Watching Hoarders for the first time tonight. It’s great TV, I can see why it’s such a popular show. This first episode in season 10 really has it all. Watching Andy – one half of a hoarder couple in Marysville, Washington – yell at the cop sent to “check up on things” was hilarious and cathartic. The enormity of the disaster where Andy & his wife Becky live is a nice distraction from the whirlwind of emotions I’ve been feeling everyday since March 13. That’s when LAUSD announced they were closing the schools and moving to remote instruction. That’s when I knew shit had gotten real.
Coronavirus was is a transformative force for our society. As the pandemic began unfolding and people lost their lives, or their jobs, or their loved ones – our government’s approach highlighted the cracks in US society. We saw through the lie that it was impossible to make the shift needed to combat climate change. We saw through the lie of who we depend on for quality of life to go on. We saw billions and billions of our tax dollars leave government coffers and enter the treasure chests of those already with billions. At some level though, there was a feeling across the globe that we could relate to each other based on the collective experience of living through a pandemic. I don’t know if everyone had that feeling, but either way it didn’t last long.
There’s something about this first Hoarders episode that parallels how America handled the coronavirus. There’s this fervent dedication to shield yourself from the truth because the truth is scary. How embarrassing to have future generations shake their heads at us, shooting at utility workers because of 5G, getting kicked out of Costco for refusing to wear a mask, and to take to the streets to demand a return to comfort at the expense of others’ ability to breathe.
That’s a lot to deal with, but the truths keep on coming. And the fervent dedication to deny the truth comes with it.
I am so inspired to see all the people protesting in the streets to defend Black lives. This moment in history – where the terrifying reality of life in America for Black lives is being shoved in everyone’s faces – reminds me of the scene in Hoarders where Russ, Andy’s son, walks into his dad’s house for the first time in 12 years. As he’s crawling over trash, his head touching the ceiling, he says he had no idea it was this bad. I think that him not having been in the house for TWELVE YEARS shows that on some level, he knew. This entire family (I haven’t even mentioned Amanda – the hoarders’ daughter who was born in the toilet) has been carrying all of their trauma with them since childhood and oh it shows. When you’re trying to clean out a hoarder home, where do you even begin? Such a seemingly unsurmountable task, but a possible one. In this episode, they refused to move forward until Becky, the alpha hoarder, showed up (she ran away on clean up day 1). The expert at cleaning out hoarder homes said that it was crucial for Becky to be part of the process, or else the house would just fill back up again.
The stakes were high – if they didn’t get this shit done in a few days their house was going to get taken away.
I’m stoned as I’m watching this, which I think helps me see things from everyone’s perspective. Whether it was the hoarder couple, their son, their daughter, the tv shrink, their neighbor or the professional hoarder cleaner, I could honestly say that I could see their point.
Anyway, Becky finally shows up but by now they’ve lost a full 24 hours of cleanup opportunity, and the clock is ticking. The professional cleaner is trying to guide Becky through this process and help her help herself. Becky is significantly slowing down the process, squirreling trash away in her neighbor’s yard, salvaging what she can from her rat-infested vehicle. People start yelling at each other. Amanda – who is totally on board with this cleanup and has moved out of her parents’ house already – starts to defend her mother and helps her salvage some of her trash. Becky cries, because everyone else thinks her treasures are just trash.
The fighting reaches a boiling point, where people really let each other have it by yelling at each other. The tv shrink gives people a talking to, and then people are able to talk to each other, apologize, then work together again.
There’s a happy ending for this Hoarders episode. The property gets cleaned up – with the help of a whole city unit and 40 garbage trucks – and the hoarders get to keep their home. I wonder how Becky and Andy are doing now. All I could find online was that after the episode they removed another 60 tons of stuff from their property.
All this to say – I can see the dynamics of what these people were going through play out in what’s going on now with protests for Black Lives Matter happening across the country and the globe. Now, I’m high as I’m typing this (starting writing in the middle of the episode), so maybe there’s a little more analysis I can do in this regard. But for a reflective piece on my part, I’m going with it.
In this historical time in this country, we all have a role to play. We can choose to be Becky – halting progress because you refuse to even be present, and when you are present, you get in the way. You refuse to help yourself live in a better situation because you can’t see the filth you’re living in for what it is. On the contrary – you’re emotionally bonded to it.
We can choose to be Andy – you love Becky and she comes with her issues but you want her to feel safe, so you enable her. We can be Amanda – growing up in this dysfunctional harmful system, knowing it’s wrong, trying to change, but when push comes to shove, you cling to what you know because you’re afraid of losing everything. We can be like Russ – who got counseling to get over his addiction issues and considers himself to be a better man now; who refused to see the truth for 12 years because he knew what he would see, but once unable to look away, stood strong in his conviction to change his father’s situation, Becky’s feelings be damned. We can be the professional cleaning expert, dedicating our lives to doing the legwork of dismantling the problem and forcing people to hear uncomfortable truths. There’s also the tv shrink – we can hear people out, and try to help them heal themselves one tiny step at a time.
Last, but not least – we could be all the hands that went into actually cleaning up the mess. All those folks with no speaking lines that were there to work and get shit done. Gloves on, masks on, the truck drivers. They the real MVPs.
Our society is sick. It always has been. If that’s hard to hear, it may be because we’ve benefitted so much from the way things have played out. It doesn’t mean it’s not true. We can keep denying it, but we’ll have to face the problem sooner or later.
I don’t know of any societies that were without oppression. Doesn’t mean they didn’t exist, but from what I’ve seen, as a species humans have always oppressed other humans.
I would love to end all oppression tomorrow. But you can’t force people to not be ego-driven selfish fucks. So oppression will not end tomorrow, but I don’t think it’s foolish to always work toward a world without oppression.
Anyway, you should check out the episode if you can. It’s on Netflix.
resourcefulrhonda 