...is that the show that ABC was trying to promote, Desperate Housewives, is seriously lame. I watched one episode to see what everybody was talking about, and what I saw was a show that was aspiring to be a lot of things and not quite succeeding at any. The show is going for a Sex in the City set in middle class suburbia thing, but it doesn't work. It's also clearly trying to mimic the feel of Arrested Development, but misses the point that Arrested Development is a witty satire, while Desperate Housewives is neither particularly witty or a satire (if it was a satire, it might be watchable). The viewer isn't really supposed to be identifying with the self absorbed characters on Arrested Development, but it seems that (in keeping with the Sex in the City in suburbia theme) there is actually a subset of people who are expected to have a "Oh, that so totally is my life!" response to Desperate Housewives.
As for the piece in question, I think it's pretty hypocritical that everybody is getting all worked up over what was shown and how it was inappropriate for children while at the same time not giving a flip that the Eagles Cheerleaders and gratuitous closeup camera shots of said cheerleaders' barely covered chests is also seen by young children.
An interesting reaction though, is Tony Dungy's opinion that the spot was racially offensive. Now, generally I would write a statement like that off as somebody looking to make an incident into something that it isn't, but Dungy is a guy I have a lot of respect for as an individual and he's not the sort of guy to spout off at the first sign of controversy. If he's saying something, then maybe there's something there. It is true that one of the oldest racist stereotypes of black men was that they had some sort of voracious desire to go after white women, and a lot of violence perpetuated by white people against black men was based on this stereotype. The KKK set themselves up as an organization that was protecting Southern womanhood from the evils of the predatory black male (and the corollary idea that white women needed to be protected from themselves because they wouldn't be able to control themselves in the presence of a black man). Now, I'm sure that ABC wasn't thinking of anything of the sort, but if you look at it in the context of several hundred years of American history, I can see how it would come across as offensive to certain people, especially a guy like Dungy who played the game in an era when stereotypes like that were something that he, as a black athlete would have to deal with. In any case, it's a different perspective on the whole thing and is worth thinking about.
Posted by kathryn at Noviembre 18, 2004 03:29 AM | TrackBackhttp://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=41647
Larry Elder was asking, "Who's the racist here?" at the link above...
Methinks that Elder, in an attempt to make a point, totally missed the point of Dungy's complaint. Dungy wasn't saying that it's not ok for a black man and a white woman to have a relationship. he's saying that the portrayal of black men as being willing to drop everything to bed a white woman is a racially offensive stereotype. Context folks, context.
Besides, Dungy isn't exactly the first face to come to mind when I think of a raging liberal. The first thing that comes to mind when I think of him is the word "character"--he's the head coach who actually believes that character matters for athletes. Remember, what he said was that he thought that it was offensive in general to portray athletes as having so little character and restraint, and that it especially hit home because it was not just any athlete but a black athlete who was portrayed that way.
And, speaking of context, you have to remember the context that Dungy was speaking in when he spoke out about the number of black coaches in the NFL. We're talking about a guy who's a defensive genius but who got passed over way too many times for head coaching jobs, for silly reasons, and who finally got the job with the Bucs after yet another failed attempt to bring in Bill Parcells. A guy who's watched other talented black assistant coaches get passed over for stupid reasons--Herm Edwards should have had an NFL head coaching job years before he got it, but he would always get passed over in favor of tired old coaching retreads. Ok, I'll just come out and say it, if Tony Dungy and Herm Edwards were white, they would have had head coaching jobs a lot sooner.
Posted by: kathryn at Diciembre 1, 2004 12:28 AM