States of disrepair

At its most superficial rhetorical level, EMHE equates the condition of the family home with the condition of the bodies inside the home. Consider these examples: James is the youngest of four children of a single mother. Having spent time in a homeless shelter with his mother and siblings, James now lives with his family of five in a tenement. Unable to walk, talk, or care for himself, James is carried from place to place by his mother and siblings, including upstairs to the bathroom and in and out of the bathtub. The house is a shambles, James is growing larger and harder to carry, and his mother is getting less and less able to care for him alone.6 Shelby Pope is a 12-year-old girl who is deathly allergic to the sun, a rare condition called Polymorphous light eruption (PMLE). She cannot be near the windows in her present home; she cannot play in her yard or ride in a car during the day without stringent precautions. She does not go to school because of PLME but is home schooled. Her house, it is determined, is keeping her imprisoned. If her home is "fixed" her life will be more "normal." 7

That the condition of the exterior of the American home serves as the public image of the humans inside is a deceptively simple observation. While in the 1990s the McMansion spoke of a level of middle-class status, achieved formerly by the suburban ranch-style house, the urban loft is now the domicile of choice to express achievement. Loft living suggests that the inhabitants have escaped the conceit of prearranged rooms and desire to inhabit space differently. Now that urban areas are "revitalizing," living there appears to be an edgy move. In the 1970s and '80s, suburban living was the signal that one had left the clutter of the city behind (urban dwelling was the domain of the poor, the mentally ill, racial and ethnic minorities). Now, homeowners' associations in exurb developments prescribe the kinds of plantings, paint colors, mailboxes, grass length, and flag poles residents can use, in an attempt to restrain human eccentricity into upright conformity.8 These regulated residences suggest that the homeowners who live there are compliant, tidy, law-abiding, "normal." Statistics on domestic violence, among other markers, question this illusion of restraint, but we continue to make assumptions about the inhabitants of the homes based on the condition of the house and its location.9 EMHE functions according to this formula. The condition and size of the house is a representation of the physical and mental condition of one or more inhabitants, wherever its location. Thus does EMHE begin to construct symbiosis between place and person; to heal the person, one must heal the building — or in EMHE language: "Changing lives one house at a time"10

You get what you deserve

Not everyone with needs is eligible for architectural salvation; only those who are both "inspirational and deserving" are desirable. To be inspirational and deserving seems to mean that not only do the families/individuals suffer bravely, but they also minimize their own needs by caring for the "less fortunate" in the community. To be inspirational and deserving of a house in which one can move freely and accomplish the tasks of life means surrendering the normal human emotions that accompany the limits imposed by architecture and society: no anger or frustration here, no active depression, no withdrawing from the world. Rather, the "deserving family" must exhibit only "grit" and gratitude. Nancy Eiseland and many others have documented the cultural trope of the brave sufferer. The brave sufferer is the woman or man who does not complain but rather accepts her/his "fate" with gratitude and equanimity. Clearly, EMHE reinforces the illusion that the virtuous sufferer is more "inspirational and deserving" than someone madder than hell that American culture has made life so difficult. Expressions of anger are described in the past tense, during a period before grit and gratitude overcame them:12 "Martha Walswick has nine children but she lost her husband to cancer. The family has struggled to cope with their loss but are [sic] determined to face the future with a positive disposition."13

Over the seven seasons of its existence, EMHE has apparently ratcheted up the criteria for "inspirational and deserving." Whereas in the first season (2004) a single illness, disability, natural disaster, or heroic deed qualified a family for a makeover,14 now a "deserving" family needs multiple catastrophes to qualify. For instance, the Vardon family is considered deserving in the 2005 season. Here, a 15- year- old boy cares for two parents who are deaf, along with his blind/deaf, autistic little brother who frequently escapes the house.15 Also deserving is the Hassall family from the 2006 season. In this family, Brian, a police officer shot in the head while on duty, now suffers incapacitating migraine headaches when exposed to natural light. Thus, he lives in the unfinished basement of the home, protected from the sun. His wife Michelle, who has cancer, lives on the main floor with their two adopted children, one African American and one Chinese with a cleft palate.16

Without a doubt, the selected families have extraordinary needs, but what kind of message does showcasing families with Jobian level suffering send about the challenges of living in the world with "only" a single issue? Equating "deserving" only with confluences of multiple social and physical problems suggests that unless the challenges are Herculean and the emotional responses to the challenges equally heroic, one is not deserving of an accessible home and/or relief from poverty, or even homelessness. "Deserving" also means those individuals with a primary, "visible" disability and those whose family structures are heterosexual (even for single parents). Invisible disabilities and gay families make for less acceptable television because invisible disabilities can be faked and being a gay family cannot be.17

"God made a perfect world…."

In the traditional Christian interpretation of the story of Adam, Eve, and the serpent, in Genesis 3, the Garden of Eden is described as the perfect world: no strife, no lust, no pain, no suffering, no evil. Through the actions of Eve, this perfection was destroyed for human beings for all time, with the result that we must live lives of pain, suffering, and labor. Historically, human beings have attempted to determine the signs of our "fall;" we have labeled aspects of human embodiment as markers of our sinful, fallen state. At one time or another, being black, being female, being gay, and/or being disabled have functioned as markers of sin. (And if one is all four…?) As DeVries points out, the theological interpretation of an originally perfect creation to which we should return is perilous for people with disabilities. Such an interpretation results in constructing people with disabilities as damaged by virtue of sin — either their own or someone else's.19 Pairing diseased bodies with a diseased spiritual state functions as a theological rationale for the random dispersal of pain and suffering. Thus the disabled, black, female person bears these "limitations" as punishment from God for her own sins or the sins of her ancestors. Diversity of embodiment becomes a function of the imperfect realm outside of Eden, whereas conformity in appearance reiterates the perfection of Eden.

In the EMHE discourse, the perfect world-theory is at work in statements like these from Carlton Marshall, a Dallas police officer paralyzed by a gunshot in the neck who subsequently suffered a stroke and was made deaf from meningitis. He grieves that he cannot do what a husband/father/breadwinner should do.20 Parents cannot tuck children in at night, children cannot play outside, heterosexual, married, parents cannot sleep in the same bed (and we assume be intimate), children must be parents and parents feel like children. Clearly these are inversions of the perfect order in which men, women and children all function according to dominant, American gender- and age-appropriate roles.21

EMHE attempts to minimize the implication of personal failure as the root cause of the pain for "deserving" families. However, two elements in the narrative arc of the show mitigate against completely dismissing the connection between fallenness and human (in)action: (1) the very construction of "deserving" simultaneously defines its opposite. Something about the actions, attitudes, scope of disability, or other aspects of their human natures, keeps most families who apply from being considered "deserving" of a home that functions for them. They have or have not done or said or embodied something that would garner the favor of the producers. (2) To underscore the heroic sacrifices borne by the team, the "brokenness" of the family has to be emphasized, complete with their admission that they cannot save themselves.

"… but Adam and Eve sinned"

The prerequisite for theological, and now architectural, supernatural assistance is human brokenness. In the classical theory of atonement, brokenness is the fault of humans, more specifically the fault of Eve, the first woman, who blew it for all humanity with the apple (Gen. 2:4b-3). Archetypal brokenness, the result of Eve's act, is named "original sin." Traditionally, original sin has been considered a constitutional state from which no one escapes and which, if left un-atoned for, dooms one to an eternal life in hell. Theologically, original sin is the human-caused condition that results in our estrangement from God. Repairing the rift requires a sacrifice greater than that which mere mortals can accomplish, thus God, in God's love, sacrifices Godself for us through the God-man Jesus. Human brokenness and estrangement, which would result in eternal damnation, are thus foundational conditions for the larger EMHE narrative of redemption.

In EMHE, human brokenness and the hell that results are laid out first in the application video, then reinforced by a tour of the dilapidated home, and finally summed up in interviews with family members. Known as the "before" setting, in makeover parlance, the images and comments from the application videos and the tour of the "before" house serve to describe just how dire the conditions are for the deserving families. Emotional breakdown is critical to the inscription of brokenness. In the section of the online application for EMHE entitled "How to Make a Family Casting Video," the family is encouraged to "Sit down and talk to camera like an interview and tell us your story. Explain your situation, why you think you deserve a makeover? During this portion you want to be emotional, open up and ask for help"22 [Italics mine]. The "before" discourse describes dreams dashed, intimate relationships fractured, parental responsibilities abdicated to children, financial resources run dry, and hope teetering on the edge of some abyss. The visual representation of these social and existential conditions is the family home — burned or flooded, mold-infested or leaking, toxic and dangerous to the family in all manner of ways: a physical hell. They have run out of their own financial and physical but never spiritual resources.

"We had no way to escape that punishment, or ever to make ourselves acceptable to God."

The EMHE narrative formula must include the confession that the family can no longer help themselves, (though they have tried repeatedly). By abandoning agency, the EMHE family is rewarded with a week's vacation and a new house. The family's abjection is the necessary relief against which the supernatural efforts of the EMHE crew will be cast.23 The EMHE families must fit themselves into what Garland Thomson, citing Susan Bordo, calls "a life-enhancing fiction" to deserve a made-over life.24 By positioning themselves within the dominant discursive construction of disability, the EMHE families become eligible for the benefits of the show and more widely become acceptable to a larger audience, who insists on reliable tropes of disability over/against which to assess their own adequacy. But what are the liabilities of adopting this or any essentialism? Moreover, what are effects on persons called "disabled" when agency is in question in this way?25

To the extent that we "perform" gender, sexual orientation, race and/or disability as a strategy, that is, to the extent that we are conscious of the gains and losses of playing these roles, adopting "life- enhancing fictions" become subversive acts. However, the incessant cultural expectations that we will conform to the dynamics of the roles causes many of us to internalize these fictions, to varying degrees, as "the way I am" or "the way I should be." Like the naturalized definitions of libraries and neighborhoods, naturalized definitions of bodies come to be treated as immutable. Essentialisms, if not always understood as strategic, cease to be tools and become instead self-enforced restraints. Further, in repeating the refrain of "brokenness" season after season, EMHE reinforces attitudes of pity and charity rather than justice for people with disabilities.26

The functioning definitions of places (neighborhoods, buildings, and/or bodies) are made manifest when the boundaries of that place are challenged. Transgressing the boundaries of place brings into relief the limiting and limited definitions of that place. But the scripted/edited world of EMHE never allows for transgression, thus people like Bob Flanagan would never be considered 'deserving' since his life exploded the naturalized assumptions about people with disabilities.27

"…until Jesus came."

The interpretation of the adjective "extreme" in ABC's makeover genre applies to three elements of Home Edition. First, the transformation of the house is so extensive (and expensive) that it qualifies as "extreme." Second, the condition of the family is so dire, due to the interplay of illness, impairment, and natural and societal disaster, that the family is narratively marked as an "extreme" example of human suffering. Finally, "extreme" applies to the sacrifices of the cast and crew in accomplishing the transformation of the home/family in seven days.

In the penultimate movement in the Christian, theological, salvation narrative, a supernatural savior, who is yet human, is sacrificed to restore broken (sinful) humanity to a wholeness we cannot accomplish for ourselves. This extreme gesture of God, sacrificing Godself to death on our behalf, is the mark of God's extreme love for humankind. God loves us so much (even in our brokenness) that God is willing to die for us. Further, the extra-ordinary nature of this sacrifice is marked by its obliteration of the limits of space/time. After three days in the tomb, Jesus' body is gone — resurrected — defying the bounds of physical death. We remember, as well, that the God of self-sacrifice and the empty tomb is also the God of cosmic creation. In the first Genesis story, Gen.1-2:4, God forms the entirety of the earth in six days, with the seventh off for rest. In humble contrast, Ty and crew require the entire seven days of work to (re)create human lives.

The manipulation of time is a central hook of EMHE and, in fact, all "extreme" reality shows: "It's a race against time on a project that would normally span several months, involving a team of designers, contractors and hundreds of workers who all have just seven days to totally rebuild an entire house!"28 Sacrificing sleep, defying the elements, keeping up construction through illness, accidents, and irritations, Ty Pennington seems to have given himself completely for the benefit of the "deserving" family.29 Recipient families describe the crew as angels, sing hallelujah, and fall to their knees to thank God that their prayers have been answered when the crew pulls up into their yard — many "deserving" families believe that Ty has been sent by God to help relieve them of the pain they could not ease themselves.

"…then we are saved…and will go to heaven."

At the end of seven days' building, tense to the very end, the deserving family returns from their vacation to their new life in a new world, the ideal, American, architectural world: "You'll see dingy kitchens get completely tricked out, spa-inspired bathrooms built where icky ones once were, and olympic-sized [sic] swimming pools installed in what were once shabby overgrown yards…. And Ty and his crew do it from the ground up, adding five-star luxuries and the occasional theme park attraction…a house pimped out to the extreme"30 Not only does this new house meet the physical needs of the family, it also meets the criteria for "pimped out." The new life can begin.

The interpersonal results of the external glory are articulated as the ability of parents and children to fulfill their proper roles in the family and in society. Accessible bathrooms and hallways let disabled adults function independently, no longer requiring child-like care. Fathers can return to "bread-winning" when car repair shops, woodworking sheds, and the like are built on their new properties.31 The myth of American individualism, with its tyrannical insistence on radical independence, heteronormativity, and capitalist "productivity," has its flag planted on the front lawns of these McMansions.32