Women are the new men on TV

September 13, 2007

Courtesy of Greg Anderson of the ms-discussion list at yahoogroups:

http://www.salon. com/ent/tv/ feature/2007/ 09/12/gender_ tv/

Broads are the cops and lawyers and masters of the business universe

on the new shows. So what happened to the men?

By Rebecca Traister

Sep. 12, 2007 |

Here's the good news: When you turn on your television this fall,

you'll be watching more women kick more ass than you can possibly

imagine -- physically, economically and sexually. Hard-bodied and

smart, rich and aggressive, confident and independent, the chicks who

populate the prime-time lineup are being cast in roles that once

belonged almost exclusively to men. These broads are cops and lawyers

and masters of the business universe. Hollywood doyennes like Kyra

Sedgwick, Mary-Louise Parker and Holly Hunter have already found

midlife career solace (and good writing) on cable. This year, Julianna

Margulies will star as a nasty Nancy Grace knockoff, Angie Harmon as a

police lieutenant, Lucy Liu as a publishing executive, and Patricia

Heaton as a news anchor; there's a new "Bionic Woman" and a whole show

about the world's leading incubator of the future, "The Terminator's"

Sarah Connor. The flinty Cagneys, Laceys, Murphys and Buffys of yore

aren't the exceptions in the new TV season; they rule.

So what happened to the men? Nothing good, that's for sure. Here, for

instance, is what happens when Lucy Liu's character, Mia, on ABC's

"Cashmere Mafia," wins a work contest, and big promotion, over her

boyfriend and colleague Richard: He breaks up with her, tail between

his legs. "I thought I'd win and buy us a place and take care of you,"

he explains. "And now that it's reversed I just can't see us ... I'm

40 next month. I want someone to come home to. I'm going to want kids,

and we're just going in opposite directions."

Yup. Welcome to the new world on television, where the women are

strong, and the men are cavemen. Literally. ABC's "Cavemen," based on

the Geico ad campaign character, is about a trio of Cro-Magnons with

low self-esteem and a little hair-growth problem. Small-screen heroes

who aren't actually dragging their knuckles behave even worse. In the

face of professional and sexual equality between the televised sexes,

these fictional guys are cowed, angry and generally emasculated by the

successes of their female counterparts.

It can't all be coincidence that this season is coming at the end of a

summer in which the biggest movie hits have featured dopey, ill-

groomed, irresponsible boys who score beautiful high-achieving women

and then have no idea what to do once they land them. That's right,

we're in Apatowland, baby, where the idea of a male romantic lead now

begins with a water bong and ends with a fart joke. This isn't an

isolated trend; it seems to be a broad cultural response that speaks

to enough people to keep it floating. The shows this fall are not

clones of each other: They're written by men and by women; they're

geared toward teens and adults; they're comedies and dramas and

dramedies. And they all seem to be expressing an anxiety about what on

earth is going to happen to American men now that their women are not

simply competing at work, sex, friendship, money and politics, but

sometimes winning.

Among the degradations about to be heaped on television's men? There

are guys whose wives cheat on them, whose girlfriends get promoted

over them, whose mates make more money than they do; guys who get left

out of baby-making, who date women with penises and at least one who

gets anally raped by a monkey.

Seriously.

It's tough to know where to start in explaining how bad these boys

have it, but the monkey rape seems as good a place as any. It takes

place in the debut episode of the Farrelly brothers' half-hour comedy

"The Rules for Starting Over," which premieres on Fox in spring 2008,

about Gator (Craig Bierko), a menschy guy tossed back into the dating

market after his wife leaves him for a Cirque de Soleil performer.

Gator, who hasn't been on a date since his 20s, is mystified by women,

and startled to be invited up to the apartment of an attractive

naturalist who shows him tapes of the gorillas she's studied. She

informs him that "in the world of primates, the female always

initiates," pulling him onto the floor on top of her to demonstrate.

That's when the woman's pet baboon takes Gator from behind.

Gator's buddies do nickname the monkey "bi-curious George" -- the only

funny line of the episode -- but otherwise are a lamentable bunch.

They include a heavily accented Indian doctor, also recently divorced,

and so lonely and stupid that he invites an escort to his birthday

dinner (at "Thank God It Is Friday's" -- think of how hilarious that

is in an Indian accent!) and proposes to her. As if getting ditched

for a circus acrobat isn't emblematic enough of the clownish

powerlessness of modern man, the show's lone female star is dating a

short man who works for the Celtics -- as the team's bouncy mascot,

Lucky the Leprechaun!

At least the guys on "The Secrets of Starting Over" have met women.

Geeky schlubs Sheldon and Leonard (Jim Parsons and Johnny Galecki) on

CBS' "Big Bang Theory" are socially hobbled physicists whose only

sexual activity involves donating to a high-IQ sperm bank, so that

woman can get pregnant by them without actually having to touch them!

The guys meet a cute neighbor and by the end of the half-hour have had

their pants removed by her brawny ex. "It wasn't my first pantsing,

and it won't be my last," says a defeated Sheldon.

Going pantsless is one of the weirdly repeated themes of the new

season, turning up again in ABC's bone-chillingly bad comedy

"Carpoolers."

The idea behind "Carpoolers," voiced several times during its pilot,

is that daily trips to and from work are the only escape for these

four miserable men, who have nothing in common except a barely

disguised antipathy for the women in their lives. Aubrey's wife has

him by the balls: He waits on her, cooks and cares for the kids while

she watches television and takes his money. Laird (Jerry O'Connell),

the carpool's founder, has been dumped by his wife, who cheated and

left him with nothing but an ass-print on the sliding glass door.

Gracen (Fred Goss) is married to Leila (Faith Ford), a woman he seems

to care for, but whose real estate "hobby" has recently become

lucrative. The pilot revolves around the carpool's suspicion that

Leila is making more money than her husband. The decline of

masculinity is further embodied by Gracen and Leila's subliterate

adult son Marmaduke, who inexplicably prances around the house without

trousers and miraculously lands a job at which he, too, will be making

more money than his father.

The fury and confusion about shifting gender roles as expressed on

"Carpoolers" is scary in its nakedness. At one point, Laird suggests

to Gracen that he talk to his wife about how she's spending his money.

"My money? Ha ha, no," says Gracen. "All the money I make is our

money; it always has been. The money she's making now is her money."

Aubrey chimes in, "Well at least you have your money. My wife gets my

checks; I don't even know how much I make!" To which Laird says, "My

wife and I have it all worked out out. She gets everything. Her lawyer

saw to that."

Ha ha ha ha!

Later Laird stokes Gracen's fear by explaining that "men go off to

war; women shop; if we don't provide for our women, do they really

need us?" Part of the horror of this show is how it -- and not the

specter of the high-earning wife -- is actually stripping its heroes

of anything resembling self-respect or masculine dignity. Gracen

squirms around about Leila's income like a spineless nelly; he curls

in a fetal position when he hears how much she has in her account; he

can only have sex with her after he realizes it's all been a

misunderstanding -- of course she's not wealthier than he is!

"Carpoolers" does more to impugn the American male than any high-

earning spouse could ever do. But if this sitcom is any measure -- and

god willing it is not -- the American female is fucked. There is no

mode of femininity that satisfies these guys: The wife who is too

successful makes her husband feel unmanly; the wife who doesn't work

makes her husband bake; the wife who leaves is a bitch who takes the

furniture.

Even on far better shows, like Fox's Kelsey Grammer-Patricia Heaton

vehicle "Back to You," the malevolence toward professional women is

ill-disguised. Grammer plays Chuck Darling, a Los Angeles newscaster

demoted to his old station in Pittsburgh after he's caught on camera

railing about a ditzy colleague. "I didn't freeze my ass off in

Minnesota and fucking Pittsburgh to end up working with some dipshit

who only has her job because she's fucking the general manager!" Chuck

shouts before he realizes he's on air and calmly reports, "It was

bring your daughter to work day today!" -- a funny transition that

highlights the disjuncture between enforced political correctness and

his actual animosity toward his young female co-worker.

Back in Pittsburgh, Chuck is reunited with his former co-anchor, Kelly

Carr (Heaton), with whom he had a brief sexual relationship before his

career took off. During Chuck's decade-long absence, Kelly has raised

a child on her own, whom newsroom gossips speculate she conceived with

the help of a sperm donor -- a child whom Heaton protects with such

fierceness that Chuck is moved to comment, "Your daughter could

benefit from a strong masculine figure in her life, but I can see she

already has one."

Grammer is not a loser in the mold of Gator or Gracen, but he has been

professionally humiliated and forced to slink back to a woman whom he

thought he'd surpassed, only to realize that she'd been just fine

without him. The theme of female self-sufficiency is echoed in Fox's

"The Return of Jezebel James," slated to run midseason, in which

Parker Posey's single, ambitious book editor character is informed she

cannot get pregnant, and so turns to her sister for help in the uterus

department, no baby-daddy in sight.

These shows smell only faintly of a lighthearted desire to punish or

dominate their high-achieving female leads, perhaps make them lonely,

a little desperate, a touch shrill, infertile. But the punishment

mechanism positively reeks on ABC's "Samantha Who?" a sitcom ripped

off from "Thirteen Going on Thirty," in which psychiatrist Sam

(Christina Applegate) wakes up from a coma with amnesia, and must be

taught in a thousand belittling ways that pre-accident she was a mean,

ambitious, cheating, slutty harridan who was so hated by her

boyfriend's friends that they called to congratulate him when she got

hit by a car. As an amnesiac, Sam is much nicer, especially when she

confesses to her man that she feels "so needy [and] unarmed." A

collective fantasy: If only we could knock out those ball-busting

brats and bring them back with no memories and much more amenable

dispositions!

At least the barely sublimated aggression is played for laughs in the

sitcoms. When it comes to the dramas, the female triumphs are that

much more potent, and the resulting arrested machismo of the men is

that much more ... not potent. On ABC's "Women's Murder Club," Angie

Harmon is police Lt. Lindsay Boxer -- recently promoted over her older

male colleague -- who solves murders with the support of her best

female confidants, a reporter, a medical examiner and a D.A. (brunet,

blond, African-American, natch). They're such a successful clique that

they even have a wannabe (Asian!) member, who begs to become a part of

their club, which she sees as "women teaming up to level the playing

field in a man's world."

The only area in which these women show any weakness is their love

lives, but it's made clear that that has a lot to do with male

discomfort with their power. As Lindsay says about her failed

marriage, "Before he left, I kept promising that I would change. That

I would put him over the job and that I would be at home more.

Eventually he just stopped believing me, and he was right." But even

without the husband, she shows no interest in changing. When it's

pointed out that Lindsay hasn't had sex in two years, she says

defensively, "I'm picky. And busy." Medical examiner Claire (Paula

Newsome) has a more successful relationship. When she goes home to

cuddle with her husband, we understand him to be a man comfortable

with his wife's power as soon as she sits in his lap ... in his

wheelchair.

Set on an opposite coast and a professional world apart, ABC's

"Cashmere Mafia" strikes amazingly similar notes to "Women's Murder

Club." "Mafia" is Darren Starr's attempt to plunder the "Sex and the

City" audience, before the mid-season debut of NBC's "Lipstick

Jungle," based on a book by the original Carrie, Candace Bushnell.

"Mafia" begins with a shot of New York amazons (brunet, blond, red-

headed, Asian!) striding down a Gotham street. "This is a story about

four friends who were taught from childhood that through hard work and

smart choices they could have it all," the efficient voice-over tells

us. Zoe (Frances O'Connor) is a Wall Street macher with a great family

and stay-at-home- dad husband so devoted that he turns down a play-

group mom's offer for strings-free sex. Juliet (Miranda Otto) is a

hotel chain executive; Caitlin (Bonnie Somerville) is a marketing

executive for a cosmetics company who, according to the intro, "says

she lives for work because work never tells her that he's just not

that into her." But her imperviousness to men may not be simply

attitudinal; she's also a budding lesbian. After her first kiss with a

woman, the pilot's soundtrack plays "You Make Me Feel Like a Natural

Woman." That's right, boys. Want to know what makes this beautiful

woman feel like a woman? A woman! Suck it!

Like the Murder Club ladies, these women are utterly self-sufficient

professionally, except insomuch as they rely on each other for

detailed four-way-phone- call advice. Listen to Zoe make like Gordon-

ette Gekko, telling a young colleague: "Profit doesn't care if you

have kids or cats or a penis or a vagina; profit only cares if you

have the hot hand, and through hard work and a little bit of luck,

mine's been hot more often than not." Even in romantic weakness, they

are steely. When Juliet learns that her husband has been cheating, she

barely flinches; what's more, she quickly begins to pity him. "Look at

what a man gives up to be with one of us," she tells her girlfriends.

"We make more money. We rise higher. We take up more space. We are as

far from the idea of a wife he grew up with as it's possible to be and

still wear his ring and go by his last name."

It's excellently diabolical, this logic: Even at their macho cheating

caddish hurtful worst, men are the weak ones. He's only cheating

because he's so enfeebled by his junior role in the marriage.

On "Big Shots," "Cashmere Mafia's" corollary about a bunch of

classically red-blooded businessmen, the four friends sit around a

swimming pool taking a schvitz like the girls on "Sisters" used to do.

"Look at us," says Brody, played by Christopher Titus, as a man so

devoted to his wife that he spends the whole episode micromanaging the

catering for her birthday party, "We're supposed to be these alpha

males, right? But now James' wife is sleeping around on him and Karl

can't control his crazy mistress and I'm so whipped that I can't tell

my wife that the delivery company can't seem to find her shipment of

Napoleans." Duncan (Dylan McDermott) replies flatly, "Men, we're the

new women," just before Brody gets a phone call that he answers, "Oh,

what fresh hell ... What do you mean the pastry filling won't clear

customs?"

"Big Shots" is one of the two -- two! -- new dramas so befuddled by

gender arrangements that in their pilots, they have their muscular

male leads -- 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? As "Dirty Sexy Money"

lead Peter Krause taunts Baldwin's character: "Is she more of a man

than you are?"

Yes. She is more of a man than he is. All of television's women are,

apparently. You know you're in trouble when Julianna Margulies' tough

lawyer character on Fox's "Canterbury's Law," which premieres

midseason, walks in on her male junior colleague in the pisser, and

when he asks her to leave, she merely turns on the water to hurry

things along.

Rather than seeing their opportunities for interaction with women

expand, these men have instead curled into fetal positions like Gracen

on "Carpoolers." Is it simply impossible for the televised heroes of

yesteryear to go gracefully into their new world order?

It's understandable and honest to express some befuddlement with

shifting expectations. But these are characters whose discomfort makes

them unattractive, or silly-looking. They are whipped, flummoxed and

helpless without the power to make the calls -- in the bedroom or the

boardroom. They can't just be normal nice guys who are no longer

entirely in control, who do childcare or play a subordinate role at

work but who do so in a way that is still sexy, still powerful,

instead of in a way that is marked as submissive, beaten down or pansy-

assed. Nope, they must be buffoons, caricatures, dopes or just angry,

neutered bastards.

It's discomfiting for women, too, to see television's idea of what a

feminized man is, since it is a reflection of what television

considers feminine to begin with. If these men are "the new women,"

then what does that say about what they take women for? Do they think

we have hissy fits when we discover how much our husbands have in

their bank accounts? That we flip out when a man comes on to us? That

when we get passed over for promotions we walk out of relationships in

defeat? If these are supposed to be girly-men, then the notion of what

girly looks like is simply ghastly, an insult not only to the men, but

to the women whose habits they are supposedly aping.

Little wonder that many of these programs include plotlines in which

women and men turn in on their own gender to fulfill their social,

professional and sexual needs. Many of us who rather enjoy the upturn

in women's professional, political, sexual and social fortunes might

think that it could only help our relationships with the men we love

and respect, and with whom we come ever closer to being considered

equal. But if television is any measure, and this summer it appears to

be measuring something palpable in our collective consciousness, then

it seems that as our field gets closer to level, men and women are

simply not playing well together.

September 13, 2007

TV is for females.

Period.

It's written for, planned for, designed for, and broadcast for

females. I stopped watching years ago.

The advertisers don't believe that men exist.

September 13, 2007

On Sep 13, 10:14 am, Masculist <MASCUL...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Women are the new men on TV

You forgot Black Police Chiefs..

Every cop show must have a Black Police Chief.

They must have some special training program...

September 13, 2007

"Viking" <noway@goodgoodbye.com> wrote in message

news:ptsie31nvmbe221kaemu948avbo1q6vo99@4ax.com...

> TV is for females.

> Period.

>

> It's written for, planned for, designed for, and broadcast for

> females. I stopped watching years ago.

>

> The advertisers don't believe that men exist.

That is a total crock of shit. There are advertisement CLEARLY aimed toward

men... RTFLMAO... you know.... viagra.....just for men hair color....buy

this and you get the girl... on and on.... all these appeal to us men. It

took a great number of years before women started to show big time on TV.

Because some equity is close at hand, you pathetic little men run in the

opposite direction? It's sad and I have to clean up the mess you bozos

leave around life and make it seem we're all little boys whining about not

being the center of attention all the time.

September 13, 2007

On Thu, 13 Sep 2007 12:41:19 -0500, "Jude" <Cajun@thebayou.wet> wrote:

>

>"Viking" <noway@goodgoodbye.com> wrote in message

>news:ptsie31nvmbe221kaemu948avbo1q6vo99@4ax.com...

>> TV is for females.

>> Period.

>>

>> It's written for, planned for, designed for, and broadcast for

>> females. I stopped watching years ago.

>>

>> The advertisers don't believe that men exist.

>

>That is a total crock of shit. There are advertisement CLEARLY aimed toward

>men... RTFLMAO... you know.... viagra.....just for men hair color....

Oh yeah, you asshole. TWO WHOLE ADs.

Geat rebuttal.

laugh

September 13, 2007

<lorad474@cs.com> wrote in message

news:1189704956.064423.243650@19g2000hsx.googlegroups.com...

> On Sep 13, 10:14 am, Masculist <MASCUL...@gmail.com> wrote:

>

>> Women are the new men on TV

>

> You forgot Black Police Chiefs..

>

> Every cop show must have a Black Police Chief.

>

> They must have some special training program...

>

Lissen here white trask. I'm a proud negro warrior and you shuddent

insinulate that we's negros is dum. Our grate africun scientisss invented da

white man. Wile yous were livin' in caves we wuz inventin all sorts of

things. It wuz an africun let me remin you that invented da space ship. We

wuz flyin around dem pyramints at da speed of lite when you wuz nothin.

September 13, 2007

On Sep 13, 10:47 am, Viking <no...@goodgoodbye.com> wrote:

> On Thu, 13 Sep 2007 12:41:19 -0500, "Jude" <Ca...@thebayou.wet> wrote:

>

> >"Viking" <no...@goodgoodbye.com> wrote in message

> >news:ptsie31nvmbe221kaemu948avbo1q6vo99@4ax.com...

> >> TV is for females.

> >> Period.

>

> >> It's written for, planned for, designed for, and broadcast for

> >> females. I stopped watching years ago.

>

> >> The advertisers don't believe that men exist.

>

> >That is a total crock of shit. There are advertisement CLEARLY aimed toward

> >men... RTFLMAO... you know.... viagra.....just for men hair color....

>

> Oh yeah, you asshole. TWO WHOLE ADs.

>

> Geat rebuttal.

>

> laugh

Yeah and she lists Viagra commercials which dupe men into thinking

they have to please the gal and take medication to do so. This takes

any responsibility off the gals. Sound familiar? It's the same old

mantra of feminists, "All responsibility on men and none on women".

Smitty

September 13, 2007

On Sep 13, 11:00 am, "Kunte Kinte" <k...@kunt.af> wrote:

> <lorad...@cs.com> wrote in message

>

> news:1189704956.064423.243650@19g2000hsx.googlegroups.com...

>

> > On Sep 13, 10:14 am, Masculist <MASCUL...@gmail.com> wrote:

>

> >> Women are the new men on TV

>

> > You forgot Black Police Chiefs..

>

> > Every cop show must have a Black Police Chief.

>

> > They must have some special training program...

>

> Lissen here white trask. I'm a proud negro warrior and you shuddent

> insinulate that we's negros is dum. Our grate africun scientisss invented da

> white man. Wile yous were livin' in caves we wuz inventin all sorts of

> things. It wuz an africun let me remin you that invented da space ship. We

> wuz flyin around dem pyramints at da speed of lite when you wuz nothin.

OK boys, let's focus on the real problem and leave the poor black guys

alone. Remember, many of our white brothers have been duped by

feminists too. Stop picking on blacky and be real men and stand up to

bitchy.

Smitty

September 13, 2007

On 13 Sep, 11:05, Masculist <MASCUL...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sep 13, 10:47 am, Viking <no...@goodgoodbye.com> wrote:

>

> > On Thu, 13 Sep 2007 12:41:19 -0500, "Jude" <Ca...@thebayou.wet> wrote:

>

> > >"Viking" <no...@goodgoodbye.com> wrote in message

> > >news:ptsie31nvmbe221kaemu948avbo1q6vo99@4ax.com...

> > >> TV is for females.

> > >> Period.

>

> > >> It's written for, planned for, designed for, and broadcast for

> > >> females. I stopped watching years ago.

>

> > >> The advertisers don't believe that men exist.

>

> > >That is a total crock of shit. There are advertisement CLEARLY aimed toward

> > >men... RTFLMAO... you know.... viagra.....just for men hair color....

>

> > Oh yeah, you asshole. TWO WHOLE ADs.

>

> > Geat rebuttal.

>

> > laugh

>

> Yeah and she lists Viagra commercials which dupe men into thinking

> they have to please the gal and take medication to do so. This takes

> any responsibility off the gals. Sound familiar? It's the same old

> mantra of feminists, "All responsibility on men and none on women".

>

> Smitty

'zactly smitty, viagra etc. is all about The Woman, not the stoopid

duped guy stuffing his body with chemicals to ensure that he's ready

(LOL!!) whenever Her Sheness is

can you imagine anything so subervient and emasculated?

females have become such power-slobbering, vengeful monsters that men

have to prop their dicks up with chemicals just to get hard -- fake

hard -- for the harpies

what's next, girls? popsicle sticks and twine?

LOL!!

great article by Rebecca Traitor, btw -- Men Can't Handle Powerful

Women, hmm haven't we heard this rationalization for the matriarchy's

evil a billion times before?

of course, not a word as to how Ms. Traitor and her fellow Equalities

GOT those academic slots, jobs, etc. allowing them to lord it over

those Children Of a Lesser Goddess, males

not a word about the mass male poverty, criminalization, degradation,

homelessness, unemployment, and unrelenting stomping of boys and men

that GAVE those 'powerful females' -- under coercion of the

Matriarchal State -- an iron collar and leash around the neck of males

no, see . . . it's because females are actually SUPERIOR to males,

see, and males, boorish and unevolved primates, just can't accept

their complete and utter inferiority with a Big House Smile and a

response of 'Yas Missus!'

death to teevee and its luciferian propaganda

death to the matriarchy

- Hide quoted text -

>

> - Show quoted text -

September 13, 2007

"Jude" <Cajun@thebayou.wet> wrote in message

news:wzeGi.18524$Y7.10394@bignews3.bellsouth.net...

>

> "Viking" <noway@goodgoodbye.com> wrote in message

> news:ptsie31nvmbe221kaemu948avbo1q6vo99@4ax.com...

>> TV is for females.

>> Period.

>>

>> It's written for, planned for, designed for, and broadcast for

>> females. I stopped watching years ago.

>>

>> The advertisers don't believe that men exist.

>

> That is a total crock of shit. There are advertisement CLEARLY aimed

> toward men... RTFLMAO... you know.... viagra.....just for men hair

> color....buy this and you get the girl... on and on.... all these appeal

> to us men. It took a great number of years before women started to show

> big time on TV. Because some equity is close at hand, you pathetic little

> men run in the opposite direction? It's sad and I have to clean up the

> mess you bozos leave around life and make it seem we're all little boys

> whining about not being the center of attention all the time.

>

Hmm, interesting because most of the Viagra commercials show women talking

about how great it is that the husband has viagra.

September 13, 2007

On Sep 13, 1:14 pm, Masculist <MASCUL...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Courtesy of Greg Anderson of the ms-discussion list at yahoogroups:

>

> http://www.salon. com/ent/tv/ feature/2007/ 09/12/gender_ tv/

>

> Women are the new men on TV

>

> Broads are the cops and lawyers and masters of the business universe

> on the new shows. So what happened to the men?

The real men stopped watching TV I'd guess, as I did long ago.

If I want to watch cartoons, I'll wait till Saturday morning. Good

column though--at least as far as I got with it.

>

> By Rebecca Traister

>

> Sep. 12, 2007 |

>

> Here's the good news: When you turn on your television this fall,

> you'll be watching more women kick more ass than you can possibly

> imagine -- physically, economically and sexually. Hard-bodied and

> smart, rich and aggressive, confident and independent, the chicks who

> populate the prime-time lineup are being cast in roles that once

> belonged almost exclusively to men. These broads are cops and lawyers

> and masters of the business universe. Hollywood doyennes like Kyra

> Sedgwick, Mary-Louise Parker and Holly Hunter have already found

> midlife career solace (and good writing) on cable. This year, Julianna

> Margulies will star as a nasty Nancy Grace knockoff, Angie Harmon as a

> police lieutenant, Lucy Liu as a publishing executive, and Patricia

> Heaton as a news anchor; there's a new "Bionic Woman" and a whole show

> about the world's leading incubator of the future, "The Terminator's"

> Sarah Connor. The flinty Cagneys, Laceys, Murphys and Buffys of yore

> aren't the exceptions in the new TV season; they rule.

> So what happened to the men? Nothing good, that's for sure. Here, for

> instance, is what happens when Lucy Liu's character, Mia, on ABC's

> "Cashmere Mafia," wins a work contest, and big promotion, over her

> boyfriend and colleague Richard: He breaks up with her, tail between

> his legs. "I thought I'd win and buy us a place and take care of you,"

> he explains. "And now that it's reversed I just can't see us ... I'm

> 40 next month. I want someone to come home to. I'm going to want kids,

> and we're just going in opposite directions."

> Yup. Welcome to the new world on television, where the women are

> strong, and the men are cavemen. Literally. ABC's "Cavemen," based on

> the Geico ad campaign character, is about a trio of Cro-Magnons with

> low self-esteem and a little hair-growth problem. Small-screen heroes

> who aren't actually dragging their knuckles behave even worse. In the

> face of professional and sexual equality between the televised sexes,

> these fictional guys are cowed, angry and generally emasculated by the

> successes of their female counterparts.

> It can't all be coincidence that this season is coming at the end of a

> summer in which the biggest movie hits have featured dopey, ill-

> groomed, irresponsible boys who score beautiful high-achieving women

> and then have no idea what to do once they land them. That's right,

> we're in Apatowland, baby, where the idea of a male romantic lead now

> begins with a water bong and ends with a fart joke. This isn't an

> isolated trend; it seems to be a broad cultural response that speaks

> to enough people to keep it floating. The shows this fall are not

> clones of each other: They're written by men and by women; they're

> geared toward teens and adults; they're comedies and dramas and

> dramedies. And they all seem to be expressing an anxiety about what on

> earth is going to happen to American men now that their women are not

> simply competing at work, sex, friendship, money and politics, but

> sometimes winning.

> Among the degradations about to be heaped on television's men? There

> are guys whose wives cheat on them, whose girlfriends get promoted

> over them, whose mates make more money than they do; guys who get left

> out of baby-making, who date women with penises and at least one who

> gets anally raped by a monkey.

> Seriously.

> It's tough to know where to start in explaining how bad these boys

> have it, but the monkey rape seems as good a place as any. It takes

> place in the debut episode of the Farrelly brothers' half-hour comedy

> "The Rules for Starting Over," which premieres on Fox in spring 2008,

> about Gator (Craig Bierko), a menschy guy tossed back into the dating

> market after his wife leaves him for a Cirque de Soleil performer.

> Gator, who hasn't been on a date since his 20s, is mystified by women,

> and startled to be invited up to the apartment of an attractive

> naturalist who shows him tapes of the gorillas she's studied. She

> informs him that "in the world of primates, the female always

> initiates," pulling him onto the floor on top of her to demonstrate.

> That's when the woman's pet baboon takes Gator from behind.

> Gator's buddies do nickname the monkey "bi-curious George" -- the only

> funny line of the episode -- but otherwise are a lamentable bunch.

> They include a heavily accented Indian doctor, also recently divorced,

> and so lonely and stupid that he invites an escort to his birthday

> dinner (at "Thank God It Is Friday's" -- think of how hilarious that

> is in an Indian accent!) and proposes to her. As if getting ditched

> for a circus acrobat isn't emblematic enough of the clownish

> powerlessness of modern man, the show's lone female star is dating a

> short man who works for the Celtics -- as the team's bouncy mascot,

> Lucky the Leprechaun!

> At least the guys on "The Secrets of Starting Over" have met women.

> Geeky schlubs Sheldon and Leonard (Jim Parsons and Johnny Galecki) on

> CBS' "Big Bang Theory" are socially hobbled physicists whose only

> sexual activity involves donating to a high-IQ sperm bank, so that

> woman can get pregnant by them without actually having to touch them!

> The guys meet a cute neighbor and by the end of the half-hour have had

> their pants removed by her brawny ex. "It wasn't my first pantsing,

> and it won't be my last," says a defeated Sheldon.

> Going pantsless is one of the weirdly repeated themes of the new

> season, turning up again in ABC's bone-chillingly bad comedy

> "Carpoolers."

> The idea behind "Carpoolers," voiced several times during its pilot,

> is that daily trips to and from work are the only escape for these

> four miserable men, who have nothing in common except a barely

> disguised antipathy for the women in their lives. Aubrey's wife has

> him by the balls: He waits on her, cooks and cares for the kids while

> she watches television and takes his money. Laird (Jerry O'Connell),

> the carpool's founder, has been dumped by his wife, who cheated and

> left him with nothing but an ass-print on the sliding glass door.

> Gracen (Fred Goss) is married to Leila (Faith Ford), a woman he seems

> to care for, but whose real estate "hobby" has recently become

> lucrative. The pilot revolves around the carpool's suspicion that

> Leila is making more money than her husband. The decline of

> masculinity is further embodied by Gracen and Leila's subliterate

> adult son Marmaduke, who inexplicably prances around the house without

> trousers and miraculously lands a job at which he, too, will be making

> more money than his father.

> The fury and confusion about shifting gender roles as expressed on

> "Carpoolers" is scary in its nakedness. At one point, Laird suggests

> to Gracen that he talk to his wife about how she's spending his money.

> "My money? Ha ha, no," says Gracen. "All the money I make is our

> money; it always has been. The money she's making now is her money."

> Aubrey chimes in, "Well at least you have your money. My wife gets my

> checks; I don't even know how much I make!" To which Laird says, "My

> wife and I have it all worked out out. She gets everything. Her lawyer

> saw to that."

> Ha ha ha ha!

> Later Laird stokes Gracen's fear by explaining that "men go off to

> war; women shop; if we don't provide for our women, do they really

> need us?" Part of the horror of this show is how it -- and not the

> specter of the high-earning wife -- is actually stripping its heroes

> of anything resembling self-respect or masculine dignity. Gracen

> squirms around about Leila's income like a spineless nelly; he curls

> in a fetal position when he hears how much she has in her account; he

> can only have sex with her after he realizes it's all been a

> misunderstanding -- of course she's not wealthier than he is!

> "Carpoolers" does more to impugn the American male than any high-

> earning spouse could ever do. But if this sitcom is any measure -- and

> god willing it is not -- the American female is fucked. There is no

> mode of femininity that satisfies these guys: The wife who is too

> successful makes her husband feel unmanly; the wife who doesn't work

> makes her husband bake; the wife who leaves is a bitch who takes the

> furniture.

> Even on far better shows, like Fox's Kelsey Grammer-Patricia Heaton

> vehicle "Back to You," the malevolence toward professional women is

> ill-disguised. Grammer plays Chuck Darling, a Los Angeles newscaster

> demoted to his old station in Pittsburgh after he's caught on camera

> railing about a ditzy colleague. "I didn't freeze my ass off in

> Minnesota and fucking Pittsburgh to end up working with some dipshit

> who only has her job because she's fucking the general manager!" Chuck

> shouts before he realizes he's on air and calmly reports, "It was

> bring your daughter to work day today!" -- a funny transition that

> highlights the disjuncture between enforced political correctness and

> his actual animosity toward his young female co-worker.

> Back in Pittsburgh, Chuck is reunited with his former co-anchor, Kelly

> Carr (Heaton), with whom he had a brief sexual relationship before his

> career took off. During Chuck's decade-long absence, Kelly has raised

> a child on her own, whom newsroom gossips speculate she conceived with

> the help of a sperm donor -- a child whom Heaton protects with such

> fierceness that Chuck is moved to comment, "Your daughter could

> benefit from a strong masculine figure in her life, but I can see she

> already has one."

> Grammer is not a loser in the mold of Gator or Gracen, but he has been

> professionally humiliated and forced to slink back to a woman whom he

> thought he'd surpassed, only to realize that she'd been just fine

> without him. The theme of female self-sufficiency is echoed in Fox's

> "The Return of Jezebel James," slated to run midseason, in which

> Parker Posey's single, ambitious book editor character is informed she

> cannot ...

>

> read more

September 13, 2007

"Viking" <noway@goodgoodbye.com> wrote in message

news:ptsie31nvmbe221kaemu948avbo1q6vo99@4ax.com...

> TV is for females. Period.

> It's written for, planned for, designed for, and broadcast for

> females. I stopped watching years ago.

>

> The advertisers don't believe that men exist.

>

If you stopped watching TV, how do you know what's broadcast?

September 13, 2007

On Thu, 13 Sep 2007 20:44:03 GMT, "Witziges R

September 14, 2007

On Sep 13, 4:29 pm, "Ranting" <r...@rant.com> wrote:

> Hmm, interesting because most of the Viagra commercials show women talking

> about how great it is that the husband has viagra.

"Doc, I took the Viagra, but now I see my wife aint home."

'Hmm. is there anyone else around?'

"The maid."

'Well, try it on the maid.'

"But Doc, I dont need it for the maid."

Jehovah is into Justice. Gaia is into irony.

Thus, all my life, lechery has been regarded as despicable... until

they found a product they could make money getting geezers off.

I'm 68, dont have any problem getting it up, but there's no call for

the service. Women old enuf to spend time with me, would be perfectly

content with my company alone. Those who still have the hormones to

get off on sex, have lotsa other younger guys to do that with.

I didnt get to be 68 without being able to tell when a woman was

interested sex, and not bothering her about it when she wasnt. So, I

can still tell with women my own age. Puleze. Its not about sex, its

about relationship , and because that is true. increasing numbers of

women of all ages are discovering that "lesbianism" works for them.

Its not my fault that so many women were forced to have sex for so

many generations that there are now so many with no sex drive. They

didnt need it to stay in the gene pool. Unlike men.

Many have been good friends of mine, in part because I did not expect

them to perform sexually. I have been on good terms with fags as well

for the same reason. When we look at the earliest coupled figures ever

found, in SE Europe, dating back 7000 years, many of the figures are

either ambiguous, or obviously both female, with only a few that are

recognizably 'hetero'. But then, these people were not propagandized

by Christian dogma.

The historical record also shows close relationships in nunneries and

monestaries which we assume had no sex at all among very devout

people. We are, after all, primates. The primates that behave sexully

the way most hominids do are the Bonobo, and while there are some few

heterosexual couples, but, monogamous sex is not the token attachment.

Attention is. And the most common devoted relationships exist between

pairs of females.

Despite the devoted attachment seen in the viagra ads, there are

legions of older men who learned early on to control their sex drive

to avoid disturbing the sensibilities of women. And now that they've

reached the age where this is no longer difficult, they no longer need

the relationship either.

September 14, 2007