Do you think sex is important in a relationship?

Gingham_R

zagfles wrote: »

I'm sorry but "99% of the time you'll only see attractive women." is an exaggeration.

Now please excuse me while I get off to watch Last of the Summer Wine, Benidorm and Meet the Romans while trying to avoid drooling too much

All Hollywood productions?

DylanO

Gingham_R wrote: »

You don't think she's attractive and that's perfectly ordinary, but by any standard she's extremely attractive.

The men in Friends are good looking but Matthew Perry's weight goes up and down and Mat Le Blanc's weight steadily increases throughout (as to a lesser extent does David Schwimmer's). Do you think the girls would have got away with that? The girls' characters are all 'sexy' too and 2 out of the 3 boys are decidedly rubbish in that area.

Overweight men? Giles wasn't skinny, unlike all the female cast in Buffy and Xander gained weight throughout. The president in the West Wing (the amazing Martin Sheen) wasn't skinny either, unlike all the female cast. Frasier - not an overly slender man either. Think of the hugely successful, charismatic and sexy Edward James Olmos - the scars on his face would just be unacceptable in a female actor in the vast majority of cases.

It's the BBC too as we learnt last year in case anyone was in doubt and it happens in every profession too - I'm not the only person here, I'm sure, who worked with men who admitted that they had a bet on to see who could hire the most 'fit girls' or some other aberration.

I don't remember the female cast of Buffy ever being used as sex objects - sexy, sometimes, but that was always about the character. Faith for example was wildly uninhibited but that was her - nothing else.

It actually stands out as the most ridiculous thing you've implied, to give the impression that BTVS was misogynistic - it was anything but.

zagfles

Gingham_R wrote: »

All Hollywood productions?

The full quote was "It amuses and annoys me in equal measures that you can turn on the TV at pretty much any time of day or night and 99% of the time you'll only see attractive women. Women in probably the top 10% of attractiveness. "

Nothing about Hollywood there!:D

zagfles

Gingham_R wrote: »

'Daphne' (Jane Leeves)

Probably been photoshopped!;)

Gingham_R

DylanO wrote: »

I don't remember the female cast of Buffy ever being used as sex objects - sexy, sometimes, but that was always about the character. Faith for example was wildly uninhibited but that was her - nothing else.

It actually stands out as the most ridiculous thing you've implied, to give the impression that BTVS was misogynistic - it was anything but.

You've either deliberately misrepresented me or failed to understand my point. There's nothing misogynistic about anything Joss Whedon has done. He's ALL about the girl power. And the girl who was almost cast as Willow before the delicious and wonderful Alyson Hannigan was an overweight girl.

That's not the point. The point is that women in hollywood are almost always thin and attractive, and Buffy does not deviate from that stereotype.

The actor who played Kayleigh in Firefly was asked to gain weight for the part as Whedon is well aware of the issues AND knew that she would be adored as a slightly curvier woman and he was right - but even then she was probably around a size 10-12 - perfectly ordinarily slim woman by non-film industry standards.

He did also bring in one of the few women to buck the trend in Hollywood for one of the shows - though yet again this is another outrageously, gloriously sexy woman - Christina Hendricks.

I'm not saying women are being used as sex objects, especially not in programmes by gender aware people like Joss Whedon. I'm saying that the women in Hollywood are almost exclusively thin, sexually attractive and unblemished, unlike the men.

Gingham_R

zagfles wrote: »

Probably been photoshopped!;)

LOL love it!

They can't photoshop Frasier. That's what she looks like all the time - granted in a little more clothing! She's a tall, very slender beauty and she was perfect for the part.

Gingham_R

zagfles wrote: »

The full quote was "It amuses and annoys me in equal measures that you can turn on the TV at pretty much any time of day or night and 99% of the time you'll only see attractive women. Women in probably the top 10% of attractiveness. "

Nothing about Hollywood there!:D

Ah. That wasn't me.

zagfles

Gingham_R wrote: »

You don't think she's attractive and that's perfectly ordinary, but by any standard she's extremely attractive.

But she was never portrayed as sexy. That was never the point of her role, as I remember she didn't dress in the way she apparently did on Benny Hill!

The men in Friends are good looking but Matthew Perry's weight goes up and down and Mat Le Blanc's weight steadily increases throughout (as to a lesser extent does David Schwimmer's).

But hardly to Dawn French/Jo Brand proportions!

Do you think the girls would have got away with that? The girls' characters are all 'sexy' too and 2 out of the 3 boys are decidedly rubbish in that area.

What makes a man's charater sexy? I don't think Courteney's Cox's character is particularly sexy - I've never really fancied the obssessive compulsive types!

Overweight men? Giles wasn't skinny, unlike all the female cast in Buffy and Xander gained weight throughout. The president in the West Wing (the amazing Martin Sheen) wasn't skinny either, unlike all the female cast. Frasier - not an overly slender man either. Think of the hugely successful, charismatic and sexy Edward James Olmos - the scars on his face would just be unacceptable in a female actor in the vast majority of cases.

Can't say I've watched any of those so can't comment.

It's the BBC too as we learnt last year in case anyone was in doubt and it happens in every profession too - I'm not the only person here, I'm sure, who worked with men who admitted that they had a bet on to see who could hire the most 'fit girls' or some other aberration.

Well I can say for almost certain it doesn't happen at our place. Nearly all the management are women :rotfl:

Gingham_R

zagfles wrote: »

But she was never portrayed as sexy. That was never the point of her role, as I remember she didn't dress in the way she apparently did on Benny Hill!

But hardly to Dawn French/Jo Brand proportions!

What makes a man's charater sexy? I don't think Courteney's Cox's character is particularly sexy - I've never really fancied the obssessive compulsive types!:

I'm not suggesting that the women are there only to be 'sexy'. With a few exceptions, Daphne was never provocatively sexual (the glockenspiel episode being one of the best episodes ever.) I'm saying that women in Hollywood are sexy. Not that they are only there to be sexy.

The girls in Friends always had lots of interest from men and 2 of the boys were decidedly hopeless in that area is what I was saying. The girls' characters may or may not be what you find attractive. The girls' appearances are all of the traditional 'attractive' template. That's my point.

None of what has been said contradicts anythign I'm saying. If anything it highlights my point. People see this as completely ordinary, deny it, pick small issues that look like they disprove my point (like not being attracted to a particular actress) and seem to be generally oblivious to the overt sexualisation of women on the screen and paper media.

System

I don't want to get into this argument particularly, but I did want to say with regards to BTVS that the actress who played Tara had quite an average figure (average meaning exactly that - closer to the norm in real life - as opposed to average meaning 'nothing special').

Also, I think the comment that women are more often used in a sexy way in advertising is a fair one, but when I read someone saying no men were, I immediately thought of those adverts (can't remember what they were for) that were on TV recently. They had a man inviting the camera into his kitchen and talking in a sultry voice (I found them very annoying ). They were definitely using his sexuality to advertise.

Having said that, while I agree that women are often sexualised in advertising, that doesn't mean men are treated well. It just means that adverts using men tend to focus on different areas. If I took all my information from watching TV, I'd assume that all men were stupid, sex-obsessed, clumsy, irresponsible etc. etc. This article is pretty good for examples of how men are put down in adverts.