3 things from the Sunday Tribune
By
Exhibit A: From the magazine. A 2 page spread on people who have just lost their jobs. The blurb:
“As we’re all aware, it’s a dark time for the jobs market. With some 290,000 people currently on the live register, that number is expected to hit 300,000 by February. We asked six people in a Dublin dole queue to tell us about their recent experiences.”
WE GET IT… STOP REVELLING IN IT. It’s bad enough experiencing it day to day without having to read the same thing from others too. Enough of this already.
RTE are no better with their planned series “Are you feeling the financial pinch”. It’s to be fronted by George Lee and sounds like just what the country needs right now.
Exhibit B:
No photo required for this one. It’s also from the magazine and by Una Mullally. She asks “Why do the Oscars perpetuate gender divisions?”. This in particular:
“For me, the coverage of going to the Oscars is about their art, their acting quality. For women, all of this is pushed aside in place of that all important question: “Who are you wearing?”. DUH, women like fashion – get over it. Men don’t care about fashion and frilly things. Men and women are just different – that’s the bottom line. No amount of whining about how women are seen as ‘pretty little things’ (my words) is going to change that.
But it’s ok for the Tribune to turn men into sex objects as evidenced by a feature they had in the same magazine last year about “sexy GAA stars”. The front of the magazine showed the six pack of some guy on the front cover, all lubed up. Inside they had photos of men as sex objects. These were serious sportsmen reduced to eye candy for sex starved female readers on a Sunday morning. If they carried a feature on female GAA stars Joe Duffy would have been inundated next day.
Here’s another article in a similar vein (sexy male sportsmen) by Una herself. No whiff of concern about the objectifying the male form is there?
AND FINALLY, Exhibit C:
This headline makes prime position on page 3 along with a publicity photo of the 21 year old woman in question receiving her €86,000 cheque. This is news? It’s very spiteful is what it is. Inappropriate use of Lottery publicity photographs too I would think. Shame on the Tribune.
3 Comments
January 25th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
AJ,I too find Sunday afternoons vaguely irritating.
I don’t want to disillusion you but are you sure those six packs were meant to entice the female of the species? I dare say, and have it on good authority, that the same male audience those photos are addressed at is also the one who is most certainly into buying cashmere sweaters (for themselves).
I am falling in love with the thought, and don’t you think there is some mileage in it: Men being made into objects of desire by other men.
“Reduced”, “Object”? AJ, men are visual beings. Fact. Luckily, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. One of the few cliches to hold watertight. (Picture in the post)
U
January 25th, 2009 at 6:29 pm
Did you pick the irritation vibe up?
Vaguely isn’t the word I’d use today.
January 26th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
Glad to see a man standing up for men’s rights for a change. You are dead right about sexism turning the other way.
The only reason women would be straight onto Joe Duffy is that they are not willing to accept this kind of exploitation or view of women. Maybe men shall do the same one day whether it be to a male or female audience