LAST CALL: Bunny Boilers Anonymous
Macomber, Shawn
LAST CALL SHAWN MACOMBER Bunny Boilers Anonymous HEN I WAS GROWING UP, whenever one of my elder relations would bring home someone a bit too mentally or chemically unstable from the seedy...
...LAST CALL SHAWN MACOMBER Bunny Boilers Anonymous HEN I WAS GROWING UP, whenever one of my elder relations would bring home someone a bit too mentally or chemically unstable from the seedy bars that line the streets of the town where I was born, my grandmother would fire off a six-word verbal warning flare to the rest of the family: "The rabbit is on the stove...
...Cheaters airs just as she'd be headed off to work and probably would have brought a smile to her face...
...That's a fear the ghost of Alex Forrest could only dream of inflicting...
...They are brokers ofposh real estate or high power attorneys or architects or big time book editors...
...and 2002's criminally underrated Unfaithful (Fatal Attraction minus psychopathic motivations)--is inevitably diluted by the trappings of Hollywood...
...My Nana was not alone in using this code...
...at the apartment of some illicit paramour...
...To a certain extent, yes...
...Imagine the hordes of unfaithful in America today who aren't being followed by Cheaters cameramen looking over their shoulders in the parking lots of seedy bars...
...As those who have seen the film no doubt recall, this was a reference to Adrian Lyne's 1987 film FatalAttraction...
...82 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR FEBRUARY 2006 SARKES TARZIAN INC Sarkes Tarzian Television Sarkes Tarzian Radio Broadcasters Making a Difference...
...After the film hit British theaters the term "bunny boilers" emerged in that nation's cultural lexicon as shorthand for unpredictable former paramours...
...It remains in regular use...
...The characters are beautiful people cheating with other beautiful people on beautiful spouses...
...Is this all just sick voyeurism...
...in dim corners of a ghetto Denny's...
...And trashy though the delivery may be, the show provides avaluable service to society...
...Or, more particularly, to the scene showcasing an ill-advised attempt by seductress-turned-knife-wielding-maniac Alex Forrest (portrayed with insane ferocity by Glenn Close) to convince her ex-fling Dan Gallagher (Michael Douglas) to leave his wife by breaking into the couple's house and boiling their four-yearold daughter's pet rabbit...
...After the opening montage and theme music the announcer intones, "This program is both dedicated to the faithful and presented to the falsehearted to encourage their renewal of temperance and virtue," but chances are if so little trust exists in your relationship that you are calling up television show detectives...
...This show isn't saving any relationships...
...As a child she appreciated Herbert Hoover's call for a chicken in every pot, but I imagine anything that helps keep America's bunnies from meeting the same fate would be all right by her...
...Unfortunately, my Nana--a tough lady, greatly missed, who worked to her last day second shift at an automobile parts manufacturing factory-isn't around to see the show...
...Nevertheless, the effectiveness of Fatal Attraction-as well as Lyne's further, more perfect explorations of similar themes in Indecent Proposal (Would you let your wife have a one night stand for $1 million...
...It was what led up to the bunny boiling that was the true brilliance of Fatal Attraction, however: The film's first act makes the unrestrained carnality of Dan's affair with Alex look so exciting and tempting, as if extramarital affairs were the highest calling of humanity, only to drive a stake into the heart of millions of would-be-adulterers' fantasies with the worst-worst case scenario imaginable...
...If there is hanky-panky afoot, the show provides an opportunity for an always dramatic confrontation...
...As Alex descends into madness, Dan's weekend exploring sexual freedom becomes a struggle to preserve his reputation, his job, his family, and, ultimately, his life...
...Electronic misery tourism...
...Not so with the much-maligned-yet-wildly-popular reality show Cheaters, which dispatches private detectives and camera crews to aid working-class men and women who suspect significant others of adultery...
...It can be hard to relate...
...They are pampered and privileged, yet cannot seem to be content with their lot...
...It does, however, give a trailer park look at how much more damaging cheating can be when you aren't rich or beautiful...
...Let's just say the long-term prognosis isn't good, whatever the final verdict...
...Nightly, Cheaters shows there is no safe place for the unfaithful...
...when leaving a transgressor means your kid might not eat or your rent might not get paid or you might not have another date for years because you aren't Richard Gere or Diane Lane or Michael Douglas...
...In the end only the wife he spurned can save him from the fruits of his unchecked libido...
Vol. 39 • February 2006 • No. 1
