A new show on Showtime directed by and starring comedian Nathan Fielder highlights an unexpected and eco-friendly guest: passive homes.
"The Curse," which co-stars Emma Stone, depicts a husband-wife duo in New Mexico trying to start their own HGTV show about the construction and selling of passive homes.
It's an eerie parallel to the real-life couple of Edie Dillman and Jonah Stanford, who co-founded a building design company that aims to create sustainable houses and live in New Mexico's first certified passive home.
"I was aware the second it launched," Dillman said of the show to Heatmap. "There's some very obvious correlations of a husband and wife team doing passive homes in northern New Mexico, for sure. So people started texting, saying, 'Are you watching this? This is horribly painful.' They were right."
According to Heatmap, "The Curse" is less about the criticisms of the environmentally driven concept — which focuses on insulation to maintain a comfortable indoor temperature regardless of the weather while reducing the need for dirty energy — and more about satirizing "the narcissism of do-gooders, how publicly virtuous behavior can mask and enable private avarice … and how reality TV warps everything it touches."
However, the show did help publicize the movement while getting some features correct, whether it was a certification plaque that Dillman admitted is "almost identical" to one hanging in her abode or some of the concerns about owning a passive home.
For example, prospective buyers in the show question how the building cools itself during hot summers. Fielder and Stone's characters respond by saying it acts like a thermos with its insulation and will self-regulate five to seven hours after they open the door — the last of which Dillman thought was a "really funny exaggeration."
"I just want to say that opening doors and windows does not create hours of discomfort," she added. Dillman also noted that the thermos analogy was "painful" because it's one she often uses.
Furthermore, "The Curse" exaggerated the difficulties of building passive homes — something she considered "super inaccurate."
Dramatization aside, the show's core still resonated with Dilmman. "I think seeing the humor in it and the morality is important," she said. "I mean, it's really terrifyingly good satire."
Join our free newsletter for cool news and actionable info that makes it easy to help yourself while helping the planet.
Cool Picks
