Bravo's "Millionaire Match Maker" No Place for Men

Via email submission:

Hi my name is Dan. I'm a big fan of your blog and I have a lot of respect for you and what you are doing. I recently sent a letter to the website for the Bravo television network about a show they have called Millionaire Match Maker. Like I'm guessing most of you, I have grown tired in the last couple of years of TV shows depicting women being rude or condescending towards men. I see it in TV commercials, programs and reality shows. Well, a couple of days ago I was watching the above-named show and decided I was going to write the network and tell them about how I felt. Here is copy of the letter:

======

I am a member of a growing group of men's rights activists and I found your show to be offensive to men and irresponsible.

Your show depicts a woman who is demeaning and condescending towards the men in the show. The show is called Millionaire Match Maker that airs on the Bravo TV network. In the show, a woman (Pattie) who runs a dating service, is supposedly hired by various wealthy men in Los Angeles to find a woman that they might fall in love with. However, Pattie is show to mostly have a rude, catty attitude and takes it upon her self to tell these men what she thinks of them, criticize and order them to make curtain changes in there lives, wardrobe, attitude, etc. so that they might be lucky enough to marry one of her "independent women" that belong to her service.

She is usually show to have an irritated, judgmental demeanor and to be generally arrogant. In your latest episode called "rocker guy", Pattie meets a guy called Julian that lives in a house that appears to be a upper-middle class dwelling, but because it is apparently not big or extravagant enough, refers to the house and neighborhood as a "ghetto", and because the house does live up to her standards, she further refers to him as a "cheep, lazy, s.o.b." At one point, she is standing outside his house and says, "this is disgusting, this is not a millionaire". Before meeting Julian, she reviews a video tape interview of him in her office and tells some of her female co-workers that she is going to whip him into shape before he will be allowed to meet any girls, she says that she is going to "slap this bitch" into shape, referring to him as her "bitch". After walking into his house she tells Julian that "no woman would date you while you live in a house like this". Julian then asks her if a woman who would think something like that, would be right for him in the first place, she responds "trust me, no woman with a spine would date you in this house, your a cheapskate", "you live in a dump", "get it together".

She finally and reluctantly tells Julian that she will work with him but that "you need to change you attitude", and "you need to decide to fall in love" before I will help you and before you can meet any girls in the dating service. There are many other examples of sarcastic, condescending behavior exhibited by the woman in your show, but I don't have time to list them all (these were just a few that stuck out and I remembered). The point is, there may be a lot of people at your company and in the public that enjoy watching a woman being rude and demeaning towards a man, but keep in mind that your show is broadcast on cable for everyone to see including children who are young and impressionable.

The kind of interactions and interplay between sexes that you show on TV mean a great deal to young people. In my opinion, your show is sexist. If you question that comment, simply reverse the rolls where a man is depicted to shape these women up to be suitable and good enough so that someone might do them a favor and want to marry them, all the while saying things like, "i'm going to slap this bitch", "this place is disgusting", "your a cheep, lazy, s.o.b." "you live in a dump". I think there would be more than a few woman's rights activist upset. Further, with Pattie's behavior, you broadcast to the world examples furthering the stereotypes of women being materialistic. With comments like, "no woman would date you living in a house like this"(an upper-middle class house in California, by the way), and "this is disgusting, this is not a millionaire".

It is important that we portray women in a positive light, not further stereotypes of cattiness, bitchyness, rude behavior or materialism, as your show does. Young men and women need better roll models than that. They need examples of men and women respecting and caring for one another, not examples of behavior that is divisive and gender polarizing. I am going to copy this email and post it on various men's rights blogs in witch I am a member. If you would like to respond to it, please do not send a standard message thanking me for my input and feedback saying you were sorry I found it offensive, rather I would like to know if someone at Bravo TV has the courage to address and defend showing misadry and negative female stereotypes to millions of people, and how it could effect children that might end up watching your show and if you were really responsible, you could respond to the specific examples of behavior and quotes of Pattie's that I laid out in the letter.

With all the TV shows in past decades that were sexist towards women, depicting men talking down to, demeaning, condemning and criticizing women, I would think that in this new age where women are liberated, you would be more mature, responsible and compassionate to not perpetuate the same bad behavior, only towards men now.

====

P.S. I was in quite a hurry when writing this, but there were many other examples of underhanded, matter-of-fact ways of condescension and sarcasm toward the men in the show by Pattie. As well, there are many other episodes of this show that air every day on Bravo TV and can be viewed on their website. The link to view this particular episode is http://video.bravotv.com/player/?id=212367#videoid=212367.