We all like to think that art simply illustrates life, but we all know, if we're honest, that, especially in our day, much of life imitates art. Our ideas are constantly being shaped by our television shows and movies. It is certainly not the other way around. The artists that make our programs and productions take their opportunities to tell you what they want you to hear, and we eat it up because, well, like a drug, we're addicted.
You can certainly see where they've taken us in the last couple of decades. Take, for instance, Murphy Brown. The show ran for ten years from 1988 to 1998. Candace Bergen played a reporter for a TV news show. She was tough and hard and hard to get along with. But the show made headlines when Murphy got pregnant and had a baby. Vice President Dan Quayle made headlines criticizing the show for glorifying single mothers and minimizing fathers. Of course, Hollywood, not to be outdone (and certainly not to quibble about morality) made a show the next season celebrating "the diversity of families" and people cheered, not for Quayle but for Hollywood. Yeah, we get it. All this outdated morality is not necessary. We get it.
How about Will & Grace? Aired from 1998 to 2006, the show was about Grace, an interior designer, and Will ... well, Will is gay. No, it wasn't a side issue. The show was centered on a gay guy. You see, we need to take this seriously. We need to know that it's every day, normal, acceptable, even good. No missed messages there.
There are lots of messages going on in lots of shows. Hollywood and its subsidiaries are working hard to make our lives imitate their art. From our morality (or lack thereof) to our perspectives to our political views, they are working hard to change how we think ... and they are largely succeeding.
Have you noticed lately what they're doing with our image of women? Sure, there are the classical "sex object" approaches. They haven't gone away. They still like to suggest on a practically hourly basis (or more) that buying whatever product exists on the market will make guys popular with women. No one is suggesting anymore that June Cleaver is a role model. She's not a good idea. She never was. What were you thinking? What is Hollywood replacing her with? To me, it's a frightening female.
Look around the world of movies and TV and you'll come up with what to me was an unexpected composite woman. You'll find her in the movies in roles like Lara Croft. You'll see her in television series like The Women's Murder Club or TNT's Saving Grace. This is not your standard Donna Reed. No, this is something different. In The Women's Murder Club, Angie Harmon plays a homicide detective. She has friends. There is an assistant D.A. and a medical examiner and they are joined by a newspaper reporter. They're on odd group, each willing to break whatever rules they need to break to get to whatever results they want to get. They have no sexual ethics. They aren't limited to marriage or love or anything like that. And they're viewed as heroic because they get their man or convict their criminal or ... whatever it is they're supposed to do. In Saving Grace, Holly Hunter is a hard-nosed cop with personal problems. She drinks too much and her life is a mess and God steps in to help her. That's fine ... but the show is built on the premise that she's perfectly willing to do battle with God.
These are just examples. You'll find them all over movies and the TV. They are the new woman. She's not particularly feminine anymore. She's certainly not a homemaker. She's tough and, frankly, mean. She can be very nice to you if you are nice to her, but she'll cut you to ribbons if she feels like it. If Hollywood has its way, it looks like tomorrow's woman will be ... well ... much more like a man. She will sleep with whomever she wants without any commitments or even emotion. She'll rush in where angels fear to tread, guns blazing, and save the day. Who needs men anyway?
At some point do we ask the question, "Do we really want to let the media dictate our thinking for us?" I don't, but I'm feeling like an outsider looking in on this.
4 comments:
This problem goes back even further than changing the image of women. America has been trying to change the roles of men and women to being the same for the at least the last 30 years. You have the emasculation of men and the "manning up" of women. It all falls on this weird idea that equality equals same, which is just false. But nobody wants to be thought of as a bigot or sexist, so the problem persists and expands.
Okay ... the very idea of a woman "manning up" just makes me shudder. "These things ought not be!"
Actually, I was thinking of you the other day and what you were saying years ago about this subject. Do you remember talking about the emasculation of men in commercials in SBAC or Christian Living, I don't remember which.
I think it began media-wise years ago. I see it more and more. The marketing people recognized that women are the money-spenders so they "think" this kind of advertising will get them more customers because they are women.
It could stem from the fact that women had to fight for respect and they kept pushing the envelope to get respect. I think they've gone too far.
It undoubtedly began years ago. It's becoming "mature" now. Why is it, do you suppose, that it has to be a competition? Why do men have to belittle women to have "status" and why do women have to belittle men to gain "respect"? (Rhetorical questions, all.)
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