GLUTEN-FREE TV: WHAT ARE THE ODDS???

When the Tuesday, May 9, 2006 episode of the US medical drama House featured a person with celiac disease, the patient was an infanticidal madwoman. When the Thursday, February 7, 2008 episode of the UK medical drama The Royal Today featured a person with coeliac disease, the patient was a stripper in a rubber nurse's outfit. What are the odds, I ask you?

Here's the pertinent info about the Royal Today story (Season 1, Episode 24), from a synopsis:

Vijay is stumped when he presents the staff with a photo of Gemma pole dancing and she declares that she loves the picture and unashamedly admits that she did it to make money at college.

On the female ward, an exotic dancer called Alison (Hayley Tamaddon) has arrived dressed in a sexy rubber nurses outfit. Her stomach has swollen up mid act so she’s stuck in her costume and when Sarah (Kirsty Mitchell) confirms that she has Coeliac Disease and needs to have a bowel biopsy, Alison’s adamant that the nurses don’t cut the expensive costume off her. However, when Matron reveals that Alison’s husband is on his way she’s desperate to get out of the PVC suit as he doesn’t know how she’s been earning her money.

When John (Samuel James Hudson) arrives he’s stunned to find Alison fully clad as a stripper and tries to control his temper as he tells the embarrassed nurses to throw the costume in the bin. She’d told him she was temping but seeing as he’s a stripper too, she claims she’s done nothing wrong. Later, when John overhears Vijay commenting on Gemma’s stripper past, he assumes he’s talking about Alison and attacks him. He eventually calms down enough to speak to his wife and is pleased to learn that she can’t stand the idea of women gawping at him. It’s a happy ending as the couple agree that they’ll both stop stripping but don’t need to throw away their costumes.

I'd like to share video of that, but so far I've only found these files, which aren't supposed to be viewable in the United States. In the meantime, here's an article with a photo.

The unlikelihood of these TV medical situations reminds me of a certain Seinfeld episode. (Warning: This video may contain wheat pasta.)



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GLUTEN ON CAVEMEN


















Gluten played a supporting role in last week's episode of the ABC series Cavemen (with Austin native Julie White!).

Thanks to a note buried in this post at Gluten Free Blog, I watched the online capture of the episode, "Rock Vote" (Season 1, Episode 6, November 13, 2007), and (to my surprise) found it amusing, although I have mixed feelings about the gluten aspect.

Here be spoilers: The episode revolves around a state political contest involving perennial loser Caveman candidate Red Goldreyer and his possibly anti-Caveman opponent Jack Whitman. Goldreyer turns out to see gluten ("the stuff that's in bread") as his key issue: "[I]t's not just bread. It's everywhere! Gluten is attacking our immune system! It's poisoning our minds! But you'd never know it because Big Gluten doesn't want you to know it." (Amen to that!) Goldreyer hands out a drink, saying "This water is gluten-free," but really goes over the top when he asserts that only after "purging our bodies of gluten" will "peace between nations" be possible. Impressed, Andy the Cavemen jumps on the anti-gluten bandwagon, stocks up on Glutino pretzels and something from Bob's Red Mill, and starts ridding his home of gluten although there's no indication he even got himself tested for celiac disease. Holding up a jar of peanut butter, he asks, "Gluten? No gluten? What do you think?" (No one really answers that, but of course it's likely that it's contaminated by the process of spreading peanut butter on bread and crackers. Okay, back to the synopsis.) After another caveman brings Andy to his senses, calling Goldreyer "a lunatic," Andy complains about gluten-free cookies, crying "They taste like dirt. Okay? Dirt!"

I kind of like much of the phraseology, which resembles verbiage that comes up often in gluten-free circles. (I can take a little ribbing!) And I don't know how aware writer Chris Kelly might be regarding the historic/evolutionary undermining of a gluten-free Paleolithic diet, but I'm sort of impressed by the idea of a Caveman candidate taking a stand against it. Possibly clever! I just feel a little bummed that, while the storyline offered a reasonable basis for Whitman's too tough anti-crime stance, the very sound basis for being concerned about gluten got shorter shrift, making gluten concerns come across as kookier than crime concerns while also perpetuating the cliché that gluten-free cookies suck. So overall I thought the episode was okay, but not on a par with the movie Sydney White.

Coincidentally, the episode featured the song The Underdog by the Austin band Spoon. I first heard it at Risotteria, which recently received a small shipment of two beers from Green's: Quest Tripel and Discovery Amber. It looks like the restaurant also started tagging pizzas that are gluten-free, for better identification.



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Photo: David Marc Fischer