ABC News blog: "Women in Peril: A Look at TVs Disturbing New Storyline Trend"

Submitted by anthony on Fri, 2009-10-30 21:02

Article here. Should I be surprised nothing is mentioned about men portrayed as violent thugs? Excerpt:

'PTC analysts looked at 209 hours of television programming during the February and May 2004 and 2009 sweeps and found the following:

"Violence, irrespective of gender, on television increased during the study period only 2% from 2004 to 2009, while the incidence of violence against women increased 120% during that same period."

"Cumulatively, across all study periods and all networks, the most frequent type of violence was beating (29%), followed by credible threats of violence, (18%), shootings (11%), rape (8%), stabbing (6%), and torture (2%). Violence against women resulted in death 19% of the time."

"Violence against women or the graphic consequences of violence tends overwhelmingly to be depicted 92% of the time, rather than implied (5%) or described (3%)."

According to the report there was an 81% increase in the incidence of intimate partner violence on television from 2004 to 2009 and FOX was on top of the heap when it came to using "violence against women as a punch line in its comedies."'

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Comments

Take away sports and women are by far categorically the #1 group for prime-time TV-watching, aside from any other group that can be defined. Across the board for age, religion, ethnicity, you name it, women v. men (or more generally females v. males), women are the #1 consumers of prime-time TV shows.

So the nets air what gets viewers and most viewers are women and girls. They air what these people mostly tune in to watch. And so what are they tuning in to watch? You guessed it.

Human beings are adrenaline junkies. Men are the #1 viewers of sports because that's what gives us the adrenaline charge - fear of loss of a game creates adrenaline and anger at a bad play or bad call also create adrenaline. To create the adenaline for the upside of things, that is why fantasy leagues, rivalry and (alas) betting pools are for. This way, he gets the rush no matter what happens. The winning and losing is actually just a side-effect. If that is what mattered no one would watch the games; they would just check the scores the next day.

And for women, the adrenaline charge also comes from fear and anger, but via TV sports? Not typically (though I have met a few die-hard female sports fans in my life). But how about drama? Yes. Now, ordinary soap opera drama is fine but is not enough to hold attention in a competitive market since the kick isn't enough. No, but fear really kicks it up a notch (or ten). Add that the viewer always likes to see his or her stereotypes/preconceptions/fears reinforced and acted out and you got the magic formula: Rape and beatings from men. There's your plotline. Put that on the tube and you get viewers. More of it, the more viewers. Add a few knights in shining armor (how many "cop shows" do we have on prime time? I'd say they may well make up one in every three at this point with the ratio only creeping up) to rescue and mete out justice and the whole thing is sealed.

The only thing stopping networks from airing a constant stream of sports, full-blown (no pun intended) uncensored pornography (yet more adrenaline) and violent assaults/rapes against women depicted over and over again is the FCC and a few religious reservations.

That all said, I will say I agree with the poster's comment that there is no mention of how badly men are being portrayed in these shows. But of course justice and fair portrayal are not what TV is about. It's about ratings, which equate to money: higher the ratings, the more the network can charge for commercial time. It's that simple... and that soullessly nasty, too.

So what explains the article getting written in the first place? Simple nymphotropism with an added opportunity to give the reader/viewer (who is assumed to be female) another kick of adrenaline from the anger she is likely to feel upon reading the article. She feeds her own need for adrenaline by watching TV shows using violence vs. women as the core theme and also supplements it with outrage against the fact that they even exist.

Nice little system at work here, huh?

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Submitted by mcc99 on Sat, 2009-10-31 18:46

Insofar as I'd guess more men than women are killed on TV and in movies, especially if you count war movies and the like. People only notice it when the woman is killed.

Woman as victim sells.

This is all covered quite nicely in "Spreading Misandry".

-ax

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Submitted by axolotl on Sun, 2009-11-01 07:00