Watch out, “Housewives of Orange County.” Here come the “Househusbands of Hollywood.”
While escapist fare like “Fast & Furious” is drawing record numbers of moviegoers in the midst of an historic recession, an equal and opposite reaction is taking shape on the television landscape.
Coming to your flat-screen soon: layoff TV!
TV producers and network executives are betting audiences will want to see more down-to-earth shows this fall, and a slew of reality and scripted TV featuring “real” people coping with layoffs and working class life are in the works.
Employees in flailing businesses will compete to keep their jobs in Fox's upcoming reality show "Someone's Gotta Go." The show developed by "Big Brother" producer Endemol will feature workers deciding who will stay and who will go among themselves. (See more on "Someone's Got to Go.")
ABC recently greenlit two recession-themed comedies: “Canned,” starring Amanda Bynes about a group of friends who all are fired on the same day, and an untitled Kelsey Grammer pilot about a Wall Street tycoon forced to stay home á la “Mr. Mom.”
Fox is investing in a pilot of actor-producer Mike Binder’s titled “Two-Dollar Beer.” Binder stars as the head of a blue-collar family in Detroit coping with layoffs in the auto industry.
Meanwhile, “The Shield’s” writer-producer Shawn Ryan is also working on "Millionaire's Club" for Fox about a group of people who come up with get-rich-quick schemes to change their lives. (Check out the full list of layoff-era shows here.)
“On some level it is inevitable because the economy is so omnipotent in our lives that to do any kind of sitcom or drama it should be close to reality,” said Howard Rosenberg, the former Los Angeles Times TV critic and professor of television studies at University of Southern California.
”ABC ordered seven episodes of Mark Burnett’s (“Survivor”) new “Shark Tank,” in which cash-strapped entrepreneurs will compete for financing from investors.
And Fox Reality Channel will debut “Househusbands of Hollywood” in August, following five men who stay home while their entertainment-industry wives provide most of the household income.
“I think a lot of people are trying to figure out if the new economic reality demands a new TV reality,” said David Lyle, COO and general manager of Fox Reality Channel.
“One of the reasons reality TV has worked so well over the last 10 years is that it reflects what people are thinking -- sometimes in an extreme way,” he continued. “When Tila Tequila dates both men and women, that brings attitudes about sexuality to the forefront. So I think that the economic situation will flavor a lot of what’s on TV.”
Although the husbands on “Househusbands’” are at home by choice and not due to a layoff, the premise reflects a growing economic reality. A dramatic 82 percent of recently laid-off workers are male, and the New York Times recently reported that women may soon dominate the work force for the first time in U.S. history.
Meanwhile, living vicariously through rich people hasn’t gone away.
