Anyone else's TV pleasure ruined by feminism?

I don't entirely agree with you that many people haven't experienced the other kinds of violence that the show depicts, I think experiences of living in a war zone or other very violent situation aren't nearly as unusual as people imagine. Probably not one in five, but I'm not convinced the number itself matters that much, if some people are impacted they are impacted. But quite a lot of women don't find the sexual violence on GoT upsetting in that way - viewing stats suggest that fans are only slightly less likely to be women which seems to suggest to me that it doesn't make it seriously less appealing to women.

Some people just will not want to watch certain types of material - my husband had to clean up quite a number of torture victims at one point in his career, and as a result doesn't much like to watch, or even read, anything involving that kind of violence. But usually it's not a complete surprise when you find it in films, if you don't want to see that sort of thing.

I was much more unhappy about the way they dealt with "consensual" nudity, prostitution to some extent, and also just trying to push the envelope in terms of showing off parts of people's bodies.

I've noticed this too and it pisses me right off. I know fiction often relies on the unexpected plot twist, and male violence is about as unexpected as "Dog bites Man", but even so, it's tiresome.

The problem is, it's so overused that you're expecting the 'plot twist'.

I've ruined films for my DD. Most 'romcoms' are sexist with more than a hint of stalking and coercive control.
She gets really cross about it(she's12)

If the relationships board on Mumsnet is indicative, that's actually a pretty realistic set up for a lot of women. I think that sadly there are an awful lot of women out there married to men who are willfully incompetent at home. And they do love these men, either because they don't think they can hope for better, or because he has a lot of other good qualities that make them willing to compromise.

Absolutely to this. Although I never encounter this in real life, I find the 'Gawd bless them, they can't see dirt, and dress the toddler in a bikini and wellies for a February school run, tee hee!' attitude one of the most tiresome and unexpected bits of Mn. And yes, I realise it's a coping mechanism from overburdened women who are normalising an unequal dynamic, but it does perpetuate the problem by passing on, and rendering comic, domestic inequality and strategic incompetence.

I'd love to see a programme that shows how grindingly exhaustingly awful it is for the women though, to always have to be the ones to put things right and to carry the mental load. And to show the men are clearly being selfish, rather than just 'aw look at him, what is he like?' eye rolling.

Oh no I think you lot may have ruined Love Actually for me 😆

I'm with a previous poster who mentioned Everybody Loves Raymond. It is similar to the Simpsons.

Capable intelligent women married to idiotic men who they tolerate and supposedly love. Why is that funny? And what does it say about relationships between men and women?

My sons love the Simpsons and it's always on in our house. This thread has made me realise what it is that I don't like about it. It can be very funny, but I just feel a bit sad about Marge's life and what she puts up with.

And then there's the fact the whole show is about either worshipping a man or shagging a man.

I feel like Pulp were more often leering than sneering. Not that that's any better.

Also, watching Black Books with dd 14. Although it's a great show, it feels like a step backwards from all the Bechdel-approved stuff I started her off with. I'll admit i haven't seen every episode, but why doesn't Fran have any female friends?! At least not any that get to share the screen with her?!

We also started the vicar of dibley because I wanted to share the 90s tasticness with her. I'm not sure - on one hand she has Alice to talk to - but on the other hand she only has Alice to talk to. And Mrs Cropley (sp?) who really only talks about cakes and sandwiches. And that's it: three female characters in a 'female led' show.

Also, for all its purported "historical accuracy", I've read a hilarious take-down of it by a military historian pointing out that GRR Martin has no understanding of Medieval warfare, no grasp on tactics, strategy or logistics, and just teleports armies around the (unrealistically huge) map as the plot requires.

Was that this? acoup.blog/2019/05/28/new-acquisitions-not-how-it-was-game-of-thrones-and-the-middle-ages-part-i/

I'm a huge fan of that blog because I love understanding historical detail and this guy really does detail well. And readably. He's done LoTR too (books and movies...)

As well as the gratuitous violence against women in a lot of TV procedurals, I also loathe the brilliant, workaholic male detectives (or other team leads) with empty personal lives who rely on their female colleagues for all their emotional labour (and admin), take crazy risks because if their maverick genius and are cosseted and indulged by every female character. I found Wallander (at least in the UK version) to be a particularly egregious example of this. DCI Mathias in Hinterland is similarly irritating, but at least it's presented as a character flaw, rather than the natural order of the world.

Let's face it, no men are ever going to be watching Working Moms!

Well, I tuned in. Great show, though after “that” season finale (spoiler alert) I didn’t have the heart to continue.

I'm also getting fed up with how often it turns out that violent/sexual crimes were in fact carried out/masterminded by a woman. I know that this is partly a (rather lazy) plot twist (and yes, NAMALT/women can be bad people too etc etc) but the frequency is far higher than in the real world it does seem to give out a subtle message that violence etc is not a male issue.

I've noticed this too and it pisses me right off. I know fiction often relies on the unexpected plot twist, and male violence is about as unexpected as "Dog bites Man", but even so, it's tiresome.

I really enjoy crime/detective type dramas but am getting increasingly fed up with the way women are portrayed, even in shows that seem on the face of it to be more balanced. I'm also getting fed up with how often it turns out that violent/sexual crimes were in fact carried out/masterminded by a woman. I know that this is partly a (rather lazy) plot twist (and yes, NAMALT/women can be bad people too etc etc) but the frequency is far higher than in the real world it does seem to give out a subtle message that violence etc is not a male issue.

I'm also getting really sick of unnecessary strip club scenes- usually featuring a very sanitised version of a strip club with women very much in charge, plenty of female customers, most customers just sitting having a few drinks and conversation etc.

Goosefoot we all have our different limits, and while rape isn't necessarily a complete no-go area for me, I do think it has to be handled more carefully than such things as war and non-sexual violence - simply because it isn't anything like a fictional concept for a lot of women. As an example, Theon being tortured over the course of a whole season was deeply unpleasant to watch but it's hardly likely to reflect the direct experience of any viewer and thereby trigger a PTSD response. Whereas about one fifth of all female viewers will have been subjected to sexual violence in their own lives and will probably not appreciate having glossily-produced rape scenes sprung on them - like what happens to Daenerys on her wedding night in the very first episode. It wasn't even a rape scene in the book, so what was the purpose in making it into one for the show, if not to hammer home the Dany-as-victim narrative and make it even more problematic when she has to basically learn how to be good in bed to stop Drogo from raping her?

There’s also a horrible kind of sneering at women in Pulp and Suede’s lyrics, and probably more that I used to love

Also loathe Love Actually - and baffled that so many rate it.
Many many times during this pandemic I've looked up films on all the catch up services and given up as they are mostly - woman raped, woman murdered, woman traumatised, man wins summat, man saves the world - OR on ITV - Carry on Films.

I’ve stopped watching crime dramas as I got so fed up with eg Criminal Minds using women’s murders for entertainment. There were some prominent female characters too, but they generally didn’t have as much going on as the more dynamic male leads.

We started watching Des recently about Dennis Nielsen, and as I realised his victims were men, I was shocked and confused, it was such a different dynamic to what we’re used to seeing. (Obviously I’m not saying it was any better that he murdered men instead of women, but for once that feeling of “here we go again” wasn’t there.)

I can't watch Hollywood movies any more.

So much sexism , misogyny, sexualisation of women and girls, dominating men, simpering women. It's just shit.

Even futuristic films where 3trillion years in the future women are still prostitutes and men violent gun toting wankers.

I despair

I know all that, Goosefoot, I actually write fantasy! But it's a question of (a) in world plausibility (which I don't think GRR Martin is actually as good at as he's cracked up to be - too many of his readers seem to conflate "lots of violence" with "gritty historical realism") and (b) needs of the story (which, in fairness, Martin is good at, HBO on the other hand is gratuitous).

Take the treatment of rape within fiction. Even if you have a rape which is (a) plausible within world (sadly, that would be most fictional worlds barring a few feminist utopias) and (b) an integral part of the story telling (rather than... "hey, we need a crime for our detective to solve... how about a rape - that way we get a juicy plot line and an excuse for a bit of rapey sexposition and gratuitous naked female flesh, win win"), even then there's still a huge choice as to how you portray it (and I think you and I are both making the same point here).

For example, I mentioned Harlots upthread, where rape is very much integral to the plot (and it would be a failure in portraying the situation not to include rape, because the whole point is these women are trafficked into prostitution, their virginities "sold to the highest bidder" and it's fucking horrible, and the scars stay with them, driving inter-generational feuds, murder, revenge, killings in self defence which a male judicial system also treats as murder). But the female show-runners have taken a decision not to show the rapes on screen, barring perhaps a close-up of the woman's face. They show events leading up to it, they show the emotional (and in some cases, physical) aftermath, but not the rape itself.

The way I always frame the question to myself is: have I written something some sick fucker could wank to? I wish more male TV show-runners would ask themselves this question.

And it's not just rape - what works best in showing the horror of war, for instance? Spielberg opening Saving Private Ryan with a huge, long extended take on the Normandy beaches, with top notch special effects showing every last entrail hanging out, every last limb hanging off by a thread of flesh. Or Zanuck, in 12 O'Clock High, having one of the bomber crew saying as he climbs out of the plane "I can't... I wouldn't believe it if I wasn't looking at it. You can see his brain." (Brain not shown on screen, for the avoidance of doubt). Your mileage may vary, but for me, that very brief line carries every bit as much visceral punch.

I’ve given myself permission to turn off any “entertainment“ involving violence against women. I guess by permission I mean I don’t judge myself as uptight/reactionary/close minded for it.

This includes walking out of the cinema, which I don’t hesitate to do (the teenage me would’ve cringed with embarrassment)

And as far as actors not looking quite like real historical people - the important thing there is the viewer should believe they do without noticing their appearance too much. So like all theatre, it involves a sort of compromise. If you let them have their terrible teeth and goitres, its actually a distraction. If you make them too shiny and clean, that's noticeable and unbelievable. You have to give the impression of them being realistic. "Not enough goitres" doesn't translate to not being historically accurate from that POV.

Lots of people don't like stories with any violence which is fair enough. Even personally disliking one kind of violence in stories is fair. It's quite different to say a story that includes all kinds of examples of human violence, that is very much about the will to power in all its forms and how it affects people and society, and somehow draw a ring around one expression of that and say it's untouchable. You can have political oppression, war, torture, illegitimate use of authority, scientific experimentation, disappearing enemies - but not rape or forced marriages or anything like that? Why? It's not plausible.

The whole story begins in a scenario with soldiers being brutally killed by monsters, in large part through the stupidity of a member of the aristocracy, and the one poor bugger who manages to escape being publicly executed by another member of the aristocracy in front of his young son. It's really ok for that to drive narrative action, but not violence against women? Aside from being pointless, that is not going to be a coherent or believable world where violence touches everyone but sexual violence somehow doesn't happen for no apparent reason.

And as far as non-attractive women being the subjects of violence, that certainly happens in the story and even occasionally in the tv show.

As to the sexposition - as I said in my original comment - that is a valid criticism of the show, but it comes from a completely different place than the actual plot of the story. That's basically HBO saying "ooo, we have a show with gritty material and a brothel, we can show a lot of naked women in compromising positions." It's not really related to the story in any way, which is the heart of the problem with it, aside from being exploitative it undermines the narrative. Which is why you can't conflate the use of violence in the story with what is essentially a type of television fan service - which in other forms almost destroyed the narrative integrity of the tory in the end.

I read Backlash by Susan Faludi in my twenties. I read the chapter on movies, which included a scathing analysis of Die Hard, with the same kind of horror as if someone had wandered into my living room and set the Christmas tree alight.

I quite liked the boobs at the start of Working Moms. I don't think it was for men, it was feeding boobs not sexy boobs.
Let's face it, no men are ever going to be watching Working Moms!
I fucking HATE Love Actually though. Every single male character is shagging, or trying to shag, a woman who could be his daughter. Or granddaughter.
Except Liam Neason. He's teaching his son how to stalk girls. Yuk yuk yuk!