VH1 has recently aired a show called "Tough Love." The show is hosted by Steve Ward, a successful matchmaker. The show picks eight single women, unsuccessful in love, and puts them into an eight-week "boot camp" with Steve. Occasionally, Steve's mother, also a successful matchmaker, appears on the show to help Steve find love for his loveless female clients. At boot camp Steve gives the women a 'crash course' on the male perspective. He also sets the women up on dates and analyzes their interactions with men. Afterwards, Steve bluntly critiques the women about what they are doing right, but more importantly, what they are doing wrong; in other words, what these women do or don't do that keeps them from making connections with men and finding love with men. So far, the show seems like a great way to help these lonely single women. However, condsider the following....
In one of the first episodes of "Tough Love," Steve brings in a small group of men to give input about the single women. One by one each of the women comes outside and walks by the men and stands there for them to look at and judge her strictly on her appearence. After she leaves, the men then give Steve their honest opinion about each of the women. Most of their opinions happen to be not so nice and very rude and hurtful. Does this seem to be helpful to the women? What kind of message is this sending to viewers? Men stand there and hasrshly judge these women without ever knowing them or speaking to them. I think that this reinforces the idea that women are to be seen and not heard, and also that they are objects to be looked at and judged by men.
In one of the other episodes Steve sets up a game show with a male audience. Each of the men in the audience has a sign that says "crazy" on one side and "cute" on the other. Steven reads aloud a fact about each of the women. After each fact is stated, the men stick up their sign and tell the women that the fact told about them either makes them sound "cute" or "crazy." The men just so happen to think that most of the facts read about the women make them sound "crazy," and many of the women are visibly humiliated by this. Is it really necessary to make a game show out of these women's personal preferences and habits in order to help them find love? Doesn't this again put these women on display for entertainment purposes rather than treating them as individuals? It seems to me that the game show made a mockery of these women for the sake of making "Tough Love" a hit show for VH1.
In another episode the women are once again put on display, this time as sex objects. The women have to participate in a photo shoot, dressed in sexy underwear or little clothing to show off their sex appeal. Then Steve, once again, brings in men to judge each of the women's photos. The women's success with this challenge is based solely upon the feedback of the men.
In my opionion, the main point of this show is to teach women how to gain male approval so that they can find love. Although some of the women say that Steve and his mother have taught them to value and love themselves first before they set them up to find love, these lessons don't seem to make it into the show.
Here are some links that might help you if you have never seen the show or don't know what it's about:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llg4mkcc78Y and videogum.com/archives/reality-tv/vh1s-tough-love-has-an-importa_056141.html?
So what do you think about this show?? Do you think that Steve Ward and his mother are truly trying to help these women or make a good television show? Do you think that the message this show sends is that women cannot be complete and happy until they find love with a man? Talk about your views and opinions of the show.
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Yikes -- I've yet to see the show but will follow your links for my own education ;-). I wonder how the show would work differently if the women were asked, "What image would you *like* to project? How do you think about yourself?" and others could rate if each woman really is coming across as confident or caring or intelligent, or whatever character trait *she* values. (For instance, quiet people can sometimes come off as snobbish or aloof without being aware of it -- it might take others to point that out.)
ReplyDeleteThat seems more helpful than encouraging the women to live up to male values, as represented by the series.
Shouldn't we all learn to change the way we look at others, in addition to how we look ourselves?
Perhaps I am a little biased on this topic, because I love this show, but I don't think that the show was a negative as some may think. While the basis of the show was to help these girls find love, it didn't end up being just that. Before you can love someone else, you have to be able to first love yourself. This is what the show really had to teach them. One of the women left the show early because she realized that she had grown and wasn't ready for a relationship. One of the women was forced to leave the show because she had serious issues that made her not ready for a relationship. Had this show been simply about finding someone to keep their bed warm, I don't think this would have been the case.
ReplyDeleteAs far as the tasks that they had to complete, including the game show, it was all a part of the process. I don't think that these women were put on display, but showing them how they put themselves out to other people. When Steve had men judge the women just on appearance, I don't think that was putting them on display, I think it was real life. As much as we would love to be judged or our personality and not our looks, that is just not how it is. People do judge you on your looks, people do jumped to conclusions based on how you dress. I can see how many would look at this show and see it as degrading, but I honestly think that it is just real. In a perfect world these women wouldn't have to do this, but this isn't a perfect world. It's life. And it isn't just men judging women on their looks, women are guilty of the same thing. I am not saying that this show was perfect, there were definitely things that could have been changed about it, but I do think that this is how life is. We are all looking for someone, that is human nature. We all want to be attractive to that person. We all do silly things for love.
I've never watched this show, but I have a bunch of friends who love it. I don't know, maybe I've just gotten over the whole reality dating type thing. This show does sound different, thought.
ReplyDeleteBased solely on some of the things that Chrissy pointed out, it sounds like the show could definitely use some improvements. The first example she gave, to me at least, seems like they are being based solely on their looks, which is something this socieity really needs to get away from. That was a big topic in this class - women are sooo much more than their looks, and having them based solely on their looks for that part just seems wrong.
The "crazy"/"cute" thing, although probably amusing, sounds kinda wrong to me. I mean, it's a reality show, so I'm sure a lot of the things are taken out of context. But something that these men deem "crazy" may not really be crazy - I somehow doubt the audience was given the entire story. Maybe the women really are crazy, I don't know! But having these strangers tell them they're crazy based on something read off of a noteccard has to be a HUGE blow to their self esteem. From what I gathered about the show, that's part of the goal - to have their self esteem be higher so they can get men - or something along those lines. Would'nt having them be judged in different ways LOWER their self esteem instead of raise it?
I have caught multiple episodes of this series, and actually found it pretty interesting to see the tasks that Steve puts the women through in order to figure out how each girl projects herself. I don't think that the show is necessarily sending out the message that women can not be complete or happy until they find love. These women put themselves on this show voluntarily because they simply WANTED to find love. Now if that's how the woman actually think is their own opinion. I would actually say that I think that Steve really is trying to help these girls find love, although it does make a good show. But I think the reason why it makes a good show is because of how relatable it is- it revolves around struggles and issues that the everyday person deals with in their personal life...always seeming to ask themselves that one simple question, "Why?". I think it is interesting to see a male given the persmission to be brutely honest in order to help these women. Personally, I think that having the inability to take self-critisism is a big problem that many people have, I admit that I'm guilty of it myself at times. I agree that not just anyone should be allowed to walk around and judge people, but if you can take critisism, I think it makes you more worthy to give critisim. Learning to not take things so personally can only make you more strong-minded and stable about yourself. In the end, critism is just an opinion, but it could be an opinion that helps you in the end. And i think that that is what this show is about.
ReplyDeleteThe concept of this show seems as if it would be a good idea to help women. However, the first episode contradicts the message that the show is trying to present. I do not like the fact that the men judge the women based upon their appearance. This reinforces the notion that all men judge women by their appearance. It is not necessary to make a game show out of these women's personal preferences and habits in order to help them find love. However, it is the media and they will put anything on television that grabs people’s attention. I cannot believe that in the opening Steve Ward says that single women are desperate, delusional and want babies. I do not believe Steve Ward and his mother are truly trying to help these women; they are only trying to make money.
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