First Shot: Primetime bitchslap

Don’t look now, but there’s a terrible trend to America’s TV programming, and it’s rapidly debasing our cherished way of life. It’s cheapening our sense of community, poisoning our discourse and making a mockery of everything we qualify as “entertainment.”

But you know what? Jay Leno gets enough press already. So instead, I want to talk about smackin’ the ’ho.

According to a new study, violence against women has experienced an alarming uptick on American TV. We’re talking a rise of 120 percent in the last half-decade – and when the focus is restricted to teenage victims, the increase amounts to a full 400 percent.

What’s to blame? Not surprisingly, the mushroomed popularity of forensics dramas (or, as a dear friend calls them, “dead-people shows”) plays a major part: David Caruso needs a steady supply of cadavers if he wants to keep whipping off those shades and handing the mic to Roger Daltrey -- and it’s all the better if the corpse is young and pretty.

But what’s more surprising is the supposed complicity of comedy programming, which according to the research findings is now exhibiting a highly uncomfortable reliance on gags about women-bashing. Fox gets an especial demerit for furthering the career of Seth McFarlane – particularly a May Family Guy episode that incorporated a joke about divorce by shotgun. (How sad to see such a cheap appeal to underlying hostilities diluting the show’s otherwise deep and abiding respect for all living creatures.)

At this point, it would be very easy to put on my theorist’s hat and proclaim a broad social upheaval. After all, we live in a moment at which widespread economic devastation has intersected with the ever-changing demographics of American society to produce a situation in which women now outnumber men in the workforce. So it could simply be construed that American males are experiencing deep feelings of emasculation, moving them to “hit back” in ways that are both more covert and socially acceptable than literal violence (just as the gains of the feminist movement were sometimes identified as the trigger for the slasher-film boom of the late 1970s and early 1980s).

There’s only one problem with this theory: The study that inspired it was conducted by the Parents Television Council.

Not ringing a bell? This is the same conservative watchdog group that’s mounted complaints against everything from Bono saying “fook” on TV to NYPD Blue to Janet Jackson’s infamous wardrobe malfunction. It’s a right-wing pressure group founded by longtime political agitator Brent Bozell III (although more recently headed by supposed liberal Democrat Tim Winter, which just shows to go ya). And its “advisory board” has included such career busybodies as Steve Allen, Michael Medved and anti-rap crusader C. Delores Tucker, as well as cracker crooners Billy Ray Cyrus and Pat Boone.

(Just so we’re clear: That’s the same Pat Boone who recently authored a WorldNetDaily column comparing liberalism to the “filthy black cells” of cancer.)

So no, I don’t trust the “findings” of the PTC as far as I can skee-ball them. I’m just not convinced that this is a bunch who genuinely have the best interests of women at heart. (Just in case you think I’m being capricious, here’s one more PTC “advisor”: Sam Brownback.) Back in 2005, CommonDreams.org posted an illuminating comparison between the public pronouncements of the PTC and the less-than-wholesome career and personal choices made by its board members. Since then, of course, Cyrus has proven that he’s never altogether certain just when his daughter has her clothes on, and how close the nearest photographer is. He’s a real Promise Keeper.

Obviously, I’m not condoning violence against women as an entertainment option (unless, as has been established time and again in this column, the recipient is Renee Zellweger). But you pick your battles. Even if the PTC’s programming analysis is correct, I’d be a lot more enthusiastic about seeing them and their ilk advocating for real female empowerment – in the form of, say, equal pay for equal work -- than getting their panties in a wad over whatever happens to Lois Griffin.

(Yes, this bunch all wear panties – haven’t you heard?)

Posted by Steve Schneider on 10/29/2009 1:18:43 PM Permalink | Comments: 0

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