On the 1970s Britcom “The Good Life,” you’re meant to sympathize with the Goods. Good (get it?) in all ways, they’re just so charming, deciding to start a self-sustaining farm (off the grid; house is heated with a dung-fueled generator) in suburban London. Tom Good quits his office job and his good, good-natured wife Barbara Good, manic pixie dream housewife, obliges. She doesn’t care about stuff. She barely reacts when Tom informs her he’s swapped her hairdryer in one of the many barter exchanges that take place.
Neighbors Jerry and Margo Leadbetter serve as a constant reminder of the not-Good life. Jerry’s Tom’s former colleague at the widget company, and Margo stays home, dresses up, and shudders at the thought of the ever-expanding barnyard next door. No mud for her!
Margo’s the one you’re meant to hate. A materialist to her core, she’s forever asking Barbara why she puts up with husband Tom’s harebrained ideas. Barbara will be all chipper and loyal, insisting that she likes a (fully avoidable) life of hard labor. And Jerry, if present, will chime in that maybe the problem is Margo, for being so basic. They’ve got lots of money, but Margo has the nerve to enjoy that and buy herself the odd something nice.
If one were to put Margo and Barbara into some sort of competition of good feminism, the obvious answer would be Barbara, hands down. She doesn’t care how she looks (convenient because she looks like a shorter Laura Petrie), and is her husband’s partner in their efforts to do… whatever it is they’re doing, I guess being hippies a bit late. Jeans not dresses. Low-maintenance. Low-key.
But what if it’s Margo? For all Jerry’s attempts at painting her a brat, she frankly makes a good point when Jerry chastizes her in front of their neighbors! for being too cavalier with her use of household electricity. If she goes downstairs, she should, he tells her, shut the upstairs light. Margo points out that she does not wish to fall down the stairs. If nightlights or whatever weren’t a thing in the 1970s, I think she wins the argument!
If Barbara’s a Cool Girl, Margo’s a vain Hyacinth Bucket. A husband’s worst nightmare. A walking wife joke. Unsmiling, unobliging. So it’s hard not to be Team Margo, despite her professed and near-unforgivable aversion to living next to a goat.
This sounds like a strange British inversion of Green Acres, and as such I really want to watch now!