife when it came to business acumen; he's starting the upcoming season as a househusband.

As soaps go, this is rich territory, full of social commentary and pop psychology. It's a far cry from what we usually see from male soap characters: boardroom politics, extramarital affairs, and brotherly love. And it has happened largely under the radar.

''Desperate Housewives" was pitched from the outset as a female show, a suburban ''Sex and the City," suitable for cast appearances on ''Oprah" and discussions on ''The View." It's built around the female leads, all recognizable types: the trophy wife, the Stepford wife, the career woman, the vamp, the insecure divorcee. ABC has posted a ''Which Housewife Are You" quiz on its website and is selling T-shirts that say ''I'm a Susan," ''I'm an Edie," ''I'm a Bree."

The academic world, meanwhile, is teeming with analyses of ''Desperate" female characters. For an upcoming book called ''Reading Desperate Housewives," Janet McCabe, a researcher at England's Manchester Metropolitan University, drew treatises on Bree Van De Kamp as camp icon and Lynette Scavo and the ''myths of motherhood."

The men didn't attract as much attention -- a surprise, McCabe said, given the interest in analyzing Mr. Big and Aidan for a book on ''Sex and the City." Then again, she says, Big and Aidan were archetypes for females, stock characters in the 30-something dating scene.

And while there's something familiar about Denton as a rugged pinup, it's hard to find a stock male in the cast. Carlos is too vulnerable to be a poster boy for machismo. Rex was too weak to be despised for his adultery.

That's a sign of what ''Desperate Housewives" producers are trying to say -- and what they're trying not to say, says Jane Shattuc, a pop culture commentator who heads the women's studies program at Emerson College. The show has taken pains to avoid a ''feminist" label, she says. So while the women might be victims, they aren't suffering at their husbands' hands.

''That's the new sensibility," Shattuc says. ''To avoid, at all costs, seeing men as victimizers."

For the male characters, that leaves some wiggle room. They aren't archetypes or villains. They're fully drawn because they're drawn from scratch. And some fans have noticed.

Tanea Hightower, a 19-year-old student at the University of Texas at Arlington, started a website devoted to Jesse Metcalfe -- the actor who plays young John the gardener -- in part because she found his character intriguing.

''John is young, but he's trying to act older than he is," Hightower says. ''He wants to be with an older woman. He wants more out of the relationship than what she wants."

That's a lot of emotion to convey for a guy who's often acting in his underpants.

Though, truth be told, the underpants have something to do with his appeal."