On Thu, Jan 9, 2014 at 3:00 AM, JW <[email protected]> wrote: > > But the transgender status of these ladies is not news, and they are not > on > > the show to be interviewed by a journalist. As guests on a talk show they > > do deserve the kind of consideration the author of the piece suggests. > > OK, I'll bite. Why are they on the show? To discuss Robert Gates' memoir? > That night's BCS Championship game? > > A lot depends on what went on in the pre-interviews. If there were > agreements about what would and wouldn't be asked, then it's incumbent on > the host to respect that. But if the guests are on specifically as > transgender models, and there aren't any out-of-bounds lines, then they > shouldn't be shocked if the host asks what seems to be a pretty obvious > question. The guests can decline to answer, but don't blame the host for > asking. ("When I said she could ask anything, I didn't mean ANYTHING.") >
I am sure they were on the show to talk about the experience of transgender people in society at large and in the entertainment field in particular. I don't think they objected to talking about that either. What they objected to was the obsessive focus on their genitalia. If Katie had a couple of relatively high-profile rape survivors on her show, and insisted on asking them if they experienced an orgasm during their rape, I think that would be widely seen as inappropriate, even if the guests had agreed to come on the show to talk about their rape experience. Or maybe it would be like having African-American celebrities on her show and focusing excessively on questions about how large their dicks were. The problem is not so much that Katie asked about it, but that she continued to focus in on it even after it had been dealt with, and communicated that this was not what the guests themselves thought was the core of their experience. So, even though ostensibly they are on the show to talk about their transgender experience (a big part of which for them is their incredibly huge probability of being violently assaulted simply because of their transgender identity), it turned out they were really there to talk about what Katie thought their transgender experience should be about (or, maybe, what Katie thought her mainstream audience thought their transgender experience should be about). -- -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
