It Could Be Worse...

I just wanted to add two more cents about Army Wives.  I've read lots of complaints that the show isn't realistic enough for one reason or another.  Some of it is valid: the "soldiers don't want their wives to work" bit should've raised warning flags for everyone, and heinously untrue statements like that make us all look bad.  But some of the other complaints seem to lean toward the nitpicky.  I read a lot of guff about the citation the LeBlancs got for their grass being too long.  Granted, it probably wouldn't happen on the day you move in, but maybe she show just wanted to find a way to let viewers know how much control the military has over our on-post lives and how even the tiniest things are considered a reflection of you as a soldier.  Maybe?  I'd like to think they at least put that much thought into writing the show.

Big problems we should worry about.  Little quirks -- yeah, the LTC's collar bugged the heck out of me too -- shouldn't turn you off from watching the show completely.  If we worried about every little detail of every show, we couldn't watch anything!  You wouldn't refuse to watch House because Cuban boat refugees could never afford to go to the greatest medical specialist in the world, right?

Plus, it could always be worse.  Did anyone else watch the rerun of Cold Case the other day?

It was an episode called "The War at Home" about an OIF veteran who was murdered.  The errors in that show were so glaring that I had to laugh out loud.  You want to talk about stereotypes?  The husband's cheating on his wife with another lady in the FRG.  How about the Marine who hates women and beats his wife?.  And the cop and the Marine both saying that women don't belong in the service.  The cop made a comment about how all women in the military were like Lynndie England!  How many more bad things about the military could we include?  Oh, and then there were the little details, like the made-up "Medal of Valour" that she received, some hunk of gold hanging from a red, white, and blue ribbon.  Or the absolutely absurd gaff when the Marine says, "You don't belong in the miltary," and the soldier says, "I'm a soldier, same as you."  Ha, imagine calling a Marine a soldier to his face!

This soldier had been injured in Iraq and had a prosthetic arm.  I don't know if this was a prop issue for the show or what, but it was the only prosthetic arm I've ever seen of its kind.  It's my understanding that the military has pretty advanced prosthetics along the lines of these.  This TV soldier's prosthetic made her look like the robot Clamps from Futurama.  It was clunky and ugly and made her look bumbling.  I don't know if that was supposed to reflect treatment of veterans or if I'm overly sensitive to looking for agendas like that whenever the military is portrayed on TV, but it sure didn't seem right to me.

I've seen enough portrayal of soldiers on shows like Law & Order and Cold Case to know that Army Wives may not be perfect, but it isn't nearly as bad as it can get.  And hey, at least no one's said the words Abu Ghraib, right? 

Comments

[MO]

This is what I can't stand the most. If you want a documentary then make one. I think looking at the grass (who hasn't had neighbors on post who let their yard go to hell and you miss mowing one time get a note on the door... lol) Seriously I have seen, heard, experienced in some form or another the different scenarios played out on Army Wives.

I don't want a documentary on my life, I want to watch TV and be entertained, that's it. I don't care if they wore shiny gold tights and called eachother captain commando (well that's a little over the top...lol), it's TV!!! Also it's in it's very early stages. GAH! People take things much too seriously.

[Jewel]

I think we're all a little sensitive to what we see on the show because we live this life every day. We have to remember it's just entertainment, pure and simple.

[Jan Wesner]

I agree wholeheartedly, MO. Lighten up -- it's TV, for godsake!!!!
I will say that I think some of the criticism might stem from the fact that the show is "based on" a nonfiction book. I think that might be a little misleading. Like the author of the book, Tanya Biank, said herself, she "inspired" the show, but certainly it is not an exact recitation of her book.
http://blogs.tampabay.com/standingby/

[Bonny]

For the longest time, my husband didn't care that I didn't know the difference between the ranks. I would talk to anyone, regardless. After all, the spouses don't salute and are not required to call them by their rank. I was following protocol before I knew it was protocol. LOL.

I know there are small mistakes with the show. It's supposed to be entertaining but also show a little about our lives as Army Wives. If the show continues, maybe they will correct the mistakes. For all we know, the show could be pulled before a whole season is made.

I don't think anyone would want to make a realistic show about our lives. Think about all we go through and the things we have commented on SpouseBuzz. Our lives are too real for the average tv watcher, who is not military.

[Julie]

This is not being touted as reality TV. Hell, reality TV doesn't even show reality. On the other hand, I have personally experienced the housing chit on the first day in a new place.

All the show has done is take the personality traits, dialogue and activities of a hundred or so people (military or not), condense them, magnify them, and stuck them in a dozen people in order to show hopefully entertaining caricatures. Any segment of the population is going to have the obnoxious gossips, and pushy boss’s wife. Military wives just don’t get to escape from the annoying people their husband’s work with because they happen to live down the street, too.

No one should expect reality from the show. I think all we can hope for is a little entertainment and not to be totally offended, either.

[Andrea]

Right off the back, I can't say I was drawn in by Army Wives. My hope was that anybody else who was interested in watching this series would see what it is we go through and experience everyday. But, I was a bit disappointed. I'm still watching and as long as it is on, I will watch just to see how it goes. After all, it is just the beginning, it may get better, and it may not. At the end of the day, we are who we are, Army Wives, in real time.....what we watch on TV is just a dramatization of what people think our lives entail...even after this show is over, viewers will still never know the reality of it, unless,of course, they live it, as we do.

[Chaotic Mom]

Okay, the book is AWESOME. I love it, totally love it. It took me two weeks to muster the courage to watch the show, because of COURSE it would be a bit "hokey", run through the Hollywood mill.

That said, the first episode was "blech" to me. But I liked the second one, better. Less emphasis on trying to shove military lingo into it. While I found the characters a bit unrealistic, there was also some kernal of reality to each one of them. A part of each character that I could identify with.

Yeah, nobody could know the TRUE reality of being a military wife w/o living it. But I couldn't understand how difficult parenting would be until I lived through it, too. ;)

[Olivia]

Gosh, I loved the show from the first episode. My husband and I practically laughed all the way through it. I've lived my whole life in the Army (brat, now wife) and I was able to identify every character they portrayed. I think it's funny when military spouses point out things that seem unrealistic, seriously people just because we are Army spouses doesn't mean that we know everything about the Army; you're experience in the Army won't be the same as mine. There were little things I recognized from my brat days that doesn't exist at the posts I've been to as a wife. And just because a character doesn't seem realistic to you, doesn't mean she doesn't exist. It's just TV.