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.
Perhaps if we pushed the entertainment industry out of the country’s mainstream culture and back to Hollywood where it belongs, then we would not have these problems. Publications that want to be taken seriously need to extract these entertainers from their covers and from the lists of ‘most powerful and influential.’
Moral Absolutes Ping!
It’s been a year since our family pulled the plug on DirecTV. There are some things I miss, like Food Network, Discovery and HGTV, especially this time of year, but we don’t regret it one bit. We just got broadband the end of October and LOVE downloading “Once upon a Time” and youtube videos like “Simon’s Cat.”
Frankly, paid TV and most OTA scares the crap out of me. Even some of the commercials are just sick or stupid. I didn’t think I’d get more sensitive to all the garbage as I got older.
“They’re teaching our children to become mean-spirited, backstabbing, bed-hopping villains.”
Some parents somehow have the ability to actually control what media enters their home while other parents are completely to unable to control their children or what their children watch on TV.
Believe it it not, there are other options available to parents. These options include a remote control which allows the parent to change the TV channel and parents in this country actually have the freedom to not have a TV in their home.
BTW-There are also books that kids can read, homework they can do and all kinds of sports kids can play.
It is really amazing that between reading, sports, homework and other outdoor activities, kids really do not need a TV in the home.
On a forum I used to post on, one poster remarked that modern feminism encourages women to become more like men, but not just men, the lowest of men.
The Jersey Shore has to be one of the trashiest shows on television. I have never watched an episode, but catching ads for the show and seeing the cast in the tabloids is enough to know what filth it is. The sad thing is that there are some young people who look up to them. They see these people who are literally gifted fame and fortune to drink, party, and have sex on national television. They think that's the way cool, young adults act, and they believe it's ok to act that way, and in fact, they'd love to be on MTV or VH1 themselves.
I can tell you the women believe this is what the men want. They really do.
If the men would step up and say they want women to behave like ladies and they will not marry a woman who behaves like a slut, the women will become ladies again.
An incident I witnessed a few years ago illustrates thisperfectly. My husband and I were shopping a famous hardware store in Ohio’s Amish country one Saturday. One couple consisted of a rather plain man very proudly squiring around a leggy, long haired almost beauty who was wearing next to nothing. Everybody was ignoring them, not just the Amish men shopping the store. The other men were too, young and old.
Today’s women have not made “progress”. They are more foolish and much worse off than they have ever been. The sexiest thing is the world is modesty coupled with quiet competence and grace. Funny, I don’t see that being pushed on “Glee”.
“It’s been a year since our family pulled the plug on DirecTV.”
Good for you. When my wife was pregnant with our eldest we were at a friend’s home who had a six month old child. My wife and I both were amazed at how that baby would just stare at the TV.
That night as soon as we got home, I unplugged the TV and took it out to the curb. That was 21 years ago and three kids later, we still have no TV in the house.
I don’t even use the television except for the occasional movie and that is it. I don’t have paid cable either and really when you think about it, it’s a waste anyway. Popular culture used to be pretty cool and you knew where you stood, but now it’s going by too fast and going to end up crashing, just you wait.
When MTV (Music TV) first started I would have it on. They actually showed music videos 24/7. I haven’t had it for close to 30 years.
One of the most appalling shows I've seen recently is Maury Povich. In my job, I call on people in their homes, and so I'm stuck with whatever is on the TV if it's on when I'm there (and no, lots of people don't turn the TV off or even turn the sound down). His show is lots of who's having sex with who, baby mama/daddy drama stuff. Ick.
Thank-you, Hugh Heffner.
We haven't had cable for more than 20 years, except for about2 years when it was part of our condo fee and service where we were living at the time.
Now, it is a shock when we travel and have a chance to see cable in the hotel room. Just this week were traveling and I was astounded to see female masturbating devices advertised. Unbelievable!
*** My wife and I both were amazed at how that baby would just stare at the TV.***
Have there been any studies relating this phenomena to autism? Visual overload? Passive non-interaction with the characters?
Watching cartoons with my grandchildren - I have noticed the animation is so realistic - small kids must find it difficult or impossible to distinguish between fantasy & reality (unintended consequence?).
Solution is simple: get rid of your TV — or at least cable. Get your news from the internet and use the big screen only for home movies that you’ve carefully selected. There is nothing on television worth watching, as far as I can see. I got rid of my TV in 2004 and my home is peaceful and clean.
MTV was great in the early 80’s when it first came on. It was Music 24/7, now it’s just a load of sh*%
I know several feminists who fit that to a tee. I'm glad most of my female friends have not gone that direction. I talked to my cousin yesterday, and thought the phone was going to melt. She is one of the sweetest persons on earth.
I kind of think it would be shocking to find that Chiquita has factories. Morons write our news.
MTV, VH1, BET and many other channels are blocked on my TV. I’ve also blocked many shows on other channels. I refuse to allow garbage in my house.
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