Daytime TV in perspective !!!!!!!!!!

[Daanyeer]

Source: mensdaily
March 10, 2007


By Denise Noe


Some men’s rights advocates and some feminist extremists appear to have something in common and that is a disdain for fulltime housewives that is often expressed in a contempt for the daytime television programs that are watched by those at home. Female homemakers (although they have recently been joined by some males, the majority remain female) are often derided for “watching Oprah” or “watching soap operas.”

Many people are at home during the day. Some of them are stay-at-home-moms (and dads), some are homemakers (without children or whose kids are in school), some are people who work from home, some are retired people, some are disabled (whether permanently or temporarily), some just sick and taking off from work, and some are people who work at night or work irregular hours. This is a very mixed group and includes many different types of people of both sexes.

Daytime TV caters to this polyglot audience with soap operas, courtroom programs, and talk shows. It is likely that many people whom during the day, whether male or female, retired, homemaking, working from home, or disabled, are occupied with necessary household tasks. Domestic chores are not degrading but neither are they especially interesting or requiring of concentration. Thus, in between chores or while performing some of them, people at home may like watching the drama of a Maury Povich paternity test show, a “Cheaters” confrontation, a TV Judge case being argued and decided, or a soap opera. Soap operas have always had a male audience that included men who worked irregular hours. I’ve heard that some Mafioso, who don’t work nine-to-five, have gotten hooked on them!

Many folks at home may be celibate or at least have little romance in their lives. This could be because of the boredom that often sets in for people of both sexes in long-term relationships or because age and illness have diminished sexual response or made the process of having a romance prohibitively difficult. Such people may get a vicarious thrill from the romantic entanglements of soap opera characters or the revelations of romantic secrets on Oprah and Maury. They may even find a certain reassurance in seeing romance depicted as the path to idiocy on Jerry Springer.

Daytime television does not tend to be highbrow. However, the basic purpose of television is entertainment. The fact that people are watching daytime TV means that it is entertaining those at home.