http://www.spike.com/video/sexy-vixens-of/3482572
The link I posted leads you to a video titled "The Sexy Vixens of Entourage," a commercial shown by Spike.
The video has two meanings, an obvious "sexy and funny" one, and a more insidious, questionable one.
The first meaning is obviously one of promotion. By showing their primarily male audience that "Entourage" is a show with a cornucopia of beautiful women, they are hoping to rope their audience in with the promise of sexuality and masculinity. "Entourage" has always been a "Sex and the City" for men, and by showing off the women that have slept with the cast of the show, a sort of wish fulfillment fantasy is satisfied.
Also, the humor in the commercial comes from the fact that the women expected to have more dignified roles in their acting careers, but instead are just bimbos or strippers in a hyper masculine show where most women are objects. By pointing out this regressive casting of women, Spike shows awareness to what the show is doing, and appears to make it acceptable to do so, as long as they are aware of what is happening.
The second, more insidious meaning, is that television is allowed to keep casting women as sex objects and little else, because they are aware of it. In this current age of irony and self-awareness, cultural taboos can sometimes be bypassed as long as an awareness of the wrong doing is evident.
All this encourages though is for no progress to be made for equality in television, as creators can bypass all responsibility and show an ironic awareness of their social faux-pas.
1 comment:
I am totally behind the idea that is ridiculous to deem morally comprehensible things as acceptable simply because we are aware of their duplicitous nature.
I know we got in to a conversation about this when discussing Post-Feminism. We made reference to the notion of the post-feminist as being able to empower herself by being an overly sexualized object for men.
I found this to be ridiculous for the same reason as you... just because we are conscious of something does not make its negative qualities any less tangible.
I think you said a similar thing when you wrote "television is allowed to keep casting women as sex objects and little else, because they are aware of it."
Although I think we both disagree with this practice of conscious stereotyping, I think it is around to stay. Audiences like familiarity, and the role of women as sexy symbols in film, television, radio, literature, etc. etc. has been around for ages.
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