it isn't appropriate for Dean's character to say these things, but it is inappropriate for the show to commend Dean (or at the very worst, not condemn him) for them.
One defense I've heard for this kind of thing - in fact, the main defense - and one you haven't addressed is what I call the 'neutral camera' idea, that is, that the reality of the world is that sexism is not always condemned, that men like Dean do get to be disrespectful to women and aren't punished for it, and that for the show to depict this in a frank manner is commendable. To show Dean being punished would be to show the world as (presuming a feminist perspective) it should be, not as it is. To draw a somewhat strained parallel, Picasso's Massacre in Korea doesn't show the Americans being punished for what they're doing, but it couldn't be said to be pro-American.
After all, many of the people who say that feminism was useful once but is obsolete now say so because they feel that essentially everything's fine, or that nothing's so bad that it's not within the power of individual women to deal with. To show blatant sexism in action is a powerful challenge to this hypothesis.
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Date: 2008-05-18 09:19 pm (UTC)One defense I've heard for this kind of thing - in fact, the main defense - and one you haven't addressed is what I call the 'neutral camera' idea, that is, that the reality of the world is that sexism is not always condemned, that men like Dean do get to be disrespectful to women and aren't punished for it, and that for the show to depict this in a frank manner is commendable. To show Dean being punished would be to show the world as (presuming a feminist perspective) it should be, not as it is. To draw a somewhat strained parallel, Picasso's Massacre in Korea doesn't show the Americans being punished for what they're doing, but it couldn't be said to be pro-American.
After all, many of the people who say that feminism was useful once but is obsolete now say so because they feel that essentially everything's fine, or that nothing's so bad that it's not within the power of individual women to deal with. To show blatant sexism in action is a powerful challenge to this hypothesis.