My aged mom watches a lot of shitty tv.

[Warren Stupidity]

I just spend three days with her and watched more sitcoms than I've watched in total over the last 30 years.

Men get hit by women a lot on network sitcoms. It seems to be a very funny bit. I only noticed this because of that shitstorm in h&m that basically declared this forum a rightwing cesspool and a bunch of whiners and more or less declared that DV is an issue for women only.

I cannot imagine a network sitcom in which the femaie characters were routinely hit in the face or threatened with violence.

[Warren DeMontague]

1. I can't watch crappy tv. Life is too short.

I think it's worth examining these things in that context, though.. like, "what if that was reversed? It wouldn't be acceptable".

I'm reminded of threads on the old DU, stories (I'm paraphrasing) where some guy got his dick stuck in a utility drawer or (worse) was mutilated in that area by his wife or girlfriend, and there would be a lineup of gleeful chortling until someone, invariably, would remind everyone that this was a real human being who experienced something terrible.

And yeah, I mean, I can understand the impulse to laugh at first at a guy getting his dick stuck in a utility drawer. I'm not a saint.

The other thing, I guess there's not a lot you can do about it with your situation, but man, there is so much good quality tv out there, now. It's a shame you can't get her to watch some other stuff. For your own sake as well as hers.

[Warren Stupidity]

2. Like I said, it ain't my choice.

And my mom never watched that shit either until her brains went all mumbly. Such is life in your decline.

There is indeed a ton of great stuff on tv. But her brains are up to friends, and just barely.

[Warren DeMontague]

3. Well, you have my sympathy.

Not just for the crappy tv, but for the mom in decline. It's tough, I know.

[lumberjack_jeff]

4. This is an excellent point.

It is ridiculous to suppose that we can bring girls up with the idea that it's okay to hit, and for that to not have ramifications.

http://www.patientedu.org/aspx/HealthELibrary/HealthETopic.aspx?cid=M0907d

Studies have shown that women are 70% of the perpetrators of non-reciprocal violence. The same study shows that 50% of domestic violence is reciprocal. Thus, 35% of all domestic violence is unilateral violence by women, 15% is unilateral violence by men and 50% is reciprocal.

Yet, suggesting anything other than the party line; "Get tougher on that 15% because other kinds of violence are a myth", is subject to a massive outburst of righteous indignation.

[libodem]

5. To the moon, Alice

Ralph always seemed to be threatening to punch his wife but never did. That we saw. Both sexes can be provoked to violent behavior. Men by nature are stronger and have the male hormones that drive aggression. Testosterone verses estrogen. Men have much responsibility to maintain the drives that come with the chemistry because if they do go to beating us up we mostly come out on the losing end. It's pitiful to see a beaten woman or a child because of the power inequity. It is not a fair fight. I think most men must feel remorse at the loss of control and abuse of another. But do it over and over, without some treatment.

The bad tv is another story. I've been next to bedridden for the last couple of years and had a tv with rabbit ears for entertainment. I've watched so much Raymond and Chris I'm warpped for life.

[Kaleva]

6. it's evolving

Comedy based on the wife beating her husband has been around for a long time. One used to see that even in comic strips such as "Blondie" and "Snuffy Smith". It was funny because it wasn't threatening to those in position of power. It's slapstick.

I'd have to do some serious digging but I do recall an article where Jackie Gleason discussed how the character Ralph was able to get away with his threats to send his wife Alice to the moon. Alice was portrayed as a strong woman who could more then hold her ground and who dismissed the threats as idle ones. It wouldn't have worked, I believe Jackie Gleason said, if Alice cried.

Attitudes are changing and one can watch "Family Guy" to see that. Peter and Lois sometimes beat the shit out of each other and even in one scene where Peter tells Chris he is now the man of the house, the first thing Chris does is fart in Meg's face and then knocks out Lois with one punch.

Such as thing wouldn't have been tolerated years ago, comedy wise. What's funny about a man hitting a member of the "weaker sex"? It was funny for the "weak" woman to rule over her bumbling idiot of a husband and occasionally bash him in the head with a frying pan.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

7. No different than a lot of things on TV

Men portrayed as knuckle dragging morons who need a woman to smarten them up in a present day comedy = not an issue

Women portrayed in a historically accurate drama about life 40 years as being mistreated by men emotionally, financially and sexually = massive outrage because OMG I think they are "glamorizing" it.

[Kaleva]

8. I don't think many here feels threatened, insulted or even degraded by such characterizations

The characterization of the husband being the clueless buffoon who'd accidentally kill the kids and burn the house down if it wasn't for the wife. Years ago I saw of comedy skit spoofing housecleaning ads where the housewife was talking about the wonders of a new aerosol spray that not only killed odors, it killed the source of the odors. She then walked up to her hubby who was sitting on the coach drinking a beer as he watched tv and she sprayed him and he died.

I thought that was damn funny!

It wouldn't have been funny if the husband killed the wife.

I think we as men can generally laugh at such because we feel secure and confident in our positions. It wouldn't be funny for those who, in real life, are degraded, feel they are 2nd class and are being treated as such.

[Warren Stupidity]

9. While I agree, if we applied the same level of analysis as is done by the word warriors

we should be really angry.

And case in point, The Honeymooners, with Alice being "sent to the moon", as observed up thread, would not be allowed in our current culture

[lumberjack_jeff]

10. "It's all fun and games until someone gets hurt."

Objectives. We sought to examine the prevalence of reciprocal (i.e., perpetrated by both partners) and nonreciprocal intimate partner violence and to determine whether reciprocity is related to violence frequency and injury.

Methods. We analyzed data on young US adults aged 18 to 28 years from the 2001 National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, which contained information about partner violence and injury reported by 11 370 respondents on 18761 heterosexual relationships.

Results. Almost 24% of all relationships had some violence, and half (49.7%) of those were reciprocally violent. In nonreciprocally violent relationships, women were the perpetrators in more than 70% of the cases. Reciprocity was associated with more frequent violence among women (adjusted odds ratio [AOR]=2.3; 95% confidence interval [CI]=1.9, 2.8), but not men (AOR=1.26; 95% CI=0.9, 1.7). Regarding injury, men were more likely to inflict injury than were women (AOR=1.3; 95% CI=1.1, 1.5), and reciprocal intimate partner violence was associated with greater injury than was nonreciprocal intimate partner violence regardless of the gender of the perpetrator (AOR=4.4; 95% CI=3.6, 5.5).

Conclusions. The context of the violence (reciprocal vs nonreciprocal) is a strong predictor of reported injury. Prevention approaches that address the escalation of partner violence may be needed to address reciprocal violence.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1854883/?tool=pubmed

[4th law of robotics]

12. Is your 2nd paragraph a Mad Men reference?

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

13. Yeah....

...although Mad Men seems to duck the criticism because it's so damn good. The cheap knockoffs like Playboy Club and Pan-Am (which just weren't very good) spawned great outrage here.

[4th law of robotics]

11. It's also pretty standard for a wife to refer to her husband as an idiot

in one form or another.

I suspect if there were a show where a husband constantly berated his wife for being stupid it would be seen as abuse rather than comedy.

That goes for sitcoms and commercials and movies and pretty much all entertainment involving heterosexual couples.