A couple weeks ago, after seeing the buzz over the “Mad Men” TV series, I flipped on the tube and watched most of an episode. The visual presentation was pretty well done, with the period cars, clothes and hairstyles. However, it seemed that the emphasis on this may have been a little overdone, and the female actresses seemed positively giddy about the clothes, proudly thrusting their bosoms out at every opportunity in a display that appeared overly eager. I got the impression that they were excited by the opportunity to participate in a period piece, much as schoolgirls might relish the opportunity to overplay the part of an antebellum Southern belle.
The setting is an ad agency – hardly an original idea these days – and other than the smoking, drinking and style, it appeared to be pretty much what one might expect in a modern office: chock full of women with a few “big men” running the show. As a drama centered on Don Draper, an alpha male stud around whom revolves a society of women, the show had something of a soap opera feel to it. Rather than a human being, Draper came off as a big, hunky prop. Only the women acted like real people — they were the primary actors in the show.
Male porn is primarily a visual exercise. It is really kind of a monotonous, predictable thing. Men perform a physical act, and women are generally the passive partners. In soaps and other dramas aimed at women, the main act is social and the sex – although an important component – is secondary. The lead man is a prop, passed from woman to woman like some phallic ark of the covenant that gives its bearer dominance.
Men have often been accused of objectifying women, but popular culture objectifies men to at least the same degree, just in a different way. The cheap thrill that women get out of dramas that portray men as shallow facsimiles of human beings whose only relevant appetite is for glamorous, socially dominant women (the self-fantasy evoked in female viewers) is every bit as sordid as the release men achieve from formulaic, ritualized porn flicks.
7 responses so far ↓
1 Lukobe // Sep 1, 2009 at 1:25 pm
I think you should post your Mad Men avatar, Welmer.
http://www.amctv.com/originals/madmen/madmenyourself/
2 Grim // Sep 1, 2009 at 2:47 pm
That’s an awesome way to put it: Madmen = Female porn. Such a better description than anything else I have read.
3 Welmer // Sep 1, 2009 at 8:26 pm
I would, but they don’t have the bottle of whiskey accessory along with the cork between my teeth, bandolier and AK-47 necessary to complete the apocalyptic office rampage scene.
4 whiskey // Sep 2, 2009 at 12:44 am
Yeah, I blogged on this a while back. Mad Men is mostly written by women, seven of the nine writers are women, and several of them got their jobs by being the Producer’s baby sitter (no kidding). The lead writer is Marti Noxon, otherwise known as the woman who ruined Buffy the Vampire Slayer with her “feminist rape scenes” (no I’m not kidding) and Mad Men had a couple of rape scenes where the bad boyfriends rape the women the they love. No I’m not kidding on that either.
5 Women’s Rape Fantasies: The Deepest Taboo | Welmer // Sep 2, 2009 at 2:39 pm
[...] If anything caters to tawdry female fantasies, it is romance novels (as well as soaps and dramas). 54% is no coincidence here. Furthermore, Whiskey remarked in one of the comments on my “Mad Men = Female Porn” post that “Mad Men had a couple of rape scenes where the bad boyfriends rape the women the they love.” [...]
6 Women’s Rape Fantasies: The Deepest Taboo // Nov 2, 2009 at 4:02 am
[...] If anything caters to tawdry female fantasies, it is romance novels (as well as soaps and dramas). 54% is no coincidence here. Furthermore, Whiskey remarked in one of the comments on my “Mad Men = Female Porn” post that “Mad Men had a couple of rape scenes where the bad boyfriends rape the women the they love.” [...]
7 Doug // Nov 8, 2009 at 10:15 am
“Male porn is primarily a visual exercise. It is really kind of a monotonous, predictable thing. Men perform a physical act, and women are generally the passive partners”
Man, you watch some shit porn.
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