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Vive Le Difference!

18 Oct

I am a feminist.  I do not waiver pronouncing that fact, and do not understand people who do.  “Well, I wouldn’t call myself a feminist, but I do enjoy the right to vote, work, control my fertility, etc.”  Good G-d, just say you’re a feminist.  It’s not a dirty word, and it is not synonymous with man-hating.  But I digress.  I believe that women are much more than the sum of their parts (augmented or otherwise.)  At times, I have resented the male to female reassigned peoples that equate womanhood with wearing make-up and high heels.  I am about as femme as they come, but it is a choice not a condition of my gender.

Here’s the rub.  I live in the world.  My beliefs aside, I know that as a woman I am judged on my appearance far more than my male counterparts.  I also have no doubt that I have used that inequity to my advantage at times.  Like cheese and fish, the gender-physicality-inequity phenomenon, becomes more pungent with age.   One need only turn on the television to confirm that more 60+ actors are considered swoon worthy then 60+ actresses.  Thanks, in no small part to the baby boomers, the pendulum has swayed just a bit in the past decade.  For their part in this incremental change, I’d like to personally thank Helen Mirren and Diane Keaton.  (If anyone had ever told me I’d be thanking an actress for getting naked on screen…)

I doubt the gender-physicality phenomenon will ever be anything other than unequal (on the screen and on the streets.)  It’s just not how we are wired.  One need only walk through an art museum to be reminded that this disparity is not a new phenomenon.  Women (for reasons I won’t attempt to argue) have always been the preferred vista.

Personally, I have made my peace with this situation.  For quite some time actually.  I believe it all balances out.  I don’t take any particular pleasure in pointing out that (socially) men often get the short end of the stick.  Women have far more freedom in expressing themselves.  We have latitude in our attire (if you don’t believe me, try to remember the last time you saw a man going to work in a dress.)  We (mostly) walk through life with an air of perceived innocence (has anyone ever looked askance at a woman alone in a playground?)  We are not viewed as undesirable dating material because we a) don’t have a degree b) live with our mother or c) don’t own property.  We are expected to express ourselves emotionally and physically, and might even live longer for doing so.  For me, the social benefits of my gender far outweigh the physical bias.

I have no issue with the fact (yes, it is fact) that men and women differ biologically.  Having differences is not a license to be treated differently however.  I enjoy and expect equal rights.  I have not a doubt in the world that many many will take issue with all I have expounded upon above.  (Some) women in particular, are very angry at having their appearance be acknowledged in any way.  It’s not a constructive use of anger.  We live in a world of mostly sighted people.  Like most mammals, we use our sight to learn about others and our environment.

So as I age, and hopefully I will, I accept that unlike Mr. Tom Selleck, I may not become increasingly dreamy.  As long as I also get to chide people for cursing (in public) with impunity, talk to unknown small children without being mirandized, and hug and kiss my friends in public without notice, I’m not complaining.

 
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Posted by on October 18, 2011 in Cultural Critique

 

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Giving Judgment a Pass

11 Oct

Have you ever been accused of being judgmental?  The accuser usually has flung the “judgment” handle as a reflex.  Teased apart, the accuser usually means to say; “Yikes, that hit a bit close to home.”

Calling people judgmental, and meaning it as an insult, is a new phenomenon.  The antipathy of judgment seems to have cropped up in that organic garden which has also sprouted trophies for every player and honor student bumper stickers.  Everyone is above average!  Now clearly, in our most logical moments we can all agree that to be a force for good in the world you need to have judgment.  I don’t think the casual bon mots of “don’t judge me!” “you’re so judgmental!” are really meant as the rallying cry of a movement.  No thinking person actually would posit that humans are meant to go through life NOT processing information coming into their senses.  I suspect these cries are more of the “I’m too fragile to process your opinion” ilk.

What’s stunning about this development is that it seems to have happened during the cruelest of trends in entertainment and media.  How many television and radio shows, have ridicule as their raison d’etre?  How many magazine and newspaper articles are at their core, simply picking on people.  A governor’s weight is made fun of in the news cycle!  And lo, what the internet has wrought.  Websites dedicated to the fine art of snark.  Quasi-anonymous (they need to use catchy handles, so you know whom to consider pithy) posters, take an obvious glee in simply maligning others.  They are like an uncontrolled infection, leaping from opportunity to opportunity.  Few people, excluding shock jocks and cable news pundits, would ever spew the venom they do.

We, the spectator, are not much better.  We watch, with glee; the accidents, the vulgar child-killer trials, the reality shows, the talk shows.  It is our appetite for some bastardized form of schadenfreude that drives us to “Addiction” “Intervention” “Hoarding.”  We watch these shows because they are the ultimate judgment.  “You there on the television, you are not normal.”  We have a voracious appetite for ridicule when it serves our purposes.  But when judgment is not for entertainment purposes?  Or not cruel, but instead, instructive?  That’s just too harsh.

Truth is, critique is only welcome if it is in the abstract (film, theatre, television, restaurant reviews) or about others.  But in real life?  All finger paintings are works of genius.

 
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Posted by on October 11, 2011 in Cultural Critique, Media/Marketing

 

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Wait! But If You Act Now

07 Oct

There’s been some buzz recently about the “advent” of embedding advertising in entertainment.  Evidently, research indicates that people don’t like to watch commercials.  Crack research team, eh?  So embedding product placement seems to be the new radical solution to DVR/Tivo fast forwarding.  How in the world is this a new idea?

I still remembered my fevered distraction in watching the film Million Dollar Baby (2004.)  And no, not because of the hammering over the head obviousness of the failed attempt of melding two short stories, but by that damn soda machine.  I think it had its own stylist, or at least trailer.

While I can understand how placating it is to the client, product placement is just so counterproductive.  Not only am I not interested in purchasing the car being given its own role in a primetime television show, I can no longer take the product, the show, the characters or even the poor exploited actors, seriously. Really?  An equity member actress having to extol the virtues of the parallel parking features “in character.”  That just seems punitive to me.  Perhaps a newer generation will be lulled into the embedded advertising, but I was raised on overt label covering in television and film.  How many “cola” cans, “Heerios” boxes, “McBurger” cartons have we all seen?  Before that trend of course, there was the overt sponsored program.  “We are the men from Texaco…”  But alas, that was a simpler time.

I can’t help but feel that embedding is the first quiver of a death throe.  Towards the end of its 72 year run, the (excellent) daytime drama Guiding Light created a convenience store set stocked with Procter & Gamble products.  When the industrial sized Folders can appeared on the restaurant counter, they knew, I knew, Springfield was doomed.  It made me question the solidity of Procter and Gamble as well.

Please don’t misunderstand me, I am susceptible to advertising.  No sooner did we have a television room in our family than I was clamoring for that toothpaste with the stripes and fabric softener sheets (I was a strange child.)  My mother, otherwise impervious to pop culture, or fashion, actually dressed my sister and I in Pepsi-Cola jackets.  These were red, white & blue baseball-style cotton jackets festooned with the soda logo.  As the younger of the sisters, I wore that jacket for 4 years.  And I was thrilled, dear reader, I was thrilled.  I admit, at the tender age of 10, I fell hopelessly in love with the Pillsbury Dough Boy; the impish giggle, the soft pliable belly, the association of impending baked good.  I’ve also witnessed my brother’s longing for Snuggle.  I can still hear his plaintive cry: “But is Snuggle a boy or a girl?!”  Once grown to a consenting consumer age, I devoured teen magazines to discover what I should covet.  What twisted little advertising genius discovered teenage girls’ desire to smell strange?  Love Baby’s Soft, Lemon-Up shampoo, fruit flavored lip gloss.  Damn it, I wanted it all.  But sometime around the social studies advertising curriculum (8th grade?) it was difficult to not feel a bit cynical.  I had never stepped foot in a Wendy’s before, and a quest to find the beef, wasn’t gonna change that.

My suspicion is that advertising is most influential on me (and perhaps you) when it takes on an educational role.  Tell me about this new product, and why I need it.  I may give it a try (hello Swiffer! nice save Procter & Gamble.)  But so much of what’s being advertised is not new.  And being new, no matter how confusing and weird (i.e., the Tiffany key and now, lock) is no guarantee to sway me.  And when the advertising is annoying?  You just lost me as a potential customer.  So if I am the last person you want buying your product (and I may very well be) I encourage more humiliation of actors and actresses and definitely invest in some pop-up ads.  Oh, and while you’re at it, airbrushed a very over-exposed former television star, and I will so not buy your fortified water.

 
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Posted by on October 7, 2011 in Cultural Critique, Media/Marketing

 

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As Seen on T.V.

14 Sep

Today’s (primetime) television listing includes such small screen gems as; Fatal Honeymoons, Survivor: South Pacific (Bali Hai?), Dance Moms, Real Housewives (insert gated community), Sons of Guns: Oh my G-d a Canon, Confessions: Animal Hoarding, True Life: I Have Acne.  These are just a small sample of what is available to the discerning television viewing audience of our fair region.  But wait, do not rush to cancel cable, there is also a tiny Isis delivered glimmer of hope in today’s listing: Kate Plus 8: The Finale.

Cheekiness aside, I actually find this programming abomination somewhat comforting.  For one thing there is the utter truth in advertising that exists in these shows and ones like: The Dumbest Stuff.  No one is trying to pose as something they simply are not.  That is always deliciously refreshing.  Do I think Edward R Murrow would quit smoking if he knew that network news shows now cover; Celebrity Secrets: A Model Life, sure.  But I am also so bold as to suggest that Mr. Murrow would discover the joys of public broadcasting and the BBC.

Aside from the utter lack of pretense of inexpensively produced “reality” shows they provide a valuable litmus for our culture.  To my mind there is no difference between seizure inducing television, fast/junk food, and licensed designer products.  As a nation, we have a Big Gulp appetite for cheap crud.  Why is this (old news) encouraging?  Because if we can connect the dots, we can begin to make better choices about how to address social issues.

Consumer debt, like obesity, is spreading like the plague.  Some portion of our nation’s massive consumer debt is due to buying too much.  (Stunning economic analysis, I know.)  For decades, we have been on hyper-drive extolling the virtues of being Rich and Famous (oh what Robin Leach has wrought!)  We can not feign surprise that a celebrity obsessed culture now exists.  In the 1990s, we saw the ascent of television shows, songs, and magazines, whose general raison d’etre was to pitch (formerly obscure) brands as “must haves.”  Did anyone ever need to know what a Blahnik was, or be hypnotized into believing it had intrinsic value?  Not surprisingly, once the consumer appetite was created, the knock-offs could not be far behind.   I am actually a proponent of (legal) knock-offs (i.e., H&M,Topshop.)  Usually, not such a fan of disposable clothing, I find these shops help to quench a thirst for photo spread apparel.  There is a (more relevant) secondary function of these shops as well.  In theory, if faced with the mass-market ubiquity resulting from say, Missoni for Target, a consumer epiphany can not be far behind.  “Is the “famous” “designer” (insert item) actually better than another (insert item,)” the consumer then asks him/herself.  Make no mistake, there are huge disparities in craftsmanship, materials, styling in fashion, but there is no relationship between those factors and the size of the team of publicists hired by a designer. Once that realization occurs, the uber-marketed brand is simply not as desirable.  So the proliferation of cheap knock-offs, could in fact work to curb excessive consumer debt.  I suggest Public Service Announcements (PSA) which show who the people really are that are buying these items.  This would not be that different than the substitution of the burly Malboro Man, with the guy attached to the oxygen tank.

While we’re on the subject, how about the same PSA marketing campaign for junk/fast food?  Not unlike the restrictions put on liquor and cigarette advertising, how about rules of engagement for food-like products?  There are the easy black-out restrictions (i.e., no advertising sugar laced or processed food to children: ever.)  But then there are the more creative (and flat out enjoyable) approaches.  How about anyone shown serving, being served, or ingesting sugar laces/processed food, looked like they actually eat it?  Or for every advertisement for sugar laced/processed food, equal space (and resources) must be given to visually accurate depictions of people; on dialysis, oxygen dependent, or mobility impaired.  Severe?  Absolutely, but this is war.  We’ve spent decades convincing the public that cheap crud is appealing.  It’s time use the same approach and ingenuity for the good of society.

 
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Posted by on September 14, 2011 in Cultural Critique, Media/Marketing

 

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