Recently in Television Category

Mary Alice Carr has a really poignant piece up at the Washington Post about why she has chosen to never go on to O'Reilly's show again after having faced his hypocrisy in the past.

[O]n Tuesday morning, when an O'Reilly producer called and asked me to come on the show to "discuss the reasons why women have late-term abortions," I held fast to my pledge. I told his producer what I thought: that I had had that conversation on air with O'Reilly five years earlier and that he agreed with me at the time that the decision was between a woman and her doctor. That O'Reilly then went on to pretend we had never talked about it and continued condemning women and doctors. That the nation and those of us in the pro-choice community are reeling from the murder of a doctor who helped women. That we hold O'Reilly responsible for helping to create a climate in which hate was allowed to fester. That I refused to dignify his irresponsible behavior, not to mention his deplorable reaction to Tiller's shooting.

O'Reilly had the opportunity to apologize for his words, and he didn't. He had the opportunity to say that this tragic outcome was something about which he felt sorry. He didn't. When restraint and perspective were called for, he fanned the flames higher. In fact, on his June 1 "Talking Points," he played the martyr, saying his critics were seeking to stifle any criticism of "people like Tiller -- that and hating Fox News is the real agenda here." On his show the next day -- the show I declined to appear on -- he again called a murdered man "Dr. Killer."

I admit that after the call from the producer, I hesitated. What an opportunity, I thought, to sit across from O'Reilly and call him out for what he has done and where his responsibility lies. To speak for everyone in America who is hurt and scared and angry. I have never been a Fox News hater; clearly, I've used the show for the benefit of my movement and my organization, and I've answered his questions on some of the toughest issues around. Didn't I have the right to also call him out for his speech?

But then I realized I just couldn't. Because if the murder of a man in a house of worship wasn't enough to make Bill O'Reilly repent, what hope did I have?

Naturally, I don't have the kind of profile or connections that land me in a seat in front of the jerk myself, but I can say from my small world of fighting with people on the internet at a certain point you have to decide what you can and can't do. It is really powerful that Carr said no, because it is such an incredible opportunity for exposure. But bet the producer didn't understand why she would chose not to. The problem with going against conservative pundits is that for them it is funny hour, their news spots are just more time for them to act like jerks and say off the wall things (that they unfortunately believe) that gets them higher ratings. For people like Carr who have dedicated their lives to actual policy change, it is not worth doing a show like that just for publicity if it doesn't result in fair exposure, confidence in the movement or is attached to a campaign goal. Perhaps it is time we stop giving him the opportunity to talk to us since he is so unapologetic about his relationship to the assassination of Dr. Tiller.

We talk about this a lot at Feministing, how we choose to devote our energy and to who. It was an early moment in my career at Feministing I remember sitting in a panel with Lynne D. Johnson and Professor Angie Colette Beatty at WAM and Dr. Beatty was talking about how she had given up talking to brick walls. I always think about that when I am engaging in especially painful conversations that don't seem to be moving, my words not being absorbed but merely bouncing off the density. At a certain point you have to think about if you want to talk to a brick wall, is it even worth it? The sad thing is that Bill-O has such a huge viewership and it is an incredible opportunity. But perhaps facing him head on is not the way to do it, perhaps the way to do it is to campaign against media consolidation and ownership and fight to give more voice to the pundits that do say the things we need them to and train new, up and coming voices.

This is the preview for a new WE TV show, I Want to Save Your Life.

Not only is this creepy, it's just plain wrong in so many ways. Do we really need ANOTHER television show that tells women they are ruining their lives because of what they put in their mouths?

First of all, this guy is like a stalker, following her around, monitoring her. He's creepy beyond belief. Secondly, this once again, for the millionth time perpetuates the myth that everyone who is overweight is secretly and guilty sneaking ice cream sundaes. We should know by now that weight is much more complex than that. Thirdly, this shit is just sensationalist. I want to save your life? This woman does not look like she is at risk of dying because of a few extra pounds.

Also, why is it always skinny white guys who have discovered the secret of weight loss and are going to teach it to women?

As the reader who sent this in said (h/t to caryb):

Since this show is about women, this is yet another example of how women's bodies are community property, and this time the justification is health and in the promo, the woman isn't even that fat, which makes this even more ridiculous. These things are never about health, they're always about body politics in my opinion.

I hope this show goes the way of the dodo.

Note: After posting this, I amended the title and added the quotes around the word "overweight." I did this because I disagree with the suggestion that these women, or women of any weight, are not the norm. Also the show obviously is using it's own screwed up standards to decide who needs these interventions.

This is me trying to keep my cool. What do you think?

So this morning, around 10am EST, Jessica will be appearing on the Today show with Kathy Lee Gifford to talk about her new book, The Purity Myth. Unfortunately, as the mainstream shows tend to do, they've decided to turn it into a debate with this woman, Lakita Garth, who is regarded as an "abstinence champion."

If you're near a TV, check it out, and send Jessica some positive feminist vibes for what's likely to be a difficult conversation.

If we can find a video of it, we'll post that after.

UPDATE: You can live stream the show here.
Sorry, that link seems to have old segments from yesterday--I'll post the link to the actual segment once I find it.

I feel like I may have been the last person on earth to watch the video of 47-year-old Brit Susan Boyle taking all the "Britain's Got Talent" folks by surprise with her beautiful voice. This morning, nearly 40 million people have seen the clip on YouTube. So what gives? Why is this striking such a global chord?

Well, from a feminist perspective, there are some really compelling explanations. First of all, Susan Boyle defies just about every one of the "ideal beauty" standards that have such a tight grip on the recording industry. She's not thin, she's not blonde, she's not manicured, she's not young. The fact that she's white may be the only way in which her physicality conforms to stereotypical definitions of Western beauty. Her reception when she walked out on stage was such an exquisite example of the way in which we, as a society, vilify overweight people--projecting all sorts of negative assumptions on them because of their perceived weight. The audience members' faces said it all--"She's overweight and ugly, so she must not be talented."

As I write about in my book, psychologists have a concept called "the halo effect"--essentially that we often project unrelated and unearned attributes to people based on their beauty. We see a hot women on the street, for example, and automatically assume she has a great, easy life, a loving partner, a successful career--all because her hair is shiny and straight and she wears a size two! The reverse effect is ever-present these days; when a woman is overweight or doesn't fit the conventional standard of beauty in some other way, we assume all sorts of completely unrelated thing about her--she's lazy, unhappy, untalented, unloved.

Susan Boyle brings all those ugly thoughts to the surface and then highlights their absolute ridiculousness with her gorgeous singing voice.

But that, my friends, is not really why this video is being forwarded like nobody's business. I don't think the majority of us are really willing to look at the ugly scripts in our heads, the fat discrimination, the self-hate (oh so relate to our merciless judgment of others). Instead, I think Susan Boyle represents a certain kind of surprise that we are desperate for in this time of economic recession. The typical power brokers have been revealed in their corruptness and brutality and now we want the little guy/lady to succeed, to have her day in the sun, to indicate for all the rest of us, that we, too, can still dream.

I wish Susan Boyle's explosion on the global scene would make people less brutal in their physical critiques. I'm not optimistic. You?

Check out radishette's community post!

Community blogger Lynne C. had a post that she wrote for Feministing reprinted in the Toronto Star. And yesterday we got a radio interview request for another Community blogger to speak about the issues she's been covering.

I think this is totally bad ass - and part of the reason we wanted to start the Community site. The idea was to highlight all of the amazing feminist voices out there and to try and get more mainstream attention paid to more feminist perspectives - and that's happening. Woot!

Yeah, you read that right. According to Salon (via Reuters), HBO and Comedy Central executive producer Ben Karlin is developing a new comedy series called "Women's Studies." Julie White (of Six Feet Under, Nanny Diaries etc.) will likely star as "a onetime famous author who, after a tumultuous period as a feminist It Girl, is now a professor at a small liberal arts college in the Northeast."

Oh the story lines one can imagine...

Via newsday.com

FOX is setting out to prove that love comes in all shapes and sizes with the new inspirational dating competition series "More to Love." Executive-produced by Mike Fleiss ("The Bachelor," "The Bachelorette"), the unscripted series follows a single average guy with a big waist and an even bigger heart as he romances several confident and secure plus-size women. Each week, the husky hunk will wine and dine a group of curvy women to determine if they have more love to give or if they are truly more than he can handle. When the size of competition narrows, he will have to decide if one full-figured lady will become his true love.

Ugh. I am all for representations of people with all sorts of body shapes and sizes, but the size euphemisms are gross. And why the assumption that plus-size people can only date each other? There is so much offense-worthy potential in this show it isn't even funny.

In case you missed it!

Via Womanist Musings, we find that ABC decided to use their show, What Would You Do?, to address homophobia in a sports bar in New Jersey, where they tested folks' acceptance of a gay couple being openly affectionate. A straight couple was also used as well as another actor making homophobic remarks to see how patrons would react.

Overwhelmingly, the real patrons showed intolerance for snide remarks like his, even as the gay couple escalated their touching and affection.

"I would rather have 12 of you than four of him," said one man apologetically to the couple.

"Seriously, this is not your [expletive] bar!" yelled an emotional woman to one harasser, in defense of the gay couple.

Later, a real patron who did harass the couple seemed to retract his views after the hidden cameras were revealed. An expert interviewed by ABC News attributed his transformation to the surprising peer pressure to be tolerant.

"Tolerance has become an American value," she said. "People work hard to give others the impression that they believe similarly, even when they don't."

But things aren't nearly as peachy as ABC seemed to want to make it. As Renee said, how tolerant were these folks actually being when even the ones who defended the couple said they still didn't want to see them being "overly affectionate"? Not to mention Pam poses the question, "If they really want to test American tolerance, how about selecting a interracial or minority gay or lesbian couple to participate in that experiment?"

Pam also pointed out which location this experiment was done - New Jersey has civil unions on the books - which is critical to take into account (although I'll admit I've experienced an overabundance of homophobia and racism in that state). There's no doubt the degrees of tolerance would vary greatly state-to-state - so to call it an "American value" is (sadly) a bit of a stretch, albeit a damn good goal to have.

Thoughts?