Sexism still sells on primetime TV?

[alp227]

ABC has this new show Suburgatory on its Tuesday night comedy line up between The Middle and Modern Family. It's about a single father named George (played by Jeremy Sisto, who was Detective Lupo in the final seasons of Law & Order) and his daughter Tessa moving from Manhattan to the suburbs outside NYC because the father found a box of condoms in daughter's room. In the suburban neighborhood are the typical Stepford cliches of suburbia that do sell though to the majorly sheeple unthinking TV audience. And the high school where Tessa is an outcast for not dressing in the popular skimpy outfits like the others; one scene shows several girls with bandages on their noses (not because of bullying, hint hint). The blonde girl's mother meets the single father and then openly berates Tessa for not having the same beauty ideals as the other residents.

My parting thoughts: if America really valued women for being people instead of their beauty then we wouldn't use female beauty issues as laughs. Probably this show won't rate well if exported to countries like France or Sweden that are more accepting on gender equality (and also with laws against inciting hatred.) And of course even if homophobia in America is declining (unless you're talking about Chaz Bono on Dancing with the Stars) Suburgatory still managed to put in lines of the high schoolers in Tessa's new neighborhood spreading rumors about girls being lesbian. And to every DUer who lives in suburban neighborhoods, you have my sympathy. At least Modern Family is a bit more honest and less sensational in its suburban setting and even has a same-sex couple family. And where's the primetime show about the family who's lost their home to foreclosures or is struggling to make ends meet? Apparently Americans don't want to see signs of the recession in their primetime shows and watch instead to gloat and wish they were richer.

(Thom Hartmann recently)

[MADem]

1. I actually saw that show this evening. I think the topic was more shallowness than sexism.

The Stepford wives and their plastic children with their nose jobs aren't particularly glorified. It's a fish out of water story. The first episode was clearly the "set up." I don't know where it will go from that expository start, but I do think it was more of a commentary on vapidity/shallowness--not beauty. Appearance and fashion were the tools to point out the empty priorities. When the neighbor got the daughter all tarted up, the father was horrified. And the daughter comes off as the most real/normal person in the tale.

It's not just women who got a "beauty" poke--the guy in the tight bathing suit with what looks like a fake-n-bake tan that the father meets at the country club at the start of the program? The father says "You weren't blonde before" or something like that, to which the guy replies something like "You can't be too blonde." Then, the father gets the meat market treatment from the waitress who puts herself on the menu.

I think it's too soon to tell, yet, quite where it will go. It's not super-strong, but it has a good cast so it might evolve.

[alp227]

4. thanks for that, i was guessing for some it'd be a commentary

but the thing is that most people who sit down after a hard day's work or whatever at 8PM aren't really using their brains are they not?

[Warren DeMontague]

7. I think the idea that there aren't plastic phonies in Manhattan is flat-out ludicrous.

Good grief. A place where a one bedroom apartment costs $3,000 a month, and you think there aren't bugaboo pushing moms and teens with nose jobs? Riiiight.

I shy away from hot-button dog whistles like "elitism", but the goofy perspective presented in the short preview of that show that I saw sort of sums up half the Manhattanites I've ever met. They think they're the only people in the world who are hip, and everything outside the radius of that one island is just, like, hopelessly square and uncool.

Shit, I thought "Portlandia" was flawed in that it just wasn't that funny, but at least people around here don't take themselves that friggin' seriously.

[MADem]

9. That wasn't really why they moved, as I recall the episode.

They moved because the father found condoms in the girl's drawer and freaked out. He thought she was running wild and not getting a good education, so he moved to the fifth best suburb in the US for the school system to give her a "healthier" environment. He bought her a bike and she was not thrilled.

Of course, in a dense city environment like Manhattan, you have much more choice in terms of associations--you can hang with the artistic types, the plastic types, the worker types, whatever. I don't think there was a suggestion that those types didn't exist in the city, just that they were over-represented in this particular, well off suburb.

I am not saying the series isn't without faults, but I didn't get the impression that the girl or her father felt that they were "hip" and the suburbanites were "uncool." It was more like they were from Mars, and the Burbites were from...oh, Uranus! The suburbanites are supremely confident--it's their territory, after all.

I won't be waiting with bated breath for the next episode, but if my ass is in front of a tv and it comes on again, I may try it once more.

I'm experimenting with watching network TV this past year for a change, with mixed results!

[Warren DeMontague]

11. i watched a short preview clip. Like most (major) network shows, it was nearly unbearable IMHO.

First off, there's the central conceit of the show.. like teens aren't having sex in the suburbs??? Again, right. Not to mention that played out dad-as-protector-of-daughter's-chastity meme.. She's 16, right? News flash, Dad: Odds are? She's doing it. *I* lost my virginity at 16, and this was during the era when we were all supposed to be so scared of AIDS and Nancy Reagan that we were "just saying no" :rofl:

AND I was living in the suburbs, at the time.

I don't know, there's something about the mental level most network shows operate on... Maybe it's the laugh-track, lowest common denominator jokes.. :shrug:
I admit I'm mildly curious about "modern family" b/c it won all those emmys...

Funniest shows I've seen in the past decade are probably "Arrested Development" and "Archer".

[MADem]

18. I have to give the thumbs up to MODERN FAMILY--it really is a scream.

I love Ed O'Neill and Sofia Vergara together, they are a riot.

I would urge you to go to your local library and get the first season if they have it. You'll probably watch the whole season in an evening or two.

[seabeyond]

2. france is less gender equal than the u.s. i wont argue sweden. nt

[alp227]

3. One of my friends is studying abroad in France,

and has experienced sexual harassment on the streets of Paris too. So I wonder how I reached that conclusion, but at least French will look at you crazy if you preach what the advocates of California Proposition 8 were preaching back in 2008.

[seabeyond]

10. because of their layed back attitude of sex it has to be defined as sexually progressive

when really all it is, is a boys will be boys, they are genetically inclined, biology makes them do it. and it is all about the male. control, dominance. patriarchy at its best.

the women shut up

i bought into it, too and then learned a whole lot of what it really was during the dsk event. women wear wedding rings at work to avoid harrassment and assault, that is suppose to be simply accepted cause after all they are men and how men behave. rape seldom reported and rarely prosecuted.

sounds like what i don't want to live.

between learning about france and seeing the pres of italy, i am not too awfully impressed with the men in those countries. makes me appreciate our men that much more, even though it seems the last decade a lot of us are taking a couple steps backward we are still well in front of a lot of the world.

[alp227]

13. i think they're misguided in that "sexually progressive" view still male-controlled

as compared to the religiously conservative views of sex you may see in the American heartland.

[seabeyond]

14. i think you are exactly right on.

same thing from different angles.

[MADem]

19. Astute observations. NT

[Tunkamerica]

5. "And where's the primetime show about the family who's lost their home to foreclosures or is

struggling to make ends meet"?

That's a big theme of 'the middle'.

[MADem]

20. I watched that for the first time this week...laughed at them taping the dishwasher shut!

What family hasn't had to do that kind of stuff...!

Of course, in my day, the "dishwasher" was also the "garbage taker-outer" and the "lawn mower" and the "dog walker" and the "snow shoveller!" No wonder we weren't fat!

[SoCalDem]

22. "Roseanne" was probably the most "realistic" show , but look at how many years ago that was

..There were shows done in the 70's that would NEVER make it on the air now...some for good reason (Three's Company" etc..and some for very political reasons

[Warren DeMontague]

6. People are just now figuring out that most shows on ABCCBSNBC are brainless black holes of suck?

Wow.

Here's an idea, because it seems that this fall's tv lineup is already precipitating a storm of cultural hand-wringing: Instead of writing lengthy preaching-to-the-choir-because-no-one-else-will-ever-read-them dissertations on the hetero-normative gender stereotype reenforcing patriarchal male gaze othering characteristics of this years lineup of crappy-ass network tv shows, try WATCHING SOMETHING ELSE.

:think:

There *are* good, thought-provoking, intelligent, funny and clever paradigm-challenging shows on tv, but folks... let me put this gently; if you're from the "Howdy Doody" era, you're not going to find most of these shows on those friendly, familiar networks you grew up with.

It's amazing to me that the generation which strode bravely into the vanguard of protesting the vietnam war and expanding the horizons of everything from music to consciousness, now finds itself cowering in terror of actually changing the channel from ABC to, say, AMC.



Full disclosure: The ONLY Network (ABCCBSNBC) show I watched with any regularity over the past 10 years was "Lost", and despite some promise that didn't end well.

[Ineeda]

8. 'House'

Well-drawn characters, interesting medical stuff, frequent moral dilemmas, and a decidedly lefty POV. Unfortunately, on FOX.

[Warren DeMontague]

12. Haven't seen it, sounds interesting though. "Arrested Development" was on FOX, too.

And "The Simpsons". FOX has some good tv. (Not the News Channel, obviously. :rofl:)

[Lucian]

21. "House" is the best show on tv.

It's smart, philosophical, and it is still going strong after seven seasons.

[Warren DeMontague]

23. Haven't seen "House". Best thing on tv that I've been watching is Breaking Bad.

Game of Thrones on HBO was pretty good, too. I had to run out and get the books after that.

[hobbit709]

15. Stupidity and inanity sell real well too.

[kctim]

16. Uh, yeah

We don't want nor need your sympathy.

Thanks though.

[Warren DeMontague]

17. unfortunately, my pitch for "The Andrea Dworkin Comedy Hour"

was NOT well received. :shrug: