Welcome to bizzaro-world where we miss the point, do not logically connect dots, condemn one person and excuse another for doing the very same things and on it goes.
Recently Rush Limbaugh was thoroughly condemned for making disparaging remarks about Sandra Fluke. Bill Maher was excused for making unmentionable remarks about Sarah Palin. Ed Schultz similarly expressed likewise sentiments about Laura Ingraham. Etc., etc., etc.
One thing to learn via the manner whereby such instances are dealt by the media and pop-culture in general is that those who purport, most vociferously, to be pro-woman, or pro-women’s rights, etc.—specially groups whose stated purpose is asserted to be just this—are not pro-woman / pro-women’s rights but pro-liberal-leftists-Democrat-woman / pro-liberal-leftists-Democrat-women’s rights solely, only and exclusively.
Well, the most recent entry into males disparaging females is “Two and a Half Men” co-creator Lee Aronsohn. He stated that television is too woman-centric, “he suggested female comics and their anatomy were taking over our TV sets.”
He referenced a “saturation” of female anatomy related references, “Enough, ladies. I get it. You have periods.”
The irony, the contradiction, the hypocrisy, the what’cha’ma’call’it is the entire premise upon which Lee Aronsohn’s show “Two and a Half Men” is based is that women are objects to be used and tossed aside like the flavor de jour. Every single episode of the show is based on acquiring women with whom to engage in unmarried, uncommitted sex and then move on to the next one, and the next one, and the next one whilst, by the way, teaching a young and impressionable child that this is perfectly acceptable.
What Lee Aronsohn said once is one issue but the bigger issue is that which he said every single time that his show airs.
This is, thankfully, not lost on everyone but it is being side stepped as he “declined to apologize for the regular portrayals of women as bimbos on ‘Two and a Half Men’”:
“Screw it,” he told the Toronto conference, according to the Reporter. “We’re centering the show on two very damaged men. What makes men damaged? Sorry, it’s women. I never got my heart broken by a man.”*
Now, you see that this is not just about comedy, or money, but about worldviews. He literally wrote his prejudice, his misogyny, his vendetta into the show. He has been hurt by women and so he based a show upon mistreating women as revenge.
The fact that a sad little man would actually have the chutzpah to present an idea to a TV exec about a show based upon treating women like interchangeable sexual objects is one thing. The fact that a TV exec would think it a good idea is another. And the fact that “Two and a Half Men” is an intensely popular, and lucrative, show is quite another.
Shame on us.
And it would be nice to be old fashioned enough to say, “Shame on us” and leave it at that. However, shame is integrity’s daughter and you cannot have the latter without the former.
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* “‘Two and a Half Men’ creator Lee Aronsohn sparks anger with sexist comments about women on TV Offers apology for saying television is too woman-centric, but backlash kicks in,” New York Daily News, April 3, 2012 AD