Why does this have to happen?

Why is feminism so often considered a dirty word?  I rather proudly attest to being a feminist.  Nebulous as the term can be, I believe anyone can call themselves a feminist if they feel women deserve more than being treated like a doormat.  It's that simple.  And this perspective is certainly not limited to women. There are many male feminists who will shout it loud and proud.

Images of perfection get in the way, though.  We are all socialized to think of women first in how they look.  Prescribing how a "perfect" woman looks makes women become a commodity, like their worth is ascribed to their appearance.  It is as if females are something to be owned, praised or berated, owned, "less than."

credit hollywood.com

So why is it that in the year 2012 we are still seeing the objection of females so prevalent in entertainment and advertising?  To this day, women are looked upon and treated as property.  They are portrayed as products, not people.  Not individuals with brains, goals, individual personalities, and earning potential.  

Most television shows, popular movies, and waaaay too many advertisements feature women's bodies or stereotypes of them as their fodder. (i.e. google Bedchel test) They get the slutty part, the stupid part, the victim, the character who never speaks, or they aren't there at all.  Looking totally perfect seems to be the most important thing about them.  It's everywhere!  I am most disgusted to see these impossible images directed at young girls.  The pressure has reached such epidemic proportions it even delves into the cartoon world.  This article about Minnie proves the point.  

What the hell, people?!  It's not bad enough to see size-2 to size-6 women are the supposed norm in real life.  Now it's freakin' Minnie Mouse?  I knew Olive Oyl must have been anorexic, but I thought that was somehow attributed to how she was carried around by Popeye and Bluto, and they couldn't have really been that strong (even in a cartoonish way).  I've ranted before about Disney princesses, but Walt's little rodents have gone to the dark side as well.  Sickening.  

If calling myself a feminist can be attributed to one thing, it may be these stereotypes.  And don't even get me started on the misogynists who hate feminists and send out their internet trolls to patrol them.

Young girls and boys need someone to tell them these images are messed up .. they're not right, they're not real, and that's not the way it should be.  For them to grow up and be treated equally, as they deserve, they are the ones to grow their perspectives, evolve, take up for each other instead of break each other down, and fight to change their own futures. 

Judging the "other"

There's a trend in modern cable network programming. This glut in similarly themed shows is a shameful one, to say the least, but I must admit to this voyeurism myself. Remember when cable channels like History, Discovery and TLC used to actually be about something of historical significance, discovery of something new or an actual learning experience? Somewhere along the lines so many offerings on these networks simply became a viewing of the other.  
The other is anyone different than ourselves that can be looked at in a judging manner for its difference from our own realities. There is no better place to position oneself in judgment than through so-called reality programming. The only reality involved in these pre-determined, most likely scripted, antics is that the set-up sequences are really shown on t.v. 
Coincidentally, a common theme runs through those premises. I contend that American audiences are inundated and obsessed with shows about seemingly lower-class people. 
Maybe content producers see periods of national disquiet or economic instability as a perfect time to make American viewers feel better than other people. They apparently believe doing so helps people think they don't have it so bad after all. Hollywood pacified the masses with musicals on the big screen during previous wars. Why not encourage modern viewers to self-medicate with reality shows during the current war? It's happening elsewhere after all, so it's easier for us to not think about it. 

Any change of the remote control can bring you to an omniscient position above people who act weird, especially those who live in the poor south and talk funny. Anyone who talks or acts differently gets the mark of a lower IQ, and spotlighting regional accents seems the fad of the moment. We're left looking down our noses at the plight of middle- to lower-class citizens on the television screen.

Cases in point:

• Here Comes Honey Boo Boo (TLC) spawn of Toddlers & Tiaras
• Dance Moms (Lifetime)
• Hoarders: Buried Alive (AETV) 
• Swamp People (History Channel)
• American Hoggers (AETV)
• Call of the Wildman (Animal Planet)

Producers apparently assume viewers savor a few minutes of escape from their own realities and all else happening in the world. Hollywood did the same thing with musicals during previous wars, and we now have reality television to meet our voyeuristic needs during the current war. We don't have to think about what's going on here if the war isn't happening here in America. So why not pacify the masses with a bunch of fools acting ridiculously in their own element? Where these "reality" families live and work and act is different than our own state of being, so let's make fun of them!

by Charles LeBlanc
via Creative Commons

It's what I call the Jerry Springer syndrome. "My life really isn't so bad, huh?  Look at those idiots on 'The Maury Show.' Now that's white trash!" 

How is it okay to look down our noses at them?  It's all right if it's done anonymously from our living room, right?  Well ... it's not okay. Their misfortune and folly puts the joke on them. We can detach ourselves from other people via the couch, and it apparently makes us feel better about ourselves and think we're better than them.  

Those people may not look, act, or talk like we do, but that doesn't mean they're any less human than us. Even if they just sneeze differently or squint their eyes to see better, we still poke fun. The reality shows portray people with unique jobs, habits and maybe even mental illness. And sure ... some may even act inappropriately in front of the world and get paid to do it. 
Perhaps most "normal" people would be ashamed to do some of the seemingly crazy things seen on these shows. Making them appear so much different, and less than as a result, diminishes the reality families and dehumanizes them as "the other." But we are the ones watching the shows and only have ourselves to blame. 

I've always said, it's like the law of supply and demand. More specifically, it's the "uses and gratifications" theory of mass communication. Networks can't fund production of shameful television if viewers don't watch it. We support their creation and air time by choosing not to watch something else and by supporting the companies that endorse these shows. So how are we any better than those families? How can we continue to feel superior? That's reality for you!  

television nostalgia reborn

I just love Zooey Daschanel's New Girl on Fox, and I'm not ashamed to admit it.  It's like going back to the days of Friends, without Monica's whining and all the marriage obsession.  This new set of friends is hilarious, dishing out some of the funniest scenes I've seen on television since I don't know when.  And I don't even like cute.  Jess's version of cute is excusable in my opinion.  It's more of a doe-eyed innocent way of looking at the world in an "aw shucks" way that I typically abhore.  


The show is smart, funny and doesn't make fun of females in general, only Jess specifically for her goofiness.  And the fun poked at her is done in a laughing-with-you type of manner.  I wish I had the glass-half-full attitude where I could sing a solution to every sticky situation!  While at first it seemed like she was socially awkward the guys had to save her, I think the show has moved on to show her saving them from their own (mostly drunken) idiocy.  Hence the douchebag jar.  It is, to me, a very human portrayal of a group of friends who embody  characteristics ... good and bad ... of modern young adults for whom you can cheer as good people who help each other.

New Girl 


An early but great feminist critique is at Broad Recognition.

It's so discouraging to see so many modern sit-coms go the way of covert misogyny.  Even my favorite, Big Bang Theory, teeters on the edge of too many anti-women jokes.  Especially via Howard.  He's just smarmy enough to get away with it, though, through his obvious enrapture of Bernadette.  I just wish they didn't have to "dumb down" the intelligence of Bernadette and Amy Farrah-Fowler by drawing them as flighty and a stoic, horny quasi-lesbian, respectively.  It's almost as if they can't just be smart versus Penny's supposed lack of smarts without flawing them some other way.  Not that either personification is actually flawed, just fixed as less than desirable by males.  It just pisses me off, because Big Bang otherwise makes me lol every time I watch.  No matter how many times I've already seen each episode.  I counted during a recent TBS re-run (lol'ed 10 times).  


Most of my viewing habits have gone the way of Modern Family, which was so progressive and wonderful in its infancy.  The female characters are all dependent on male "bread-winners" and fall into stereotypical roles of either the dingy sex-pot, demanding shrew, slutty girl or smart girl.  The males are pigeon-holed into either the blundering dad, his doofus son, an overbearing caregiver patriarch, or patent gay stereotypes for the male same-sex couple.  Manny is the zinger-lined saving grace for the show.


I've said it before, and I'll spew it again ... it's because of women-hating writers like Lee Ahronson.  I honestly believe, in my own conspiratorial paranoia, that he sits around with other Two & a Half Men creative team a$$h@le members who come up with this crap and try to hide it within the dialogue.  "Let's make Claire Dunfy just as cloying as Debra Barone but still cute enough to be lovable."  I didn't want to stop watching Modern Family but made myself boycott it.  Once again, it's one of my little personal protests that nobody notices except me.  I need to feel a sense of doing something to refuse being complicit.  


What we see is what we accept as okay and ignore if we don't make ourselves discrimination what we're watching.  I hate to see so many women who write, "Get over it, you uptight feminists" about things like this and the stupid fascination with utter shite like Shades of Grey.  That's another rant for another day, but it helps make my point.  Women thinking objectification, submission to male dominance, and misogyny's subterfuge of prime time sit-coms are okay is part of the patriarchal system that keep us back in the days before suffrage and the first wave.  We sit idly by and slam each other for what we consider the "other" to be doing wrong.  And there's no easy answer.  Unfortunately, I'm not here to offer miracles.


I choose personal action and turn the channel, turn off the television, or not buy the book when I see it happening.  And I don't do that when I watch New Girl.  So thanks, Liz Meriwether!

Unbelievable Jackassery

I used to watch "Two and a Half Men," mainly because I thought Sheen was so handsome before he went off the deep end (*blushes in shame*).  There is now more evidence why noone, especially women, should watch that misogynistic show regardless of the actors or any funny one-liners the jerks who write it might summon up from their demonic souls.
Hollywood Reporter article
My blood pressure rushed after reading it.  The author kind of hid the b.s. under a headline about Kutcher returning for a new season.  I was glad to at least see many women of "influence" (celebrities, television writers and comediennes) tweeting about it, some directly to Aronsohn The Asshat, and addressing his misogyny.  My response was initial fear of the influence this hate-monger might have on young viewing audiences, and it made me ask, "Did your Momma really hate you that much, Lee?"
I just can't believe that it's 2012 and American people still spout shite like this in interviews (regardless of viewership standing to suffer - how arrogant).  Hate is so rampant in our world where t.v. writers and politicians pump out their vitriol in a public forum and young men can't even walk down the street without worrying about being shot for "walking while black."  
It haunts me to think of my son's future.  Children his age are growing up in such an insensitive time period where conservatives rage against being politically correct.  To me, it's not about just talking the talk.  How about being normal, considerate human beings with a conscience?  Decorum, grace, forget it.  A tiny bit of empathy will suffice.  
Kids his age will see so much before they reach puberty, much less adulthood. Teens have never experienced a world without the blatant hyper-sexualization of their demographic group throughout the media (ads, magazines, and t.v.).  Even sports programs.  Sure, they should only watch age-appropriate shows, but this crap is invasive.
They're witnessing less and less behavior born of self-respect, and the societal norms are changing, warping.  I'm not talking about social conformity; to the contrary, human compassion can fuel a healthy conscience.  
At the risk of being a total prude, I'm still saying, "look at these kids nowadays."  BUT ... they are learning how to act from adults.  These so-called adults unabashedly proclaim their hatred of women (and self-loathing - yes, you Ann Coulter) through their public protestations and discrimination against and bullying of people of others races, sexual orientations, ethnicities, and religions is perfectly acceptable.  It's gut wrenching.
I'm sure they first hid their dirty little secrets and bigoted behavior within their homes, teaching the children not to talk about these things in school, but then vomited their hate to indoctrinate impressionable young minds behind closed doors. 
It's a slippery slope.  Hate breeding for little future Lee Ahronsons, Roy Bryants/J.W. Milams, George Zimmermans, Rick Santorums, and Charlie Mansons alike.