New Column: Poisoning Our Culture Against Men

Well, not exactly “new,” but never before seen by the public.

In 2001 Katherine K. Young and Paul Nathanson wrote Spreading Misandry: The Teaching of Contempt for Men in Popular Culture. While reading about Katherine’s and Paul’s participation in the upcoming Third National Men’s Equality Congress July 13-14 in Washington D.C., I was reminded of a review I wrote of the book.

I wrote the review five years ago, a major paper purchased the piece but never ran it, and it has been sitting on my computer ever since. With the Men’s Equality Congress coming up, it seems like a good time to release the piece as Sacks Media Group Content. The piece is obviously rather dated, but the essence of the book still comes through, and many of the ills they pointed to 5+ years ago are, unfortunately, still with us.

Poisoning Our Culture Against Men

By Glenn Sacks

Finally someone has studied and written a book about a phenomenon which nobody speaks of but which is evident to any thinking American–our popular culture continually belittles and demonizes men. Spreading Misandry: The Teaching of Contempt for Men in Popular Culture by Katherine K. Young and Paul Nathanson is a painstaking expose of how men are portrayed negatively in movies and television. 

Young and Nathanson break down the depiction of men in modern TV and movies into several categories, including “Laughing at Men,” “Bypassing Men,” “Blaming Men,” “Dehumanizing Men,” and “Demonizing Men.” Shows like Home Improvement and Men Behaving Badly, for example,  laugh at the main male characters and almost always portray them as being wrong  and the women in their lives as almost always being right. 

These shows and others, such as The Simpsons and The Golden Girls, display several of the common misandrist themes Young and Nathanson’s studies have found: Men are coarse and inferior but they can improve in spite of themselves–by accepting the advice and teaching of women, who are intrinsically wise and civilized; Men can be worthwhile and lovable, but only despite their masculinity and never because of it; Women can mock men and men can mock men but it is generally unacceptable for anyone, male or female, to mock women; When women make misandrist remarks, the audience is to laugh along with them, but when men make misogynistic remarks, the audience is to laugh at them; Women can scrutinize and criticize a man’s behavior, but men cannot scrutinize and criticize a woman’s behavior.    

Some shows and movies, such as Murphy Brown,  Waiting to Exhale, and How to Make an American Quilt, portray most men as useless, and encourage women to simply bypass them. Others, such as The Handmaid’s Tale and The Long Walk Home, blame men for social ills.  The Long Walk, for example, is based upon the modern, utterly fanciful notion that it was only Southern white men, not Southern white women, who were racist against blacks and sought to “keep them in their place.” (more…)

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