Discovery Channel recently announced that men ages 18 to 49 ranked “The Deadliest Catch” No. 3 among all prime-time television on Tuesday night, beating out “Dancing With the Stars” and “Shark” in the demographic.
Really? “Deadliest Catch” beat “Dancing With The Stars” among men 18-49? SHOCKER!!
Those damp and colorful Alaskan fishermen are just part of the hyper-masculine subgenre emerging on reality television. Discovery also has Deadliest Catch“Dirty Jobs,” which explores unsung laborers like the road-kill collector and the steel-mill worker. Over on the History Channel, “Ice Road Truckers” follows the fate of big rigs navigating short-lived ice roads in the Arctic, and “Ax Men” pays homage to modern-day lumberjacks, while the new “It’s Tougher in Alaska” compiles a greatest-hits list: gold mining, salmon fishing, trucking, railroading, even waste management will each get their own episode.
Ok, first of all, “Hyper-Masculine” (emphasis mine). Obviously, to a female writer for the L.A. Times, any man that isn’t a flaming metrosexual that gets their eyebrows waxed and wears $400 shoes, has to be, by definition, “Hyper-Masculine.” Second, all those other shows that are not “Deadliest Catch” are flopping big time. Discovery is just trying to copy itself, by throwing any show about dangerous jobs against the wall to see what sticks, it’s not like it’s a trend.
Third, “Deadliest Catch” is popular because only a handful of guys in the entire world actually do that job, (for good reason), and that is what makes it compelling. “Ice Road Truckers?” Not so much.
The folks are mostly men, all rugged, real and capable, proof that Americans are still capable of living by their wits and the strength in their calloused, competent hands. Call it testicular television.
Oh. Fucking. Brother. “Testicular Television.” I guarantee you this bitch has the “Sex And The City” box set on her person at all times. In fact, she mentions it at least 3 times in this article. Also, she uses the word “capable” twice in one sentence.
The article just goes on and on, as the writer routinely confuses the middle class with the working poor. To her, the middle class are people who “Lose a days work because some bit of machinery goes missing” or “A family of six living in a tiny aluminum-sided rancher on a treeless lot.”
Her entire frame of reference of the middle class is based around T.V. shows that only women and gay guys watch, like “SATC”, “Ugly Betty” and “Greys Anatomy.” A completely twisted worldview that only a female writer from the L.A. Times can capture in a snobby, elitist, sentence like this one, where she seems very sad about the plight of reality T.V. families who are not enlightened T.V. writers for the L.A. Times.
when you bring cameras into people’s homes and lives, there’s no ignoring the beat-up carpet that the family cannot afford to replace, the rickety computer station in the middle of the living room, the jobs that involve hours of monotonous hard work, the emotional toll of trying to balance work and family without affordable day care.
Who do you think this chick will vote for? The fake empathy just drips off the page.
Women in media have emasculated men to such a degree, that any man that is not a fashion designer, or “McDreamy,” are “Hyper-Masculine,” and shows not about powerful or slutty women are “Testicular Television,” instead of just an interesting show about guys that do an interesting and dangerous job.
