Let's revisit a battle of the sexes waged this past Thursday night after an evening of a little too much drinking that spilled over into an email exchange on this lovely Monday morning. Basically, the argument boiled down to the relative vapidity of sports to reality television. The men, Kevy and I, argued the two are incomparable. The women, both WWII dictators oddly enough, Mussolini and Stalin, obviously countered this argument, claiming sports were equally mindless while encorporating similar degrees of perverse ethics.
As most relationships are riddled with requisite comprimise, both men and women alike are forced with a certain degree of regularity to watch sports and reality television. If sports and reality TV are in fact equal but opposite, at least in terms of depth, why are sports seemingly incomprehensible for women? Stalin wondered aloud recently, I assume with a thick Russian accent, whether the New England Patriots were ranked second in the latest BCS standings. A third friend fo mine, also of the female persuasion, who for the purposes of this blog I think we can refer to as the attorney for the third Reich, wondered why a few of us were talking about the Giants and Cowboys when the Patriots played yesterday (because only two teams play per day). While men can decipher the stupidity/framework of any given reality TV show within 10 minutes?
My waxing chauvenistic elicited the following response (which just so happened to be well-written, interesting, and very much correct):
"So Seamus, let me briefly respond. I agree that the premise that sports and reality tv are equal and opposite is fatally flawed, I just want to point out another obvious hole in what I think is your implied argument that men are smarter than women.
let me remind you that there is an age-old argument of nature vs. nurture - whether it is our innate human qualities or our personal experiences and upbringing that determine our physical and behavioral traits as adults. one of these traits is intelligence. so while i think that you are implying - ever so subtly, i might add - that males are more intelligent than women as evidenced by a male's dual understanding of both sports and reality tv, please keep in mind that boys are taught from an incredibly young age the 'rules of the game.' Whether it's by doting fathers or competitive peers, boys are cajoled and trained into becoming fans and players, and a knowledge of sports rules and culture is developed as they mature, whether consciously or not. it's a cultural thing. as an example - is it not assumed that you can insert a guy into any conversation and as long as he can keep up with the current sports news, he'll be ok? thus it is not your inherent ability to understand sports and your unique intelligence that unlocks the mystery of the rules. rather, it is by serious training and studying for decades that you have mastered your supreme level of understanding.
meanwhile, there is no comparable arena for women. there is nothing that is considered a universal femail pastime. even fashion and shopping don't count, as they are relished really only by the relatively good-looking and wealthy who can benefit from them. reality tv is mindless. while entertaining and, yes, even addicting, it requires no specialized knowledge. any person who lives and breathes and can understand a few pop-culture allusions can enjoy the pleasures of the real world and america's next top model. most importantly, we girls don't deny it. we know that it's stupid, and we revel in it. we count colie as our hero because she's funny and cute and does stupid things that are great to gossip over. so while we sip wine and eat appetizers, we laugh (and sometimes high-pitch scream) over the latest embarrassment that happened on mtv. but the bottom line is - we don't hold ourselves out as experts for doing so. we realize that you guys get it, too, we just wish you wouldn't be so condescending about it.
and sports aren't incomprehensible to us. if we had the time or the inclination, we could learn the rules, the stats, the players, and the business of sports. we just don't have a decade to catch up. and to be honest, we don't care to. besides, why disturb the status quo? all is right in a world where women sound clueless and men get to make fun of us for it, no?"
Touche. I agree.
I should not have made it seem like I was arguing for the intellectual superiority of men over women. I was really just trying to establish that bad tv is less venerable than closely following sports. When I rail against bad tv, ultimately I mean not to rail against women but to address what I do see as a disconnect between the intelligence of many of the women I know and their propensity and undying hunger for the worst that television has to offer.
Now......on to the important stuff....If you had to be one of the following, which would you be? And why?:
a. Pirate
c. Ninja
d. Knight
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5 comments:
A Pirate, and you already know why.
I'm sorry, but whoever wrote that (I think I know, but wouldn't venture a guess openly) is completely wrong. You know me, I'm no sports fanatic either, so I'm not playing that angle, but the fact is this: foolish people with bad taste enjoy trash entertainment. It's as simple as that. I know plenty of women who watch movies and television, read books and listen to music that requires cerebral activity, so I don't think it's a sexism thing. But I do feel that people who fill themselves with that crap will fall victim to the age old fate "you are what you eat," in an intellectual sense. Question to the girl who wrote that criticism: Why do you watch something that you admit is mind numbing? Why? I can't for the life of me understand it. That stuff is so boring and flat out obnoxious most of the time. If that's all there was I would understand, but until you provide me with answer as to why you choose that above something with a little more taste I will be forced to consider you an ingorant mongoloid.
I agree with Mr. Mallen as well. I'm at a crossroads.
-seamus
yea, in all seriousness that is exactly why I don't have television. I don't like it, it is stupid and there is very little reason to invite such an invasive device into my home environment. Now obviously I realize how elitist that sounds, but the truth is television and the media companies that run most stations thrive off of mis and disinformation. I don't want to get overly political but, these are the same companies that profit from war and sell it to us whenever necessary. It only make sense for them to fill their airwaves with mindless crap and spoon feed it in all sorts of synergistic forms to those who want to consume it.
Again, not trying to sound elitist here, because I will watch a sporting event or a movie that I WANT to watch occasionally. The want is a big part of the equation though because it is my conscious choice to partake in this action and I have control over the type and duration of my experience. I would certainly be remiss to suggest that there is absolutely no value in television, because if used properly it can enlighten and inform, obviously we know that the vast majority of it does the exact opposite. Much like Mallen points out.
It is an easy pattern to fall into, and it is easy to blame those who fall into it. Work all day and then come home tired, eat dinner, workout, shower, blah blah blah. It is very easy to turn on the television and relax, give your mind a break, and then go to bed. There are so many options of doing this on any given night that one can spend hours watching and not even realize how much of their life they are wasting.
Staying sharp and continuing one's education is difficult and takes a good deal of effort and will, but we must do it. There are too many problems in the world for us to insult those in need by watching television instead of informing ourselves and taking steps to help change things for the better.
I think that television fills the space that could be used to create a more just and equitable world. I guess that is a bit political.
-ed
like, whatever. so i'm an ignorant mongoloid.
just to clarify, i was not extolling the entertaining genius or intellectual value of reality tv. i was really just saying that it was a bad argument that men are intellectually superior to women simply by virtue of the fact that they understand both sports and reality tv. to quote "If sports and reality TV are in fact equal but opposite, at least in terms of depth, why are sports seemingly incomprehensible for women? While men can decipher the stupidity/framework of any given reality TV show within 10 minutes?" i mean, really? it's not such a notch in your belts that you can understand reality tv. we all can.
but i applaud the inferential leap you all made in presuming that just because a person may watch a half-hour of reality tv that they consistently "fill themselves with that crap." I mean, really - great logical reasoning. Contrary to whatever conclusions you are so quickly and avidly jumping to, girls who 'sip wine, shriek, and watch mtv' (you can take the requisite moment to vomit and bang your head against the wall although i've seen lots of guys do a lot more grotesque things. it takes a very large brain to black out and get in a fight or take off your shirt, really) also have other interests. we read the newspaper and novels, we listen to music and even (gasp!) watch more insightful programs on tv. most people aren't defined by one trait, or in this case, one vice. but thanks for pigeonholing us as morons.
oh and to mr. mallan. i watch tv that i admit is mind-numbing for just that reason - i want to be numb for a little. i spend 10 hours a day in grad school and i read enough substantive material that if i want to rest my brain for a while, i don't feel bad about it. oh, and i think these shows are funny, too. sorry, i don't have a much more intellectual argument than that. but speaking of tase, since when is watching monkeys on the discovery channel or meerkats on animal planet so much more deserving than watching people do dumb things in a human environment? i mean, i agree that it is a vapid existence if reality tv is the only thing that one is interested in, the only way that one can connect with others, the only reason to turn on one's tv or to call a friend to chat. luckily for me AND my friends, it's not. we are so many more things. so call me a foolish person with bad taste. i'm rubber, you're glue.
(disclaimer: i'm purposely being combatitive. i think you're all great people. i really do)
You had to bring up the Meerkats!
No, that's rich: Watching these clowns on reality tv isn't any different than watching monkeys poke each other with sticks and sniff each others butts. I like that analogy.
Okay, so you want to unwind with some mindless entertainment, I got no quam with that. You sure you only watch half an hour a day? Most of those programs are up to an hour now.
I shouldn't talk, really. There's a bunch of wastful things I do with my life. What should I be doing with the time I spend cruising the internet, napping, drinking, masturbating, ect.? I wish I was building a better me. I wish I was learning, developing my skills, blah blah blah. So even though I'm not immune to my own criticisms, I still wish to see others better themselves and to stop wasting their lives. If you were to die tomorrow, and you were standing at the pearly gates with Saint Michael showing you an instant replay of your entire life, how would explain all of the time you wasted in front of the television? But you're not going to die tomorrow, so think about what you want to have to explain to ol' Saint Michael from now on.
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