Is Miranda anti-feminist?

[Ihavewelliesbuttheyrenotgreen]

The tv show 'Miranda', I know not everyone is a fan but I think that there are a lot of anti-feminist themes, if you look hard enough

Lots of the women are obsessed with Marriage esp Miranda's DM
Gary works as a chef (male-dominated job)
Stevie and Miranda work in a shop (female-dominated job)
The only successful women are mocked (esp Tilly)
Miranda refers to successful women as 'career bitches'
Clive is a waiter but is gay (I think)
Miranda has issues with her weight and is mocked for this
Miranda tries to look more femine
Stevie has a relationship with an older man and this is accepted

Joan I did not intend to derail the Friends thread, and to my knowledge it hasn't been derailed. I genuinely went on there to discuss the issues that Darlene raised in her OP but was essentially told to get lost because my opinion was not identical to Darlenes. I found her quite rude and arogant but I continued to discuss the issues she raised, some of which I agreesd with (the weight issues), and some other posters agreed with some of my points (that Monica's obsessive cleaning is not portrayed as being normal for women). I don't think that I did anything wrong on that thread.

I have just been investigating how easy it is top believe that things are anti-feminist, no crime surely.

Thanks for explaining Sybil.

That's not strictly true Ihavewelliesbuttheyrenotgreen. Your first comment on the Friends thread was "I'm sure you find anti-feminist things anywhere if you look hard enough." so that didn't come out of your subsequent discussion with darlene or the children's TV thread. You came onto the feminism section with that opinion well and truly in tact.

Nobody is suggesting banning or boycotting anything at all. Not sure where you get that idea from . It was just a discussion.

I also don't appreciate being someone's "social experiment" without being asked. There are certainly all sorts of patriarchal/anti-feminist conclusions to be drawn from that.

That first comment was made flippantly (I was blissfully unaware that the feminist topic was such a serious place). Reading the 'Friends' thread made me think that this comment might actually be true.

The thread about Children's TV shows and a thread I have read since about a Punch and Judy show suggest that the OPs would like to not expose their children to these things. So in some way banning/boycotting.

Joan I'm not an anti-feminist. There are some aspects of feminism that I agree with.

"Good point Suchprospects, does this mean we should boycott many of these TV shows/fims etc? Or should we accept that it is entertainment and that there may be some feminist points in there too? How much antifeminism is too much?"

Well any anti-feminism is too much. But if you're going to watch telly (and I do) you're going to have to put up with it at the moment. I don't think that means one shouldn't think about it or point it out - especially on a forum dedicated to feminist discussion. I don't particularly go in for banning, but I don't watch shows where the balance between the anti-feminism (or a bunch of other attitudes I find offensive) and whatever is good about it doesn't work for me. And when things are particularly egregious I might write a letter or in some other way try to influence the program makers.

Sorry for not reading the thread (yet). That show makes me laff.

Miranda is not a feminst, though she's more of a feminist than her mother is.

The show is feminist. Since M is one of the writers, and some of the others are active feminists, I think it's reasonable to suppose the show highlights the pointless dilemmas inflicted on women by a sexist society.

At least, I hope that's how Miranda's team sees it!?!

It's not that I think wellies was going to break feminism, I just think it's rude to post in that forum two separate piss-take threads on the basic premise of identifying and discussing anti-feminism in cultural products.

I think your points were less about engaging with the debate and more about saying the debate was inherently silly.

Sorry OP I didnt realise it was a joke . I always think this bit of MN is a bit serious!

Prince I'm not after attention, I wanted to learn more about the Feminsit topics, essentially.

Thank you Suchprospects (such fun!) for engaging in my points without feeling the need to insult me.

It really wasn't a 'pisstake' as such. I don't think that Miranda or Winnie the Poohare really anti-feminist, but I do think that its possibel if you look at them from a particular angle they could be seen as anti-feminist.

if you want to learn then ask direct questions. People are very ready to recommend books, blogs, articles etc for you to read.
And if the OP of a thread has indicated she would like to use the thread to discuss the topic itself rather than answering basic questions about feminism, either go onto one of the basic feminism threads or start one yourself. Do not derail other people's - it's rude.

basic good manners, surely?

Sybil- Surely one can learn from discussion as well as from asking questions? All I did was discuss the issues that Darlene raised and I was effectively told to 'get lost'. It wasn't asking questions that Darlene had a problem with it was the fact that my opinion differed from hers that she objected to. If you read her replies to me you will see that she was quite and potentially she will put other Munsnetters off this section of Mumsnet which is a shame because a lot of it is food for thought.

Surely one can learn from discussion as well as from asking questions
Yes, indeed :)

It's satire. It's meant to hold a mirror up to society and show up it's blemishes and faults.

OP could start a constructive thread rather than get aggravated by other posters and respond like this. Might be more interesting rather than trying to mock other human beings. You say Darlene can'tt ake anyone disagreeing with her, yet here you are strating a mocking thread...

I LOVE Miranda and her "what have you done today to make you feel proud"
friends.

She does great parody - AND she might like to look pretty as well - nothing wrong with that.

It did came across to me as if you were trying to derail Darlene's interesting thread. She asked about the way in which Friends was sexist. She wanted to do a group feminist analysis of the show.

To explain why I think that, assuming you genuinely cannot understand why people became cross- You came on, said in your opinion it wasn't sexist, (i.e. ignoring the topic) and started mocking her when she became frustrated with the derailing of her thread. A collection of people then joined in with you and became really quite unpleasant.

As an analogy, if I started a thread in Food, saying "I think celery is really healthy. Can anyone give me recipes for it please?" and you came on, posting "Celery is not healthy. It has no iron in it and hardly any vitamin C", and then the thread became a discussion of why or why not celery was healthy, and calling me "your majesty" when I shouted "dammit, all I want are some recipes!" I think I would be entitled to believe that the thread had been derailed, because I would not have wound up with any recipes for celery, just as Darlene didn't wind up with the examples of sexism in Friends for which she had asked.

DYSWIM?

I didn't intend to derail the Friends thread. I actually agreed with a couple of Darlenes points (in particular the female's characters weight). I also agreed with some others points about Ross and Rachel's parenting for example. But I did feel the need to contest some of Darlenes points because they simply weren't accurate. Eg she said that Chandler didn't want to help prepare thanksgiving dinner because he is a man. I pointed out that Chandler is repulsed by the smell and sight of thanksgiving food and refuses to eat it because his parents announced their divorce to him while he was eating thanksgiving dinner and he then 'saw it in reverse'. I thought that this was an important point to consider when thinking about Chandler's attitude to thanksgiving. I feel that in this way I just enhancing the discussion.

To relate this to your celery analogy. If you had a strong believe that celery had lots of iron in and this was inaccurate (I don't know whether it is), but you really wanted celery because you are anaemic. Would it not be my duty to say 'I think you are wrong, celery is good for other things but for iron you might be better of with ginger. Heres a reciepe for celery and ginger'?

I apologised to Darlene and she also admitted that she believed that I did not come over to the feminist thread with bad intentions. The thread continued on quite happily despite my susposed 'derailing'. So alls well the ends well. Mountains and molehills I think

It's good to know it ended happily. It was looking pretty awful for a while. Thanks wellies.