How Much Is Too Much?

Television series have started going to drastic lengths in order to get new viewers, but how much is too much and what messages are our youth getting from these shows?!

There is a new show on the CW Network called L.A. Complex which I'm assuming is a modern spin on the failed Melrose Place that the CW tried redoing a few years ago.  This series is about a group of young stardom seeking 20 somethings who all live in a fairly shabby but somehow still nice apartment complex in Los Angeles, California.  The show delivers the struggle that most actors, comedians, musicians go through in order to achieve fame and at what cost they are willing to pay.

The new girl in the building Abby Vargas is the main star of the show, and it  is through that the show crosses some dangerous lines.   Abby moves into the building and her first night there has unprotected sex with a man she had just met while on extacy, and over buying the morning after pill falls in love with him.  Huge woah factor here, this show is supposed to be aimed towards teenagers and it just glorifies unprotected one night stand with a false happy ending of falling in love?  While this MIGHT happen in very few cases this is not the case always, she could have caught a STD, or worst gotten pregnant.  But this show is saying if you choose the right guy to have unprotected sex with when drugged then your set.  This is not the only questionable decision Abby makes.   When talking about money problems another tenant of the building says that Abby should become a stripper like her in order to get money for her rent. Abby's face lights up as she watches her neighbor dance seductively half naked on the stage as men throw money at her, and she takes the job.  In what world do we live in where television is suggesting for teenage girls who are struggling to make ends meet to sell their bodies and dance in front of men half naked while getting thrown money at them. The fact that Abby is excited by the idea is even more sickening and convincing to young girls that this is acceptable.

Ratings wise I understand where the show was trying to go sex sells but the messages teen girls (who besides me are probably the only ones watching) are getting from this show are very dangerous to our American youth. Shouldn't there be some limit or some censorship company scanning the airways for wrong messages sent to extremely impressionable teen girls?

Sexism On Television

Sexism has been appearing more and more in many new popular television series.  The idea of men as the dominant protector, caretaker, and savoir has been constantly flaunted on almost every channel.  New shows such as Walking Dead, and Mad Men I believe are guilty of this. In these two television shows women are left behind tending to children, doing the laundry, making dinner, and having no opinion besides that of their husbands. The popularity of these shows and their blatant sexism worries me.  

Walking Dead is a fairly new television show, that came out back in 2010 and is now on its second season.  The show is about police officer Rick Grimes leading a group of survivors in a zombie apocalypse world. This show is extremely popular it has been nominated for a Golden Globe, won 6 awards, and has had 25 other nominations.  The women in this series have little to no power, and that little power that they do possess is by the men giving them permission to carry guns. Besides being able to carry guns for their own protection they are  shown tending to their, doing laundry, watching children, and making dinner.  The series gives off the impression that women can not survive without the protection of the male survivors in the group.  The women are sometimes asked their opinions on certain topics but at the end of the day it's the men who make the final decisions. Is this show trying to say that in a apocalyptic world that women lose all of their rights? While I am entertained by zombies I can not agree with the message the show is sending to its viewers.  I'd like to think that the feminist movement of the 70's has gotten stronger and in a apocalyptic world that women would rise to the same power level as men and be just as sufficient as men when it comes to surviving the zombie attack. .

Mad Men has been on television a little longer having come on the air back in 2007, and now being in its fifth season.   This show is set back in the 50's/60's, it  is about a group of caucasian males who work in advertisement and are at the top of their game. This shows just oozes with sexism.  Women are shown as sex objects not as human beings, and men have all the glory and power and answer to no one.  Wives are stuck watching the children and taking care of the house while the men are at work flirting/ having affairs with their secretaries and drinking with their friends.  The wives lives are very sad in this show. Women seem to have no opinion or voice whatsoever while men walk all over them and their is nothing they can do about it.  While during the era that this show is set in women's rights were very limited, I still believe this show is extremely offensive to women.  Wives are shown having nightmares about their husbands divorcing them for other women and work hard to keep them ignoring their affairs. 

These two shows are set during different time periods one in the 50's and the other set in modern times however both are sexist, with men having all the power and women having little to none. Also both of these television series are shown on the AMC channel, could it be that this channel is trying to say that times haven't changed, that the feminist movement changed nothing, and power will always remain in the hands of men? I greatly disagree with the message these two shows are giving out to their constantly growing audiences and believe that something needs to change.