I sat at the end of the bar in an Irish pub next to a sour-faced hostess of incomparable beauty, who nevertheless wished to be ugly, yet remained incapable of completely distorting God’s good work. Her almost white skin, thick Irish brogue, full figure and deep red hair countered her worst efforts. Ignoring her, I was captivated by the sports programming on a local station and on ESPN. As I was a tiny ape seated at the foot of the Empire State Building, it was a marvel to consider the altar of emasculation and its many ghostly sacrifices flashing before my dimming eyes.
The primary subjects of discussion on the screen were baseball and golf, sports dominated by white men and patronized almost exclusively by white men and I viewed these sports casts in a majority white bar in a majority white city. The program, if abiding by capitalist common sense, therefore targets white men. Secondarily, basketball, the sport of black men, was discussed, without a single black men permitted to moderate the discussion.
-A vacation commercial shows the women of the two couples standing center, separating the dronish men and then switches to the submissive man waiting for his lord-lady mate to run onto the beach and lead him to the surf.
-A panel of journalists, including three black men and a gorgeous white woman, have a discussion concerning Washington politics. The majority of political players are white men but such an expert is unseen. This is the only discussion with a masculine moderator. The following sports discussions were all moderated by women.
-An ad for soda pop featuring a black baseball player runs.
-A pair of sports casters discuss baseball, an imperious, beautiful, Caucasian brunette who sits to the right, her body language judgmental of the man to her left, a black fellow in bowtie who pleads with centered, asking hands as she peers down over her shoulder from a jacked up seat that sets her higher.
-A Domino Pizza ad runs, in which the foolish white delivery boy slips on the ice and is advised as to not slipping by his female, mixed-race supervisor.
-Another pair of sports casters appear, a light-skinned woman of color and a darker black man, her sitting at the right in judgement as he pleads his unheard case. You see, I can hear no words in the noisy bar. I am simply reading body language and position.
-A Taco Bell commercial in which two men watch a game, the white man acting a fool as the black man sits behind him shaking his head at the loud antics of his inferior.
-A panel of three discuss basketball, a beautiful, imperious, judgmental white woman sitting to the right as two of her black servant men plead their cases to her from the left.
-The commercial with the black baseball player runs again.
-Now, a four-person panel of experts discuss basketball. Center left is a black nerd. Far left is a black man of masculine aspect. Near right is a beautiful blonde woman, seated higher than the men to her left. To her back towers a giant of a dark-skinned black man, appearing almost like the back of her throne carved into a gargoyle. The image of this silent discourse is one of a plantation mistress on her porch, backed up by her biggest bull negro, looking on judgmentally upon two pleading field hands.
-A bedding commercial depicts a white woman with a black man. As they turn in for the night, she spoons him!
-A beautiful white woman seated to the right looks down upon her negro sports servant as he pleads his cases, her occasionally speaking with one knowledge-dispensing hand, the other rooted upon her desk top—all body language indicating that this is HER desk top.
-Another Taco Bell commercial airs. A frail, cringing, pale white man sits on a bean bag chair extending a curious hand upward and outward toward the hand of a lounging Latino or mixed-race man who, godlike upon his couch, extends a morsel of food to the mortal who would seek to emulate his divinity, making a caricature of the Sistine Chapel and the emasculated ghost race that literally built and designed every artifice used in all of these TV spots, commercials, product lines and sports parading before my tired eyes.
Sistine Chapel Image
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Fantastic analysis!
It resonates because that's exactly the way I watch TV. I have no TV in the house, haven't for 30 years since the kids were old enough to see it. (I didn't want their little minds turned to mush with that stuff).
So the only time I see it is without sound in a bar or airport, or in a motel room, with the sound turned off as I watch the made-up demographics of the talking heads and the commercials, and notice their roles and body language.
On "comedy" shows, the white man is always the Bumbling Idiot. The women are generally cool and powerful. And the black men are all descendants of the 40-year-old black roles on "Mission Impossible" (with Barney as the technical genius) and "Hogan's Heroes" (with Kinchloe as the Radio Operator, the smart guy).
On the "Reality Shows", where we watch the naked guy and girl with private bits focused out crawling with their last shred of strength toward the creek, you wonder why the camera crew doesn't hand them a bottle of Perrier off the catering truck. Or you watch while supposedly toothless hillbilly moonshiners supposedly commit Federal felonies in front of the cameras ...
But you're right - the seating, the body language, the imperious blonde Nordic goddess with her buck negro protecting her ... great comment on Life In These United States.
Dear fellow white man, indulge me while I pretend to be *us* for the purposes of demeaning *you*.
Once you see the pattern, it's almost amusingly predictable.
A+.
Good exercise for everyone in the LaFondiverse: Watching TV with the sound off.
Forwarded.
Hollywood's "white men" take a bow! You're fooling everybody and winning hands down.