Last night I was watching an episode of the tv show "Dexter". I quite enjoy this show a lot and find it to be very intelligently written. However, last night I saw an episode with a segment that rubbed me the wrong way. In this particular episode, the main character, Dexter, is getting married and the token pervert at his work (not his best man) throws a Bachelor Party for him. In the show, it was just a given that there had to be strippers there. None of the men at this party were even that close to Dexter, and it was clear that this really wasn't what he wanted anyway. There were a couple things that rubbed me the wrong way though. Mainly it was the female character's reaction to the party. The party involved a lot of strippers (maybe 10?) in a room just standing around topless and giving lap dances to all the men in the room.
The next day, they show Dexter's wife to be talking to him about it. She is basically all smiles and asks him if he felt tempted at all. To which he replied "very", and she just smiled. You also have to assume that she had no party for herself. But she seemed happy as a clam that Dexter had this party and was "tempted". (note: he was actually tempted by something different - but the wife did not know this). Then they cut to one of the other characters who was at the party. His girlfriend is acting ultra sweet. She makes him various foods that will help with his hangover. This girlfriend character was originally portrayed as being a very tough, strong woman who was not interested in dating anyone - ever. Then suddenly her boyfriend spends the night with strippers all around him and she's super sweet and nursing her boyfriend's hangover. She asks him what he did and he says that he was "good".
In another earlier scene, they show Dexter's perverted friend who organized the party. A stripper comes to the office to discuss the party with him and there's a scene in which the pervy guy mentions that he's surprised that the stripper looks so put together and doesn't look "skanky". He later starts dating her.
Why did I find this episode a little bit offensive? Several reasons:
1) I find it disturbing that it is assumed that a Bachelor party MUST involve either strippers or prostitutes - and this is glorified as being such innocent fun when this is often not the case.
2) I didn't like how the female characters didn't get to have any fun whatsoever, and they fully supported the men being catered to by strippers. They acted extra sweet and understanding - and the wife to be seemed "happy" that her husband was tempted! Also, the one strong female character suddenly became sappy and happy about her husbands questionable activities. Why did the guys get to have perverted fun, yet the girls got absolutely nothing?
3) The strippers were glorified. A point is made to mention how normal looking the one is - normal enough that one of the male characters starts dating her.
4) There were several older men in the stripper scene that were getting lap dances. Who the hell were these people? They were never mentioned before as friends of Dexter's. Were they inserted into the scene just so that they could show more strippers and more skin?
Thoughts?
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I have issues with bachelor/ette parties being seen as the "last night of being single" so "the guys/girls" need to "go wild" with strippers and such. I feel that if I (this is my view for my relationships, I realize people feel differently) am engaged to someone, then we are far enough in our relationship where we have invested a large amount of time and effort and are devoted to each other. Therefor, to treat a night near the wedding as a last night to do the things you only do when single is ignoring the whole previous relationship and the fact that we are in a relationship.
I do feel that parties for each partner, separately, with only that partner's friends *are* appropriate (don't get me wrong). But as friends, the partiers should also value their engaged friend's and her/his engagement-soon-marriage and what that means to the couple.
And that's my bit on one of your points.
I can totally see that this scene is angering, as it simply shows that the men get to have their way with women and treat them however they wish, and that women are to simply accept it.
Grrrrr
I agree with everything about this post. Annoying!
Alot of the bachlorette parties I've gone too included strippers or porn or other similar activities for ladies. It's not exclusive to men.
I'm also a little disturbed about how you seem to imply that the wives/girlfriends SHOULD have a problem with them going to such a party. I wouldn't want my husband to prevent me from going to such a party, and I certainly wouldn't prevent him from going to one either. As long as he didn't have sex with the girls at least, which in this episode the guys didn't.
The way I view parties like these is the same as how I view real life: looking is fine, touching is not. Checking someone out is usually totally harmless, but I don't see how touching someone else in a sexual manner isn't cheating-- whether the women are paid or not makes no difference.
I don't think it would be weird at all for these women to be fine with their boyfriends/husbands/whatever going to a party with strippers, but it *does* seem creepy for them to be all flirty and enabling about it.
Your third point is the one that distresses me the most. The show's implication certainly seems to be that strippers are classless, "skanky" messes, and men were surprised when one was-- shocking!-- a REAL HUMAN LADY. It really emphasizes how little consideration they gave the women's humanity when they were still in their knickers, like they magically become "real" in the light of day.
Yeah, I didn't really get what she was trying to say there. That was the most confusing point. Obviously strippers are normal people. And how is saying so glorifying them? I had a suspicion she was trying to make a point about how the men in the show were treating the stripper girlfriend, but I would like her to clarify.
Otherwise, while I respect people wanting to go to these parties for fun, I agree that there is a double standard as far as this goes in our culture. Moreover, I think it's a strange way to celebrate a serious commitment and I don't like how men are pressured into it, and how women are pressured into accepting it. To each her own.
The strippers were glorified. A point is made to mention how normal looking the one is - normal enough that one of the male characters starts dating her.
Yeah, because sex workers are huge skanks and they are always easily identifiable by their skankiness and no real man would ever date one.
That's pretty much when you lost all your credibility.
I didn't read it like that. I assumed the OP meant that they were all model-beautiful (which is unrealistic but what television shows always do), except the "normal" one, and that that beauty was used as a justification in the show to dehumanize the majority of the women, as if beautiful women are only good as sex objects but "normal" women can actually be humanized somewhat into girlfriends.
The only way we can know, of course, is if the OP clarifies.
I really don't understand how you came upon that interpretation. I seem to recall the "normal" stripper being pretty hot, and she was "normal" because she didn't appear trashy. The third point doesn't say anything about beauty or how the normal stripper compares to the other strippers in that area.
The OP is welcome to clarify, but I'm really not willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. Somehow, she thinks that showing a stripper as a normal person is "glorifying" stripping, and that is horribly offensive no matter how you look at it.
To clarify point 3 - what I meant was that it was disturbing that when the stripper showed up, everyone was so surprised that she looked and acted like a normal person. Dialogue and plot concentrated on that issue. To me it was insulting because it implied that a woman who strips is NOT a real person and is nothing but an object. Why emphasize such surprise?
That's a valid point, but that's still not at all what you said. How does that "glorify" strippers?
I read it as saying that the strippers were glorified or celebrated for allowing men to treat them as sex objects and to undermine them as people which 'normal' (ie. those that fall under the 'good' dichotomy of the virgin/whore concept in patriarchal society) women (ie. with self-respect) wouldnt allow men to do to them.
That is exactly what I meant. Thank you!
Dexter - isn't that the Showtime series that glorifies a serial killer?
And you are offended because the lead character had strippers at his bachelor party?
Please explain the logic.
Murdering people is OK.
But getting lapdances from topless women is not.
I don't believe I said anywhere in my post that I thought that murdering people was okay. I was watching one show and concentrating and one issue that offended me from a woman's perspective. You are taking my comments out of context and making a blanket statement about my views.
My point was, you didn't express any outrage in your post about the basic premise of the series - Dexter is an unrepentant murderer who abuses the legal system to hide his crimes.
If you feel that way, it sure didn't come across in the post.
But you were outraged by Dexter's friend inviting strippers to his bachelor party and men getting lap dances from those strippers.
And that just seems kind of odd to me.
The reason I don't watch Dexter is BECAUSE it glamorizes and glorifies a cold blooded murderer.
But I have no problem with people paying strippers to get lapdances, or of fictional depictions of people hiring strippers for lapdances.
How is murdering people on Dexters Show anything about feminism? If he was exclusively murdering women, that's something that can be followed up in a different post. But this issue that the post author brought up is something that is seen on many different shows. Its a precedent. Its not about Dexter the tv show plot. Soprano's had tons of misogyny but I dont think were going to get into a discussion about the mafia, unless it involves exclusively an issue about women. You really are taking the post author's comments out of context.
Agreed. If there was a forum debating the ethics of glorifying murder in the media then i'll post about Dexter there. That's not what this post or this forum is about.
I think bachelor parties in general are more an excuse for the friends to have fun than for the engaged person. It seems pretty common for all the single friends to have fun with the lap dances and for the groom/bride to announce they're not going to touch.
I think one of the big fallacies people make when evaluating TV shows is that they assume that anything the sympathetic characters say is what the show is trying to say. Making evil characters sympathetic can be a very effective device -- just look at Dollhouse.
Good writing doesn't use characters as mouthpieces.
An example: Rescue Me has a cast of characters who by and large believe in traditional gender roles and ideas of masculinity. Despite this, the show continually has plotlines that play around with these ideas -- an abusive lesbian relationship, Maggie's porn, and Tommy getting date-raped, among others. One of the major themes I've noticed is how much this idea of masculinity hurts the characters. Of course, Sheila and Janet are both stay-at-home moms and Tommy is a self-proclaimed manly man.
Back to Dexter. Masuka is a pervert. It makes perfect sense that he'd be shocked at a "normal-looking" stripper, and it makes perfect sense that he'd set up a bachelor party. Dexter's main objective is to blend in, so it makes perfect sense that he'd go along with it. It also fits with Rita's character that she wouldn't want a bachelorette party.
The minute the characters go out of character in order to prove some kind of political point is the minute the story jumps the shark.
I actually agree with you on this.
In a show where a perverted character is shown to be a pervert and the show is condemnatory about that - how is that unfeminist?
Should the show have taken place in an alternative world where feminist ideals reign?
And I think the reason Gregory is mentioning the premise of the show (though I don't necessarily agree with his reasoning) is that given the premise of the show, it is clear that just because a character does something, we are not meant to think it is 'right'. The main character is a serial killer and the scene was creepy and weird, I thought.