looks like NOW finally got what it wanted...
Posted on 12/10/2011 4:14:50 AM PST by Kaslin
Once upon a time, women were considered the "fairer sex," the "better half." Stewardesses were talented and beautiful. Wives were softer and gentler. Men fought for their honor. Feminism crushed all of that.
It is a testimony to their movement that in today's post-feminist entertainment media, part of what makes television so corrosive and sour is just how piggish the women have become.
The latest study from the Parents Television Council drives this concept home by going to the ugly center of pop culture: MTV "reality" programming. After studying entire seasons of four MTV shows, the PTC concludes: "Females talked about sex acts more than men, talked about sex more graphically than men, mentioned sexual body parts more than men, and talked about intercourse and preliminaries to intercourse more than men."
Translation: TVs women are society's truck drivers. That doesn't sound like "reality." It sounds carefully cartooned to attract viewers.
Sadly, it follows that PTC found that on MTV male cast members referred to females as "cool" and viewed them more favorably when women displayed characteristics attributed to men (not wanting tolinger after sex, not viewing sex as any proof of commitment, not requiring romance prior to sex and indifference to cheating).
But that emotionally arid and recklessly lascivious behavior naturally also leads to demeaning remarks. On "Jersey Shore," Mike "The Situation" sneers, "Deena calls herself 'The Holiday.' I like to call her 'The Holiday Inn.'"
After reviewing the ratings data, PTC picked the four most popular programs in 2011 on cable among the 12 to 17 demographic, which included that detestable sleazefest "Jersey Shore." Analysts also viewed "The Real World," "Teen Mom," and "16 and Pregnant."
The PTCs critics in the press have mocked the idea that anyone would need to study "Jersey Shore" to find it sleazy. The New York Daily News joked, "In equally shocking news, bananas were found at the Chiquita factory." But what's new in this study is that not only do the men speak badly of the women on these shows, but also the women speak badly of each other and of themselves.
The overarching purpose for the study was to explore what messages young viewers are receiving through "reality" television. What they're getting isn't just non-stop scenes of drinking and premarital sex, but an overwhelming dose of insulting negativity. The top three derogatory terms for women were the B-word, "stupid" and "dirty." Those often came attached with profanities. Females were the recipients of an F-word or S-word 662 times, or on average, once every 4 minutes and 10 seconds.
While terms men used for each other were often viewed as complimentary -- big man, dawg, superhero, MacGyver, winner. Women used far more degrading language when talking about other females -- rodent, skank, slut, ho and much worse.
In a PTC video accompanying the study, web surfers can view the poisonous princesses of MTV refer to one another as "trash bags," "the furniture," and one woman sneering at another woman is a "dirty
Chihuahua" whom she wants to "smack to the side." Only 24 percent of what females said about themselves was positive.
The PTC also verified (yet again) that all this sex and sex chatter has nothing resembling caution in it. Although 88 percent of the sexual dialogue between men and women across all the shows focused on intercourse and its preludes, the topics of virginity (0.2 percent), contraceptives (1.4 percent) and sexually transmitted diseases (2 percent) were barely mentioned on these programs. MTV can't even live up to its own "safe sex" ideology.
MTV doesn't make these shows to expose "reality" or be educational. They're quite anti-educational, glamorizing stupidity and paving a way to fame through anti-social behavior. They're attracting school-age viewers by the millions by highlighting the most demeaning and crass behavior they can capture on camera.
In an interview with GQ magazine, "Jersey Shore" star Snooki Polizzi lamented that the show leaves a lot of "reality" out of its eyeball-dragging mess every week. "I wouldn't show as much drinking and partying. I would show more of us chilling out and having a good time, which they don't show," she complained. "We don't even drink those nights, but we laugh all night. They don't show anything but us drinking and hooking up."
This is not to say MTV would end up with C-SPAN if they manufactured this pap with a little more civility. But the network's callous distortions of "reality" are twisting the minds of young people into avoiding manners, romance, commitment, decency, modesty and empathy. They're teaching our children to become mean-spirited, backstabbing, bed-hopping villains. This Chiquita factory needs to be denounced for putting rot in the bananas.
looks like NOW finally got what it wanted...
” I have noticed the animation is so realistic - small kids must find it difficult or impossible to distinguish between fantasy & reality “
When I was a little kid, Gumby freaked me out. Scared me! I knew people/things just didn’t move like that! Wouldn’t watch it.
MTV was the reason I never allowed cable in my house after that. We read instead. My son now has his own sizable collection of books.
What you are wishing for exists, it is all on the internet. It can be a chore to find all those topics you listed, but it is worth it. There is no justification for having broadcaster do that for you, you should choose everything. I got rid of my TV in June 1999 and while I used to watch at friends I don’t even do that any more (I can hear it from the other room). It is almost all crap now, including some of the channels you named.
I was in a hotel last week but left the TV off. I used to turn it on for old times sake, but I just don’t see the need anymore.
It is without any doubt bad for young kids, the younger they are, the worse it is. Also "Educational" TV is just as bad as any other.
we just got dish network - family package.
It’s cheap.
There is no mtv or vh1
So far the kids seem pretty happy with Nick and Animal Planet.
I’m happy I finally to get to watch Fox every now and then.
The right critique of this kind of trash and the people who produce it could destroy the pop culture juggernaught in very little time.
Garbage like MTV and ABC "Family" never sees the light of day at our house. Plus we don't center our lives around the TV.
We watch movies that are entertaining and uplifting that all of us can watch, then we turn the thing off and do something else. Days can go by without our TV being on.
“I (don’t) want my M...T...V.”
“Why can’t a woman be more like a man?”” “Men are so honest/so throughly square/historically noble/eternally fair...’’ Apologies to Professor Henry Higgins.
have you checked out hulu.com they have several food network shows and others that you can watch online for free, and by hooking up an hdmi from my laptop to the big screen I can even watch them on the big tv
They watched all that and they stayed sane??
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Responsible parents very carefully monitor what their children watch. Including teenagers. People (including adults!) are affected by what they take in through their senses - that's why advertising works; if it didn't affect people they wouldn't spend gazillions of dollars on it year after year. That's why propaganda works. No one can claim that they are not at all affected by watching or listening to junk, any more than people are immune to eating poisonous mushrooms. And Hollywood is just as disgustingly evil as TV, the whole entertainment business whether TV or Hollywood, is entirely corrupt and loathesome.
I spent all last week in hotels also, never turned the damn thing on once. I used to turn it on for sports but even that has become insufferable, especially the idiotic espn network.
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