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Re: are panel games sexist?

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kj.naughtonJun 11, 2009
 

 
I have to say that I'm disappointed at Victoria's comments. Although I don't think they're "silly", I do think she's somewhat missed the point.

JaM and programmes like Mock the Week are inherently adversarial. That's what makes them what they are. Asking why one rarely finds women on these programmes is like asking why one rarely finds cows at the top of trees.

Female presenters outnumber males ones in shows such as Sally Raphael, Trisha or Rikki Lake. It's more "equal" on news programmes, children's programmes, etc. Sometimes the genre of a show dictates the characteristics of the people who appear on it and, like it or not, sometimes those characteristics are split by gender.

Of course I'm generalising for simplicity and there are clearly exceptions to the rule. But my point is that I'd rather have JaM and similar shows staffed by people who are good at the genre rather than feeling a need to have a "balance" in terms of gender, race, belief or anything else.

Just my humble opinion.

kJ

--- In just-a-minute@..., Dean Bedford <dbedford@...> wrote:
>
> The point being made by Victoria Wood is really about the "laddish
> culture" of these programmes of people topping each other and so on.
> It's arguable of course but I think a case can be made that this applies
> in part anyway to JAM and this list doesn't really address her point.
> You mention for example Kenneth saying "we shouldn't have women on the
> show". Where's the woman who is well-known for the phrase "we shouldn't
> have men on the show" or something similar? I love Aimi Macdonald and I
> think she is probably my favourite woman panellist too and a focus for
> the humour on most of her shows- but it has to be admitted it is mainly
> as a butt of jokes and humour rather than herself making the jokes.
>
> The one woman who really has gone toe-to-toe with the men in the
> arguments and the bickering is Wendy Richard - and she is the only
> person who could be considered a "regular" who eventually got dropped.
>
> Quibbles - the first all-male panel was in the fourth programme of
> series 7, not the third. (Although you could say the shows where
> Geraldine Jones and Andree Melly chaired the show also involve all-male
> panels.) You call June Whitfield and Joan Bakewell semi-regulars - they
> appeared twice each or if you like at just one recording. You say "But
> after (1984) a lot of new female players emerged: Wendy Richard being
> the first of them." Wendy first appeared in 1988, four years later.
> After her, the next woman to do more than just one solitary show was
> Jenny Eclair in 1994. Two in 12 years (next is in 1996) does not strike
> me in any sense as "a lot". In the same period (excluding one-show
> appearances) 23 men "emerged".
>
>

 
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