(a sunday afternoon rant)
Although arguably all tv is comparably rancid, Italian television stands for particularly sexist depictions of women. Back in the beginning of the 90s, when Berlusconi's mediaset arrived in Spain with their Tele 5 channel, the almost naked mamachichos would strut up and down, sing for 20 seconds and disappear. These women were the embodiment of sexy, meaningless adornments, who were there for men to grab (Mama, chicho me toca, me toca cada vez más) and 15 years old boys to jerk off (there was no internet back then).
Luckily I rarely watch tv, which probably explains the surprise and estrangement I feel when I watch. Last Sunday, for instance: an afternoon entertainment show on Italian TV. A show for an after lunch family audience with the fake cheerfulness of an orchestra playing Karma Chameleon, an audience clapping away and a dancing crowd composed mainly of women.
The masculine gaze of the cameras go up and down these long legged, short skirted, moderately happy women with long hair and deep cleavages who flirt straight at you. They look over made up and sterile, like dolls. As mindless as sexism can get.
Why get upset about pornography? Seems to me pornography offers more possibilities, sizes, sexes and perversities than these cloned Barbies. Open legs, bare sexes, in twos, in threes, pregnant, pissing, anal or oral. You stare, you cum, you relax.
These high heeled babes allow no relax. The constant bombardment with standardized erotic depictions of women does more harm to women than sex ever could. Their Sunday afternoon normality is obscene. As if good fun was a short dress and a peek into your tits.
------------
P.s. Charlotte Roche whose "Feuchtgebiete" (Wetland) is a bestseller in Germany stands for the same opinion:
