July 03, 2008

The kids are asleep or swatting over homework in their room away from the battlefield…. oops I mean the TV lounge. There is soft light, dinner is over and done with, and we’re both lounging on the couch in front of the TV with the remote control between us -- literally and metaphorically.

This is not a setting for a post dinner romantic rendezvous. The air is impregnated with silent war cries. A cold war is on. The scene repeats every evening unless he is out. We are like patient predators in camouflage waiting to sink our teeth into the remote control. Who will watch what… and who will get to keep the remote control the longest? Crazy but true.

According to John Gray, men come from Mars and women from Venus. Because of the way they are manufactured up there at God’s, each has a different approach to everything in life and that does not exclude watching TV. I am happy when I have the remote to myself so that I can watch my daily tearjerker soaps, ogle at saris and jewellery, watch lawn ads with women floating around in wonderfully breezy fabric. I enjoy reruns of Morning Shows where doctors and experts talk about depression, divorce, diabetes, beauty tips, makeovers, cookery along with exercise segments and live calls. I love Oprah, Dr Phil, news bulletins; a couple of talk shows if I spot my favourite anchor or a guest like Ardeshir Cowasjee on a show where I know I will find some interesting content. But it’s not possible with him around. My personal fixed point chart is different from his. Whenever he has the remote in his control, we watch the news, football, cricket, news, stocks on Bloomberg, foxy Fox TV anchors whether they’re talking about an ear fungus in dogs, a new obesity drug, or a missing three-year old. We watch Top Gear and more car shows where ugly tattooed musclemen make cars out of rubbish heaps, or vice versa; drive cars round and round desert tracks for what seems like absolutely no purpose. But he watches these unblinkingly. We watch Fear Factor (with voluptuous women in shocking pink bikinis doing life-threatening stunts), Dirty Jobs and Nigella Lawson. He thinks her cookery is the best. Really? All I can see is that Nigella is generously endowed, loves wearing turtle necks and sucking her fingers an awful lot! Perhaps spittle is her secret ingredient. Does nothing for me, give me Jamie Oliver and James Martin anytime.

I absolutely loathe what he enjoys watching. Within a split second I can spot a film that he would like. While my favourites are mushy movies like You’ve Got Mail, Love Actually, Nottinghill and A Lot Like Love (many times over), he likes to watch horror, blood, cars and cleavage, guns and gore, inferno, explosions, ugly creatures transforming into even more horrific beings, people stuck in calamities and disaster, running here and there in total chaos or Jackie Chan up to his tricks. We’ve seen Fast and Furious a hundred times as well as Jumper, Hitch and Wedding Crashers.

With his turn at the remote, I did some analysis. Essentially we both like different content. Mine is what he calls ‘soppy’, but I prefer lots of comparison, knowledge, analysis. It could be makeover stories on BBC Prime or a documentary on fostering orang-utans, polar bear cubs at Nuremberg zoo (both, by the way, made me cry). Women like sentimental stuff, emotional dialogue (however predictable it is) in Brothers and Sisters, East Enders, Coronation Street and The Bold and Beautiful. We love to see men hopelessly in love, career-oriented powerful women, reliable and gracious agony aunts and glamorous vamps semi-clad in designer gear. Things we can’t really achieve in real life, but aspire to.

On the other hand, men love dusty tracks, monstrous shiny cars, strong, cocky men shooting intriguing one liners, saving lives of millions of people and rescuing beautiful women in half torn, cunningly designed wet clothes — stuff that they can’t achieve in real life, but aspire to.

However, there is common ground. There’s news bulletins, Richard Quest on CNN, films like Ice Age, Madagascar, Shrek and food channels and How it is made on Discovery.

Recently, Spike TV and TVGuide.com conducted a study on male viewers to somewhat substantiate my argument. Men are willing to subject themselves to all manner of unpleasantness for the sake of sports and their favourite female TV stars. Nearly half (41%) of respondents would subject themselves to a week of house arrest rather than miss the broadcast of an NFL game between two undefeated teams, while 53% would brave polar bears, creepy people and mysterious smoke monsters to stay stranded on the Lost Island with Kate (Evangeline Lilly). Beyond freedom, they are also seemingly willing to risk their health, with 44% saying they would get sick on purpose for the chance to be examined by Grey's Anatomy's Dr Isobel Stevens (Katherine Heigl).

Almost half (44%) of men who watch Dancing with the Stars tune in for the hot female dancers. Gabrielle Solis (Eva Longoria) was rated the "hottest" in Desperate Housewives by an overwhelming margin of 56% to 12% for second-place Susan Mayer (Teri Hatcher). Men are divided over which CSI beauty they would most want to have an office romance with: 37% of male viewers choose Calleigh Duquesne (Emily Proctor) from CSI: Miami, 34% choose Catherine Willows (Marg Helgenberger) from CSI, and 27% choose Stella Bonasera (Melina Kanakaredes) from CSI: New York.

When it comes to Heroes, 35% of men say they would prefer Hiro Nakamura's (Masi Oka) ability to travel through time, followed by 21% desiring Matt Parkman's (Greg Grunberg) ability to hear other people's thoughts. Beyond their attraction to the sexy actresses in female-skewing TV shows like Dancing with the Stars and Grey's, men also tune in to a lot of shows that women watch in order to spend quality time with the real ladies in their lives.

We both like eye candy; mine dunked in emotions and his wrapped in leather corsets, but as my favourite Desperate Housewife says, the perfect couple is on top of the butter cream wedding cake looking right ahead. For starters, they don’t have to look at each other. Good, they can watch TV!