Sure, it’s “just entertainment” but it is also a belief system that condones the abuse of men. Why do we think that is funny?
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In the wake of the Ray Rice domestic abuse case, it was a question that brought out a lot of voices, and a lot of emotion. Ask people what would justify a man hitting a woman and most of them would say, “Absolutely nothing.”
Then why, did the women on The Talk, and at least the noise-making members of their audience, think it was “about time” a women hit a man?
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And in the aftermath of child abuse accusations against Adrian Peterson and Jonathan Dwyer, the question of what justifies hitting a child brought out even greater emotion. Even proponents of spanking mostly agreed, hitting a child in anger, or hard enough to do damage, is never OK.
So what justifies hitting a man? Or kicking him in his most anatomically vulnerable area?
“Absolutely nothing,” right?
Men, women, children — they’re people. And it is never OK to hit people.
(Although this video from The ManKind Initiative reveals that 40 percent of domestic violence is suffered by men.)
Then why, if it’s not unusual, and it’s not OK to hit men, did the women on The Talk, and at least the noise-making members of their audience, think it was “about time” a woman hit a man? (And why do the bystanders in The ManKind Initiative‘s video intervene when a man seems to be abusing a women, but laugh when a woman seems to be abusing a man?)
I’d never seen The Talk before. I don’t watch television as a rule, but had made the mistake of having my nails done in a place that had several, all tuned to The Talk, and all with the sound up and/or the script running across the bottom of the screen.
So it was hard to avoid.
The episode started with the then-breaking story of the sexual abuse accusations against Steven Collins, which was described as “juicy” and Anderson Cooper’s reveal of his mother’s escapades (his mother is Gloria Vanderbilt) also “juicy,” but when they introduced Bellamy Young, of Scandal (another show I’ve never seen) the talk was of her experience meeting the real first family and of hair — hers and the wigs she wears for the show.
Snooze.
Then the talk turned to what Bellamy’s character, First Lady Mellie Grant, has been going through on the show. Serious topics; long repressed stories of rape, tragic loss of a child, questions of paternity. These were also declared “juicy” with much laughter and palms rubbing together while the hosts quickly moved to the most “juicy” scene.
“Your character, Mellie, did finally do something that fans of Scandal had been rooting for since season one, is that you slapped your cheating husband.”
This (the screen grab to the left) was Bellamy’s reaction to that statement.
It seems that, on the show, her character’s husband has been having an affair with another women. And the writing team decided it was finally time for her character to do something about it.
So they wrote into the script that she would slap him. Hard.
It’s a show. Let’s leave off discussing the ways in which media and entertainment influence acceptable behavior. Let’s just take a look at the very real belief system displayed by the women in the show I was watching.
Violence is violence. Physical assault is physical assault. Gender is irrelevant. Except, it isn’t.
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You don’t need to watch the whole show unless you find it entertaining, it’s behind a paywall, but if you have a CBS account you can see it here. The clip in question is available on the YouTube video below, although you’ll miss another host saying;
“I just remember thinking, it’s about time, she needs to kick him a couple of places too.”
Look at the facial expressions, listen to the voice tones, pay attention to the audience response.
Now, ask yourself, if that had been a group of men, talking about what should be done to a women who was having an affair with another man, what would have been different? In their script, and in your response.
Violence is violence. Physical assault is physical assault. Gender is irrelevant. Except, it isn’t.
Why?
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Photos: YouTube/The Talk
i would note – the episode of the Talk where all the woman laughed at a man who wanted a divorce, so his abusive wife drugged him, tied him up, and cut off his penis is worse. Osbourne went on for over 2 minutes – about how she thought it was great. Note an audience of millions of women at home (in this case during the summer – so with the sons there) , and of course the reality of a studio audience laughing at all this, sends some powerful messages to men. Please note CBS did not receive a… Read more »
Of course they think it is all right. This kind of hypocrisy encourages women to hit men because they are almost certain to suffer no consequences at all. How often do you hear of a woman jailed for assaulting a man?
This article is so true, I posted an article that I wrote which was very similar to this on my Facebook page Friday October 31st (the last day of Domestic Violence Awareness month) but hardly anybody (including men) will come out & admit this brainwashing by the media & society as a whole. It’s very hurtful because I’ve been a victim on several occasions. http://www.facebook.com/edmondbakerjr
Because society has a major double-standard towards violence against men. 200 girls get kidnapped, 500+males get killed by the same group….the world loses it’s shit over what happened to the girls, the president’s wife posts an image to bringbacktheirgirls or whatever but damn near silence over the men and boys (including infant boys shot in front of their mothers). Over 90-95% of the time I’ve seen one gender hit the other, it’s been WOMEN hitting men or girls hitting boys. I’ve been hit plenty of times by women, even in front of others, and there’s never any sympathy shown toward… Read more »
That’s slowly changing the anti-sexual abuse campaigns have started to acknowledge that it’s not just girls that get molested. Give it another hundred years and they might be willing to admit that it’s not just men that abuse their spouses. The wife of my best friend used to work at a women’s shelter and I’ve tried without success on many occasions to explain to him that that’s not an accurate sampling of abuse. I don’t think any man in his right mind would try to get help from a women’s shelter as men aren’t terribly welcome there to begin with… Read more »
Beside mirandry and misoginy, behold another -ry, that is behind those two when you see them in popular media: demagoguery. The art of exploiting your audience’s anger and frustrations for your own profit. to tell people what they want to hear. Shows aimed at men use it to. Before we get into a competition over which gender uses more demagoguery (which is precisely the kind of circle jerk that demagogues love) , I’d like to remind everyone here that it is okay for nobody. In a day and age where mass media has this much power, it is one of… Read more »
This is true that ‘Preaching to the Choir’ shows on T.V. and radio ,( as well as internet sites) seem to be more popular than ever. However, this doesn’t answer Dixie’s question as to why this violence against Men has become socially acceptable. Some argue ‘Life imitates art’, some say it’s the opposite. Now I don’t watch all that much T.V. either, yet I’ve seen several instances where A Female character has punched or kicked a Male character in the groin, not because of a physical alteration, but out of supposed ‘frustration’ and I really fear that this is becoming… Read more »
@ Cynthia
One of the issues that gets lost is what repercussions did they face? Assuming it’s just an issue of demagoguery rather than an issue of gender, we should be able to point to loss of sponsorship, suspensions, etc. similar to what men have received when they demagogued about women. You make a good point, but it doesn’t change Dixie’s point because the repercussions aren’t there.
When a woman hurts a man, emotionally or physically, retaliation is out of the question. Even hitting back in self-defense is likely to be considered abuse and prosecuted as such, regardless of who incited the conflict. But when a man does something emotionally hurtful, such as cheating, beating him up is, in many circles, considered what he deserves.
So, you agree?
About a year or two ago the hosts of ‘The Talk’ were discussing a story of a woman who drugged her husband, tied him up, and when he came to, cut off his penis and threw it down the garbage disposal! The hosts were laughing the whole time and the audience roared their approval. So you see they approve of much worse than a ‘Slap’ when it comes to men.
I’m sickened! See why I don’t watch television? Imagine if a man had done something similar? What would be similar? I don’t even want to think about that!
What didn’t surprise me at all was the fact that Sara Gilbert (who is lesbian) was the only one who (after a minute of sort-of laughing along) said that it really wasn’t funny and brought up the hypothetical of a woman being mutilated (of which Sharon Osborne also made sport). The man who was mutilated hadn’t been abusive and the hosts didn’t even speculate on what he had ‘done.’ They simply laughed about it without caring who the victim was, then discussed situations where they would do the same, with a sort of solemnity as if they had the right… Read more »
Hey Dixie, If you thought the original episode of ‘The Talk’ was bad enough, wait until you see Sharon Osborne’s ‘attempt’ at an apology on the next edition of the show (just look up ‘Sharon Osborne The Talk Apology’ to see what I mean!)