Gender in the Media

A few of my previous posts have touched, ever so slightly, on the issue of gender politics. It’s a subject that I’m quite interested in, and one that I mean to deal with again in some future post.

I won’t be trying to write anything especially deep or sociologically profound on the issue this evening, however, as I don’t really think that this complex issue is the kind of subject one should tackle when operating late at night, bleary-eyed, on roughly four hours of sleep.

Therefore I will let others do the heavy lifting for me. Below you will find three links. The first will take you to an interesting New York Times article that discusses the double standard that exists in the type of scrutiny and attention that some of the media allots to female versus male public figures. The article essentially argues – correctly, I suspect – that women in public life are treated with less sympathy when they screw up than are men. Men, the article argues, are forgiven their transgressions quite quickly while women are often harshly and repeatedly chastised. The existence of such a double standard may not be news for some (I’m certainly not floored with surprise), but it’s an interesting article and should help to get some folks thinking about media representations of men and women in intelligent and critical ways.

The second link will take you to Roger Ebert’s review of the film Walk Hard, while the third link will take you to one of Ebert’s Answer Man columns. Why include these links, you ask? As those who’ve read my previous posts may have gathered (i.e. my rant against the FCC’s inane decision to fine ABC for airing an old NYPD Blue nude scene, or my criticism of the lack of outrage against the wanton abuse of human bodies in the reprehensible ‘torture porn’ subgenre), I am vaguely unhappy with the media’s treatment of gender politics and, occasionally, the media's manner of displaying the human body (women are often stripped and casually objectified while men seem to escape the same treatment). I am also a bit unhappy with the larger public perceptions of gender that often shape the ways in which movies present those bodies. Ebert’s Answer Man column raises some small, but interesting, points concerning the silly double standards that exist when films display human bodies. This being Ebert, the language isn’t explicit – but nonetheless, bear the subject in mind.

1. NY Times Article: Boys Will Be Boys, Girls Will Be Hounded by the Media
2. Roger Ebert's Review of Walk Hard
3. Answer Man