Live Blogging: The One Show’s take on SATC
Grrr!
BBC’s The One Show has just “celebrated” the new Sex and the City film by having a gob-smacking montage of sexist comments about women and men.
First they interviewed seemingly all the sexists on the streets of London, who all said things like “Men and Women are TOTALLY different and will never understand each other!” “Men leave the toilet seat up!” “Women nag!” And so on.
Adrian Chiles said something about believing that women and men are the same really, but then introduced a clip from Child of Our Time which supposedly showed that men and women are genetically hard-wired to be different. The clip showed children tasting two drinks, Rocket Pop (blue) and Princess Pop (pink). The drinks were the same but the boys rated the Rocket higer and the girls the Princess pop. Very interesting, but this was presented as if it was conclusive proof that men were from Mars and Women were from Venus.
Then we were told that there would be a contest at the end of the show which would prove which sex was the better, ha ha ha, called, and I kid you not, “Heels or Wheels”. Hilarious!
Oh for goodness sake… I feel like I’ve just been hit over the head with a sexist mallet.
The thing that frustrates me about this approach to covering the sex and the City film is that SATC was so NOT about putting forward the Mars/Venus viewpoint. It portrayed men and women as human beings with individual perspectives and emotions. If anything I would say it actually tried to go against that whole Mars/Venus thing. I never once viewed it and thought, goodness, men and women are SO different and will never understand each other.
The other part of the whole SATC hype that I find quite interesting is the assumption that what we all REALLY want to see is Carrie getting married to Big. It seems that they’re assuming SATC fans think that getting married is the only really important goal, that this would be the end of the story.
Well I say - bollocks. Absolute bollocks. That’s not why I’m going to see the film. But I’ll talk more about this later.
Sorry if this post is rushed and crappy, but I’m sat here watching the One Show getting more infuriated. I’d better turn it off now… oh, it’s finished. Phew!
Posted by Catherine Redfern on 14 May 2008, at 7:14 PM | Comments (5)
Have your say
In order to keep this blog as a feminist and friendly space, comments will be subject to some rules. We do not seek to censor debate: the beauty of the internet is that anyone can set up their own blog or website to express their views.
- This blog is a safe and friendly space for feminists and feminist allies. Debate and critique are welcome where it is constructive and deepens analysis or understanding. Anti-feminist comments will not be approved. We get to decide what's anti-feminist.
- All comments must be approved by one of the bloggers. For this reason, there may be a delay before your comment appears.
- No sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic, classist, ablist comments, comments which make personal attacks on any blogger or commenter, or comments that are otherwise deemed offensive by us will be posted.
- Trolls will be banned from commenting. We get to decide who is a troll.
- No anonymous comments - please feel free to use your real name or make one up, though.
- Be nice.
Feeds
yeomanpip said:
I have watched The One Show in the past, but haven't recently because of something that was said, that I considered to be very sexist.
Unfortunately I can't remember what it was, sorry!
But this is wrong, this is a show with an average of 3.2 million viewers, or about 20% share of the market.
If anyone wishes to complain they should go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/theoneshow/contact/comment.shtml
Posted on 14 May 2008 at 7:45 PM
Mary Tracy9 said:
What I want to know is WHEN will the BBC get the note that WE FEMINISTS ARE HERE, we are LISTENING and we don't LIKE WHAT THEY ARE DOING WITH THE TAXES THAT WE PAY!
As fellow tax payers, don't we deserve as much representation as the old fart idea of Mars and Venus?
Posted on 14 May 2008 at 9:14 PM
Eddus said:
I try to avoid The One Show as much as I can, a while back they had a whole week of hilarious "trials" to prove the differences between men and woman. You know, the usual offensive stereotypes were dragged out again.
It's depressing that this is such a popular show.
Posted on 14 May 2008 at 9:44 PM
Jennifer-Ruth said:
I saw the first 3 minutes of the One Show last night...after they introduced the first article I turned around to my boyfriend and said "I'm turning over now, otherwise I am likely to get very, very angry."
Sometimes I can't believe it is 2008 and people still believe that women aren't human beings. We're just sooooooooo different from men!
Posted on 15 May 2008 at 10:29 AM
Jenna Willis said:
I watched the One Show last night and was outraged! That show is meant to be informative, and all it seemed to be doing was reinforcing ignorant attitudes towards women and men.
I couldn't bring myself to turn over, I wanted to watch the whole thing...so I could write a decent complaint to the BBC.
On a different note...but still on the BBC (BBC News no less). If you're not aware, Manchester CIty Centre was taken over by 200,000 Scottish football fans yesterday. (It was quite an intimidating place to be, for anyone) During a report from the centre, a woman was being interviewed, asking what she thought about the events of the day. A clearly drunk, topless man spotted the camera and veered (or perhaps leered) straight for the woman. Called her "gorgeous", and clearly invaded her personal space. The woman appeared quite uncomfortable after being put on the spot. Outright, unnecessary sexual innuendo where the man assumed it was his right to grab a woman he had never met before....the BBC showed this clip repeatedly, as if we were meant to think "oh he's cheeky isn't he". My boyfriend and I sat there, absolutely appalled that the BBC had condoned this behaviour.
Is this really what we pay our Licence Fee for?
Posted on 15 May 2008 at 11:01 PM