"Men are idiots, and they have been since the beginning of time"
What?!?! I personally think men are wonderful! (Not that there are not a few idiots out there, but in general they are great!) There were multiple times where the male characters just came out and said it, "Men are idiots". I am not sure how many boys ever watched the show, but what kind of lesson is that teaching them? That it is ok to act like an idiot? And what about the girls who watched the show, do we really want to give our daughters, sisters, nieces and ourselves the impression that men are idiots? I know I don't!
In addition to the remarks about being idiots there was also a theme of men not being able to understand women. Again, I think this is silly. Men and women are different (duh!) but not so different that we cannot understand (and respect) each other. There have been very few times (read: one or two) in my 18 months of marriage that my husband has not been able to understand me because I am speaking "woman-ese". And even then he has found ways to be thoughtful and kind and he really tried to figure out where I was coming from.
So I love Boy Meets World, but I also love men. They are not idiots, they can understand women and in my opinion most guys are pretty great!
I completely agree with you. And it's not just Boy Meets World. You see this stereotype everywhere. I feel like men are often made fun of in TV shows and are portrayed as incapable of...(insert smart thing here.)
ReplyDeleteI liked that you mentioned the whole "not-getting-women" thing. I mean, yes it's fun to laugh and joke about the differences between men and women because there are most definitely differences, but we can communicate. Woman-ese happens occasionally but men are not incapable of learning. In fact, maybe it's not even woman-ese. Maybe it's person-ese, meaning that all of us are different and we will need to explain our train of thought or feelings at one time or another. :)
Great post.
It is good to hear that not all women think that all men are idiots haha. I myself being a man may not have picked up on this underlying message that "Boy Meets World" presents simply because society has promoted this idea for as long as I can remember since I really started to pay attention to the messages that media is sending about men. It is sad but i true. It just goes to show how scary the reality is that media can mold our thoughts and views about other people and certain stereotypes.
ReplyDeleteThis is a great post! It is amazing to me the stereotypes that we create through the media and if we pay attention, they are in most movies/tv shows out there! the men are silly, stupid and in tv shows many times less attractive than their slim, attractive, more neurotic female partners (king of queens, according to jim, everybody loves raymond are ones that my parents watched growing up that come to mind as examples). Men are great. Women are great. And it is important to remember that!
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