Thanks for your insightful

Thanks for your insightful essay Shannon. And I was impressed to see a woman offer a view of porn that I have long held myself:

"While we're driving by the subject, it's worth noting that there's nothing more deeply conservative than porn (even in its soft forms) because of the way it reinforces a traditional, religiously inspired, male-dominated power structure. Not to mention its contempt for aesthetics".

Today's porn consists primarily of glorifying the erect penis, along with valuing only the woman who, immediately after a brief introduction, obediently falls to her knees to give head.

And Shannon continues with the many variations on this theme as seen in US TV which both overtly and covertly relegates women to a subservient status. Because they are so flighty, obsessed with beauty, and so needful of male guidance, women are prone to incompetence in male occupations. Obviously, as Shannon points out, if they are not so, they are freaks, doomed to a bad end anyway.

But since women by the millions watch these shows, they must fulfill a need. IMO, they suggest to many women who find themselves stuffed into roles they find unfulfilling, that perhaps viewing these hoked-up dramas allows them to think "Well, perhaps I'm not so bad off, after all"

Shannon wonders - rhetorically - whether such programming occurs because it is favoured by the US etablishment.

I recall reading many years ago in Farley Mowat's SIBER, his account of a discussion about propaganda with a Russian Commissar.

The Commissar acknowledged that no Russian believed anything he/she read in Pravda, since its clumsy writing was so obviously just propaganda. He then noted his admiration for US propaganda, since it is so subtly suffused throughout every bit of media an American is exposed to, including entertainment.

For at least 50 years, the Americans have been the most propagandised people in the world. Tell a Yank that, and he'll likely respond with "The truth isn't propaganda" :-)

Right On!

Couldn't agree more. I would even go a step further and suggest that, having been spoon-fed a steady tv diet over the years of cat-fights, bitchiness and other unrealistic depictions of supposedly normal female behavior, women (especially young women) consider this display entirely appropriate, conventional or even innate. It has bred suspicion, distrust and an uneasiness towards other women and precious female solidarity has virtually withered away to nothing as a result. The patriarchy's 'divide and conquer' storm-trooping has never been as self evident and Sen. Clinton's chances will suffer greatly due to the lack of female support as a consequence.

Irony

Wow, and what's so fantastically ironic about Clinton's campaign is she has gained traction over the past few weeks precisely through playing the victimization card, backbiting, and fearmongering. Clinton has displayed a kind of viciousness that Shannon here and some of the commenters complain bitterly as being unfair characterizations of women. I wonder if Hillary Clinton hates women as much as those ABC TV execs do?

missing half

I dunno. Can you honestly say that TV offers up good solid role models for boys? I have seen plenty of arrogant, petty, stupid, 'stereotypical' male characters. Accurate portrayal? Most of the TV I have seen lately offers up weak characters m or f. Sounds to me like the facts are chosen for the argument in this case. I think it is more accurate to say good characters on TV shows is a rare thing. And, porn is conservative? 'reinforces a traditional, religiously inspired, male-dominated power structure'.
You must have a porn collection seven times the size of the horniest teenage boy to make a statement like that. Painting things with a brush the size of a house does not help your argument much. There are an awful lot of girls out there that like some of it... maybe those folks are not woman enough for ya? sheesh.

stuff

I think it's more about the cheesy world of commercialization....how it values all the wrong things....in order to sell a very profitable superficiality.

Women themselves have to stop buying it.

Superficial stuff, that's pretty much these days what "the brass ring" that you mention, Shannon, is all about.... for both men and women, I think,..... the obsessive materialism of going "up"? the ladder of success..... for which one sacrifices one's life at its shallow altar, and relinquishes all those irretrievable precious minutes and hours.

You can see the difference in the BBC crime drama, Prime Suspect where Helen Mirren's character managed to be both a powerful and vulnerable woman. She could be vicious, she could be soft, both tender and tough...intelligent and sexy. What she weared? Who cared? She was interesting.

I do agree with the views you expressed about today's porn, tho' (and to each his own in this area) but I too (and to be honest I haven't seen a real lot of it) find it deeply conservative, white bread, uninteresting.....and mostly juvenile.

I think the love scene in the psychological thriller "Don't Look Now" with Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland is much more hot. Explicit but edited in a very interesting way. Then there's always Lara just ironing in Dr. Zhivago, hardly a sound but the beating of her iron on the ironing board, like her beating heart as she tries to end her growing attraction to Yuri. Works for me. But then I also think Anthony Bourdain lustily devouring the exotic corners of the world....is a real turn on - and my hubby likes him as well. ahhhh....whatta we know....maybe we've lived out in the boonies for too long.

Good commentary. I don't

Good commentary. I don't watch t.v. as much as I used to, but I too have noticed a subtle "guerrilla war" on the airwaves. For a while, it looked like it was tipping the other way (i.e. women portrayed as smarter, more competent; men portrayed as bumblers and incompetent parents). But that's largely turned around. For example, has anyone noticed the proliferation of touch-feely single-dad african-american father-son storylines in prime time (Lost, Heroes, etc.) - it's a total reversal of how we were portraying african-american men as "dads" in the '90s.

So I totally agree that primetime t.v. does send coded and highly gendered messages in its program content. I wouldn't say it's the product of one evil mastermind or anything, but network writers are very responsive to trends and to audience feedback. So it's debatable whether they're creating the pulse or simply reflecting an attitude shift that's already out there.

Bullonee

Apparently in gay porn, the oppressive white male patriarchy expresses its hatred for itself.

Porn

Of course porn is geared towards juvenile men. They are the primary consumers of the product.

Of course it plays up the man as being in the position of power. Not many of us choose entertainments that make us look stupid and powerless.

I agree with Lynn when she notes:

I always wonder who it is that's marching women down to the newstand in lockstep to buy Glamour and Cosmo.

the magic of consumerism

Television brainwashes in all sorts of wonderful ways. To note one of numerous examples, I am blown away by the preponderance of commercials for things like mascara. It's stuff you paint on the tiny hairs sprouting from your eye lids to make said hairs look longer, thicker and more luxurious. Okay, maybe it does do something for a woman's looks (let's hope so - it has been selling like hotcakes for generations!).
But it's still stuff you paint on a few tiny hairs, and the commercials for it are innumerable. Between mascara, lipstick, hair colouring (HUGE one, that), miscellaneous make-up and hair products, hair removal products, deodorant, perfume, and weight loss programs, the advertising
aimed at keeping women 'gorgeous' accounts for a huge, huge, huge percentage of everything we see (and this is to say nothing of the scads of actual programming that essentially serves as a product/lifestyle-placement ad for same). The satanic complement to all this is of course cars. What is television, after all, but an endless car commercial? How can you remain beautiful if you mess up your hair walking, cycling or taking transit?
No, what you need is a Cadillac Escalade to truly express your womanhood (have you seen the recent Cadillac campaign aimed at "strong" women"?)Your up-do hair and high heels simply won't fit into a smaller
compartment!
Yes, it's all a carefully orchestrated conspiracy to keep as many people as possible as divorced as possible from the real world (as in REAL, like wind, rain, OTHER PEOPLE). The only way to maintain this lifestyle is to keep oneself constantly entombed in steel and glass and forever spraying some fresh-scented stuff on yourself, your furniture and your cat. It goes way beyond misogyny. It's anti-human.
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I'm so glad I don't watch TV

Save for Enterprise and Futurama reruns, and Jon Stewart.

Go, me. *shrugs*

Almost 100% agree

While I agree with almost everything the writer has said, I should point out that ABC does have at least one show in their stable that has strong, nuanced female characters - Ugly Betty.