So, in Tidying
Up With Marie Kondo, Netflix have taken on a best-selling author (our Marie) and given her a
show (building on last week’s point about people who make telly probably making
their next bit of telly on Netflix (Lunatics)
– now people who do other things will be doing their next thing on… you guessed
it, Netflix). TV has a long heritage in
telling us what to do. BBC News coverage has focused in recent
times on giving platforms to right-wing politicians. We had the Supernanny,
telling various spoiled brats that their behaviour was “not ’cceptable” when it
was their weak parents she should have been punishing. There was How
Clean Is Your House?, hosted by Kim and Aggie as they sniffed
people’s grease traps and got elbow deep in their u-bends (leading on to the
seminal moment where Kim told someone on Celebrity
Big Brother that she “wouldn’t sh*t on [them] if [they] were on fire.”) And who can forget You Are
What You Eat, where “Dr” Gillian McKeith had
the audacity to tell people (in a Scottish accent) that they had produced “a
poor excuse for a poo” while holding Tupperware filled with their crap. But once we’ve cleaned our house, made the
dinner and raised the bastard kids, who’s going to help us tidy up? Enter Kondo.
The premise of the show is that Marie goes around a diverse
array of American households (mostly within driving distance of LA) to help
families whose possessions have begun to posses them. From empty nesters to expectant parents, new
couples transitioning to adulthood or a widow faced daily with her dead husband’s
shirts, Marie shows them how to let go of the past and take with them into
their future only what they need. If you’re
thinking this sounds like a trashy piece of daytime TV you might find on a
channel aimed at women down the bottom of the EPG, then you’d be right. It is.
But, somehow, with the Netflix name attached, it’s become essential viewing
for conversation as an office drone. Fair
play to Kondo, though: without even bothering to learn English, she’s getting
herself wheeled out to show us how to organise, fold and store the things we
need to live life.
Each of the eight episodes (of surprisingly inconsistent length)
unfolds along a certain formula. Marie Kondo
is depositing by a black people-mover in a neighbourhood, gasping whimsically as
if she’s never seen a bloody house or pavement before, before trotting up to
ring the bell. Scurrying after her is
her translator, Marie Iida. Each time
the door is opened to them, the Maries erupt into high-pitched exclaiming, that
I assume is some sort of greeting, which the nervous families then mirror,
resulting in the bulk of each show being made of grown adults squealing in
doorways and hugging or shaking hands awkwardly. But that bit somehow never gets tiring, and
it’s always edited so you can’t really tell if Marie Iida has been completely
ignored again, or if people have bothered to acknowledge the poor dear as an
actual human being (with sick language skills).
Desperate for her help, everyone shows Marie Kondo round each
nook and cranny of every closet and cupboard so she can judge their mess. The worse it is, the more she squeaks. She quite likes to climb in things too, and
it’s at these moments you wonder if she isn’t really just taking the piss. Things then get serious again as she goes
through her house-greeting ceremony. For
someone quite jittery and polite, this attention-seeking rigmarole of kneeling
on the floor with her eyes closed while everyone wonders how much stranger
things will get seems oddly grand. It’s
most powerful when the families join in and realise that the homes whose mess
is making their lives a misery are also abodes of fond memories, where they
have raised kids and lived through happiness.
You may be touched.
And then off we go, getting out all the clothes (all of
them!) to make a mountain of crap tops on a bed. Marie tells her students to go through them
one by one, thanking the ones they are letting go of, and keeping only those
that spark joy. Hopefully they don’t
find themselves throwing out all their underpants, but we don’t see this bit as
Marie skips off and leaves us all wondering if the family will ever be able to
sleep now that their beds are covered in everything they’ve ever (or never) worn. But I do like this bit – there is something to
be said for purging clothes. Not much is
made of where everything ends up – are we talking a landfill, a public burning,
or, as some episodes indicate, goodwill?
I’ve been known to go through all my clothes and get rid of anything I’ve
not worn between moves, as this means I’m simply packing and unpacking something
that serves no purpose. I do feel guilty
for the people in Age UK on Clapham
High Street taking my poor style choices, but they have since sent handy emails
telling me my unflattering chunky knits have netted £8.33 to stop an old lady
from freezing to a switched-off radiator this winter. Talk about sparking joy!
Over a few weeks, the families tackle everything in their
homes, taken through each grouped stage by Marie’s regular visits. They sort books, categorise papers and toss
out toys. One of the best lessons is number
4: Kimono. I’m not sure why Japanese
dressing gowns get their own category, but that doesn’t stop Marie. In various interstitials, she talks us
through her logic, and we read the subtitles while she whips out the Japanese,
but I end up getting distracted when I consider how many syllables it takes to
utter the ground-breaking tidying up tip: put things in boxes. Just when you think a sentence is finished,
about ten to twelve more spare vowel sounds tumble out from beneath her rigid
fringe.
We crescendo into the reveal scenes at the end. It’s not always easy to make a tidy wardrobe
look like a massive transformation, but the show does its absolute best, all
while Marie’s apprentices wax lyrical about their new approach to life. The slip into hoarderhood is slow and
gradual, and everyone seems grateful to have tidied their way out of it, with
renewed focus on keeping things spic and span.
If I’m honest, I’ve always enjoyed folding clothes. An old housemate once accused me of working
in a shop while watching me fold my t-shirts, and I have in fact looked on enviously
during ill-advised trips to Primark
where various assistants wheel round mobile folding platforms to return civilisation
to stacks of sweatshop-sewn sweaters that have been disordered by low-income
rummaging and perhaps ravaging. I don’t
know; I don’t go in Primark anymore because I’m not a tourist visiting London. But I do have a recurring dream that involves
me putting my folded clothes back in drawers and hanging up shirts. To dream is to be freed from every restriction
that reality imposes, yet I can imagine that it’s only Marie and I whose brains
take this liberty and use it to act out banal chores.
I’ll conclude by heroing the real star of the show: Marie
Iida. I’ve already touched on how awkwardly
she is edited out, but when it comes to voicing over Marie’s recommendations,
Iida’s disembodied vocals are what communicate the KonMari method to us. Her robotic tone gives everything a stilted
and tentative approach to the instructions, but, luckily, these are Americans,
and their enthusiasm for not drowning in old crap (as well as their impeccable
manners) means there is little forceful resistance to either of the Maries and
their lessons. It remains only for me to
say that, yes, if this is how Netflix wants me to tidy my home, then, once I
own my home, I will be obeying. With
every penny tied up in fees and the deposit, there won’t be many possessions to
tidy, but I’m fairly sure I’ll be sparking joy all over the place.
