Notes on Pop Culture: Media Expectations of Women, 'In Treatment' & Deeply Written TV Characters Wreck My Enjoyment of Films

Image credit: CBS

Media Expectations of Women

Did you hear about the recent controversy involving two twentysomething Glee actresses posing provocatively for GQ while wearing their panties and sucking on lollipops? Or about a Marie Claire writer’s hateful attack on CBS’ Mike & Molly in which the writer said she doesn’t want to watch overweight people walk across the room never mind kiss one another on a primetime television sitcom. Or did you happen to read the New York Times’ hard-hitting analysis of female politicians’ choice of attire?

My pop culture and politics column this week took on all three of those issues and concluded that, collectively, they send a pretty lousy message: That young female celebrities have to debase themselves sexually in order to get media attention and then suffer the intense criticism for doing so (no such requirement for young male celebs), that having overweight men in leading roles on TV shows doesn’t prompt ugly attacks though a leading overweight woman does, and that no matter how a female politician dresses she’s going to be attacked by fashion writers as either dressing too “mannishly” or too sexy in “rump-hugging” skirts. It’s a fairly grumpy piece, if I do say so myself.

Season 3 - Week 2 Preview

In Treatment

HBO’s In Treatment . . . we’re now in week two, eight sessions into Paul Weston’s third season. And I’m just as enthralled as I was in the first.

Of the new patients, I’m most intrigued by Frances, played by Debra Winger, and by Paul himself facing off against his new therapist Adele as he’s increasingly fearful that he has Parkinson’s, like his father.

This is becoming my favorite indulgence of the week, watching Paul and his patients. I find that I do absolutely no multi-tasking (no BlackBerry, no laptop, etc.) while this is on because I want to catch every glance and gesture.

Deeply Written TV Characters Wreck My Enjoyment of Films

After reading a Boston Globe article published the weekend Mad Men’s season finale aired, I realized the truth in what the writer, Matthew Gilbert, was saying: All of these complicated, anti-hero characters on cable dramas -- Don Draper from Mad Men, Tommy Gavin from Rescue Me, Paul from In Treatment, Tony Soprano from The Sopranos, Walter White from Breaking Bad, etc. -- have been so nuanced and deep that movie characters, by comparison, seem pretty shallow. I then proceeded to wonder how much better, say, The Town, would’ve been had it been a cable TV drama (instead of a film) on my recent CliqueClack TV post. And I was really entertained by The Town.

Image credit: CBS.

Giving NYT Gold Star for 'No Photoshop' Article

I could've given the editor(s) of the New York Times' ThursdayStyles section a big, fat kiss this morning after I first looked at the newspaper. Normally, I wouldn't have any such smoochy desire. Normally, I'm irked by some story or another in that section because it makes me feel like a schlub because I don't spend $500 on my footwear and am unwilling to spend a lot of time and effort trying to keep up with the beautiful and the fabulous who have mucho disposable income with which to purchase the latest, trendy fashion "must haves."

But when I gazed at today's Styles section and saw that almost the whole top half of the newspaper was occupied by images of actress Reese Witherspoon on three different magazine covers looking like three different women due to the amount of Photoshopping that had been done to her photos, I smiled through my outrage.

While it's true that the web site Jezebel has done a stellar job of chronicling the odious Photoshopping that sadistic magazine editors routinely engage in -- the process of taking already lovely people and digitally altering their images, rendering them inhuman looking -- it's quite a statement by the Times to dedicate the entire top of the Styles section to this soul-crushing, destructive technique which editors defend, as if it's ethical or even good for their readers. (They're wrong on both counts.)

The article began this way:

"Most readers of fashion magazines are aware that all photographs, at least to some degree, lie.

More often than not, images have been altered -- historically with painstaking tricks of lighting and exposure and, more recently, with retouching software that can make celebrities and models look thinner, taller, unblemished, with brighter eyes and whiter teeth. Seemingly perfect. Advances in digital photographs that cover models often resemble weirdly synthesized creatures or, as the photographer Peter Lindbergh described them this week, 'objects from Mars.'"

The paper explained how Lindbergh "stirred the pot by creating a series of covers for French Elle that showed stars . . . without makeup or retouching." Lindbergh told the Times: "My feeling is that for years now, it [Photoshopping] has taken a much too big part in how women are being visually defined today. Heartless retouching should not be the chosen tool to represent women in the beginning of this century."

When asked by the Times about Photoshopping, the editor of Glamour said, "Fashion magazines are always about some element of fantasy but what I'm hearing from readers lately is that in fashion, as in every other part of our lives right now, there is a hunger for authenticity." Just look at those Witherspoon magazine covers above -- from Elle, Marie Claire and Vogue -- and you tell me that editors of fashion magazines will actually give readers "authenticity" on a regular basis, not just in some "very special issues," like the one featuring Lindbergh's natural photos. I seriously doubt it.

I tend to think that the magazine editors don't care a whit about the negative impact these false images have on girls and women because they hawk false fantasy masquerading as something remotely achievable. They'll, sadly, likely continue to carry on with business as usual, as shown in the video below from Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty:



Image credit: New York Times.

Amid Economic Scandals and a Downer Dow, Bring on the Funny TV Gals

I don't know about you, but -- Lost and 24 aside -- I've really been in the mood for some comedic TV fare lately. With news outlets overflowing with stories about AIG bonus rage, back-tax-owing-federal-bailout-recipients and pass-the-buck-finger-pointing coming from the Obama administration and lawmakers, I certainly need to laugh at something other than 401K statements.

That's why I devoted this week's Pop Culture and Politics column on Mommy Track'd to TV's female comedians who are really delivering the funny these days. With the April issue of Marie Claire making the bold declaration that "funny women are having a moment," the timing couldn't be better.

Among the women I highlighted was 30 Rock's Tina Fey, whose kooky Liz Lemon's odd behavior consistently makes me smile . . . speaking of Lemon, tonight's new 30 Rock features the last installment of the Jon Hamm as Dr. Drew Baird story arc.

Random fact I learned after watching an excerpt of Fey's appearance on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon: That fabulous line, "I want to go to there" that Liz Lemon directed toward Jon Hamm's character was the genius of Fey's 3-year-old daughter Alice, uttered while Alice was looking at the Disney World web site.

Image credit: Jessica Miglio/NBC via TV Guide.