So over the weekend, certain segments of the community have erupted in anger over the TBS ad for their reality show, the Real Gilligan's Island. Apparently, having two women throw pies at each other, wrestle each other in a sexy, lesbianic manner, then having water splashed on their ample, fake bosoms is degrading to women. Or something like that.
Whatever. Feel free to be offended. I find such humorless, knee-jerk reactions, to be tedious at best, sanctimonious and arrogant at worst. I don't care for such sanctimony from Joe Lieberman, I don't care for it from anyone else. Some people find such content offensive. Some people find it arousing. Some people find it funny. To each his or her own.
But I am not Lieberman. I won't sit there and judge pop culture and act as gatekeeper to what I think is "appropriate", and what isn't.
And I certainly won't let the sanctimonious women's studies set play that role on this site. Feel free to be offended. Feel free to claim that I'm somehow abandoning "progressive principles" by running the ad. It's a free country. Feel free to storm off in a huff. Other deserving bloggers could use the patronage.
Me, I'll focus on the important shit.
p.s. And congratulations -- the more people have bitched about the ad, the more successful it has become. It is now the most successful ad in the history of this site, with close to 8,000 click throughs over the low-traffic weekend. And, now that you have demanded I respond to the ad, thousands more will click through to see what the big deal is all about.
Sometimes, the best way to kill something you disagree with is to ignore it.
I haven't bothered to actually watch the ad -- and after that little bit of nastiness in the postscript, I'm certainly not about to watch it now -- but by all accounts, it it isn't any worse than your average beer commercial. Which is to say, it's sexist crap. The sad thing is that commercials featuring women pie fighting wouldn't really be offensive to anybody if there existed ads that portrayed men in the same way. But as it is, the portrayal of women -- but never men -- as a sex objects only serves to reinforce the entrenched patriarchy that so many in our country, including Kos, don't think is a problem.
And that's the funny thing. Whereas I'm having a hard time mustering more than apathy for the ad itself, Kos's reaction to it is a completely different story. This whole thing actually reminds me of Martha Burke taking on the Masters. The fact that membership to the Augusta National Golf Club is open exclusively to men didn't strike me as that big of a deal until Hootie Johnson reacted with such negative vitriol. If you think sexism isn't a problem, just follow that link. Likewise, I didn't really think the pie fight ad was that big of a deal until Kos wrote the above codswallop. It is all too apparent now that any concerns regarding Kos giving the impression that he approved of sexism have been vindicated in spades. If anything, he's shown that the concerns weren't far reaching enough. The original complaint was giving him the benefit of the doubt by suggesting that people might get a mistaken impression of sexism. Kos has made it clear that it is no mistake at all.
Whenever an A-list blogger like Kos does something like this, the closet sexists come crawling out of the woodwork to rally behind their Goliath, and this time has been no different. The predictable cry has been that feminists are dividing the Democratic party. Isn't it a shame, they ask, that we can't just have a sense of humor about sexism like they do? They aren't sexist, they assure us, so obviously the claims to the contrary are unreasonable and not worth discussing. If someone happens to disagree, perhaps they should stop being so selfish and think of the party.
So I have some things to say to Kos.
Sanctimonious like Lieberman? A better analogy can be found by looking at Republican tactics. Republicans use the Christian Right every election cycle. They throw them a few votes, and for awhile the GOP is talking about how much gay marriage will hurt the country and paying lip service to the idea of a Christian Nation under God. But when elections are over, the evangelicals go back on the shelves, where they're expected to sit and be seen, but not heard.
Kos, don't you see how you're guilty of the very same thing? When it comes time for elections, Democrats are all about the women's vote. But when the elections are over, and it comes time to pony up and actually lead by example, we get this instead. If you don't want to see the party divided, don't ignore the people whose vote you rely upon. And Kos, I'm well aware that you aren't setting the agenda of the Democratic National Convention. But we all know that you're considered one of the most influential liberal bloggers. And from your contemptuous comment about other bloggers needing the patronage, I think you're well aware of that.
If you want to know why the Democrats are having trouble pulling people together, look no further than yourself. Arrogance? The arrogance is in refusing to discuss an issue that is obviously important to many members of your community. The arrogance is in not listening to opposing points of view of the people who want to be on your side. Small wonder that the Democrats have trouble presenting a coherent vision of their party. It would seem they aren't all that different from the Republicans.
Sometimes the best way to kill something you disagree with is to ignore it. But it's an interesting thing; that strategy will only work if you're on top of the existing heirachy. How ironic that your preferred solution to the problem relies on a circumstance that you like to pretend doesn't exist. But sometimes, the best way to change something you disagree with is by shouting at the top of your lungs and making a lot of noise. I suspect that it's about to get a lot louder in here.
10 comments:
Hear hear! This has pissed me off badly. And the other sexist bloggers pretending this is about the ad and not Kos's dismissal of feminists and women's concerns has made me spitting mad. I have the same ad on my blog. Don't you think that if this was about the ad itself, then I would have been swept up into the criticisms? No, I wasn't, because it's not about the ad. It's about listening to women's concerns and taking them seriously.
It is all too apparent now that any concerns regarding Kos giving the impression that he approved of sexism have been vindicated in spades. If anything, he's shown that the concerns weren't far reaching enough. The original complaint was giving him the benefit of the doubt by suggesting that people might get a mistaken impression of sexism. Kos has made it clear that it is no mistake at all.
This is very well put.
Great post Charlie! I hate it when these topics get brought up in forums like Kos because the crackhead sexists start screaming things like 'bitch,' 'whore,' 'you have an adams apple' and so forth. It's all fairly disgusting.
As for Martha and the Masters, I remember how NOW ditched her and many people, both women and men, thought she was nuts and taking on more than she could handle. Upon further research, I found the letter of response from whatshisname. Whoah, he was an ASS!
I was taking my ENGL200 class when this was happening (writing & research woohoo) and a guy did his paper on this but he sucked at it. He couldn't see how not allowing women in was discrimination and his whole paper was one too long rant. I called him on it and his white male position of power (we got into an arguement and let's just say he steered clear of me for the rest of the semester). A tool he definitely was. Ahh, I actually enjoyed that day immensely and love to tell the story.... :)
Charlie, this is so wonderfully put. While I may take that kind of reaction more personally because I am female, in the end what it's really about is the rights of humans as a whole. Race, sex, sexual orientation, religion of lack thereof, it all matters because it ends up being about the same thing in a broad sense.
I left that site long ago, and this just nails it for me. Here is someone whose site's prestige can be greatly credited to the membership and their contributions. It's not a fan club, so for him to have the audacity to think he can tell people what to discuss is appalling.
There is room for all issues to be discussed. dKos is big, but the internets are bigger. If discussing anything but a narrow range of Kos-approved issues means having ones sexuality attacked for not pandering to the less-evolved, then its not the place to be.
And the funny thing is, in the end, the big bad coalition will dwindle to represent only those of narrowly-focused like minds, and someone's ego is going to be in sorry shape.
Thank you for this. It really does throw the issue into sharp relief.
What if Markos' concerns/remarks were dismissed as unimportant because we all know that men from El Salvador are patriarchal bastards and can't be taken seriously by civilized people like us?
It's really nice to be in the in-group whose opinions, concerns and needs are automatically important and worthy of our attention. And since sexism, racism and the other isms are based on characteristics we have no control over, anyone can find herself in the less valuable group. It's more than just hurtful to be dismissed like this. It's dehumanizating. And being treated like this hurt's a lot more coming from people you had regarded as allies.
www.weaverrose.blogspot.com
Never heard of Kos before so he's never had my patronage to begin with.
Funny thing, the word sanctimonious. The obsolete definition is: Holiness. That sounds like a good thing to be. The current definition is: affected or hypocritical holiness Holiness in and of itself is good. When affected or hypocritical, not so good. I wonder exactly how Lieberman is a hypocrite for criticizing sexism? Does Lieberman have a history of being sexist? If so, this Kos character ought to outline that point. If not, he ought choose his descriptive words more appropriately.
Hm.
One thing definitely troubles me about this episode, and that's the existence of two factions of the liberal sphere who absolutely cannot relate to each other.
Those who objected to the ad, from my survey, cannot perceive any reason for disagreeing other than latent sexism, and refuse even the possibility that good-faith reluctance to play censor / arbiter-of-all-content could motivate Kos's reaction.
Those who feel like Kos (I guess I would count myself here; I find the ad problematic, but I really dislike the reaction to it) can't view the other side as anything but hysterical, when there's obviously a real pain felt here.
I think the wisest comment I've seen so far is that, for a party that's convinced that unity is essential and we absolutely have to get a Democratic Congress next year, it's pretty surprising how eager we are to engage in recriminations over this.
What a lot of men seem to be missing in this Kosstorm is that his incident is not unique.
There is an ongoing effort to shut up the feminists and progressives in the Democratic party. It's being waged by some weird new class of fratboy Dem consultant wannabe's and they are pissing off huge numbers of women who have been the backbone of the democratic party for the last 20 years.
I have come to the conclusion that there is only one universal truth about men: they don't get the fact that women talk to each other about everything. In other words, we're comparing notes and seeing the pattern.
We get the message guys. You want abortion to go away as an issue. You want environmentalists to shut up. You don't want to hear another word about civil rights and voting reform. You want us to shut up and get into line and support whatever you believe is the one and true clever winning strategy where we all pretend we are centrist Republicans so we can win in the 2006 elections.
Well screw you and screw your strategy. It's no more miss nice girl around here fellas. You can type your own memos and organize your own house parties until we get some damn respect.
And if you don't get that, then the Green party gets us. Get it?
You're right, Anon, a lot of people are ignoring that. For myself, it's because I don't pay a whole lot of attention to Kos, so I tend not to see the patterns. I was certainly told about them before I wrote this, but since I haven't "experienced" them, if you will, I decided to leave that out of my post.
But I think you're right; it does seem to be a pattern with Kos, and a lot of the A-listers, for that matter.
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