On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 1:20 PM, Jon Delfin <[email protected]> wrote:
> This reminds me -- Lisa de Moraes did a post-Emmys online Q&A.
> Somebody asked her how she felt about the pageantesque line-up of the
> Best Actresses in a Comedy; she was horrified. This, presumably,
> before it was revealed that the idea for the bit came from Amy Poehler
> and was agreed to by all involved.
>
> On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 1:17 PM, Mark J. <[email protected]> wrote:
>> An article from the lefty web site AlterNet don't like what they see
>> about prime time this fall (including "Two Broke Girls") and blame it
>> on fewer women in the writers' room (and "Playboy" taking the sizzle
>> from "Mad Men" but not its steak):
>>
>> http://www.alternet.org/story/152473/why_is_tv_suddenly_overstuffed_with_buxom_bunnies,_sexy_stewardesses,_and_charlie's_angels/?page=entire
>>
>> Of course, the fact that they are critical of "30 Rock"'s Liz Lemon
>> for her food fretting would seem to indicate that the authors would
>> only like to see women portrayed as Sidney Poitier-types.  And I
>> wonder what these women think of late-night burlesque shows in live
>> theaters (I assume that they're popping up all over the country like
>> they are in Chicago) where the female strippers are making the same
>> claims of "female empowerment" that Laura Benanti and Amber Heard (a
>> lesbian, BTW) make when they do their promotional interviews for
>> "Playboy Club?"  They also seem to forget that "New Girl," "Whitney"
>> and "Two Broke Girls" were created in whole or part by women and/or
>> have a female showrunner.

My criticism of Sarah Seltzer and Julianne Escobedo Shepherd's article
is that they call Playboy Club, Charlie's Angels, and Pan Am the
fall's big dramas where they seem to me to be the kind of shows that
start out on the bubble and, if they don't get quick ratings heat, go
away and are quickly forgotten like the wave of serial dramas which
followed the success of Lost a few years ago. And if Playboy Club, Pan
Am, and Charlie's Angels fade quickly, then all the angst about what
it means is all for naught.

If a woman posted the same ideas here I would welcome the discussion.
Feminism is an ideology which undergoes change as the world changes,
and, like all ideologies, leaves a large gray area when implemented
into the real world. I don't know if Sarah and Julianne's article
represents the current state of feminism, but the reactions here so
far are reactions to the ideology of thirty or forty years ago. The
article might share the problem - in fact the causal relation of lack
of woman writers and these shows is a given in the article and I don't
know if that is true.

When I see a subject line like "Feminists not happy about 'Playboy,'
'Whitney,' I assume that NOW or another organization is trying to get
them off the air or at least using them as fundraising bait. This was
just two women writing about the upcoming season through the filter of
female gender roles and I don't see it as representing feminism.

-- 
TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People!
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