Recently my Mom said something about how my Dad had been upset about how guys are also portrayed on TV as unconscious and irrational and I realized I hadn't really covered my thoughts on that yet. I totally agree, as well as being irrational they tend to be greedy slovenly creatures who provide no use to the family except that they happen to bring home the bacon. There are many different levels to this asshattery..... Ray Romano is clueless and his wife spends a lot of time nagging and hardly any time having her own interests, then there's that King Of Queens guy whose wife weighs about 150 pounds less than him though he gives her shit about how she wears her hair, and worst of all is the guy from According To Jim (Jim Belushi) which I only see when stuck at the laundry mat. Jim has a babe of a wife, as does his even more portly friend. He spends most of his time seeing how far he can get with other women and then making her feel shitty about it. At least this is what I've picked up while doing my laundry.
In a couple articles this week, Judd Apatow, king and creator of the movie shlubby dude character, tried to defend his viewpoints.
"So when someone says Knocked Up seems sexist, I'm like, ‘Really?' I mean, Seth [Rogen] has an earthquake, and he grabs his bong before his pregnant girlfriend. That's pretty bad. But I try to weigh it evenly so it's not really about men or women; it's just about miscommunications and us at our worst. Because people at their best I don't really want to watch in entertainment. I don't really want to watch mature people or smart people or people who do the right thing."
I could really argue all day with him on this stuff. After all Dan from Roseanne was a chubby hubby with a lot to deal with but you never saw him degrade his wife or take off for Vegas lapdances ...... and that show was funny.
Apatow goes on to talk about the criticism that Katherine Heigl's character was too good for Seth Rogen's in Knocked Up.
"Isn't that the code? 'Shiksa goddess shouldn't be near the Jews?' Diane Keaton was pretty cute. How did Woody Allen get her? I have my own shiksa goddess."
Oh boy, Judd. I wonder if he knows how creepy that last part sounds. I think he's missing the point that Heigl's character was motivated with a great job and Rogen's character is chronically unemployed, unmotivated, asks for b.j.s at inappropriate moments, and runs a soft core porn website when he gets around to it. Knocked Up sort of bummed me out in the way that Seth Rogen is actually a really funny guy whose been writing amazing scripts since he was a teenager but the way they designed his character there just wasn't a whole lot to love.
While TV seems to have some decent roles for women these days it's been making many of its men into completely one sided pigs. Its not just women that need decent characters to identify with and admire, television owes us some decent men so guys can have some pride again and so us girls don't have to live in fear of marrying the According To Jim guy. If Judd Apatow thinks that wouldn't be funny then he's just not that good of a writer, he needs to go back to Freaks and Geeks and re-learn his lesson.
So now, my three current crushes of TV(and well sort of radio). Sorry they aren't fictional but the best stuff is real of course.
Jon Stewart - Jon Stewart made me get Cable. Along with Rachel Maddow he makes me not want to leave the country. Jon Stewart is incredibly smart and when he does his little giggles and faces I feel like I'm in homeroom and we have an inside joke.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Vice Presidential Common Man-Off | ||||
| ||||
Steven Colbert
Really though Jon was just my gateway drug to Steven. They remind me of that old quote about Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Steven can do anything Jon can do but backwards and in heels.
You may think I'm joking about this crush but for a while I had an itunes subscription to his show and it made me start dreaming about him. I dreamt I was outside his house trying to spy on him and the girl he left me for. Creepy.
| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Tip/Wag - Cynthia Davis & Fox News | ||||
| ||||
Ira Glass
Ira Glass has a TV show now so I'm allowed to count him. Mostly though I listen to his old podcasts of This American Life. I first started liking Ira when I heard that he watched The O.C. and that he flipped out when my fictional crush Seth Cohen name dropped him on one of their episodes.
If you spend enough time with his voice you get really attached. We talked about it one day at work and this girl I work with was like "Yea, I'd make out with Ira Glass". I understand how she feels, I actually get jealous when he talks about his wife. I want to sit around and tell him all the quirky This American Lifey stories that have happened to me. Also fun fact : Ira and Philip Glass are cousins.
While they aren't exactly role models I'm just gonna throw this graphic in for fun.
3 comments:
well, you have crushes on intelligent humorous men- I am glad you out grew your crush on Trent from Daria.
Have you checked out Gabriel Bryne in the HBO series "In Treatment"?
oh my god I loved Ira's story about how he cried when the OC ended too!
For future reference:
Actors of fully Jewish background: -Logan Lerman, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Mila Kunis, Natalie Portman, Bar Refaeli, James Wolk, Julian Morris, Esti Ginzburg, Kat Dennings, Erin Heatherton, Odeya Rush, Anton Yelchin, Paul Rudd, Scott Mechlowicz, Lizzy Caplan, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Gal Gadot, Robert Kazinsky, Melanie Laurent, Marla Sokoloff, Shiri Appleby, Justin Bartha, Adam Brody, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Gabriel Macht, Halston Sage.
Actors with Jewish mothers and non-Jewish fathers -Jake Gyllenhaal, Dave Franco, Scarlett Johansson, Daniel Radcliffe, Alison Brie, Eva Green, Emmy Rossum, Jennifer Connelly, Eric Dane, Jeremy Jordan, Joel Kinnaman.
Actors with Jewish fathers and non-Jewish mothers, who themselves were either raised as Jews and/or identify as Jews: -Andrew Garfield, Ezra Miller, Alexa Davalos, Nat Wolff, James Maslow, Josh Bowman, Ben Foster, Nikki Reed, Zac Efron.
Actors with one Jewish-born parent and one parent who converted to Judaism -Dianna Agron, Sara Paxton (whose father converted, not her mother), Alicia Silverstone, Jamie-Lynn Sigler.
Post a Comment