Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture by Ariel Levy

Author:Ariel Levy [Levy, Ariel]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, mobi
Tags: Politics & Social Sciences, Social Sciences, Gender Studies, Feminist Theory, Popular Culture, Women's Studies
ISBN: 9780743284288
Amazon: 0743284283
Publisher: Free Press
Published: 2006-10-02T14:00:00+00:00

There is a variety program on Comedy Central called The Man Show, which concludes each episode with a segment of bouncing women appropriately called “Girls on Trampolines.” The show’s original hosts Jimmy Kimmel and Adam Carolla have left; Kimmel now has his own network talk show, Jimmy Kimmel Live, on ABC, and both Kimmel and Carolla executive produce Crank Yankers for Comedy Central. But when I went to visit their set in L.A. in 2000, The Man Show was one of the top shows on cable, and it was getting a lot of attention for its brand of self-described “chauvinistic fun.” Thirty-eight percent of The Man Show’s viewers were female. It was co–executive produced by two women.

Like Sheila Nevins, co–executive producer Jennifer Heftler was not who you’d expect to find as the wizard behind the curtain of a raunch operation. She was a big woman who wore batik and had a tattoo of a dragonfly on her wrist and another of a rose on her ankle. She described her program as “big, dumb, goofy fun.”

“One of the perks to this job was that I wouldn’t have to prove myself anymore,” she said. “I could say, ‘I worked at The Man Show’ and no one would ever say, ‘Oh, that prissy little woman’ again.” Heftler felt her female viewers’ incentive for watching the program was very much like her own for making it. “It’s like a badge,” she said. “Women have always had to find ways to make guys comfortable with where we are, and this is just another way of doing that. If you can show you’re one of the guys, it’s good.”

The night I went to a taping, there wasn’t enough space to fit all the guys who had lined up outside the studio, and a team of heavy-limbed boys in matching green T-shirts from Chico State were pumped to make it into the audience.

Don, the bald audience fluffer, seemed to be looking directly at them when he yelled from the stage, “A few weeks ago we had trouble with guys touching the women here. You can’t just grab their asses—you don’t do that in real life, do you? [Beat.] Welllll…so do I!” The frat guys cheered, but not with the alarming gusto of the man in front of them, a scrawny computer technician who resembled one of the P’s in Peter, Paul and Mary. “To the women,” shouted Don, “today only, you’re an honorary man! Grab your dick!”

Abby, a brunette in tight white jeans, was called up to the stage for her big chance to win a T-shirt. Honorary man status notwithstanding, she was asked to expose her breasts. Abby declined, but agreed brightly to kiss another girl instead. A pert redhead in her early twenties raced up from the audience to wrap her hands around Abby’s back and put her tongue in the stranger’s mouth. “Yeah! Yeah! You’re making me hard,” shrieked Peter/Paul. He was nearly hit in the head by the Chico Statesman behind him, who pumped his fist in the air in front of his crotch, semaphoring masturbation.

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