What is it with primetime television and tired sexist humor? The 90s saw an endless parade of ‘my wife’s cooking is terrible’ jokes, the 2000s were all about women wearing too much makeup and ‘tricking’ men, and last night celebrated male ownership of female bodies. On Zooey Deschanel’s New Girl, admittedly a television show that has been on its way out for two seasons, one male character had a difficult time dealing with his ex-girlfriend’s future breast reduction plans. He likened it to grieving over the death of two close friends. Which, of course, is pathetic.
As he cycled through the stages of mourning, Schmidt, played by Max Greenfield, constantly returned to his loss. He ignored the reasons behind the surgery, namely that CeCe was preventing her genetic disposition towards back problems, in order to center his own feelings of betrayal in the story line. The overdramatics would be have provided an interesting commentary on the way men have been recently acting about such news as Angelina Jolie opting for a preventative mastectomy if it wasn’t glaringly obvious that the writers don’t want us to see it like that. For instance, when Coach, another male character, attempts to console Schmidt, he encourages Schmidt to come along to a get-together where he would be surrounded by ‘four new boobs.’ That’s definitely not any giant leap forward for feminism.
There is a glaring issue with the separation of a woman from what are considered her most attractive features. Besides it being purely objectifying, it can oven detour into violence. Of late, breast cancer research campaigns have been distributing merchandise that read ‘Save the Tatas’ or ‘Save Third Base.’ Basically, what they are saying, is it is not worth saving the woman but rather her breasts and the pleasure they bring men.
I am beyond tired of seeing these tropes be brought up again and again. New Girl is decidedly one of the worst shows for feminism and Schmidt, as a character that often places his desires above CeCe’s, has been known to liken the Indian character’s breasts to brown leather sofa cushions in one of the most bizarre forms of objectification I’ve ever seen.
Surely there must be a direction writers can go in that does not fall back on the usual ‘women be crazy’ jokes. Various shows (Parks & Rec, 30 Rock, Golden Girls, etc.) have all done it before. It’s about time we throw out this trash and enter an enlightened age where we don’t have to alienate half the population for ratings.
Post-graduate Sob Stories 