Women have already worried. We are the victims. Or the sex symbols (notice that person isn't anywhere in that term -- in either of them, really). In movies and television, even if we get to be main characters, having breasts seems to be the only requirement. No interesting background, no personality, no reason to care except the whole leading lady thing. We've worried about it.
I'm sitting here (Monday night -- I'll set the time release for tomorrow morning so you're not overwhelmed with posts) watching Without A Trace where they released a man from the trunk of a car where he'd been locked for 24 hours. If it had been a woman they would have been on the radio with the ambulance. 24 hours or two hours, a woman would have gotten medical care.
Him, they treat like a criminal. They interrogate him on the street without even getting him clean clothes -- without giving him the ubiquitous victim blanket to wrap up in. He had assaulted someone a few days before -- according to hearsay from a third party, but when they let this bloody and bruised man out of the car trunk they start accusing him of things there on the street without even asking if anything's broken, without even checking to see if he needed medical care without offering a blanket or jacket to hide the embarrassing necessities coming from having been locked in a trunk for a very long day.
I read FreeRange Kids where they discuss the keep your children within arms reach or else fear-mongering going on. I know they only discuss the odd man out, that their reports are not the usual every-day sort of thing, but they also show a world where men are always the predator -- and not in the sexy alpha male way, but in the bad guy way. Men are the things who sit there waiting for their chance to abduct or kill you. And the other common role for men (according to television) is the idiot.
Just as we need to be more than perky breasts or victims, you need to be more than victimizers or dumbasses. (Isn't that the name of the movie where men are idiots?) If I knew what to do about it, I'd have already done it on behalf of women. I don't. I don't have any suggestions. But the place you're getting isn't any better.
I don't know how to fix it, but it should, at the very least, be noticed.
And if you figure out how to fix it, let me know too.
I've also noticed this unsettling trend for some time and am glad for at least one other person to agree with. I think the sad truth is that humans by nature are prurient voyeurs and that the mercenary machine of mass media churns out what brings the most eyeballs to the big or small screen. Outside of allowing Taliban level censorship the only thing we as individuals can do is follows Gandhi's advice to "Be the change you want to see in the world." (i.e. don't watch it, don't buy it) The quandary is in trying to discuss it. Inevitably, examples are cited of the offensive portrayals which leads to interest and free buzz for the show/movie/product which negates the impact of the solo boycott. I'm sorry I don't have any answers for you.
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