November 06, 2003
From the desk of Jane Galt:I've seen a bunch of guys in the Blogosphere complaining about discrimination in television commercials and shows. All the men, they say, are made to look like idiots.
Guys, I'm hardly a hard-core feminist, but you're losing me. You want to know why guys are made to look like idiots in television commercials? Because they're supposed to be amusing enough to hold your interest, and that means someone's going to look like an idiot. And since the target demographic of all the commercials you're complaining about is women, guess who that's going to be? If you guys spent more time purchasing diapers, household cleaners, and baking mixes, the commercials would make fun of women instead.
And as a matter of fact, they used to. How many of you complained in the decades when women were the butt of every joke on television? Irrational, stupid, unable to manage money, irresponsible . . . how many of you complain when your friends make those same jokes now? I've spent most of my working life in overwhelmingly male-dominated environments, enough to get at least a sense of how most men talk about the women in their lives when it's just the guys. "Of course she's [irrational/stupid/demanding/unreasonable] -- she's a woman" came out of the mouth of nearly every highly educated, professional man I worked with, at one time or another. (Note to men: cabinets are not the same thing as a wall between you and the woman working on the other side.)
Not that I think turnabout is fair play, and that because women got the short end of the stick for a long time, we now get a pre-determined amount of time to stick it to men. I don't have very much patience for women complaining about what's on television either. If you don't like commercials or television shows in which women are portrayed as vehicles for a set of breasts, change the channel or stop buying the product.
(But that doesn't work, many women will correctly point out, because 35 year old women are not a big part of the market for light beer. Me esta rompiendo mi corazon.)
If men aren't prepared to change their viewing or purchasing habits in order to discourage the wanton portrayal of women as mindless sex objects (to be discarded when they start to wrinkle), or even to condemn it as unfair, then they can't really expect me to get worked up because the Cheerios commercial treats them like doofuses.
Update Some people in the comments seemed to take the above to mean that I think men are doofuses.
I love men. I even date them. I don't, as some women of my aquaintance seem to, believe that the fact that they like to alternatively ogle pretty young women, and other men beating eachother up over a piece of athletic equipment, makes them inferior or somehow wrong. I think men are different from women in many significant ways, and what's more, I like it that way.
But I don't think that the Cheerios commercial is a significant social arbiter that needs to be combatted, and I think that if you thought about it, neither would you. The fact is, the people doing most of the child care and housework in this country are women (even though, I must point out, many of them also work as many hours as their husbands). I don't want to argue about why this is, for there are enough couples in the country fighting about who does the housework; I see no net benefit from bringing more people into the argument by raising quarreling about chores to the level of a Pressing Social Problem. But as long as women are deciding who buys the Cheerios, commercials are going to pander to them. And the fact is that the target audience for Cheerios are women in their thirties and forties who are generally exhausted from trying to balance work and home, and yes, have a little bit of unresolved anger at the beloved husband who has parked his butt on the sofa in front of the football game while she makes up the grocery list. So while it is legitimate, in some sense, to complain that the commercials portray husbands as doofuses, the reason they do so is that that is how the target audience, many of whom wish that their husbands would just once think to check the cabinet to see if they're out of Cheerios instead of having to be handed a pre-made list, wants to see them.
Similarly, many women resent the fact that young mens' fantasies, to judge from television, apparently revolve around scantily clad women whose only english words are "take me to bed". This really does suck, in some sense -- and all those guys who like to tell me that they'd loved to be judged primarily on their sex appeal should take another look at that beer gut and the crow's feet around their eyes and think hard about how much fun it would be to lose your main ticket to success by the age of 35. But ladies, I bet the guy you're dating or married to isn't quite up to fulfilling your fantasies either. Such is life.
In either case, the reaction of many people -- agitating to change the media -- is bass ackwards. If you want the media portrayal to change, you need to change the people it's pandering to; otherwise it's as useless as all other forms of social censorship. Sex didn't go away just because the Victorians pretended it had.
Guys may hate that Saturn commercial about the vanity mirror, but guys aren't their target audience. Young women -- who hate negotiation -- are Saturn's target market. And guess what? We hate being condescended to by car salesmen as much as y'all hate being made fun of by your television.
I guess ultimately I think there is going to be social friction between men and women because men and women each have the most important thing the other group wants, which means there's going to be something of a power struggle. I don't think that every mild barb exchanged is a sign of a deep cultural sickness; I rather think of it as a sign of a healthy give and take. It's when we set up a rigid "this is how it is and don't you dare say otherwise" code that things start getting nasty, and that's true whether the code is dictated by men or women. So I'm not saying that you're wrong, exactly, that we shouldn't portray men as doofuses as often as we do; I just think that the cure is probably worse than the disease.
Besides, there's an easier solution. Y'all can go to the cupboard, start making lists of all the things you need, and do the grocery shopping. Madison Avenue is a heartless creature, thoroughly uninterested in ideology. If you guys buy the household goods, I guarantee they'll start making television cater to your anxieties instead of your wife's.
Update II Scott Ganz, who is a brand spanking new husband, makes a good point in the comments -- that the problem isn't that they're portrayed as doofuses so much as the fact that there are few good role models of fathers and husbands on television anywhere. I agree with this, but think the solution is to try to change the popular culture, not the television. I think it could be argued that this portrayal is as much a problem of men who view manliness as a sort of hyper-adolescence, as women who want to reign in masculinity.
Posted by Jane Galt at November 6, 2003 11:45 AM | TrackBack | Technorati inbound linksOoooh, that's just what I'd expect a WOMAN to say. If you can't understand why we're upset, then I guess there is no point in my trying to explain it to you.
Posted by: Pete Harrigan on November 6, 2003 01:07 PMJane - It's not just the commercials. There is a perception that it's PC to make fun of men (as a class) but not women. I'm not saying that perception is correct, only that it's there. Does polite company tolerate humor targeted at men (or any derogatory stereotype of men, whether intended as humorous or not)? I don't know. I'm not invited into polite company all that often.
I do think if Hillary were to run for President, it would not be considered out of bounds for her (or her supporters) to suggest she should win because she is a women and that its time for a women to serve as President. In short, the claim that she should win because being a women somehow would make her a better President would be allowed to stand without much censure from society. I don't think her male opponent would be allowed to suggest that Hillary was unfit because she's a women (or that he was better fit because he's a man). Such an argument would be met with righteous outrage by much of society.
The men you have worked with are doofuses. Anyone who would utter "Of course she's [irrational/stupid/demanding/unreasonable] -- she's a woman" in anything but the plainest jest -- male or female -- is a doofus.
Perhaps it is just because I am a male, but I don't see the pattern of universal male doofushood that you have seen. Perhaps you live in a defective area, or for some reason only know defective men.
Of course, I'm just defensive/thin-skinned/unperceptive/dumb-as-a-post: I'm a male. But not a doofus.
--G
>
Of course, this is in stark contrast to how "most women" talk about the men in their lives when it's just the girls.
>
Note to women: don't expect men to understand this. We're just doofuses.
I think that you hit the nail on the head. A small point, though:
"How many of you complained in the decades when women were the butt of every joke on television?"
Many of us weren't alive then. I'm 24, and when I was a kid I watched a lot of cartoons and Nick-At-Night. Maybe I'm missing something subtle, the there were jokes at women's expense in the Road Runner cartoons (just good, wholesome violence). Much of the reruns on Nick-At-Night either had nothing to do with gender roles (e.g. Get Smart) or were from the time when things had started to change (e.g. Bewitched, The Mary Tylor Moore Show). And frankly, if some of those re-runs actually had any jokes against women, I wasn't old enough to notice. I certainly don't recall any -- I remember the women as being treated reasonably (by which I don't mean that I remember the treatment and it was reasonable, I just remember that it seemed reasonable by my current standards, which are essentially the modern feminist ideal of treating women as men).
Posted by: ctl on November 6, 2003 02:07 PMWell, now I guess I just proved that, in fact, I indeed AM a doofus. I can't even cut and paste. So, here goes again.
>>I've spent most of my working life in overwhelmingly male-dominated environments, enought to get at least a sense of how most men talk about the women in their lives when it's just the guys.>Note to men: cabinets are not the same thing as a wall between you and the woman working on the other side.
Damn. Missed again. This comment section is harder to work than a toaster!!
Regards,
Doofus
I didn't say you were all doofuses. I said that it's not all that surprising that shows and commercials pointed at a female demographic portray you as doofuses, any more than it's surprising that the Lifetime network shows men as (alternatively) macho jerks or sensitive superheroes, or that shows aimed at a male demographic portray women as absent or sex objects. Them's the breaks. Vive la difference.
Men complain about women. Women complain about men. There seems to me, in the limited sample I've been exposed to, a lot more need on the part of men to present women as somehow contemptible, rather than merely different/annoying, but that could just be selection bias; after all, I worked in highly macho environments full of guys who had made a career choice to spend their lives pretty much solely in the company of other guys. But I'm not getting ready to file a lawsuit over it, and I don't see much scope for change by whining about how the other side doesn't respect me. If their respect is worth earning, I'll figure out how to do so. If it isn't, I'm certainly not going to waste any more of my precious moments on earth anguishing about it. Hence, I'm more than willing to spend time and money and effort making myself as attractive as possible (and have absolutely no patience for women who complain that men don't like them fat and unkempt), but I'm not willing to pretend I have no opinions, or generally act like an idiot.
Posted by: Jane Galt on November 6, 2003 02:19 PMIt's *people* who are irrational/stupid/demanding/unreasonable. It's just a "selection effect" that men tend to notice this more about women and women about men...
Posted by: Rich on November 6, 2003 02:46 PMMost commercials are insulting and stereotypical -- for both men and women.
Every once in a while a commercial will shine out in its humor or intellect, but with commercials as with most TV shows (and hell, movies too), everything seems to be as dumbed down and sexed up as possible.
I've pretty much given up expecting anything else.
Posted by: Anne on November 6, 2003 02:48 PMWhat disturbs me is not that all men are portrayed as doofuses, but that a certain selection of them are. Men in ads tend to be portrayed one of three ways. They are either the hip, goateed single guy, the idiotic slobbish single guy, or the dopey, emasculated husband.
The single guy dichotomy I have no problem with in itself. It's basically true. However, what troubles me is the way in which married men are compared so unfavorably to high-fashion playboys. We're told how noble it is to settle down and get married, but once we do that, we're told how dopey we are compared to the rayon-shirted Smirnoff Black drinker who's having more fun than we are.
Of course, the problem here, as you said, is that married men drive commerce far less powerfully than their single counterparts. But that aside, bashing married men seems more like cheap pandering than a serious attempt to sell. Men do still have some market say-so, and with the proliferation of cable channels, it's easy to make ads that will effectively target us. Nevertheless, I'm convinced that if women got the treatment men get in ads, there would be outrage.
Posted by: Scott Ganz on November 6, 2003 02:50 PMIf you rally want to hit the exacta of bi-sexual, , insulting treatment in commercials, beer commercials, particularly Coors ads (heavily run during sporting events) are just the ticket. Women are nearly universally portrayed as sex bunnies with come-hither gazes, and men as the nitwits who collapse into jelly upon seeing the bunnies.
Of course, there is an element of reality to this, as spending too much time in saloons will attest to, but geez, the presentation is usually so witless (with exceptions; Budweiser occasionally can achieve some level of humor) that it causes one to swear off the product, if one hadn't done so already. I'm usually a whisky or wine consumer, and my beer tastes tend to run toward Guinness, but I wouldn't allow a Coors to pass my lips unless Prohibition was reinstituted, except for products out of Golden, CO. Of course, I'm past most beer companies' preferred age demographic, so they probably don't care about my reaction.
Popular culture in general has become so juvenilized that it is increasingly worthless to anyone over the age of 24. Movies are very often written for 13 year olds, and not just movies which are obvious or literal comic books. Think of that awful movie, with supposedly "adult subject matter", which featured the infamous Sharon Stone crotch shot (the title escapes me). Every character in the movie is an arrested adolescent. Compare it to any noirish flick that Humphrey Bogart was in. Maybe the difference lies in marketing fiction to people who nearly universally experienced events like WWII or the Depression, as opposed to people who, for the most part, have never known anything but affluent comfort, but there seems to be a real difference in what is considered "adult" and what is thought to be "childish". For those old enough to remember, do you recall people in their thirties celebrating Holloween thirty years ago, as they do today?
Posted by: Will Allen on November 6, 2003 04:01 PMI hadn't really thought about it that way. You can, I hope, take some satisfaction in having made a point with at least one man.
Posted by: Jim on November 6, 2003 04:17 PM-- I didn't say you were all doofuses --
Even when you wrote about how "most men" talk about women in the company of other guys? And then when you wrote that "note to men" remark, suggesting that it takes a woman to describe the obvious to males?
I've been reading your blog for a while now, and I know that a person as smart as you (asuming I'm smart enough to know what smart is) doesn't think that all men are doofuses. God, I should hope not.
(Aside: the more I say the word "doofuses", the weirder it sounds. Say "doofuses" 10 times to yourself, and tell me it isn't a very strange sounding word. This is gonna be like a song I can't get out of my head for the rest of the day. Doofuses. Doofuses. Doofuses. AARRGG!!)
But I must say, I was a little surprised by the sweeping generalizations inherent in those comments. I certainly haven't kept count, but my recollection is that I have probably met just as many women who have demonstrated an urge to express how men are contemptable (versus merely different or annoying) as men who feel likewise about women. But I only can speak about my experiences, which certainly don't include the herculean feat of meeting and evaluating "most" women or men.
As for your point about the target demographic of the commercials in question (i.e., catering to the female buyer)...I have no data to back me up, but I don't think the target audience theory completely explains it. Just off the top of my head I can think of several "dumb male" ads that don't seem to fit that mold. A commercial for home air conditioners? A national seafood restaraunt chain? Life insurance? These products don't seem to be uniquely targeted to the female buyer. In fact, it could be argued that they're "family" commercials, suitable for viewing by even the kiddies.
Regardless, how is the consistent and widely accepted portrayal of the male as a bumbling idiot excused simply because the product is ostensibly being hawked to a predominantly female audience? Sure, we know WHY the advertiser is doing it (target the audience to increase sales)...but how is that therefore "okay". By the same token, shouldn't beer commercials (consistently and widely) featuring busty blondes therefore get a free pass because, after all, they're just catering to the young male demographic?
My point is, I hardly suspect the bloggers claiming misandry are doing so because they're somehow "surprised" by this trend and fail to understand the marketing techniques of the advertisers. They're PO'd that it's now perfectly "okay", commonplace and indeed anything but a surprise to portray men in ways that, if the tables were turned, today would be considered virulently sexist.
Listen, T.V. commercials are a wasteland from no matter which "side" you look at it. Both sexes have plenty to complain about when it comes to their portrayals on the tube. But two wrongs don't make a right. And when it comes to men's negative reactions to the male stereotypes presented, you likewise shouldn't expect them to pretend they shouldn't have opinion about it.
As for you spending time and money making yourself look as attractive as possible...I'm not sure what point you're getting at here...but I've seen your picture on this site and at TCS...and you can rest assured that you really don't need to spend any time or money. Given the theme of this subject and post, perhaps now is an utterly inappropriate time for me to say so, but you are stunning.
Posted by: Michael M on November 6, 2003 04:24 PMWhy, thank you, Michael, and I didn't mean to imply that men were uniquely stupid in gossiping where they can be overheard, though I can see how you would take it that way.
I also agree that two wrongs don't make a right. But I think that a certain amount of stereotypical sniping is inevitable, given the age old war between the sexes. If it's a symptom of something deeper, it's the something deeper we need to change, not the commercials. For I agree with many of my readers . . . expecting television to be anything other than a wasteland is probably in vain.
Posted by: Jane Galt on November 6, 2003 04:39 PMI sure there are many, many other women who would like to congratulate you on this terrific post, but they're all to busy doing all that stuff men don't do.
Jane - I didn't get the idea that you expect men to pretend they shouldn't have opinion about the state of TV ads today. Thought your point was that menfolk are unlikely to be pleased by ads aimed at women, women who are scurrying around doing all the work.
You know what’s fun? When a man tells me how he does this or that or the other thing around the house - for instance, cleaning the shower - I like to ask, for instance, what product he uses for the task. Most men can’t answer. Even with help like, you know, my asking “Well, do you use a Comet-like powder? A chemical spray?”
Posted by: jc on November 6, 2003 04:43 PMI, too, expect there to be some sniping. As well, we should expect people to snipe about the people who are sniping. That would make them the snipers and the snipees, I guess.
And, no, I don't want to forcefully (i.e., through regulation/government) change any commercials, given my libertarian leanings. But I see no harm in voicing discontent about what I don't like. My trouble is, I buy based on whether I like the PRODUCT, not what the stupid commercial is like (unless Madison Ave has me so brainwashed I don't know the difference...heh). So I guess I unwittingly support much of the crap on the airwaves by doing so. Too bad for me.
Oh well. I guess we've beat this horse to death.
Posted by: Michael M on November 6, 2003 04:55 PMI do the shopping. I've never bought anything because of a commercial. I don't think I've ever seen a commercial that compelled me in the least to 'buy'. I've been entertained but never inspired. I believe my wife is the same. We buy what is needed and favored.
Posted by: judson on November 6, 2003 05:03 PMI do the shopping. I've never bought anything because of a commercial. I don't think I've ever seen a commercial that compelled me in the least to 'buy'. I've been entertained but never inspired. I believe my wife is the same. We buy what is needed and favored.
Posted by: judson on November 6, 2003 05:05 PMI do the shopping. I've never bought anything because of a commercial. I don't think I've ever seen a commercial that compelled me in the least to 'buy'. I've been entertained but never inspired. I believe my wife is the same. We buy what is needed and favored.
Posted by: judson on November 6, 2003 05:07 PMUmmm... and TV has been providing us with good role models since when...?
TV is all about 2nd rate minds pandering to 3rd rate minds, mainly for profit. Why 1st rate minds have a probelm with that is beyond me. Some kind of east coast preop-school sentimentality kicking in
Posted by: hugh on November 6, 2003 05:11 PMI kinda thought that being a Doofus was what made us cute in the eyes of women -- especially when we're trying so hard to look James-Bond cool (I'm reminded of the Duran-Duran video for "Hungry like the Wolf").
As matter of fact, one of my favorite commercials is for Sprint Cellular: there's a goofy guy sitting at the counter of diner, doing a very poor job of feeding himself. As soon as he gets most of his sandwhich on his face the girl takes a picture of him with her phone and sends the guy's girlfriend with the epithet "Don't you just love youre new boyfriend?" The kicker, of course, is that she turns to the Joe Friday character who's in all teh commercials and says "I DO love him" with all the earnestnest of a high school girl in love.
In short, I'm happy to be portrayed as a Doofus as long as you women keep lovin' us.
And, BTW, isn't the plural "Doofae"?
Posted by: D. Citizen on November 6, 2003 05:16 PMThe "father is a Doofus" sitcom plot is around for a couple of reasons:
* crappy writers need SOMEONE to be the schnook. Making fun of people is the last refuge of the incompetent comedy writer. If you look at QUALITY comedy writing (say the old Andy Griffith show), there was no pattern of making fun of any particular person. Even old Barney Fyfe won out now and again.
* If someone in the family is going to be the schook, it HAS to be Dad. Can't be Mom, that wouldn't be PC. Ditto for the kids. Can't be an old person. What's left?
It is striking that if you go back to the more well written sitcoms (Andy Griffith, Dick Van Dyke Show, Addams Family, etc) you see MUCH less formulaic plots and much more well-drawn characters.
Today's sitcoms are all about how unspeakably rude the characters can be to each other. Every show has to top the others to seem "funnier" and it has all spiraled down.
I got my fill years ago and now only watch the rare network show (eg, Monk).
Has anybody here actually worked on a TV sitcom? I have. If you'd ever worked on one, there's NO WAY in god's earth you'd be debating this fluff as if it mattered.
Posted by: hugh macleod on November 6, 2003 06:30 PMHow many of you complained in the decades when women were the butt of every joke on television?
"When", exactly, was that? I'm 31 years old, and it hasn't been true for my lifetime. "All in the Family", "Mary Tyler Moore", "The Beverly Hillbillies", "Happy Days", "Barney Miller", "The Jeffersons", "Laverne and Shirley", "Mork and Mindy", "Benson", "WKRP", "Taxi", "Three's Company", "Family Ties", "Newhart", "The Cosby Show", "Dukes of Hazzard", "Cheers", "Roseanne", "Seinfeld"... none of these shows made women "the butt of every joke" or anything close to it. Even shows centered on clueless female characters (Laverne&Shirley, Mary Tyler Moore), the true dolts were the men (Lenny/Squiggy/Ted Baxter).
Hell, even incredibly un-PC shows from the 60s like "Bewitched" and "I Dream of Jeanie" featured a healthy dose of stupid male characters.
When did these "decades" happen?
Me esta rompiendo mi corazon. I ran this through BableFish and got "Me this breaking my heart". Just goes to show computers don't make great translators. Not yet at least. Sorry to get off topic.
Posted by: Sal on November 6, 2003 07:00 PMIt's been awhile since I took Latin, but I believe that "doofae" would be the plural of doofa, not doofus. Doofus would be pluralized as doofi. You know, octopus, octopi; amicus, amici; alumnus, alumni; alumna, alumnae; etc.
Posted by: Rex on November 6, 2003 07:29 PMdoof, doofes, doofest.
doofumus, doofestis, doofunt.
I am a doofus, you are a doofus, he is a doofus.
We are doofae, you are doofae, they are doofae.
Reminds me of one of the funniest spontaneous comments I've ever heard. Years ago when I was in high school, a friend of mine and I stopped at a gas station to fill up with the obligatory $3 we had in our pockets. There we stood filling up the car, when up pulled a 45-year old flat-bed, rusted-out Ford truck, loaded up to precarious heights with empty chicken crates. Out hops these, uh...people...desparately in need of dental work.
I stood there, speechless, wondering at this caricaturish sight whether they were looking for the nearest SEE-ment pond. But my friend, who was in Latin class with me, looked over to me without missing a beat and said, nonplussed... "agricolae sunt".
I almost died, right there.
Posted by: Michael M on November 6, 2003 08:27 PMMegan, you're dead wrong on this one, but you're still stunning. Does saying this make me a doofus?
Posted by: Steven R. Chamberlain on November 6, 2003 10:49 PMA mildly interesting aside...The Fox TV show 'Skin' has been cancelled due to low ratings. Featuring plenty of scantily clad young women, and hip young men, the show was aimed at the all important 18-30-ish male demographic. It was heavily hyped during the World Series, and failed miserably after 3 episodes.
Contrast this with the intelligently written "CSI" with the highest ratings of any show for the past several seasons. It's intelligently written, treats the cast (men and women) with respect, and doesn't try to use sex to sell episodes (although that is an element in some).
When I clean the shower I use that "scrubbing bubbles" stuff. When I clean the sink I use Windex, which I also use on the mirrors and shower door. I clean the tile floor with scalding hot water with a little bit of Joy dish detergent and a lot of Clorox.
When I do the laundry, I use Tide and Downy. I have some Woolite too, but I never use it, cleaning the dainty stuff is the wifes job, I can't be trusted.
When I do the shopping, I make a list, and follow it, and don't vary from it. When my wife does the shopping, she impulsively buys stuff that is on sale because it is a good deal, regardless of whether we use (or ever will use) that product. Despite that, she spends less money at the store than I do. (But I buy higher quality meats and vegetables.)
I cook, clean, shop, do maintainence AND the laundry and it wouldn't be that much of a burden if it weren't for my wifes constant demands for SEX, SEX and MORE SEX.
Thank God I'm not a whining doofus.
By the way, I'm 57 years old, and I cannot remember those decades when women were the butt of every joke on television. My memories of TV go back to Sid Ceaser, Milton Berle and Steve Allens version of the Tonight show. It was not uncommon in those days for a woman to be the butt of a joke, nor was it uncommon for a man to be the butt of a joke. More often than not, however, it was the comedian himself who was the butt of the joke, or his straight man.
There was not a person in America who did not know that Gracie Allen was the smart one. (I miss George and Gracie, they had STYLE.)
I have one thing to say to both the females and the males who feel they are being mistreated by the other half.
SUCK IT UP AND STOP WHINING.
Posted by: Gary Utter on November 7, 2003 03:15 AM"Agricolae sunt".
>crickets chirping...chirp-chirp..chirp-chirp
Say...isn't this the "latin-geeks.com" weblog? Anyone?
Oh. Nevermind.
Posted by: Michael M on November 7, 2003 08:46 AMI'm 53 and I can remember when you couldn't get away from jokes about "women drivers" and mother-in-laws."
Posted by: Roger Sweeny on November 7, 2003 09:59 AM>>How many of you complained in the decades
>>when women were the butt of every joke
>>on television?
>"When", exactly, was that? I'm 31 years old,
>and it hasn't been true for my lifetime. "All
>in the Family", "Mary Tyler Moore", "The
>Beverly Hillbillies",
Oh please. How many shows have a "zany, kooky,
fun-loving" husband and a rational wife? From I Love Lucy to Dharma and Greg the "zany" = "cute" idea is reserved to the women's side of the issue.
A popular show that balanced the roles was Mad About You. One bit had Jamie come out and wordlessly demonstrate how to put a new roll of toilet paper on the spindle. "Voila!" A year later Paul demonstrated he'd learned. "Voila!"
"I bore your child"
Leaving T.V. land for a moment ... it seems to me the whole notion of advertising is insulting. "We believe you are so mallable, if not gullible, that your financial decisions can be influenced in 90 seconds or less." That ads are targeted at immature boy-men rather than adult males suggests that advertisers believe adult men are NOT so influenced. But that a steady stream of ads bombard women of all ages ... either the advetisers are wasting their money (probable) or women, as a group, DO tend to be more (if only somewhat) influenced by commercials than are men. (Men, maybe, buy Frosted Flakes regardless of the Cherrios commercial OR the coupon for twenty-five cents off on Raisin Bran OR the fact that they're "pinching more than an inch" as portrayed on the box of Special-K. )
Posted by: Pouncer on November 7, 2003 10:03 AMI think this all comes down to expectations and, in particular, the profoundly inadequate expectations that people have for themselves, for one another, and (because gender and family are a microcosm of social roles and organisations) for members of the other gender.
If men are ridiculed as idiots in the sitcoms, this is because as a society we are willing to accept the notion that idiot men have a functional place in our civilisation; if women are not so ridiculed, it is a sign that we do not accept the same absurd proposition as respects women. The sitcom man is not so much the victim of vicious writers as the "beneficiary" of low expectations.
Ms. Galt makes the same evaluation of men in her implication that the mental defectives with whom she has worked (because, again, who but a mental defective would, in anything but the most obvious jest, utter a statement like "Of course she's stupid -- she's a woman") are in some way the norm. _Of course_ they're the norm: nobody seems to expect better of them. And as long as expectations remain low, such mental defectives will continue, unreformed, to make their asinine remarks, influence others, and in some cases (gods forbid!) reproduce. The marginal benefit to men for an increase in competence is really quite low. Goodness knows I wouldn't have to work half as hard at being a decent human being if I were dating rather than married. My wife has far higher expections of me -- quite rightly! -- than most others would.
Of course, low expectations are a two-way street. Civilisation's low expectations of men have a tendency feed into lower expectations of women as well. After all, if men can get away with being beer-swilling pigs, who's to say women can't get away with being image-obsessed hysterics? Hence the popular revival by both left and right of victorian-age pedestalism: Culture, from the left and the right, increasingly wants to see women and especially girls protected, given self-esteem, coddled, and in the final analysis never really expected to amount to anything except genetic preservation machines. That's gender equity for you: Tolerate useless idiot men, get useless idiot women.
The solution is really quite simple. Everyone, male and female, needs to hold everyone else, male and female, to much higher standards. We need to not put up with or accept anything less than a net positive contribution to human civilisation from each and every person out there. We need to expect others to be capable, rational, decent, and adaptable. And when they don't measure up, we need to not ensrine in the living-room Cathode Ray Tube Altar as a normal or acceptable thing.
With all of their whining about the eternal struggle between modern decadence and some faux-traditional golden-age, the established political and social forces endeavour to distract us from this: The real culture war that both the left and the right don't want to fight is the revolution of raised expectations. At the moment, we're all losing.
--G
Errr. We're talking about commercials and mass market television, right? Isn't this a case for Ockhams Razor?
Commercials are targeted towards specific audiences. Women earn and control a lot more money than they did a generation and a half ago, and so a proportionally larger effort is dedicated to selling them stuff. Often that which panders to men offends women and that which panders to women offends men. Because there has been a considerable increase in marketing that panders to women, there is a like increase in marketing than offends men.
To men: why should a given man be offended over some other man portraying a foolish fictional character on television in order to convince women to buy something? Shouldn't men be more offended when they're the targeted audience?
to women: Welcome to the club. Now you too are regularly the subjects of shameless appeals to your vanity and insecurity in an attempt to manipulate you into some action or belief that's unilkely to be in your own best interest. Compare the marketing tactics commonly used with women to the tactics used on men. What does the difference imply about the female target groups psychology?
Posted by: Alexander Crawford on November 7, 2003 10:17 AMLong time lurker, first time poster.
I have to take friendly argumentative issue with Jane's statement that women do most of the housework or child rearing.
I think most of the evidence for this is self reporting.
There are also a host of other factors: with children, women can be ferocious gatekeepers. So it turns into self-fulfilling prophecy: "you're not doing it right" from the wife can quickly turn into "Okie dokie, there's a chore I don't need to attend to" from the guy's perspective.
There's also the "You're not doing it right" problem. In our house that's a quick way to become master of the task.
I could even bring up an argument about child care: "What the heck is that, anyway?" If two parents are in the house and the kids are playing quietly, who's caring?
Or the "how was little johnny at daycare?" Husband: "Fine." Wife: "did you ask?" Guy: "Why would I ask? If he was bad they would tell me." Wife: "no, you need to talk to them to find out if he's acting up."
Gotta tell you, that sounds like asking for trouble. So instantly, you have a guy's idea of how to pick up the kids from daycare: drive up, find yours, sign out, leave. Contrast this with my wife's version(and nearly every woman I've talked to about this): Drive up, find yours, talk to the daycare teacher for five minutes about little johnny, find out that the daycare teacher thinks little johhny is acting up more than last week, worry about it on the way home, talk to husband.
From my perspective, this is an increase in work with no better result (guy's perspective).
but I'm just sayin' is all.
Posted by: Patrick on November 7, 2003 10:38 AM
CSI may not push sex much but the Miami version is pretty over the top in the sheer number of amazingly attractive cleavage bearing females on the show. As much as I enjoy the inclusion of Khandi, Poppy, etc. I find it challenges my suspension of disbelief almost as much as the whizzy software they have for every imaginable situation.
The treatment of people in commercials goes beyond gender and into race. It seems producers are terrified of depicting any non-white in a lesser light unless the person who comes out on top is also a non-white. For instance, it is very common in AOL's ads to have a white male type be the hapless loser with a lousy ISP. Cut to smiling black or Asian female presumably using AOL (you can't see their face and the monitor simultaneously but the inference is obvious) and having a great time thanks to the choice made with her superior wit.
The rules become readily clear with a bit of viewing time. It's almost like the hands in a card game. An adult white male is barely capable of breathing without an occasional reminder. Virtually anybody else will be portrayed as much intelligent, tasteful, pratical and any other virtue that suits the product. Any other Caucasian can be in the loser role but typically only if the winner is female. A male can be better than another male but a female can only be in the superior position against a male. If the buffoon is a white female the happy user of the advertised product is almost certainly either a much more attractive female or non-white or both.
If a black man is made out as the buffoon another black man is required or better, a black woman, to show him his desparate error.
I greatly disagree with the use of 'zany' female characters as evidence of bias against female intelligence. There is a big difference between those roles and those of men who seem to be utterly incapable from ever learning from their mistakes. This is the major reason shows like "Home Improvement' and 'Everybody Loves Raymond' wear thin so quickly for me. Lucy Ricardo may get herself into wild situations but she doesn't repeat herself. One bad day on the chocolates production line was enough. She had defects that got her in trouble and allowed Lucille Ball to exercise her talents but she wasn't inherently stupid. By comparison it seems completely remarkable that the men in the above mentioned shows managed to remain both alive and married.
Most of this isn't really new. Ralph Kramden was a loud jackass with a much smarter wife in Alice. Likewise his prehistoric clone Fred Flintstone to Wilma. But one can't really complain about 'The Honeymooners' since Jackie Gleason created those characters and knew exactly what was doing with the disparity between Ralph and Alice.
What has made this sort of thing more annoying in recent times is the added element of political correctness. Characters aren't created solely in support of the story and making the best use of the performers' talents. (The greatest ditzy dames of film and television required the smartest women to give them life. Less bright actresses don't understand the material sufficiently to know how to make it work.) An element of calculation is added that has the producers constantly looking over their shoulder for anyone who might take offense. You could be the black reincarnation of Jerome 'Curly' Howard but you'll only get to do your stuff on UPN in an entirely black cast. Which limits your opportunities because organizations that are supposedly trying to expand your opportunities might object.
Posted by: Eric Pobirs on November 7, 2003 11:33 AM"CSI may not push sex much but the Miami version is pretty over the top in the sheer number of amazingly attractive cleavage bearing females on the show."
Could that be because *Miami* is pretty over the top in the sheer number of amazingly attractive, cleavage-bearing females?!
I have nothing further to contribute.
Posted by: Greg Hill on November 7, 2003 12:39 PMEric Pobirs---Excuse me, but Lucy didn't repeat herself?? Every other episode was about her lust to get into show business, and how she went to wacky extremes to do so without Ricky's knowledge. And then of course there were the times that Ricky found out, and arranged it so she would be "taught a lesson" about keeping her place.
It's going to take a long, long time to wash the bitter taste of Lucy Ricardo from my psyche.
And I always thought of Fred Flintstone as a positive role model for men, because, you see, the men I knew as a kid were never quite as nice as he was.
Posted by: Angie Schultz on November 7, 2003 01:19 PMI adore I Love Lucy. But I also recognize that it trades on a stereotype of stupid, irresponsible women kept in line by their cleverer men.
Posted by: Jane Galt on November 7, 2003 01:59 PMThe history of women on Televison has gone from a predominate pedestal of honor (old fsahioned respect) in the 1950s and 1960s to a predominate pedestal of wisdom today. Seldom villains, seldom evil, seldom uncaring, the only real pervasive negative was the tendency to focus on their sex appeal (and even that was really positive). As far as Jane's rather silly comment that the bigotry (my word, not hers) against men today is a product of women doing the shopping, that would still be wrong and were the men buying the new blue Cheer then in 1952? I think not.
Posted by: Doug Rivers on November 7, 2003 02:16 PMPouncer:
Oh please. How many shows have a "zany, kooky,
fun-loving" husband and a rational wife?
Ummm . . . I don't know about "zany" and "kooky," but The Simpsons nonetheless springs to mind.
Posted by: Michelle Dulak on November 7, 2003 02:17 PMIs it a stereotype if it's the truth? Just wondering.
I don't personally watch commercials - I have a TiVo - but from when I did, I'll go out on a limb and suggest that the stereotypical portrayal of gender is intended to appeal to an audience, as the editrix says. Women feel insecure about their competence, so they're comforted by portrayals of men as incompetents in the domestic sphere. This is simply pandering, the essence of advertising.
A more interesting issue for me is the increasing portrayal of men by pop culture as irrelevant, optional, or troublesome parts of the family. The old 50s stereotype of Ricky as the sane member of the Ricardo household - ironic for a hot-blooded Latin after all - has given way to a new feminist-inspired stereotype of men as parasites, nuisances, and threats, locating themselves somewhere on the Simpson spectrum between Homer and O.J. Half the children in America grow up without a father (not a "role model", a FATHER) in the home for some portion of their childhood, and most often father is gone because that's the way mother wants it. Some mothers are smart enough to know that their relationship makeovers aren't helping the kids any, so they find comfort in pop culture that reinforces their lifestyle choice by marginalizing fathers. That this current of pop culture should carry over from sitcoms and melodramas to commercials should come as no surprise.
And BTW, there's never been a time when women held the short end of the stick in Western culture. They've always enjoyed liberty, safety, and technology without the nuisance of dying in war, crafting governments, or inventing significant technologies. Men aren't resentful of women sharing the fruits of our labor and our struggle - we've got to share with somebody - but let's tone down the whining just a tad.
Posted by: Richard Bennett on November 7, 2003 02:22 PMIs it a stereotype if it's the truth? Just wondering.
I don't personally watch commercials - I have a TiVo - but from when I did, I'll go out on a limb and suggest that the stereotypical portrayal of gender is intended to appeal to an audience, as the editrix says. Women feel insecure about their competence, so they're comforted by portrayals of men as incompetents in the domestic sphere. This is simply pandering, the essence of advertising.
A more interesting issue for me is the increasing portrayal of men by pop culture as irrelevant, optional, or troublesome parts of the family. The old 50s stereotype of Ricky as the sane member of the Ricardo household - ironic for a hot-blooded Latin after all - has given way to a new feminist-inspired stereotype of men as parasites, nuisances, and threats, locating themselves somewhere on the Simpson spectrum between Homer and O.J. Half the children in America grow up without a father (not a "role model", a FATHER) in the home for some portion of their childhood, and most often father is gone because that's the way mother wants it. Some mothers are smart enough to know that their relationship makeovers aren't helping the kids any, so they find comfort in pop culture that reinforces their lifestyle choice by marginalizing fathers. That this current of pop culture should carry over from sitcoms and melodramas to commercials should come as no surprise.
And BTW, there's never been a time when women held the short end of the stick in Western culture. They've always enjoyed liberty, safety, and technology without the nuisance of dying in war, crafting governments, or inventing significant technologies. Men aren't resentful of women sharing the fruits of our labor and our struggle - we've got to share with somebody - but let's tone down the whining just a tad.
Posted by: Richard Bennett on November 7, 2003 02:25 PMRichard, come on. Thirty years ago, unless I was independantly wealthy, I couldn't have gotten a mortgage or a credit card without a man to cosign for me. Fifty years ago, if I failed to marry, I could expect to find myself relegated to jobs that paid significantly less than a man's. My great grandmothers couldn't vote, had no legal right to make a contract without the consent of their husbands, and had no property or money of their own even though their labor was as essential to the success of the farm as their husbands'. Yes, women were safe, but as a conservative, how would you feel about a government that would keep you safe and coddled in exchange for taking away your freedom of contract, your right to own property, and your money? One might also point out that that "government" didn't always do such a good job, and a woman who'd made one foolish choice at eighteen could find herself mired in poverty and miserty for fifty years with no ability to earn any money herself, or find herself widowed and abandonned to destitution. There's a reason that "widows and orphans" feature so prominently in the poverty literature of the nineteenth century. I'm hardly a left-wing feminist, but no one with an eighth of a brain and an ounce of self-respect could possibly imagine that they would prefer to enjoy the lot of women a hundred years ago to that of men.
Posted by: Jane Galt on November 7, 2003 02:34 PMHere's an interesting exercise:
Name the last fictional character (TV or movies) coming out of Hollywood that was:
* White
* Male
* Successful business executive
* Portrayed as a good person
I can't think of any. Can anyone else? Every businessman is evil? All of them?
> Name the last fictional character (TV or > movies) coming out of Hollywood that was:
> * White
> * Male
> * Successful business executive
> * Portrayed as a good person
Bobby Ewing
Posted by: Mike on November 7, 2003 04:10 PMUh, I think that some of these comments are going over the top.
Lucy, trading on the idea of stupid, irresponsible woman kept in line by a cleverer husband?
Homer Simpson representing the idiotic male, saved only by his rational wife, Marge?
C'mon. I think people are losing sight of the distinction between odd, witless television CHARACTERS who happen to be men/women (choose your favorite victim group), as opposed to television characters who are odd and witless BECAUSE they're men/women (choose your favorite victim group).
For example, wouldn't it seem preposterous to say that Kramer from the Seinfeld show trades on the notion that men are hyper, ADD-addled nitwits who behave like they're from another planet?
Of course it would. Kramer is a funny character who just happens to be male, and the rest of the cast (both male and female) each have their own wild foibles that make their characters interesting and fun...it has nothing to do with gratuitous pandering to stereotypical gender roles.
By the same token, I don't think Lucy can be held up as some sort of poster child for damaging female stereotypes, when at the same time the Ricky character could be interpreted as demonstrating a number of stereotypically "male traits" that thin-skinned men could also find insulting (hot-tempered, jealous, controlling, etc.) If anything, I Love Lucy was an equal-opportunity gender basher. (But I thought Ethel was a reasonably level-headed character.)
And Homer Simpson as an indication of spreading misandry? Wow.
I guess people kind find anything if they look hard enough.
What started this whole string was the (correct) observation that there are a growing number of male characters on TV that are depicted as useless idiots PRECISELY BECAUSE they are men. And then the women chimed in by (rightly) pointing out that there are quite a few moments from the past when the same could be said about female TV characters.
NONE of this means that therefore virtually all of the idiotic characters on TV, past and present, are cast in a way that plays up this gender issue.
Aw, gosh-darnit anyway. I promised myself I wouldn't jump into this fray again, but I couln't resist.
Posted by: Michael M on November 7, 2003 04:44 PMThe concept of bashing genders either way is stupid. If you don't like the sterotype, live your life in such a manner so that when others see you, you set a new example or standard for whatever chance-assigned group you belong to. As a side note, how about reading a book instead of causing atrophy of the mind by way of television?
But this is where (we) conservatives can really be idiots at times. Thre is a concerted effort to to marginalize the male. He is depicted across the board as a fat clueless idiot in need of guidance from either women or some other constituency that votes from Democrats and the answer of many is "get over it". Propaganda and negative stereotyping matters and if unanswered over time, matters a helluva lot.
Posted by: Doug Rivers on November 7, 2003 05:23 PMMichael M:
And Homer Simpson as an indication of spreading misandry? Wow.
I didn't say that. Someone wanted an instance of a "zany, kooky, fun-loving husband" and a "rational wife." I said The Simpsons came close. Do you really think otherwise?
Posted by: Michelle Dulak on November 7, 2003 05:47 PMI'm trying to think of any movie that I willingly saw that included a business executive. They usually aren't compelling fictional characters, period. What was the last Hollywood production to feature a female crossing guard as a positive role model?
I've got one. "Good Morning Miami", the guy who manages the station. Eminently sympathetic.
Gosh, this is silly.
Great post. I don't watch much TV, so I don't have much of a sense of what people are complaining about, but your analysis seems good.
And for what it's worth, good looks don't end at 35. I think crow's feet look great. Pretty much anybody--male or female--who stays in shape looks pretty good as they age.
Posted by: Jay on November 7, 2003 06:41 PMJane, love your blog and this thread, but I take issue with the comment that "no one with an eighth of a brain and an ounce of self respect" would prefer the lot of a woman to that of a man 100 years ago. Did you ever spend time talking to your older relatives about what life was really like early in the last century? A man's life - at least a working class man's life - was no piece of cake. Work was back-breaking and dangerous (especially if it was off the farm). Most men at that time didn't have office jobs. They WORKED at hard, physical labor...six days a week, I might add. Work that most women could not do, because they didn't possess the necessary physical strength.
Most men and women at that time were too busy keeping food on the table and roof over their heads to worry about women's rights and whether a woman could open her own bank account. And, no, my grandmother, who turned 90 in April, would not have traded places with my grandfather, who died in 1964 from heart failure. As my grandmother puts it, "He died of a heart attack, but I always say that he worked himself to death just to keep us in this house and food on the table."
Switching gears here - I always laugh when people get into a tizzy over "I Love Lucy." We were supposed to identify with Lucy Ricardo - that's why the show wasn't called, "I Love Ricky." (Think about it - if this show were really as anti-feminist as people claim, it would have centered on Ricky Ricardo and his band. Lucy would have been the adoring, but slightly scatter-brained wife who directed her schemes at furthering her husband's career, not getting into show business herself.)
She wasn't just a woman anymore - she represented every man or woman who had a dream, but not necessarily the money, talent or connections to realize it. That didn't prevent her from trying...or us from laughing at her as she came up with one scheme after another.
Posted by: Greg on November 7, 2003 07:29 PMdoof, doofes, doofest.
Shouldn't that be doof, doofer, doofest?
Posted by: triticale on November 7, 2003 10:39 PMI'm not trying to present the lot of women at the turn of the century as one of unmitigated misery. And my grandmother, too, never worked outside the home. But her mother was engaged in coolie labor seven days a week. To do laundry, for example, she hauled water from a well, heated it on the stove, scrubbed it the same way a mechanical agitator does in today's washing machines, hauled more water to rinse it, carried wet clothes outside, hung them, ironed them with flatirons that had to be continuously heated on a stove that needed coal shoveled into it on a regular basis, and folded it and put it away up three flights of stairs. She also cooked three meals a day from scratch in an era before electric mixers, refrigeration, or prepared anything, overseeing the entire process from coop or garden to pot. She had a shorter expected lifespan than her husband because her risk of dying in childbirth was significant. Yes, her husband lifted heavier things than she did, but she spent all day, every day lifting things that were as heavy as she could manage, which was just as exhausting for her as it was for him to lift the heavier load.
Posted by: Jane Galt on November 7, 2003 11:33 PMGreg, Miami but not Las Vegas where the other show is based? Sorry but I see a significant difference in how the two are conducted. It's seems like the spin-off series had a mission of not just providing another hour of the sucessful formula but also 'going to 11' along the way.
Angie, I see a big difference between the way Lucy Ricardo went through life as compared to (Thanks you , IMDB) TimTaylor or Ray Barone. As I said, Lucy had her personality defects but she didn't run headlong into the same wall twice. It was a series of different metaphorical walls, each of which presented a different comedic opportunity. Tim and Ray will keep pounding themselves into a bloody pulp against the same friggin' wall. Lucy's plight had charm and sympathy. The ambitions that drove the setup may have been repetitive but the payoffs were different, and that was why people watched the show. To see a new bit of comedy. Tim and Ray bore me because every episode appears identical. My mother is big on 'Everybody Loves Raymond' and it appears that any time I walk into the room to catch a random fragment of the show it's the same exact scene of Raymond trying to weasel out of admitting to having said something remarkably dumb. He never seems to pause for even a second to consider what he is about to say. This gets very tedious and I avoid such couples in real life in those rare cases where the person doesn't learn to think first yet doesn't end up divorced. It's just to unpleasant to be around so why would I subject myself to it as entertainment?
Part of the problem these days, I believe, is the lack of really outstanding performers who don't quickly make a vastly more lucrative career in films. Like Jackie Gleason, who created a jackass character for himself in Ralph Kramden, Lucille Ball was entirely in control of deciding who and what Lucy Ricardo would be. The folks who have show developed around themselves today simply aren't the same caliber of talent and are much more reliant on the input of others and the whims of network executives.
Posted by: Eric Pobirs on November 7, 2003 11:46 PMJane, the example of obtaining a credit card in 1973 isn't very valid. A major portion of men couldn't get one back then either. Credit cards as we know them only came into existence a few years before then. Prior to that they represented an account with a single business or a fairly small set of businesses. The first Diner Club card, the original plastic currency, was issued in 1951 to a mere 200 patrons of 27 restaurants in New York.
I was only 9 in 1973 myself but I can recall that the dedicated cards, for department stores and gas stations mostly, were much more prevalent than the general purpose Master Card. Part of the problem was a lack of places that would accept the card if you had it. It wasn't until modern networking technology put ZONs everywhere with immediate account verification that credit cards became something nearly every adult was expected to have.
I'll admit that I've probably seen more TV than is good for me in my life but looking back all the way to the earliest stuff I've seen from the 50's, when they produced kinescopes by filming the display on a studio monitor (which is why so much of it looks worse than the actual original broadcast), I'm hard put to recall a show where a female main character was just plain dumb compared to a myriad of male characters who regularly lost battles of wits with the family dog. Not every show was an offender. Some had the daring to have a cast of fairly normal characters with believable foibles and found humor through the strength of writing. Others made all of the leads unsympathetic and equally likely to be the butt of the next punchline as in 'The Bickersons' which got it's start in radio like a lot of early sitcoms. Or in others virtually everybody was a lunatic of some sort, as in 'The Beverly Hillbillies.' I can remember one of my older sibling theorizing that this was all actually happening in a ward at Camarillo State. (For those who grew up in 60s/70s Southern California this was the universal all-purpose looney bin.)
Nowadays, thanks to worry of rascism accusations, one of the few places you can find a show that doesn't rely on any character to be an abject moron is on the better shows with primarily black casts. For instance, on 'Fresh Prince of Bel Air' the older sister was ditzy but not, IIRC, plain stupid. Likewise for Malcolm Jamal Warner's character on the second to last Cosby series. And that character got appreciably wiser with age.
Perhaps that had something to do with the success of those show compared to the dozens of short lived attempts that appear on Fox and UPN. Idiots have their place if you're doing something like 'The Three Stooges' but otherwise isn't a good basis for long term series.
Posted by: Eric Pobirs on November 8, 2003 12:21 AMI understand that there was time in the not-too-distant past when women had few legal rights, Megan; the Victorian era cultivated an image of womanhood that precluded involvement with filthy lucre and such unseemly elements of civic intercourse as voting. This curtailed public life was part and parcel of a belief that women were too morally refined and too dainty to be sullied with the kinds of activitites that acompanied the often hard and dangerous work that men did.
So this was not a bad gig, on balance.
Posted by: Richard Bennett on November 8, 2003 12:36 AMI have to disagree that the reason for the commercials portraying men as doofuses is because women do the buying. Even commercials targeted at men portray them as doofuses. For example Circuit City and Best Buy ads, as well as almost any light beer ad. Why? Because men like it that way these days. Men are generally becoming more irresponsible, and if they are perceived as hapless idiots rather than intentionally lazy jerks, they get away with it. For example, my wife doesn't think I'm a doofus, therefore I can't get away with forgetting to pick up some groceries, but instead come home with a $50 Playstation game. One of my good friends can. His wife thinks he's a silly doofus. He likes it that way.
Also, I think that men don't mind laughing at each other as much as women do. Men somehow bond through competition while women bond by common experience. So men can form a bond by laughing at each other, but women who laugh at each other would likely end up as enemies. On the other hand when women get together and laugh at men, they bond, and the men bond (because each thinks the women are laughing at the other and he is winning the competition), and everyone's happy.
Posted by: Steve M on November 8, 2003 02:21 AMMy mother had credit cards thirty years ago, without my father cosigning them. And she held the mortgage on our house too. My wife had credit cards 30 years ago too, and she wasn't my wife then, she was a 19 year old secretary.
My sister, who has never been married, got her first mortgage 26 years ago, without a co-signer.
It was a terrible thing to be a woman in those days.
Posted by: Gary Utter on November 8, 2003 02:25 AMI'm a baby boomer. When I was growing up, it was much harder for women to be hired for most jobs; it was accepted that places in medical school and law school should be reserved for men, since a woman would quit when she married. A woman who earned a law degree would find few law firms willing to put her on the partner track. Women were paid less than men in the same jobs since the man needed to support a family and the woman was assumed to be working for pin money. It was much harder for a woman to get a loan. This started to change 30 years ago. But it was very real.
In the Victorian era, upper-class women were sheltered from the world of work. Most women were poor, and they worked very hard inside and outside the home. The men did too.
Posted by: Joanne Jacobs on November 8, 2003 04:42 AMI'm a baby boomer. When I was growing up, it was much harder for women to be hired for most jobs; it was accepted that places in medical school and law school should be reserved for men, since a woman would quit when she married. A woman who earned a law degree would find few law firms willing to put her on the partner track. Women were paid less than men in the same jobs since the man needed to support a family and the woman was assumed to be working for pin money. It was much harder for a woman to get a loan. This started to change 30 years ago. But it was very real.
In the Victorian era, upper-class women were sheltered from the world of work. Most women were poor, and they worked very hard inside and outside the home. The men did too.
Posted by: Joanne Jacobs on November 8, 2003 04:44 AMYes, the laws began to change in the seventies. But don't take my word for it; go look it up yourself. Most banks wouldn't extend credit to women, and certainly they wouldn't lend money to a woman without getting her husband to sign off, even though the reverse was not true. I should have said forty years ago, as it was in 1970 that the first changes began, but I'm still caught in the Millenial hype, I suppose. ;-)
Yes, Richard, a tiny fraction of the population lived in comfort. But the vast majority did physical work to the limits of their strength, just as the men did. My family couldn't afford servants; they worked damn hard all their lives.
Posted by: Jane Galt on November 8, 2003 09:57 AMI've seen a bunch of guys in the Blogosphere complaining about discrimination in television commercials and shows. All the men, they say, are made to look like idiots.
Jane:
just as an aside: does this cite refer to Kim du Toit's post on his blog which he so charmingly titles "The Pussification of the American Male"?
Apparently the Cheerios commercial you mention was the trigger that sent him over the edge and sparked a lengthy sour rant about what a crappy deal "real men" get in our culture (and a sort of "macho hyper-adolescence" seems to be his ideal of "real" manhood) - and his thesis seemed to be mostly echoed by the comments posters on those blogs which linked/commented.
I know that gender & role issues are a BIG subject to tackle for even the most talented blogger (like yourself) - and bringing the subject up can easily spark a flame-war - but if du Toit's post was the source for your comment
shouldn't there be an acknowledgement of the larger implications he brought up?
TV commercials, and the way they portray men and women, are certainly an issue worth commenting on (and you did so perfectly, IMO): but the "backstory" in the blogosphere is at least as important.
My dear Jane, the plural of "anecdote" is not "evidence", so your grandmother's servant situation doesn't tell us a great deal about life, the universe, and everything. My household has employed servants of various kinds to cook, clean, nanny, garden, and drive, and my mother had servants herself, paid partially by a white ladies' government subsidy program called "welfare". You paid the servant (or "maid" if you prefer) a pittance in cash, and relied on her welfare check and food stamps to make up the balance of her needs. In the real old days, white women in the South commonly owned slaves, so their property rights weren't as constrained as some imagine. The right to buy and sell real property is itself of fairly recent vintage, so the complaints about female property rights only apply to a relatively small window of time between the advent of property rights for men and universal property rights in the Western world. Many parts of Africa and Asia still don't have property rights with full deed and transfer even today, for anybody.
Similarly, the voting franchise limit wasn't as dire as the feminists would have us believe. Property-owning white male adults earned voting rights in the US by fighting a war, and women got theirs by waiting a couple of generations and then whining a lot. While it was probably a good thing that my male ancestors, in their wisdom and compassion, allowed women to vote, the tendency of modern women to vote for big government and high taxes sometimes makes me wonder just how good this decision actually was. As to women and credit cards, the issue speaks for itself.
'Round about the turn of the 20th century, such things as voting, contracts, and property were probably seen as family rights, as the family was treated in law as a kind of sovereign entity relatively immune from government interference. As we've evolved from that frame of reference to a more individualist ethic, the family has declined in stability and importance, which probably isn't such a good thing all in all.
Now that males are losing their education and employment rights, I suppose a new campaign is in order to restore an ethic of equality to education and work, and as men's health and longevity declines, new initiatives are in order to combat prostate cancer and heart disease.
I wonder how many pro-equality feminists will help with these things.
Posted by: Richard Bennett on November 8, 2003 05:07 PMOh please. How many shows have a "zany, kooky,
fun-loving" husband and a rational wife?
Unless it's 0%, I fail to see your point.
Meagan's claim was that women were the butt of every joke. I responded with a long list of shows that featured men as "the butt of the joke" or featured strong female characters, or which spread the laughs around indiscriminately.
Your point that many shows feature zany/cute women is neither relevant nor interesting.
Anyway, to belatedly answer your question: "Home Improvement", "The Simpsons", and "Malcolm in the Middle".
And perhaps the best example of all, even if it WAS short-lived: "That's My Bush!", with Tim Bottoms as the dumb and goofy President George W. Bush and Carrie Dolin as his smart and loving wife who's always getting him out of trouble.
Posted by: Dan on November 8, 2003 06:10 PMIt's going to take a long, long time to wash the bitter taste of Lucy Ricardo from my psyche.
The show was cancelled 46 years ago. How much longer do you need?
I mean, sheesh... I know Jews who were willing to visit Germany in the 1980s. That was only 40 years after the Holocaust. You'd think "I Love Lucy" would rank somewhat lower on the disgust-o-meter.
Posted by: Dan on November 8, 2003 06:22 PMA couple of years ago John Stossel had one of his ABC specials in which he (incidently) showed just how much television had changed since the early sixties. He showed how women were portrayed in the most highly-produced and highest-cost-per-minute segments of television programming: the commercials.
It was more than a little embarrasing. A woman hanging laundry on a line at what appears to be Big Sur, rapturious over how white her sheets are; women apparently experiencing sexual satisfaction when plunging their hands into sinks filled with dish soaps named "Thrill" and "Joy"; and the capper, a Maxwell House coffee commercial, set on a sailboat, in which the paternal male "captain" informs his meek spouse that if she makes adequate coffee he won't make her walk the plank.
Ahem.
Now the weird thing is that I am old enough to remember seeing these commercials when they first came out, but I hadn't thought of them in years. The roles of men and women as portrayed on television have changed much more than can be seen by watching old programs. You really have to look back at the context in which these shows were set to see what was going on.
It has only been in the last 20 years that American advertisers have been able to create commercials that are equally affriming (or demeaning) to both sexes, and we are approaching the equality of the races.
Give it another 20 years or so.
Posted by: The Grand Panjandrum on November 8, 2003 09:53 PMWomen were paid less than men in the same jobs since the man needed to support a family and the woman was assumed to be working for pin money.
How many women do you suppose there are today paying alimony and child support? Precious few, I can tell you. So the assumption that men are the primary support of the family survives today, even beyond the life of the family.
It's perfectly consistent to pay women less for jobs and to hold them under a glass ceiling as long as the law dictates that men have a greater responsibility for supporting the family. Similarly, as long as women choose divorce 3 to 4 times more frequently than men and as long as women vote for Democrats, it's reasonable to treat the female class as more emotional and less stable than men.
At this point, women have to realize that female behavior rather than male attitudes is the main thing holding women back, and act accordingly.
Posted by: Richard Bennett on November 9, 2003 02:23 AMThis and 10,000 other problems in your life go away when you STOP WATCHING TELEVISION.
Mark C.
Video Editor
Los Angeles
This and 10,000 other problems in your life go away when you STOP WATCHING TELEVISION.
Mark C.
Video Editor
Los Angeles
> This and 10,000 other problems in your life go away when you STOP WATCHING TELEVISION.
Untrue. Television culture affects society, just as society affects television.
Thus, in a culture in which its viewed as ok to bash men on TV, its easier to propose and maintain laws that margainalize men. A strong, same-message from-all-quarters broadcast (such as 'male-bashing is OK') from the TV affects the population affects the politic.
Could 60's era black men hide from overt displays of bigorty by staying in the ghetto? Sure, but that only helped the bigots.
Can 00's era men hide from PC-inspired bigotry by refusing to work in every-offended-female-has-unlimited-recourse jobs, turning off the TV, distancing themselves from politics(where PC reigns supreme), and curling up in a corner hoping a female doesn't take offense at his existance? Why yes they can. Thank you for the valuable suggestion.
Thanks to the way society is now set up, nearly every male in America is one disgruntled female away from ruin. Even liberals now realize that, what weapon did they choose when trying to kill off Clarence Thomas's nomination?
Posted by: Ryan Waxx on November 9, 2003 03:21 PMRichard, I don't need to rely on anecdote. The number of women who had household servants doing the heavy labor was necessarily far less than 50%, since women were also the servants providing the labor. In fact, it was much less than that -- IIRC, somewhere around 2% of the population regularly employed servants in their households (as opposed to temporary "hired girls" who came in a crunch times such as harvest or childbirth.) It simply isn't historically controversial to state that women, like men, spent most of their lives doing hard physical labor in the nineteenth century.
Posted by: Jane Galt on November 9, 2003 03:30 PMLet me qualify that I don't care about a TV commercial in the grand scheme of things (and neither does Kim). Television was used as a "barometer of the culture."
However, what is clearly missing in that Cheerios commercial was the humor from the woman. It was not played tongue and cheek. She was serious and scolding--admonishing him for his behavior (before she rescued him from himself). That's the difference. That's the key difference in the shift.
We could laugh at Lucy being an idiot and getting caught in a mess, because Ricky got himself in a few messes, too. As long as they were still treating each other as adults who were acting kooky it was OK. When one of the parties starts treating one of the adults as a child, then it's objectionable.
Men (and women) can make fun of us, and each other, as long as everyone is clear that it is humor. When it becomes acceptable for a spouse to treat their spouse in a demeaning way (regardless of which gender is the subject of attack) things have crossed a line.
Test the theory. Reverse it. If it plays as objectionable when the man scolds the woman (in a serious way), it will tell you if it's demeaning.
Posted by: Mrs. du Toit on November 9, 2003 04:24 PMDear Jane--Kudos to you and major props for explaining why women today don't want to go back to the "good old days" when we couldn't vote and had major restrictions on our property rights. Discrimination against women DID exist thirty to forty years ago. I think it's important that the only people talking about how "easy" women had it back then are men. On a slightly related note, did you see how du Toit linked the assault on men today with women getting the right to vote? Why all of a sudden does the nineteenth amendment to the Constitution seem so upsetting to some people?
Posted by: Cordelia on November 9, 2003 10:04 PMThe Genitalization Of The Western Amoeba
A. Meeba
Nov 10, 2003
We have become a nation of sexually reproducing organisms.
It wasn’t always this way, of course. There was a time when amoebae blindly put their cilia to a stimulus, knowing full well that this single act would result in their absorption if captured, and in the forfeiture of their protein to the Competition. Their clones would be turned out by the soldiers, and their dwelling molecules and cytoplasm most probably given to someone who didn’t encounter the stimulus.
There was a time when amoebae went to their certain death, with expressions like “You all can go to hell. I’m going to the Microscope Slide.” (Gravy Rockshit, to the Petri Dish of Representatives, before going to the Microscope Slide.)
There was a time when amoebae went to phagocytosis, sometimes against their own clones, so that other amoebae could be free. And there was a time when amoebae went to phagocytosis because we recognized protein when we saw it, and knew that it had to be engulfed.
There was even a time when a President of the United Pond threatened to punch an amoeba in the membrane and kick him in the chromatin, because the amoeba had the temerity to say bad things about the President’s first-generation clone’s flagella retraction.
We’re not like that anymore.
Now, little clones in grade school are suspended for playing protozoa and Blue-green algae, paramecia and plankton, and all the other familiar variations of “good guy vs. bad guy” that helped them learn, at an early cellular age, what it was like to have decent amoebae hunt you down, because you were an edible organism.
Now, amoebae are taught that violence is bad – that when a parasite breaks into your membrane, or threatens you in the local water drop, that the proper way to deal with this is to “give it what it wants”, instead of taking a hunt-and-seek protein to the rascal or absorbing it dead where it swims.
Now, amoebae fashion includes not an amoeba dressed in passing flotsam, but a coating of alleles worn by an amoeba with genitals.
Now, warning labels are indelibly etched into chromatins, as though amoebae have somehow forgotten that mitosis is a dangerous thing.
Now, amoebae are given Ribmeristem as little clones, so that their natural aggressiveness, curiosity and restlessness can be controlled, instead of nurtured and directed.
And finally, our President, who happens to have been a qualified single-celled organism, lands on a current wearing a flagella suit, and is immediately dismissed with words like “swaggering”, “macho” and the favorite epithet of Eukoryte girly-amoebae, “cowboy”. Of course it was bound to get that reaction – and most especially from the Press in Eukorytia, because the process of amoebic genitalization Over There is almost complete.
How did we get to this?
In the first instance, what we have to understand is that the Pond is first and foremost, a culture dominated by one reproduction method: Meiosis. It wasn’t always so: there was a time when it was Mitosis which ruled the life cycle, worked at its job, and thrived.
But in the twentieth epoch, sexual reproduction became more and more involved in the Pond, and in the genus, and in the evolutionary selection – and mostly, this has not been a good thing. When sexually reproducing organisms got naturally selected, it was inevitable that Competition was going to become more powerful, more intrusive, and more “protective” (ie. more coddling), because sexually reproducing organisms are hard-wired to treasure sex more than engulfing protein and splitting into two. It was therefore inevitable that their sexual influence on politics was going to emphasize (lowercase “s”) sexual security.
I am aware of the fury that this statement is going to arouse, and I don’t care a microtubule.
Triticale --
// shouldn't it be doof, doofer, doofest //
No, not what I was driving at.
Sum, es, est.
Summus, estis, sunt.
Lat.
I am, you are, he/she is.
We are, you all are, they are.
Now turn off that TV and get back to practicing your latin verb conjugation!!
Jane, we're all doofuses at one point or another. It's those of us who think we're immune to being a doofus that wind up being the biggest doofuses. And, yes, I'm referring to myself, among others.
Posted by: David Perron on November 10, 2003 12:12 PMEven for nonsense, there's always the opposite point of view.
Posted by: Seb on November 10, 2003 01:19 PMThe original point of Kim du Toit's post is getting lost here, and we need to thank Steve M for reminding us:
Men are generally becoming more irresponsible, and if they are perceived as hapless idiots rather than intentionally lazy jerks, they get away with it.
What it's all about, for men, is that we are in danger (or have already fallen to it, depending on your viewpoint) of giving in to lowered expectations for ourselves as men. That goes regardless of what a particular woman thinks about a particular man or about men in general; Kim is trying to remind us that we have inherent responsibilites and that we need to live up to them, even if no one expects us to, and that we imperil civil society if we don't. Offensive commercials have been mentioned here, and I agree that there are a lot, but among the most offensive to me are those very same beer commercials that a lot of women get offended about. Why? Because they want to convey the message that it's "manly" to be irresponsible, to want to party 24/7 every day and hop from one brief, lusty relationship to another. (And not incidentally, to spend a lot of time getting piss-faced drinking the sponsor's product.) That's the same point that Sgt. Stryker made in his post this morning; a lot of people are seeing his post as being opposed to du Toit's post, but as far as the main point, they are in agreement.
Having said that: I agree with a lot of the other posters that you can't read too much into a TV broadcast. However, I think it's naive to state that this is all due strictly to market forces and that there is no intent to portray any particular group in a bad light. Let me give you an example: I am an engineer, both by training and by temperment. If there's any one group of people on Earth that Hollywood has less understanding of or emphaty for, it's engineers. Ask yourself: How many current TV shows have an engineer as a significant character? How many portray engineers in a positive light? It almost never happens. Now, there are perhaps 5 million employed engineers in America today, and I argue (I'd have to go look up the stats) that as a group their salaries are significantly above the 50th percentile for each age group. Given this, you would think that this is a demographic that someone in the entertainment industry would be interested in. But it isn't so; aside from a few speciality outlets like the History Channel and Learning Channel, Hollywood almost always portrays engineers in a bad light, when it bothers to portray them at all. I can count on one finger the number of moves made in the last 10 years in which engineers were portrayed in a good light. (That was Apollo 13, and it was pointedly dissed by the Academy Awards for its trouble.) Horrid things like Falling Down have been far more typical.
My point about this hasn't been to whine about the treatment of my interest group (OK, maybe it was, but I had to get my licks in too :-); it's that the entertainment will attempt to use its influence to propogandize, even at the expense of its own profits. Thus, one can't state that a rash of negative or positive portrayals of one particular group in TV ads or whatever is just a market response; it may very well be the work of an unwritten but very much understood agenda by people in the industry. Is this the case for men in TV sitcoms and commercials? I'll leave that for the next poster in this thread.
The original point of Kim du Toit's post is getting lost here, and we need to thank Steve M for reminding us:
Men are generally becoming more irresponsible, and if they are perceived as hapless idiots rather than intentionally lazy jerks, they get away with it.
What it's all about, for men, is that we are in danger (or have already fallen to it, depending on your viewpoint) of giving in to lowered expectations for ourselves as men. That goes regardless of what a particular woman thinks about a particular man or about men in general; Kim is trying to remind us that we have inherent responsibilites and that we need to live up to them, even if no one expects us to, and that we imperil civil society if we don't. Offensive commercials have been mentioned here, and I agree that there are a lot, but among the most offensive to me are those very same beer commercials that a lot of women get offended about. Why? Because they want to convey the message that it's "manly" to be irresponsible, to want to party 24/7 every day and hop from one brief, lusty relationship to another. (And not incidentally, to spend a lot of time getting piss-faced drinking the sponsor's product.) That's the same point that Sgt. Stryker made in his post this morning; a lot of people are seeing his post as being opposed to du Toit's post, but as far as the main point, they are in agreement.
Having said that: I agree with a lot of the other posters that you can't read too much into a TV broadcast. However, I think it's naive to state that this is all due strictly to market forces and that there is no intent to portray any particular group in a bad light. Let me give you an example: I am an engineer, both by training and by temperment. If there's any one group of people on Earth that Hollywood has less understanding of or emphaty for, it's engineers. Ask yourself: How many current TV shows have an engineer as a significant character? How many portray engineers in a positive light? It almost never happens. Now, there are perhaps 5 million employed engineers in America today, and I argue (I'd have to go look up the stats) that as a group their salaries are significantly above the 50th percentile for each age group. Given this, you would think that this is a demographic that someone in the entertainment industry would be interested in. But it isn't so; aside from a few speciality outlets like the History Channel and Learning Channel, Hollywood almost always portrays engineers in a bad light, when it bothers to portray them at all. I can count on one finger the number of moves made in the last 10 years in which engineers were portrayed in a good light. (That was Apollo 13, and it was pointedly dissed by the Academy Awards for its trouble.) Horrid things like Falling Down have been far more typical.
My point about this hasn't been to whine about the treatment of my interest group (OK, maybe it was, but I had to get my licks in too :-); it's that the entertainment will attempt to use its influence to propogandize, even at the expense of its own profits. Thus, one can't state that a rash of negative or positive portrayals of one particular group in TV ads or whatever is just a market response; it may very well be the work of an unwritten but very much understood agenda by people in the industry. Is this the case for men in TV sitcoms and commercials? I'll leave that for the next poster in this thread.
I've spent most of my working life in overwhelmingly male-dominated environments, enough to get at least a sense of how most men talk about the women in their lives when it's just the guys. "Of course she's [irrational/stupid/demanding/unreasonable] -- she's a woman" came out of the mouth of nearly every highly educated, professional man I worked with, at one time or another.
Nearly every man, at one time or another, over exactly how many years, Jane? Making a list and checking it twice, are we?
Notice the language, like male-dominated environments. This is the language used by hostile lawyers and congressmen for harassment law: That is to say, law that involves getting men removed from jobs or else bankrupting their employers.
Men, THIS is what you are up against. Even women who pride themselves on their rationality are this way. It doesn't matter how "highly educated" or "professional" you are day to day, all it takes is one wrong remark to consign you to the ranks of most men, (that shadowy cartel) that apparently holds uniform attidutes based on the overwhelming evidence of one stray remark.
Look at your workplace. How many women there are making a list and checking it twice? The bar for harrassment claims is lower than you think, most ESPECIALLY if its a woman-vs-man claim.
Think about it. You, personally, are one disgruntled woman away from losing your job. Unreasonable attidutes have led to unreasonably low standards of proof in laws and lawsuits. So why are you even ATTEMPTING to reason?
Don't expect women to give a damn if men are chased out of schools and jobs. Its already happened in schools, and the reaction was a collective yawn. At best, they'll regard your concerns as about as kooky as you find the 'I love Lucy was anti-woman' argument. At worst, they will use the power of the law and the 'argument' of predjuidice to make any regaining of that ground flatly illegal.
You think the cheerios commercial was bad? Head on to your local university for some state-sanctioned hate speech. "All men are rapists" is the beginning and it gets worse from there. Hate speech that you are paying for to be taught to your children so that the hatred can be perpetuated.
It will get worse until you shout 'ENOUGH!'. Which means we probably at least another decade of sanctimonius women and oppressed-but-unwilling-to-admit-it men.
Posted by: Ryan Waxx on November 10, 2003 07:15 PMIt goes back a long ways. Go to a WC Fields movie. He's hen-pecked. His surly remarks are a pitiful defense. He's upstaged by smartmouth kids, babies, his wife, everyone. 70 years of the American male.
Posted by: zizka on November 11, 2003 12:36 AMI've been amazed at this little "debate" a certain Kim du Toit has brought on. Apparently Kim, Richard Bennett, and a few others believe you can't be a man unless you puff up your chest about it.
One phrase really struck me though. Richard, you said, "Now that males are losing their education and employment rights." Richard, are males "losing their rights," or are certain males (like yourself) losing your BIRTHRIGHT? These are two totally different things. Maybe this is the part of the discussion you (and Kim and a few others) don't want to touch upon?
While a lot of PC-type behavior is obviously a naked power-grab, it is not going to kill you, Ryan Waxx, to utilize a little courtesy in your everyday work behavior. Besides, your chances of getting sued are not that great, despite the PC-type power grabs.
As far as Kim suggesting that men have certain "responsibilities" to live up to, I would be slightly curious if he considers a set of those to involve having a decent-sized family before a man is, say, 32 (like me!). If so, Kim is the one that needs to roll with the changes, not (allegedly irresponsible, single-bachelor) me. I find it liberating to be a single bachelor at this date and time.
Posted by: Brad S on November 11, 2003 08:31 AMOf course, TV ads are a bizarre enterprise aside from the above complaints. Am I the only one who thinks an awful lot of ads feature people who have been driven insane by the product and wonder why this shouldn't be taken as a warning rather than an enticement?
Originally we just had severely nervous macots, like Sonny the Cocoa Puffs Cuckoo, who would throw a fit when confronted with the cereal that was both his nemesis and deepest craving. Those of use who remember kidvid from the late 60's and early 70's can recall seeing poor Sonny lead away in a straightjacket in some ads. You couldn't do that today so now we the consumers themselves depicted as experiencing something like lycanthropy driving by addiction to Honey Combs. What the ads never show are the horrible deaths and injuries resulting when the cereal isn't available to dampen the beast's rage. And the stuff is legal, sold in grocery stores across the nation! How long will this carnage be allowed to continue?
Posted by: Eric Pobirs on November 11, 2003 10:42 AMThis goes well beyond advertising in my experience. Just look at sitcoms. When was the last sitcom that came out that wasnt the following scenario: A. Gay man living/working/interacting with straight homophobe B. Fat idiot married to genius bombshell.
I dont watch any of those shows (King of Queens, Yes Dear, Average Joe) because, first of all they arent funny, and second of all I cant identify with being a fat idiot with a hot genius girlfriend. Maybe that's why the rating suck. I'd rather be watching Raw.
Posted by: Mark Buehner on November 11, 2003 10:59 AMDammit, Mark, you took away my biggest complaint against modern TV shows! (And movies, come to think of it. Aging male star and young, hot chick. Harrison Ford and Anne Heche? Come ON. Clint Eastwood and Renee Russo? Ew. Ew. Ew. Sean Connery and--oh, wait. He's the exception to the rule. Sean Connery and anyone. Works for me.)
Actually, my challenge is to find a strong, decent character in ANY sitcom on television today. The purpose of comedy is parody and exaggeration of the norm. Anyone who argues that Edith Bunker was any less of a cartoon than Archie simply is not being truthful.
For that matter, commercials are also using exaggeration in the hope that you will stop fast-forwarding through them. The current Arby's campaign has done that for me. Their commercials make fun of the inability of college boys to cook for themselves by having one of them stare at a supermarket rack of breads. And stare. And stare. The tagline is something like, "Without Arby's, they'd starve." It's hilarious.
Is it anti-male? Well, that depends. Are the overwhelming majority of male college freshmen still being sent off to school unable to wash their own clothes or cook their own meals, like they were when I was in college? If the answer is yes, then the commercial is simply making fun of, and exaggerating, the truth.
Which is what Madison Avenue does. They think it brings attention to their clients' products.
Posted by: Meryl Yourish on November 11, 2003 12:39 PM...The tagline is something like, "Without Arby's, they'd starve." It's hilarious....
Meryl, you sure you're not confusing Arby's with Carl's Jr? They have a very similar ad campaign, which complemented their "Don't Bother Me. I'm Eating" campaign.
Both hooked me, for sure.
Posted by: Brad S on November 11, 2003 12:49 PM"Similarly, as long as women choose divorce 3 to 4 times more frequently than men and as long as women vote for Democrats, it's reasonable to treat the female class as more emotional and less stable than men."
Um, I hate to be logical here, but whom, exactly, are these women divorcing? I would assume, given the legal system in America, that they are divorcing men. I would then assume that the men, too were divorced. That would make them even mathematically. If it was the women who initiated the divorce procedings, what source information exists showing that and, more to the point, what sources address why the divorce was sought? It's not like most people wake up and decide out of the blue to seek a divorce. Does your statement mean that women who vote the way you want them to vote are more stable than those who don't? How are divorce and political party affiliation linked and what is the source for that? Obviously, a good historian will note more than one source, as to refer back to a single study or researcher does not, in fact, support a balanced or logical argument. And I am almost certain you would want your argument to be backed up by a wide variety of source documents. Right?
Jane Galt indicates above that the life expectancy of women one hundred years ago was less than the life expectancy of men because of the risks of bearing children. This appears to be incorrect for the United States. The following is taken from the "Statistical History of the United States" and "Historical Statistics of the United States".
In 1900 females had a life expectancy at birth of 48.3 years, males 46.3. In large part this is because male infant mortality (deaths before 1 year) was 17.91% vrs 14.54% for females. Maternal mortality was .608%. So if we generously assume a women dying in childbirth would otherwise live another forty years, each child is reducing a women's life expectancy by about .25 years. So if women have four children on average this is reducing their life expectancy by about one year.
Going back further in 1850 in Massachusetts female life expectancy at birth 40.5, male 38.3. In 1789 in 62 towns in Massachusetts and New Hampshire female 36.5, male 34.5. I found no evidence that female life expectancy was ever less than male in the United States.
On the other hand the contention of some commenters above that smart men never make sexist comments is ludicrous.
Here's an interesting exercise:
Name the last fictional character (TV or movies) coming out of Hollywood that was:
* White
* Male
* Successful business executive
* Portrayed as a good person
Um... Michael Garibaldi?
Posted by: Patrick Chester on November 11, 2003 06:30 PMBrad S> I've been amazed at this little "debate" a certain Kim du Toit has brought on.
Why the scare quotes, Brad?
Brad S> Apparently Kim, Richard Bennett, and a few others believe you can't be a man unless you puff up your chest about it.
You anti-male bigots just can't help yourselves, can you? Think my criticism is too harsh? Then go to work and say the following:
Apparently (Female Coworker #1, Female Coworker#2), and a few others believe you can't be a woman unless you (act irrationally|drive badly|insert stereotype here).
Oh, and part of the game is that you have to avoid being disciplined for saying the above phrase.
Thank you, Brad for providing a textbook example of double standards.
Brad S> One phrase really struck me though. Richard, you said, "Now that males are losing their education and employment rights." Richard, are males "losing their rights," or are certain males (like yourself) losing your BIRTHRIGHT? These are two totally different things. Maybe this is the part of the discussion you (and Kim and a few others) don't want to touch upon?
You honestly think Richard was saying "Oh no I'm losing my male privelege?". Or are you putting words and sentiments in his mouth? The answer is obvious. You're a heck of a fighter when you are beating up straw men, Brad.
Men, like everyone else, have a right to a level playing field. THAT is the right that is being denied us by a combination of law, PC-sanctioned bigotry, and women's organizations that have moved from guaranteeing equality to guaranteeing a piece of the pie.
"Women's rights" groups have long held that the existance of inequality of outcome is proof that discrimination exists. And yet now that men have been shoved behind women in college admissions, those selfsame women now see nothing wrong. Wrong, by their own standards!
But of course, the college figures just prove that men are inferior. Exactly like women's admissions rates 20 years ago proved that THEY were inferior, right?
I don't expect that this posting will have any effect on you, Brad. Just like I wouldn't expect a reasonable argument to persuade Bull Conner that his bigotry was wrong.
Posted by: Ryan Waxx on November 11, 2003 11:03 PMWell Jane, this is a mile and half from the front so nobody is gonna read this post. But I’d like to draw everyone back to the premise of the original story. Namely, why men are not watching network TV shows AND the execs at said networks who are shocked, shocked that men found something better to do.
I’m one of those men. I left out of disinterest. It’s not because I think that I’m being “discriminated against”.
I love this:
>
So from your little corner of the world you concluded that all men think the women in their lives are “irrational/stupid/demanding/unreasonable” (especially the “highly educated”). I’m not sure what your definition of “highly educated” is, but obviously you too could be a TV scriptwriter.
For the record, I don’t complain about “women” and neither do the highly educated men with whom I associate.
Start Fisking
>
Wrong. My mother, who was not independently wealthy in 1973, had plenty of credit. 1973 was not the stone age.
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Wrong. Fifty years ago my mother worked at the Lawrence Radiation Lab and helped discover the 103 rd element on the periodic table – Lawrencium. Also men who did not marry were considered “unstable”.
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Wrong. My great grandmothers voted many times and lived in their own homes.
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My grandmother met Buffalo Bill Cody and I have pictures of her deer hunting on horseback with a Winchester on her hip. She was safe on her own accord. She owned property and enjoyed all the freedoms afforded by the Constitution to all citizens.
Stop Fisking
What has this got to do with TV???? Remember Jane this all started because it was reported that men are walking away from network TV out of disinterest. Not because there is too few breasts.
Oh and by the way, I did react when women were treated sub-par. Were you watching???
Posted by: Gary on November 12, 2003 01:31 AMSince Gary is bringing us back on topic, I have to note that I am also repulsed by the stupid/incompetent male as portrayed by commercials and numerous sit-coms. It is just as offensive as any female or ethnic stereotype, so I don't watch those things. Commercials provide good time to organize my to-do list, make sure the kids are brushing properly, take the dog out, etc. We are not forced to watch anything and we are not forced to patronize those who offend our intelligence and sensibilities. We can change the channel or turn off the TV. The ad writers or the networks will catch on, too late as always. On the other hand, I will have to do the leg work to make my sons understand that men are not the stereotypes portrayed on TV and such behavior will not be tolerated by their father nor me, nor, likely, by anyone with whom they consider forming a good relationship. People have had to do this with their daughters for years, mind you. They probably ought to have been doing it for their children, regardless of gender, because the male im