Democratic Diva

16 Sep 2007 01:37 pm
Posted by: Donna

Last night I caught the last few minutes of a replay of Real Time on HBO.   It was his New Rules segment, that he ends every show with.  Like several women I know, I have a tortured relationship with Maher.  I can sit through 3/4 of a typical show or comedy special of his and delight in the way he skewers the Bush administration and social conservatives.   But I have learned to brace myself, with finger poised over the channel changer, for the inevitable onslaught of misogyny that is forthcoming at some point.  This time it happened during the aforementioned New Rules bit.  I hate to link to it and give him more publicity but if you want you can see it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ai_Pd95ScyY&NR=1

Wasn’t that nice?  For those of you who would rather spare yourself, I’ll give you the rundown.  After salivating over a teenaged Disney star, 51 year old Maher shows a picture of Britney Spears at the VMAs and suggests that she is basically a disgusting pig now that she’s in her mid-20s and *gasp!* something approaching normal size.  The caption is “Semper Thigh”.  Get it?  Hyuk hyuk.  His last New Rule informs us that breast feeding is akin to masturbation.   Maher complained about women selfishly using their breasts to feed infants instead of for their God-given role of visually gratifying him - in public no less.   How dare they!     Note the large picture of a baby nursing, with the entire breast showing, up on the screen while he’s railing against public breast-feeding.  I suppose the point is to demonstrate to the viewer just how sickening and revolting it is, in case they didn’t know. 

I’m done with Bill Maher.   He cleverly walks the line by sprinkling just enough misogynistic vitriol in his monologues - enough to gain cred with the dudes but not enough to alienate too many female viewers.  If you remember him from his Politically Incorrect* days, the woman-bashing was much more prevalent.  It lessened in his Real Time incarnation where he focuses more on politics and I was fooled for a while.  I kept hoping he’d abandon the woman bashing schtick entirely once he gained a wider audience.  But that hasn’t happened.  He simply can’t go one show without spewing some meanspirited, hateful invective against women, or (increasingly) the men who happen to love them.   

At least with an a-hole like Howard Stern, you know what to expect and if you’re a woman with a modicum of self-respect, you will avoid him.  But Maher has a lot of female viewers; some of them are women who should know better.   I refuse to be among them anymore.   Guys who consider themselves progressive should realize that misogyny is NOT a progressive value.  And besides, Maher isn’t even progressive - he’s more of a libertarian. 

I was watching the show with my b/f’s 18 year old son and a friend of his.   They were laughing uproariously at Maher’s comments.  These are good kids, but they have clearly been infected by the woman hating that is so rampant in pop culture.   Hell, what Maher puts out is probably mild in comparison to the movies, TV shows, computer games, and music lyrics they are exposed to regularly.   But Bill Maher is putting out a much-needed antidote to the usual mainstream media dreck in his political commentary.  I’m sure they sense that.  So Maher then turns around and spouts, and gives undeserved credibility to, shopworn sexist cliches about how women are shallow gold diggers out to trap unsuspecting men (puh-leeze!).  Plus, we’re stupid, vain twits who don’t read.  We are too emotional to think rationally so there’s no need to listen to us.    And of course, we are repulsive if we are over the age of 22 and not conventionally “hot” looking.   While my young friends are getting this message everywhere, this time it’s coming from someone who is viewed as a kind of a respected authority, due to his status as a pundit and social critic.  Moreover, famous comedians are often viewed as fonts of commonly held wisdom. 

While it’s plainly obvious to me that Maher has serious issues with women that he needs to work out with a good therapist, it’s not going to be evident to many of his fans, particularly those who are 18 year old guys.  What he’s saying is funny to them, and it’s consistent with the garbage they’ve been fed about women and relationships all their lives.  

So that’s it, no more Bill Maher for me.

Donna

* It is my position that the whole concept of “Political Correctness”, as it is most commonly invoked by those claiming to be “anti-PC”,  is literally the most viciously asinine and insidious meme to enter human consciousness in recent history.  It functions mainly to give bigoted assbags free reign to express their stupidity with impunity.  Using a disclaimer like “I know it’s not ‘PC’ to say this but…” confers magic immunity to said assbags.  They get to pretend that they aren’t really bigots and that they’re just saying what everyone thinks and you’re the one with the problem if you disagree with them.    I have been hip to this tactic since about 1993, so anyone who pulls the “PC” card on me gets ripped a new one.  

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