Be Excellent To Each Other

Yeah, MaliA and I are un-manly because we like watching attractive women on our TVs. :\

No, you're unmanly for deliberately watching the worst sort of oestrogen soaked, exploitative claptrap in the world. It's this shitty nonsense that is ruining self esteem in young girls. If a 6'1'' size zero girl with big green eyes and a natural pout is deemed 'unworthy' of being a model, that's another nail in the coffin of the 'normal' girls watching the program. You may laugh when the girls cry but they might not have any other option in life after wasting their school years chasing the modelling carrot. It's wrong and it makes me angry.

*blinks*

Woah, what the fuck just happened to me?

The one yesterday had girls in who were all under five and a half feet tall, rendering your point invalid.

They've just been told they are going to get their heads shaved and going bald to 'let the beauty within, out'. It's like they've been told that their grandma ran over their pet dog whilst having a heart attack and dying. Awseomes.

Yes. Indeed. Invalid.

You got angry. We don't like you when you're angry.

*Cut to Bruce Lee delivering an angry lecture on bio-fuels, effortlessly rebutting counter-arguements from a long line of ninjas, one at a time*

*Cut to the Hulk explaining in a curt, annoyed manner about the paucity of decent heroines in Hollywood cinema*

etc.

You can say the same, though, about footballers, world's strongest man and so on and so forth. It's this sort of attitude that wimmins need to be 'protected' that is setting them back, nit them themselves.

Aspirational role models.

Wouldn't, Wouldn't, Wouldn't, Would, Wouldn't, Would, Would, Wouldn't, Wouldn't, Wouldn't, Would, Wouldn't, Would, Would.

I agree. But wasting your life (and sometimes ruining your health) to put yourself in a position to be judged by a panel of bitter judges and being laughed at for crying upset when you're rejected should not be the thing that women aspire to. As long as the media celebrates women based entirely on their looks, there will always be women who base their entire self worth in what other people think of them. It's not a desire to protect them that makes me angry, but rather a desire to slap them. Beautiful women will always be beautiful. They don't have to be endorsed by Tyra Banks to know it.

And now my trollometer's going off and I'll leave it at that.

I don't see it about being about protecting wimmin or about feminism. It's about the lack of good role models on TV to aspire to be, and instead the deliberate fuelling of the idea that fame and / or a 'perfect' body is the only way of being fulfilled or succeeding. It's something that's being shovelled on blokes too, but is more prevalent and currently damaging towards women in my opinion. It's not about protection, it's about the complete lack of anything worthwhile to aspire to being presented by 'teh media'. Don't worry about being thick as pig-shit with no skills or awareness, just warble a lot / strut your stuff and cry!

Uh-oh, this is going to be one of those classic Beex arguements, isn't it?

I've been waiting for a chance to use this:

I would agree with you. However, there will always (no qualifying preface) be women - and men - who base their entire self worth on what others think of them. Always. If you have a moral objection with me having watched a game show with attractive women on it, then I'm sorry I offended your sensibility. Yes, I'm a horrible person. I laugh at mixed martial artists who cry after losing a fight on The Ultimate Fighter too (and fighting may be the only way these men can make a living).

I don't think any rational woman's self esteem is adversely affected by ANTM. Anybody who is adversely affected will have self esteem issues no matter what is on TV. I have self esteem issues too, which nobody will be surprised to learn. It is what it is.

It's horrendous for those involved though. They deliberately choose weak, broken people, then make TV entertainment out of breaking them more. It's the big brother model, but more so.

Ah, shush. I don't offend so easily.

Not directly, no, but it forms part of an all pervasive cultural backdrop where being "pretty" (for a given, media-set standard of pretty) and "thin" are important and something that everyone measures tehmselves agaihnst, and not measuring up means failure. If you don't think that sort of thing has an effect, you clearly haven't discussed careers with any teenagers brought up on a diet of XFactor et al.

I'm a rational, intelligent person but I will occasionally see fit blokes in ads and then look at myself and feel a bit insecure. And the cultural backdrop for women is far, far more pervasiee than it is for men.

This discussion needs a Rodders, as he's far more eloquent on this subject than me.

See also: The X Factor etc.

As it turns out, it really doesn't. You've nailed pretty much everything I'd have said.

Very similar scenarios.

I work in children's services, sometimes with very vulnerable families. I am sensitive to the issues at hand.

I'm just hypocritical enough that I can watch a game show about models without suffering cognitive dissonance or remorse. Soz.

Jeez, this "Malia has no dick" thing got serious, didn't it?

That's the last time I defend his telly tastes.

And rightly so

No, not at all. Mr Chris, a bit up there said so the first bit of what you quoted does have standing, Brad Pitt mentions it in Fight Club when he's on the bus and most of us have stood next to JBR. So there is an element of male body image there, these guns don't load themselves and so on. As Chris goes on to say, yes for women, it is more pervasive and so on, which leads me on to the next thing I said, that the attitude that women need to be 'protected' by us hunky men from this sort of thing is highly condescending. One might as well give them a kitten and a housekeeping allowance as it implies that left to their own devices they'd end up emaciated in a corner. So, neither stupid, nor trolling.

It's not 'women', it's the fact that for that show they deliberately choose girls with as many self confidence issues as they can find, then make a point of driving a lorry through their confidence. It's like the 'look at these people aren't they shit' bits of the X-factor auditions, only that's the actual competition.

X-factor's worse in a way. Does ANTM make the worst applicants come back and model badly in the final?

Yeah, quite. The modelling industry is vicious anyway. Ruth told me about a time when our mutual friend Georgina went to a modelling audition, and came away with more body issues than you can shake a stick at, and she's firmly in the "would" category of any human male.

Woah, hang on - the fact it's more pervasive on the female side means that yes, actually, more needs to be done to protect particularly young girls from this sort of thing, which is where the initial damage gets done.

FYI Doc's image is blocked for me, so not quite sure what you were responding to

And shows like this show girls that. They show how hard it is and what they have to go through. It's much better than a pretty girl deciding she wants to be a model and giving up on everything else because she wants to wear nice clothes. It's not like that at all.

I actually watched half an episode of it the other night, the girls on there were hugely self confident. And it's not just about 'being the most beautiful' the last four girls all have different completely different looks and styles, they're all tall and thin but I didn't think any of them looked painfully or unattractively so. It's about attitude too, they want to sign up girls who will work well with the stylists and photographers etc, they need them to be supremely confident so they don't fall apart under the pressure.

I think it's only me, throughsilver and flis that have watched it, you know.

no, it's like a bunch of basically insecure women being judged on nothing but their appearance, and being put down hugely while they do it. I actually watched bits of ANTM, and felt a little bit sick.



Outward displays of confidence are often a mask for insecurity, of course. In any event, this is still a program that deifies the objectification of women to an artificial standard that most people couldn't hope to achieve, and consequently forms patr of a culture that, frankly, I'm glad I'm not raising daughters in.

Great, more uppity broads

But the ones that do fall apart under the pressure are

a) A main part of the reason people want to watch the show

and

b) destroyed. Can you think of a crueller way of suggesting to a girl that she's not suited to be a model than by crushing her on world-wide TV? The same criticisms apply to X-factor and it's ilk, of course, but it just seems far more gleeful and brutal in the case of ANTM.



This is perhaps the key point. The show is a reflection of the industry, and modelling is a pretty vile industry to be fair.

Quite.

It's Fry from Futurama, with his eyes narrowed in suspicion, with the caption "CANNOT TELL IF TROLLING / OR JUST STUPID".

Oh do be quiet, you massive hypocrite.

I do read this forum a lot of the time. You objectify women as much as anyone else in here does, at least MaliA doesn't hide it behind a thin veil of "I'm appalled at the treatment of these poor women" pretence.

Not every girl who takes her clothes off or wants to be a model or works in porn has issues or is being used or objectified against her will or has problems with her self esteem and confidence. Even if some of them do have personal issues relating to how they look and want some kind of validation, so fucking what? They're getting it, aren't they? They've been chosen from thousands of applicants, they're part way there. They get to build a portfolio and just because they're not what that particular agency is looking for, doesn't mean they won't get work elsewhere.

Whooahh. I applied the Would/Wouldn't basis without knowing who wins. For a fair few of the girls who didn't win that series, they scored on the Would scale and if that doesn't boost their confidence right back up, then I don't know what possibly could. They must be dead inside.

Would.

Also, anyone who has been to the music quiz is banned from talk of objectifying women.

No, but the producers aren't trying to find a good model, they're trying to produce car-crash TV. Hence the ones that get on the show are the ones that are going to

a) Rip apart the other girls
b) Self-destruct in an entertaining fashion

You should let them know - ideally with letters made out of words cut from magazines. Include a vial of semen.

I've seen an episode. Did Heidi Klum used to do it?

I keep a flask for such eventualities. It needs refilling.

Give a shake first.

The flask

ITT: flis serving suckas.

With the greatest of respect, flis, get tae fuck.

There is a huge world of difference between "I quite fancy X" ( a natural human reaction to a memebr of the opposite sex that one finds attractive) on a web forum and a TV program based around nothing but someone's looks. In fact so much of a difference that the one isn't visible from the other.

Also, if you want to have a go at people on here being hypocritcal, you could do worse than point fingers at e.g. Craster, who will slag off women in the public eye for being utter mingers because of some minor flaw. And the one massively belting on about how this show is mean to individuals was Craster, btw.



I wasn't aware I said anything remotely related to that.



After they've been publicly humiliated, of course.

Anyway, the point was, if you'd been engaging the teensy bit of your brain that isn't concentrating on shoes on the main point I was making, that the problem is not the effect on the individual participants (as bad as that may be), but the contribution that this sort of shallow, one dimensional show has on society as a whole. I have teenage nieces, and I'm entirely aware of how the portayal of women on television and in advertising and so on has on how they view themselves.

<<I like where this thread is heading.jpg>>

ITYM 'worse' instead of 'better'.

Also, it doesn't matter how much you bleat, Katie Sackhoff won't stop having a face like a buffalo's arse.



KISSY STEPS UP.

Fanx - sub-eds fee is in the post.


Point made, eh?

"I find watching too much porn changes your entire attitude towards slags". - Gary Delaney