What's disturbing about this show is not what it is but what it's not.
It's not about men who are overcoming disabilities, even though men outnumber women when it comes to such things. Men are more likely to be born with a disability and far more likely to be crippled by war.
Would a show about disabled male war veterans have stoked curiosity and sympathy in viewers? In my opinion, yes. There are a lot of Americans who would do virtually anything for war vets.
But a show about them wouldn't have given producers a chance to further their "Grrl Power!" agenda. It would have been a space for people to contemplate the horrors of war, not to drum up contrived TV drama and further "shame" men -- in this case the disabled men whom these women say they won't date. WTF?! Who would say a thing like that on national TV and be proud of it? And the show is asking us to admire these women?
Could they have possibly gone any lower than shaming disabled men? Even the school bullies knew to stay away from disabled kids.
Television used to be at least reasonably good. Look on YouTube. Even trashy shows like "Dallas" were at least clear-cut morality plays who let you know who the bad guys were. Once reality TV hit it all got confused and the anti-hero somehow became the "hero."
Why? How?
I hate to "go there" but it's worth saying that a woman invented reality TV (the one who came up with MTV's "Real World"). And this stuff is put out to appeal to women. Morality is skewed or at least relative when it comes to women. Read any romance novel --- it 's never the good guy who wins, but the "hawt" guy.
While men are the first ones to check out hot women, their stories throughout the ages have not made them heroines. Men's stories always had a moral code: "hawt" does not mean "winner" or "good person," even if the "hawt" in question is the hottest woman on the planet. Symbolically speaking, men know the difference between the Madonna and whore. Women don't seem to get that when it comes to the bad boy vs. nice guy (their version of Madonna and whore). Nor do women get it when it comes to other women. They'd just as soon root for the harridan as the sweet-natured gal, as epitomized by this show.
(By the same token, men don't vote for female politicians because they're "hawt." But studies have shown women will vote for male politicians for that very reason. Look at how women viewed Clinton and now Obama. But I digress.)
As a society, we are the stories we tell. And while we always had anti-heroes, we are now a society that calls the anti-hero a hero. Or heroine. This is why "Push Girls" elicits such a strong response. A story about obnoxious women in wheelchairs would make for an interesting contrast if paired with stories about men. But they didn't do that.
It's not who they put in the show that's the problem, it's who they left in the dust. We are a society that leaves our heroes behind to rot.
It's not about men who are overcoming disabilities, even though men outnumber women when it comes to such things. Men are more likely to be born with a disability and far more likely to be crippled by war.
Would a show about disabled male war veterans have stoked curiosity and sympathy in viewers? In my opinion, yes. There are a lot of Americans who would do virtually anything for war vets.
But a show about them wouldn't have given producers a chance to further their "Grrl Power!" agenda. It would have been a space for people to contemplate the horrors of war, not to drum up contrived TV drama and further "shame" men -- in this case the disabled men whom these women say they won't date. WTF?! Who would say a thing like that on national TV and be proud of it? And the show is asking us to admire these women?
Could they have possibly gone any lower than shaming disabled men? Even the school bullies knew to stay away from disabled kids.
Television used to be at least reasonably good. Look on YouTube. Even trashy shows like "Dallas" were at least clear-cut morality plays who let you know who the bad guys were. Once reality TV hit it all got confused and the anti-hero somehow became the "hero."
Why? How?
I hate to "go there" but it's worth saying that a woman invented reality TV (the one who came up with MTV's "Real World"). And this stuff is put out to appeal to women. Morality is skewed or at least relative when it comes to women. Read any romance novel --- it 's never the good guy who wins, but the "hawt" guy.
While men are the first ones to check out hot women, their stories throughout the ages have not made them heroines. Men's stories always had a moral code: "hawt" does not mean "winner" or "good person," even if the "hawt" in question is the hottest woman on the planet. Symbolically speaking, men know the difference between the Madonna and whore. Women don't seem to get that when it comes to the bad boy vs. nice guy (their version of Madonna and whore). Nor do women get it when it comes to other women. They'd just as soon root for the harridan as the sweet-natured gal, as epitomized by this show.
(By the same token, men don't vote for female politicians because they're "hawt." But studies have shown women will vote for male politicians for that very reason. Look at how women viewed Clinton and now Obama. But I digress.)
As a society, we are the stories we tell. And while we always had anti-heroes, we are now a society that calls the anti-hero a hero. Or heroine. This is why "Push Girls" elicits such a strong response. A story about obnoxious women in wheelchairs would make for an interesting contrast if paired with stories about men. But they didn't do that.
It's not who they put in the show that's the problem, it's who they left in the dust. We are a society that leaves our heroes behind to rot.