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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
That show sounds pathetic.
How much better now that divorce is run of the mill rampant and only the men are scared for their lives.
I have had far more men work for me than women in my career. None of them had an iota of difficulty with it. I knew their wives and kids, and there was no emasculation or weirdness....and I wasn't the only powerful woman in these guys' lives.
Quite a few had wives who earned equal to or more than they. And everyone was fine about it - the guys were nice, their wives were nice, we all worked well together in the sandbox. I
It was great living, but it would make bad TV. TV is about conflict. It's not about representing a utopian world, it's - about throwing people into situations they are not equipped to deal with and then sit back and watch them on their worst behavior, warts and all.
It's reasonable to expect men that have been IN CHARGE to have difficulty giving up the idea of themselves as the one in charge. Few people willingly give up power graciously - but that's not a sign of wimpiness or emasuclation, it's just human. Or maybe I should say, primal - even dogs have a tough time sharing their domain with a non-mate newbie not of their choosing.
I don't own a TV and I'm glad - this run down of TV shows is depressing. It seems that writers can only portray men in one of 3 ways: a literal or figurative superhero, a Maxim-reading womanizer, or an emasculated schmendrick, with the latter category dominating. I don't recognize that typology in my own life - my friends are all mid-level management or executives, and their hubbies are DE-lighted at their wives' earning power and what it buys them.
Presenting successful women as the 'new men' is disingenuous - it seems to elevate women (by comparing them to those formerly successful in the arenas they are newly dominated) but in fact it does a great disservice to men AND women. Isn't it time we stopped genderizing success and the qualities it takes to achieve it? The guy as bread winner/decision maker / woman as caretaker/shopper trope is tired, and so are all the crazy hijinks that ensue when a TV writer pretends to challenge the tropes by elevating them through pathetically drawn two-dimensional characters.
I do hate those images of the man-child that are so popular today. I sure wouldn't date that guy. (and I have to say, based on the promos, that the show "Big Shots" should have been called "Douche Bags.") But I do think it reflects an honest confusion over how to behave as an adult, man or woman, in modern life. Watching the show Mad Men reminds me how prescribed life was, at least for white people. It went school, work, marriage, children, retirement, death, in that order, no straying.
Now things are all out of whack. We can have kids or not, get married or not (for love or not), be straight or not, have jobs or not. I think smart people in real life are able to figure it out, but TV and movies have to turn to extremes, to archetypes and caricatures, to create tension and drama, so we get no images of people who are just getting on with life without all the hoo-hah. Instead, we get two options per gender. For men, it's either be an emasculated doofus or be a jerk, and for women it's either be a ball-buster or be a simpering twit/bimbo.
Fortunately, real life is easier. Sure, our apartments are smaller and our clothes and cars aren't as nice, but at least our people are more nuanced.
is choosen to provide the dramatic conflict we all supposedly crave.
maybe not but there is not the slightest chance that they will have either the desire or the capability to treat anyone they DO end up with who CANNOT do these things as their equal or anything like it. It's very very simple: men with no money HAVE MUCH LESS INFLUENCE over women with money than the influence that women WITHOUT money have over men WITH money and while women thought this influence wasn't nearly enough when it was all they had men are now supposed to be satisfied with MUCH MUCH LESS. And apparently they mostly are.
maybe for the super-hot woman thats true. At least with shallow jerk-types.
But for the avg looking woman, not so much.
For the most part, from my vantage point, most people just want to live their lives & not be harrassed, hassled, called names, accused of outrageous things, etc etc.
That's what women want or at least are willing to make themselves comfortable with unless there is some abonormally attractive guy around who is desperately in love with only them and will do everything their way. Problem is men continue to want sex and sexual realtionships even if they have to settle for and make real compromises that cause them real problems with women who are no better than they are. This difference is really the source of all the conflict.
...McDermott on "Big Shots" and William Baldwin on ABC's "Dirty Sexy Money" -- engaging in sex with transvestites. What better symbol could there be of the emasculation of television's men and the chicks-with-dicks attitude toward its women?
I always appreciated the men who were comfortable being with me prior to my operation. They were secure enough in their masculinity to get close to me, despite what others might have thought if they knew. So they seemed particularly strong.
PS "Chicks-with-dicks": A nonderogatory term for those of us born this way is "transgendered female".
Not just on TV but in real life, too. Women are basically running this economy.
the medium is the message after all...what more can you expect to see reflected in television than anxieties about money and status? it is a medium that exists solely for advertisers. i wouldn't expect to see honest or meaningful reflections of human relationships...except in a few shows here and there that might slip through the cracks for a moment.
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Salon headlines in your mailbox
