Chasing Foxes

Today’s post will reflect on sexism which is discussed throughout the film Miss Representation. The United States is built on the idea of equality for all. And even some of the most patriotic and conservative of Americans can admit that our history is dark and jaded. They can admit that not all people have been treated fairly and with respect. But, they’ll argue, things have gotten better. They’ll say things are certainly better than pre civil war, pre women’s voting rights, pre Jim Crow, etc. But what most people won’t reflect on is how and why things “got better”

I argue that social issues, in particular sexism, are still highly prevalent in our society. One of which being that women of a certain age have little to no value. In the entertainment industry, it is no secret that women are expected to conform to a youthful, fit image. It’s not just enough to meet the male standard of having almost impossibly slim figures, as actress Margaret Cho was expected to do. Actresses like Daphne Zuniga recalls subjecting herself to botox. This traumatic experience left her scarred emotionally and may very well mean the end of her career. This is such a widely known phenomenon that there was a sketch featured on Inside Amy Schumer that revolved around Julia Louis Dreyfuss celebrating her “last f**kable day”. Age is just one factor in this equation that the media uses to determine what roles an actress is allowed to portray.

I argue that women in positions of power, which includes famous actresses, but in particular politicians face unfair standards and expectations. Hillary Clinton, political ideologies aside, has faced sexist and bigoted opposition at every turn in her career including in her most recent presidential bid. Political pundits from Fox and MSNBC are shown in Miss Represenation saying that Hillary reminds them of a nagging wife, that Hillary is too emotional, that she was a bitch. These sexist attacks, aside from their inherent untruthfulness and visciousness, also prevent intelligent political dicsussions about possible candidates. Many people opposed Hillary Clinton over policy or over her personal beliefs. Many of these people were young women.

Progressive voters who supported women’s rights found Hillary’s policies and establishment connections to be troubling. However, I argue that these criticisms are tainted by the baseless misogynistic drivel of those who refuse to vote for women on the basis of gender stereotypes and sexism. Her policies no longer become the point of discussion, it becomes about her credentials, about her husband’s affair, about her appearance and tone. And these aren’t right wing outsiders, the men featured calling her bitchy or emotional are either major news network show hosts like Tucker Carlson or celebrities and historians like Penn Jilette and the late Christopher Hitchens. Instead of doing the same type of logical and mental work that they’d do when arguing for or against a man, they result to appearance and tone and her sexual value.

Class permeates every aspect of our lives. Many of us are lumped into a class without knowledge or consent. And once that distinction is made, by the high class, it is hard to escape the label. The film Class Dismissed: How TV Frames the Working Class analyzes some of the ways in which the working class is defined and it focuses on how TV portrays them. What I argue is that these shows falsely represent the working class as unintelligent and lazy.

Many working class jobs require high levels of skill and intelligence let alone effort. Kevin James’ character, Doug Heffernan, plays a clumsy UPS driver in the show King of Queens. One scene featured in the documentary shows Doug ranting to his wife Carrie about how difficult the labor strike has been on him. The next scene cuts to Doug grilling up food while his coworkers relax in lawn chairs and kiddie pools aside him. This scene provides more than just a punchline, it makes a connection that Doug takes his clumsy lazy ways from home into his workplace. Meanwhile, UPS employees are tasked with receiving, processing, organizing, handling, and delivering thousands and thousands of packages. They sacrifice the majority of their days and they often sacrifice their physical wellbeing. And while I admit that King of Queens is a personal favorite of mine, it often does a disservice to the challenges of being a member of the working class.

The intelligent and mature characters usually assumed to be the man, is replaced by women in several of these comedies. I argue that this is a cynical and dishonest attempt at reversing gender roles. The focus never shifts to these women and what the role reversal means for their character development. They simply clean up after the lovable goofy husband and avoid household catastrophe. Examples are given in the documentary from the shows Yes, Dear and Rodney where the wives have to take over financial responsibility after moronic decisions made by the main character. But these shows never place the responsible, wise cracking, intelligent women as the main character. And one wonders why that is. This takes us back to my claim that this is simply cynicism and dishonesty. Often these same responsible women, like Carrie from King of Queens, are also portrayed as nagging and intimidating . Because these shows aren’t interested in having complex women, they simply need a way to level out the idiotic male character who is the actual focus.

But it’s not enough for these characters to be dumb they must also be lazy. And the idea that workers are lazy and therefore deserve to be poor is one that’s been around for a long time. Productivity and profit are the driving forces behind capitalism. Wages have stagnated, but profits and productivity have increased. But as Petr L explains in the film, the only way for corporations and the wealthy to avoid answering for their greed is to blame the workers. Because the only way you can explain not fairly compensating hard labor is by undermining the work ethic and value of the labor being provided by the workers. In a country where the typical male worker makes less 35k while the average person in the top 1% makes 1.1 million, there should be a serious reevaluation about who is accused of having poor work ethic. Lining your own pockets with the hard earned profits of the working man who struggles to get by sounds pretty damn unethical to me. Norm Peterson, played by George, on Cheers is featured in this film. He tells his bartender that rather than make the difficult choice between two great jobs, he came to get a drink. This kind of portrayal matters because it shows the working man to be lazy, unambitious, and fundamentally unable to move up because of personal choices.

   Dave Zirin’s Not Just A Game is a fascinating dive into the bigotry that existed, and still exists, in U.S. sports. I argue that the whitewashing of the legacy of Pat Tillman reveals the rampant hypocrisy and censorship that can still be found in the NFL. Such as the case NFL Free Agent, Colin Kaepernick, shows that major sports league, still have a problem with their athlete’s rights to free speech. Kaepernick, the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback, was cut by the team after the franchise claimed it was unsatisfied with his performance in the 2016-2017 season. During this season, he also began to kneel during the national anthem in protest of the police shootings of unarmed black civilians across the country. His intention was to create a dialogue around the issue. After Kap was cut, the 49ers claimed the decision was based off performance issues and not his political stance. However, as the offseason went on more team owners openly admitted that they believed Kap would alienate the fan base and distract the locker room. Malcolm Jenkins, Philadelphia Eagles safety and outspoken activist, rightly identified these owners as cowards.

   This brings me to Pat Tillman who is featured in Zirin’s film. Tillman left the NFL to serve as an Army Ranger in the 2001 season. He was lauded as a hero, a patriot, and a true American. In fact, all military service members are not only praised by the NFL but they often fly over the stadiums before the games, they sing the mandatory national anthems before each kickoff, they are even shown watching the games at their bases around the world. Tillman was a patriot, he was man who had great pride in his country but also knew when things were wrong. After serving in Iraq, he realized that he had been sold a lie by his government and was very vocal about this. Tillman was killed in Iraq and not by the terrorists as the Army had told the public, but by friendly fire. This was of course an accident, but it raises the questions like “What motives would the NFL and US Army have to cover up his death?” and “Why were his well-known criticisms of the war not discussed during his many memorials?” or “Why wouldn’t you sign a NFC champion quarterback who has shown respect to the military, has been a model citizen for his community, but also points out the flaws in his country?”

   I mention all this because our military industrial complex is not apolitical. Just because this country glorifies intervention and imperialism does not mean that these actions are outside the realm of critique. This film also features one of the greatest athletes and politically outspoken figures in American sports, Muhammad Ali. Ali was sent to prison after refusing to fight in Vietnam and he was not shy about voicing his distaste for the American military’s intervention there.I argue that if opposition to the war and refusal to fight in a war are political and polarizing opinions, then so is the support and participation in the wars. Even if it is necessary to sing the national anthem, what is the necessity for the staged beating of an Arab man during a basketball game? Zirin mentions personally witnessing the aforementioned crowd-pleaser before a New York Knicks basketball game in 1991. Surely blatantly demonizing another people to justify the war must be political.  

     Today I’m going to talk about the PBS Frontline special Generation Like. I’m a 22 year old college student who admittedly spent a lot of time concerned with social media image when I was a teen so a lot of this rang pretty true. And while most of this special seemed to be anodyne commentary on millennial obsession with social validation, I was struck by the underlying exploitation of these same millennials. Before going further, I want to acknowledge that I’m not talking about exploitation in the purely Marxist sense of the word. Marx’s exploitation “complete separation between the workers and the ownership of the conditions or the realization of their labour”. The complete separation is not so complete in many cases, such as Tyler Oakley who has profited greatly.  

     I argue that large social engagement and social media promotion companies are exploiting the labor of young, vulnerable, and unsuspecting consumers. A prime example of this was Hunger Games superfan Kaylie Lynch who is featured throughout the special. She describes the task of sharing and posting about the Hunger Games as hard work. She even talks about her hands being tired after 4 to 5 hours of nonstop promotion. Regardless of how trivial it sounds, being baited into promoting a movie that makes over 400 million dollars and being rewarded with “sparks” or “likes” rather than a share of that massive profit is exploitation. And to further prove my point, Kaylie is not the only one who recognizes that what she is doing is work.

     Dmitry Ioffe, CEO of TVGla, says that the main goal is to turn the audience into the “best marketer” of the content you are paid to promote. On its face, it seems harmless, and many people like Ioffe and his employees seem to be convinced that the relationship between them and their audience is mutually beneficial. But the difference between the audience marketers and Ioffe’s marketers is compensation. This special gives example after example of teenagers and millennials striving for likes and brand engagement. We, the viewers, are left to assume that Kylie is not uncommon in her obsession. You have essential a workforce of hundreds of thousands if not millions of young people who relentlessly promote and engage with content only to be given the placating reward of likes and faux recognition by the people who truly profit. Christian Fuchs, a researcher with the University of Austria, explains quite accurately how exploitation of labor can occur when the material production is replaced with information and digital content (12:00-14:00)