This commentary is by Alan Beebe, a resident of Colchester.
Recently, a cartoon featured in VTDigger prompted me to think about how a particular set of gender stereotypes is propagated by the entertainment industry and other media.
The 2004 movie comedy “Sideways,” about a couple of single men who tour California wineries, was popular with audiences and earned several Academy Award nominations. One element of the story centers on “Jack,” who has a fling with a woman he had just met. Upon learning that he is about to wed someone else, she bludgeons him with her motorcycle helmet. Suffering a broken nose, he sports a pair of black eyes and a nose bandage for the remainder of the movie.
A few years later, “Saturday Night Live” aired a skit that lampooned Tiger Woods following revelations about his extramarital trysts. In the skit, Woods attempts to deliver a statement to the media, only to be interrupted to obtain hospital care. There, he is treated for injuries inflicted by his wife, who is enraged to learn of his “multiple infidelities.” The skit concludes with a bandaged Woods, his arm in a sling, with car tire marks on his shirt and a golf club wrapped over his head, pleading for help out of fear of his “deceptively strong” wife.
Those scenes — from comedies, no less — have a common theme. The male had it coming, and because the female is physically smaller and presumably not as strong, her violent reaction is justified. The injured male is the object of laughter, and if he is fearful and pleads for help, well, that’s funnier still.
The VTDigger cartoon “Ruth Bader Ginsburg statue may be animated and detect Mitch McConnell” by Jeff Danziger depicts a statue of RBG coming to life upon seeing McConnell. The animated RBG statue strikes McConnell with a handbag, applying enough force (“thwak!”) to knock his glasses to the floor.
Unlike the character from “Sideways” and SNL’s Tiger Woods satire, the man in the cartoon is not a promiscuous cad, nor is the woman an emotionally devastated spouse or jilted lover. He appears only to be dazed, not injured, by the swat to his head. But the underlying message is the same: It’s acceptable for an aggrieved female to strike a male whom she believes deserves it.
I wonder how those who read VTDigger would react to a cartoon in which the gender roles are reversed — where a righteous male strikes a female with whom he disagrees. I suspect there would be howls of protest, and rightly so. Why is it acceptable in this context for a female to strike a male?
This is not about trying to downplay the scourge of domestic violence, where men are much more likely to be the aggressors and women are more likely to suffer repeated and severe abuse. Nor does it have anything to do with my opinions of Mitch McConnell and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. It’s about the gender stereotypes reflected in the cartoon.
Danziger’s cartoon is a reminder that some tired gender stereotypes persist. Like all stereotypes, they are simplistic at best and harmful at worst.
