This Ain’t Aruba, Bitch

I generally resist the urge to talk about “The Wire” online, mainly because I’m liable to turn into a squealing fanboy in an instant, even with confronted with facets of the show that obviously beg criticism (such as its treatment of women).  And what kind of internet demagogue would I be without my cheap veneer of above-it-all pseudo-intellectualism?  Plus, those offensively cheesy Slate dialogues are enough to turn anyone off writing about this show.  But we’re in the run-up to the final episode, so here goes nothing (Note: we’re going to talk about Season 5, here, so be warned). 

 

Let’s Overthink: Nerdiness, Part 2

So if we’re seeing sitcoms change their minds about what “the masculine” means, what does that mean? That depends who you ask. If you ask The Big Bang Theory, it means that pretty girls are to be chided for their “shallowness” if they don’t immediately take off their clothes for the socially awkward. If you ask Chuck, it means that the nerdy guys ought to butch up, while somehow still keeping their nerdy inner sweetness. The former is the insane, but durable fantasy that all men are entitled to a wife who looks like a supermodel, regardless of appearance, personality, or social status. Nice guys routinely whine about how hotties won’t do them, but women aren’t allowed to care about those things without being “shallow.”

Let’s Overthink: Nerdiness

Wherein our hero makes sweeping statements on the nature of post-feminist crisis in masculinity based on the existence of a couple of sitcoms.

The funny fat guy married to the hot chick is the classic sitcom trope, from The Honeymooners to According to Jim.
It’s a premise that insults the viewer in many ways: 1) A woman ought to care enough about physical presentation to pull off Maxim-style gender performance, but not enough to expect the same in her mate, 2) A sort of “fat guy” minstrelsy with a patronizing jokes-for-sex reward, 3) Plain old credulity.

Let’s Overthink: Law & Order: SVU

Let’s face it, friends, Eliot Stabler couldn’t be more of a stand-in for patriarchal order if he were a golden penis holding a gun. Just look at him: the receding hairline, the one-note justice-as-vengeance worldview, the willingness to bend some rules when it suits him while brutally and violently enforcing them on others, and the penetrating gaze that radiates both an asexual, paternal concern for the victims, and a barely-restrained desire to punch the next person who mouths off to him, be they bureaucrat or perv. Then there’s his relationship with Olivia Benson, which combines unrelenting sexual tension with older-brother overprotectiveness.