I find it disturbing that every other show I see on TV lately has the title "Pretty Little Liars," "Gossip Girl," "Bad Girls Club," or "Lying Game." When you go to the movies, or wait for previews, or watch movies on TV, so many of the titles sound so similar to each other, like there's a whole new genre out there devoted to a lifestyle: "Friends With Benefits." "No Strings Attached." "Something Borrowed." "Maneater." "Unfaithful."
I am certainly NOT a prude and I'm definitely not judging anyone who watches these movies because I am one of the people who participates in buying tickets to see some of these films with my girlfriends or the women in my family as soon as they hit the silver screen. I can't say I am any different than the next woman, so don't get me wrong--I watch them too. The difference is, I am able to sit through the movie and be a skeptic and analyze it; I'm able to take it at face value at this point in my life. But younger women aren't.
All of this would be fine, except that some of the messages these shows are sending to girls and young women are subliminally telling women that it's okay to be a liar, if you're simultaneously pretty; gossip is inevitable--especially if you're young, rich, and have never really had to work a day in your life (never mind that we are living in one of the worst economies in the history of the country, so this is, in fact, completely unrealistic for most women) and it's also promoting the idea that bad behavior is acceptable if it's on national television (as in the ridiculous antics on the show "Bad Girls Club," where the girls go buck wild, grabbing each other by the hair, shoving each other around, hitting, yelling, and plotting the demise of every other girl on the show.) This doesn't teach ANY woman how to interact with other women, much less how to build a positive friendship with another woman.
We wonder why the divorce rate looms around 50% and why fewer and fewer couples are actually taking the whole "til death do us part" seriously, but then we make movies that have titles like "No Strings Attached" or "Friends With Benefits," and expect that we can somehow turn booty calls and one night stands into lasting, permanent relationships. I'm here to tell you that while this may happen once in a blue moon, those are the exceptions...and the rule is, nobody buys the cow when the milk is free, and any girl who isn't buying the pig because she just wants to get a little sausage is only fooling herself, because one day, she's going to wake up and realize that she was only fooling herself.
Men respect standards. Women appreciate standards, too. We spend hours inspecting the quality of the handbags and shoes we are about to purchase at Nordstrom or Neiman's or Bloomingdales, yet we settle or make excuses for the men we allow to share our beds at night. The media is constantly blasting these messages at men AND mostly at women who are already confused as it is about how to behave in order to get what they ultimately want out of life--and mostly, in love. We need to start promoting movies, TV shows, songs, and actors and actresses who show young people what it is to live a healthy and positive lifestyle, so that we model what it is to make good choices, when it's easier to make the wrong choices. If all a young girl has to look forward to when she comes home from school is MTV's "Jersey Shore" or "Teen Mom," she has very slim pickings when it comes to healthy, positive female role models.
And if the biotches on Bad Girls Club are her role models, your daughter, or your friend, or your sister, just needs an intervention. Immediately, if not sooner.
There's nothing wrong with having fun, being free to make choices in your life as a woman, and being sexy. There IS something wrong when an entire generation of women starts to compromise what makes them so valuable as a woman: their femininity, and their womanhood--that which makes them compassionate towards others, empathetic, a partner in their relationship and marriage and not just a piece of ass, and a woman who knows the value of friendship and who listens, cares, and doesn't pick fights with other girls over men.
It's time to take back our TV shows, movies, and magazines and let the media know that we want to see women making good choices, so that we have women to look up to. If we know better, we do better...that's true for men, and it's definitely true for women.
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