Nip/Tuck Sucks
I am staying at a friend's house with cable, and so I finally watched "Nip/Tuck," which has come to my attention in part through the ghastly necrophiliac ad campaign of this year that showed a dead female body draped across the laps of the two doctors. The sexualized corpse has an enormous scapel stuck in her torso and obviously opposes the active, aggressive, alive males depicted in the shot.
I posted this image to my flickr site and was upbraided by several viewers for not watching or not liking the program. It's "good," one said, and the other one told me it's "a rich text," or some similar postmodern jargon for "good." They seemed defensive, which I am not, because I don't need to watch any more television than I already do, which is why I don't have cable in the first place, and I certainly don't need to watch programs that set men up as the doctors and women as the patients. "Rich text" or not, it's going to be sexist, you betcha.
And guess what, I was right. Last night's episode began with a heavy white male menacing two gay men, transgendered men perhaps would be a more appropriate term. He waved a pair of garden shears at them, implying that he was going to mutilate them with the sharp instrument. But no, turns out the shears were actually for plants. Ha ha, it's a joke, get it? It's the box cutter he's going to use on the humans, giving them the "boxes" they desire. Which one of you is the woman, though, he sneers, before setting off on his plan.
So while these may be represenations of anatomical males, the text feminizes them through their sexual orientation as well as their gender expression. And, as usual in a sexist narrative, to be female, or feminized, is to be disgusting and deserving to be degraded. The man with the power may have been an unpleasant character, but he was clearly in the superior position, and we were clearly to enjoy the humiliation and perhaps ultimately the mutilation of these two characters marked as female in the dynamic of the text.
I say perhaps ultimately mutilated because I turned it off at this point. There's no pleasure for me in watching misogyny anymore, not since I have learned to call it for what it is. I don't get off on the desperation and powerlessness of others, even in fancy slick popular postmodern "rich texts" like this one. Better to watch the abominable Laguna Beach, a show I had also been told was "good," which reminded me of being forced to spend time out of class with my least interesting and least intelligent students. At least it didn't ask me to enjoy female masochism--well not for the few minutes I could stomach watching it, anyway.
Comments
I don't think the authors of the "text", or however you want to phrase "tv" in an elitist post-modern way, really intend for the audience to recieve pleasure from the degradation of a fellow human being.
Furthermore, implying that a single character's standpoint is representative of the author's is ludicrous; Twain must embody Pap's viewpoints right? I mean he wrote them after all....
Continuing with lame seguing statements, your whole website and standpoint are too radically feminist; they embody this misguided standpoint that every work of art, and action are from some sexist, patriarchal standpoint,when that is simply not the case.
Now I won't argue that those things aren't pervarsive in society today,although to a lesser extent, and have been throughout history, however
numerous other issues are more pernicious and hurtful rather than sexist representations in the mediums of film, literature, television,etc. Namely, the widening socio-economic divide in societies around the globe,rampant starvation in third world countries, racism(nearly 50% of adult black males in Baltimore are unemployed, 1/3 graduate from high school), loss of civil liberties paralleling 1984,Brave New World,etc. In those contexts, this radical feminism is of minute importance.
Posted by: Craig | November 12, 2006 04:09 AM
"the widening socio-economic divide in societies around the globe,rampant starvation in third world countries, racism(nearly 50% of adult black males in Baltimore are unemployed, 1/3 graduate from high school), loss of civil liberties paralleling 1984,Brave New World,etc."
Every one of these problems comes from the sexist racist hierarchical mindset that radical feminism not only addresses but offers real avenues for changing.
It's not your fault you do not understand this. It's the failure of a patriachal culture which would keep this information from you.
So you don't even know where the problem stems from, and you last out at those of us who offer solutions.
Phew.
Posted by: Diana | November 12, 2006 09:44 AM
"It's not your fault you do not understand this. It's the failure of a patriachal (sic) culture which would keep this information from you."
What information? You refuse to defend your "information" quantitatively through valid analysis and citation of other valid analyses. You cherry-pick observations, make some shit up, and move on whilst ignoring criticisms.
John
Posted by: john | November 13, 2006 11:57 AM
Why do so many radicals not investigate the things they bash? Calling the ad for Nip/Tuck "ghastly necrophiliac" is just ridiculous. How did you come to the conclusion that the woman in the ad was dead? You claim the scalpel is stuck in the womans torso but if you actually took the time to look at the ad you would notice that the scalpel is just part of the shows logo. The scalpel never enters the womans body but you put a negative spin on it like she was stabbed to death by the two evil men. If you watched the show you would also realize that it actually helps point out how vain some people can be.
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December 7, 2006 09:21 AM