Though the show’s one same-sex couple, Matt and Frank, seem to share the same goals for their already pretty nice living space, including impressing their parents with their maturity, it’s clear one has more trouble letting go of things - especially books - than the other. Some people are just tidier than others, or less attached to possessions.Īnd it’s not entirely about gender. That Shehnita doesn’t just laugh in her face and escort the two Maries to the front door says a lot about the civility of Tidying Up, which, to be fair, doesn’t seem to have been cast for conflict. You have no idea what a nightmare it is for me to find clothes that fit me because I’m so short, and small.” Kondo insists, through her interpreter, Marie Iida, that she does understand, “because of my height.
Her current wardrobe options may not all “spark joy,” but they do fit, and for that she’s grateful. That’s very much the vibe I got from an episode where a husband, Aaron, seemed eager to have Kondo help him bully his wife, Shehnita, into cleaning out a closet that, like mine (and maybe yours), contains not just clothes she wears now, but items she hopes to be able to wear again at some future size. “Piles of disorganized possessions provoke disproportionate dismay and shame in the women of the house, while men seem irritated but not personally ashamed.” Plus, “when tasked with home organizing, men and women on Tidying Up treat it very differently,” she writes. Nicole Clark, a culture writer at Vice, looked at how the show highlights the work that still mostly falls to women, of not just performing many household chores but of being responsible for their planning and execution. And in a recent interview with Indiewire, she said she doesn’t expect everyone to adopt her preference for having no more than 30 (!) books.Īs someone who’s not a hoarder but who does sometimes worry that an apocalypse will erase all the e-books on her Kindle, I say that if all our books fit neatly on our many bookshelves, why would I “wake” them, as Kondo advises, to see if they spark joy or if they might be better off somewhere else?īeyond books, there are the family dynamics that any “reality” show is bound to lay bare. Kondo’s approach to people’s book collections has proved particularly controversial (at least in my writer-heavy Twitter feed), though I’ve not seen her actually pry a volume out of anyone’s cold, dead hands. Tidying Up with Marie Kondo, whose star is the author of the 2014 best seller The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Method of Decluttering and Organizing, seems to have sparked as many debates as it has joy since its New Year’s Day premiere. Really, could there be anything more terrifying?Īnd, yet, the folding. I’ve lately been watching that other Netflix horror show, the one in which a small, relentlessly cheerful woman shows up at people’s doors, and after “introducing” herself to their houses, takes a tour of their overcrowded closets and junked-up garages, and then encourages them to dispose of any possessions that don’t “spark joy.”
Or that I’m still recovering from A Quiet Place and Get Out. It’s not just that anything on Netflix that inspires people to drive blindfolded seems like a terrible idea. I have not seen Bird Box, and you can’t make me.
0 kommentar(er)
