Between “Sex and the City” re-runs the other night, I managed to catch a couple of new reality TV shows, “Date My Ex: Jo and Slade” and “Must Love Kids.” I really feel like I’m slumming it when I watch these shows, but now that I work full time as a cog in the well- greased capitalist machine—actually, cogs have more creative freedom than I do—all I want to do is watch so-bad-it’s-good television and forget I exist.
In spite of the proletarian doldrums, Jo and Slade set this cog rolling. In depicting hetero sex and dating, TV and movies have lately swayed towards the “guy indefatigably pursues girl” schema—like all those WASPy skirt-chasing executive frat boys in “Mad Men” (oh, how I love them!). Obviously, there’s nothing new about the concept of men pursuing women—it just caries a different set of meanings now. For a long time it was all about equality (Nora Ephron movies) or women pursuing men (all Axe commercials, action movies, “The Bachelor”) or nebbishes pursuing women (Woody Allen’s films/ life). But fresher crops of pop culture works have been dealing with matters of the heart (and ‘nads) rather differently.
In “Date My Ex,” Jo, a former “Real Housewife of Orange County” (not so real, she was only a fiancé) who left Slade to pursue a career singing nauseous pop music and getting spray tans, goes on dates with four men desperately trying to bed her, or in Jo’s words, sweep her off her feet. Slade plays host to all his ex- fiancé’s suitors, which allows him to tighten the leash of any guy he doesn’t like, but also causes him distress when he watches Jo’s live, uncut and unrated dates (poor Slade!). All the “Date My Ex” advertisements emphasize the awkwardness of being set up on dates by an ex. Yes, its weird, but mostly it just seems cheap. I don’t even know what Slade is doing there; he just watches in silent agony as his ex- lover compliments another man’s fine behind. It’s like watching a freak show—gruesome, uncomfortable, and highly entertaining.
Anyway, the really interesting thing about this show is that each episode, four men—not including Slade, who’s apparently still in love with Jo—compete for one woman. If the format is successful (there was a “Bachlorette,” but didn’t it tank?) it may bespeak a man-as-hunter dating fantasy bubbling up from the depths of our culture. Maybe I’m just projecting onto society my deep- seated desire to get a date without exerting myself, but if you add it all up—“Date My Ex;” “Must Love Kids,” featuring a handful of hungry men trying to snag a single mom; “Mad Men,” with all its skirt chasing and the sexual harassment that could almost be considered a capital offense; “Sex and the City: The Movie,” in which Big pursues Carrie, compared with the show, in which he strings her along—it makes sense.
And that’s just pop culture. There’s also the economic downturn keeping men from bringing home the turkey bacon, threatening their sense of self-worth, and maybe even catalyzing a desire to be Men in other ways, if not financially. And we can see it in the way Hillary Clinton was treated during her run: she was criticized for her cleavage, portrayed as a castrating bitch, and the only time any one could stand her was when she cried. Maybe it represents a lurking misogyny. Maybe in rejecting Clinton’s shoulder pad feminism we just tacked on another “post-” to the ideology (where are we now, post-post-post- feminism?). Maybe men are just feeling a little threatened and want to reassert their power by chasing women. Or maybe a lot of women (myself included) quit chasing men because it just isn't worth the effort (usually not even close).
It’s impossible to say if all this will tend towards the offensive skirt chasing, the romantic gestures, the Jo De La Rosa sweep- me- off- my- feet- (wink, wink), or something completely different. Let's hope the sleeze will be confined to reality TV.
-shoshi
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