23 April 2011

Malibu is not a Trailer Park

Yesterday I was watching Oprah with Tom Shadyac, the director, as a guest.  The description of the episode is "Giving up a mansion to live in a mobile home."  This implies that he has chosen to live in a trailer park, or in a camper/rv, or something along those lines.

They just showed the "mobile home" that he lives in and it's in freaking Malibu.  It appears to be a modular home rather than a mobile home.  It is larger than my house than I am sitting in right now with granite countertops and a walk-in closet larger than mine.  And he has two of them, one is only an office.

That is not a mobile home. That is Hollywood's version of a mobile home.  For a show that is all about being authentic, I was aghast.  I can only imagine people watching this show, sitting in their actual mobile homes, yelling at the television.  I can understand that it was a big change from him but what a disappointment. 

Our old house was an old mobile home that was on the property when we bought it.  It was exactly how you just imagined.  We fixed it up and made it into a what other's described it as a cabin.  We lived in the house until it was literally ready to fall down.

The house we're in now is a manufactured home.  It is the metamorphosis of the mobile home.  It is built to stick-house standards and because of how it's built, it's actually stronger than a stick built house.  We don't think for one second that we are living in a lowly mobile home.  It is our home, It is a house.  How it got here or was built is irrelevant.

Only once has anyone said anything about us living in a mobile home.  It was along the lines of "That's good for you"  and said that they wouldn't...not couldn't...live in one.  That still sits in Kevin as a bitter little pill.

I believe that everyone is entitled to their opinions and choices.  I equally believe that no one has the right to judge and the show felt judgy.  It felt like "OMG, you won't believe that he chose to live in THIS!" and "This" is nicer than most homes.

3 comments:

creative kerfuffle said...

before we bought this house we lived in a mobile home. when we got it we thought we were IT. it was affordable. it was new. it was the perfect size for us. two kids later we needed something bigger, and a fenced in yard. i have nothing against a mobile home or modular or whatev. but i do think there are lots of people out there (not even just celebs) that have NO concept of how normal, everyday people live and survive. the hubs works for people like that at it astounds me how little they grasp about how the "common" folk live.

QueenoftheFall said...

Oh, this kinda bugs me too!
Poor baby; "Roughing it" in Malibu.

Unknown said...

it's true ...the mobile homes in Malibu are really nice ...I was searching for homes a while back and found all these "reasonable" homes in Malibu and was obviously curious about them . . .only to find out they are mobile homes for like $400K ...and while you do live in Malibu and have a view of the ocean, you don't get to own the land you've bought the unit on. I think Pam Anderson lives in a mobile home park in Malibu. lol.