Flat Asses And Dumb Bunnies: A Diary Of Women’s
Television, Kathleen Wilson, The Stranger
After spending the holidays watching TV with her mother, Kathleen
Wilson gets inspired to watch the television her mother wouldn’t
allow: the ‘dumb bunnies’ like Lisa Ling on the various women’s
cable networks. To properly appraise the programming, she stays
home and chronicles her two-day marathon for The
Stranger, Seattle’s alt-weekly. When comparing Oxygen to
Lifetime to The View, Wilson laments: ‘Frankly, Oxygen as a whole
is irritating, and I defy anyone to sit still with it for even an
hour. Its programs, save for Exhale… are all unwatchable.
Most hideous is Friday and Saturday nights’ Pajama Party,
Oxygen’s version of The Man Show in which women dressed in
baby-dolls and mules discuss girly issues and men dance around in
their boxer shorts.’ Wilson’s humorous running commentary on the
various shows to which she subjected herself gives insight into the
damaging nature of women’s television: ‘[A]ll those stories of
infidelity, heartache, and misery can make any woman suspicious of
her own seemingly content life.’
–Sara V.
Buckwitz
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