Thursday, September 06, 2007

The Sexism of ABC

After three days of very intense orientation, I decided to veg out with some TV. I flipped the channels and found a "Grey's Anatomy" repeat, which reminded me that its season premiere must be coming up. So I went to ABC's website and got distracted by its list of new fall shows.

I was appalled! There are a couple of female ensemble shows and a couple of male ensemble shows. All of them have at least one "star." Yet, the amount of hoopla that the male-dominated shows get totally dwarf the press for the female shows. "Big Shots" has nine commercials and a bunch more interviews and videos; "Carpoolers" has seven. "Women's Murder Club," starring Angie Harmon no less, got one 15-second spot. And "Cashmere Mafia" with Lucy Liu, got no commercials, just some interviews on the red carpet with a body-less interviewer asking some stupid questions.

I can't believe how blatant this unbalance is. Don't tell me that women don't watch TV or don't pay attention to new shows because that is straight up bull doody. Is there another, more logical explanation?

2 comments:

Kelly said...

I didn't even know about Angie Harmon's or Lucy Liu's shows. Well, I guess your sexism thesis is right on target.

Angela said...

I do think that overall female focused shows are at a minimum at ABC. Thanks goodness cable channels are picking up the slack.

That said, in ABC's defense, both Angie Harmon's show and the Cashmere Mafia show start later in the year than the other fall shows so I would imagine they would have fewer things prepared to promote it. Both begin in October and November whereas the other shows begin in a few weeks. Just a theory.