April 29, 2004
TV Sweeps Idea of the Week: Catfights
It's just like Dynasty all over again! Gothamist has to hand it to Fox and The WB for bringing some of the nutty soap antics we are ashamed to love back to prime time. The WB's One Tree Hill featured a catfight amongst some of the generically attractive starlets. And, last night, on The O.C., Julie and Hailey fell into the Cohen's pool while fighting. Damn. Gothamist hasn't seen this kind of high drama since the days of Jane Andrews Mancini and Sydney Andrews at Melrose Place. Now, while Gothamist agrees that catfights are demeaning to women, added to the number of distressing "women can't compete against each other" stereotypes we see on TV (The Apprentice, America's Top Model), but in the context of these soapy shows, we'll give them a bye. We did, however, find the Miller Lite Catfight ads stupid.
Other places catfights occur: Alleys, offices, sample sales.
|
Advertisement: Gothamist Continues Below!
Post a comment (Comment Policy)
when i first saw that, i was thought, "oooh, that sounds like a great show." sadly, it's just an episode of one tree hill. a show like that would certainly gain some male viewership though.
last night's o.c. was one of the best yet, and, given the number of male/male fights that have ended up in the pool, one could make the argument that the smack-down provided a chance for some equal opportunity. plus, the jimmy v. caleb and hailey v. julie match-ups made for some of the plotline symmetry that schwartz obvs. loves.
sweeps or no, i say well done!
Actually, there is an interesting study about women and competitiveness, entitled Performance in Competitive Environments: Gender Differences that charts men and women's performance. interesting paragraphs:
What could account for these differences? Tournament theory suggests one answer. In a tournament only the best player wins; so if some of the players are known to be better than the others, this reduces the incentives to compete. Why expend effort if the other player will amost surely win anyway? The men are slightly better at the task than the women and this effect is magnified by the numbers - there are 6 players (3 men, 3 women) so the women have to contend with 3 people who on average have slightly higher maze-solving ability.
If this explanation were the case, however, then we would expect men and women of the same ability to perform similarly but in fact women compete less aggresively than men of the same ability. This suggests another possibility. Relative to women, men may be more (over?) confident. As a result, they think they have a greater chance of winning the tournament and therefore they compete more vigorously. When given the option of choosing what level of maze to solve (with increasing rewards for more difficult mazes) the men do systematically chose more difficult mazes than the women.
In the end, the authors think this helps to explain the wage differences between sexes, and point to single-sex education might help as well as "benefits of making women feel more confident."
But in the end, I agree, last night OC rocked! Hookers, a cat fight, gambling, caleb getting into the action, and male strippers! I think there was something for everyone in this episode.