Who are these whiny imposters television is trying to pass off as men?
This is the question male viewers will ask after watching the premiere of Big Shots (ABC, CTV, 10 tonight). Assuming, that is, they can get through the hour without losing consciousness from all the involuntary forehead slapping.
Notify Guinness because we have a first: a show about men that couldn't possibly be aimed at men. A show in which male characters sit around on a patio and share their innermost feelings or stand around on a golf course and untangle their woes or lounge around in a sauna and bemoan the ephemera threatening to tear their hearts asunder.
In short: a gal pal show in which the gals are lads.
The feminized, science-fiction tv male lives! On TV, at least. I won't be tuning in Big Shots tonight. Based on the preview and the reviews, I've seen what I need to.If you want to see a version of Big Shots that's actually about men, try to find a DVD of the BBC show Manchild. It's good fun. And for bonus points -- it stars Giles from Buffy!
7 comments:
The cigar Manchild episode was hilarious! Um. . .at least it's the most memorable episode I saw.
If you read Maureen Ryan, it's misogynistic, too. Not sure it's aimed at women, either.
Well, far be it for me to contradict Mo, but I kind of suspect that's one of those "as you behold" thing.
I understand that institutionalized sexism is a problem that still hasn't gone away, and that tv and the media are guilty of it...but in a case like this, where is the line between men complaining about women and having it verge on misogynist, or the endless cycle of far more acceptable complaining about men on Sex and the City, or the regular way that women complain about the men in their lives? I'd be ridiculed fairly soundly, with good reason, if I claimed that as evidence of misandry.
That's all I need to hear. Your "Eyeballs of Men" post was spot on. If Big Shots is what you think it is, I'll remove it from the "To Watch" list. Pity. I like Joshua Malina and Paul Blackthorne.
Well, I gave it a 'shot'...and it will go down as the first pilot, hell, first show I've seen to have an act out button be: "Find the tranny."
Most definitely a 'Boston Public' meets 'Desperate Housewives' for men? women? couples?, and would be moving on except...Rob Thomas has just joined the staff as a consulting producer.
Hmmm...might have to revisit.
Mo Ryan's point wasn't so much the "men complaining about women" thing as the "treating women like dirt" thing, plus the "these aren't real women or people of either gender that women want to watch" thing.
Or as Time's James Poniewozik said in my favourite quote of the new season so far:
An unpleasant, platitude-filled attempt to make a male Sex and the City, it may manage to end the battle of the sexes by alienating both genders equally. (A real male Sex and the City, of course, would last two minutes, would have no dialogue and would mostly involve watching porn.)
My point was that theoretically, Big Shots was an attempt by male writers and executives to make a show men want to watch, not an attempt by, say, Shonda Rhimes to make a show idealizing men because that's what women want to see.
My humble opinion is that shows where the characters turn the stereotypes on their heads ie; men act like women (express their feelings) and women act like men (kick ass) are the ones that often connect best with the general tv audience.
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