Inbox Issues: Street-Rat Crazy, Kate’s Career, and more Palin-Themed Porn
May 31, 2009
by The New Agenda
|Sharp-eyed readers have let us know about three concerns we haven’t had time to cover this week: a Jack-In-The Box commercial calling menopausal women “Street-Rat Crazy,” biased media treatment of reality show Jon & Kate Plus 8 star Kate Gosselin, and reports of another Hustler porn video starring a Sarah Palin look-alike.
After our coverage of Burger King’s sexualization of girls and Wendy’s positive role models, Ellen D. posted:
OK – would someone please comment on why we aren’t going after Jack in the Box for their commercial showing a woman going through menopause as “Street Rat Crazy”?
A sampling of reactions:
Sooooo, without the Jack in the Box smoothie, a menopausal woman is “street rat crazy” but if she drinks them she can have a vacant stare and frozen smile? Awesome. (sarcastic) – SBG on The Hathor Legacy
Just for fun, try switching the sexes. If this commercial were making light of, say erectile dysfunction (Can’t get it up? Try our new Bacon Grease Burger!) how would men react to it? – Pocket Nerd on the Hathor Legacy
I’m sorry, but I’m in full blown menopause with terrific hot flashes and the crazies, and I absolutely loved the commercial. We need to just laugh sometimes, and I was honestly impressed that someone finally recognized and actually had the guts to talk about menopause. – Anonymous at EmpowHer
I do believe it’s an unannounced race between marketing companies to see who can be the biggest asshole – Misty on Shakesville
Another reader contacted us about the media coverage of Kate Gosselin, co-star of TLC’s reality show Jon & Kate Plus 8, about a family with twins and sextuplets. When the series began, Kate was a full-time mom and Jon an IT analyst. Then Jon lost his job and became “Mr. Mom,” while Kate began a book-writing career that requires promotional travel. Our reader explains:
There is a lot of press coming out about this and people seem to think that it is okay to ridicule this woman because she was on the road making money for her family and it is being construed that she is abandoning her kids.
Rumors have both members of the couple straying. Compare the his and hers coverage in US Magazine:
… US Weekly has shocking, exclusive pictures of the Jon & Kate Plus 8 dad leaving a club at 2 a.m. – with a mystery woman and without his wedding band… Where was his wife Kate – known for her insults and who famously once berated him for breathing on the show? Nearly 2,000 miles away promoting her book…
Kate Gosselin stepped out with her bodyguard Steve Neild in Maryland Tuesday night – as US weekly exclusively reveals. They have an “inseparable” relationship that causes friends – and even her husband, Jon – to wonder if they’re having an affair… Gosselin donned a skin-tight miniskirt, bright red leather jacket and oversized sunglasses to walk through Baltimore’s airport (en route to a promotional appearance in Michigan) with Neild… (Meanwhile, Jon was spotted with their kids at a church near their home…)
Finally, Bruce Nahin alerted us to internet reports that Hustler is making a sequel to their Who’s Nailin’ Paylin video, again starring Sarah Palin look-alike Lisa Ann (along with look-alikes for David Hasselhoff and Lindsay Lohan). The plot? After losing the vice-presidential election, “Paylin” heads for Hollywood and auditions to become a star. As Josh Loposer of babble.com points out:
With two of Sarah’s daughters in public school – Willow, 14, and Piper, 8 – you’ve got to know they are the butt of some Nailin’ Palin jokes. Not to mention, other parents joking behind your back at the PTA meetings and hockey games.
Thank you so much, readers, for raising these issues. Keep ‘em coming! And please let us know whether and how you’d like to be credited in our coverage. Send tips or blog submissions to blog@thenewagenda.net .
It’s like whack a mole. We whacks sexism one place, it just rears its ugly head elsewhere.
Now we need to get under the surface into the roots!
I found the Jack in the Box smoothie ad hilarious too and believe me I can go into a sweat drenched melt down in 60 degree weather on a seconds notice.
Regarding pornography in society. We need to push for extra taxes on sales of it like with tobacco and alcohol. Then women’s groups both liberal and religious need to push the idea of saving money by cutting the cable so women can stop subsidizing misogynist content and media policies with each and every cable payment. People should be encouraged to use the internet to download only the content they actually want to watch. Under these circumstances much of the offending content will wither away and the current idea of “women’s content” being whatever men say it is regardless of whether women actually watch it will soon die too. Most sexist media problems would be cured quickly by a free market, however we don’t have a free market with cable, we have gatekeeping to stop new ideas and force feeding of garbage content and mandatory subscription to unwanted offensive channels. Also realize that while the internet has spread pornography throughout society it has also democratized it. Yeah I would prefer that all women would never participate in pornography but that’s not going to happen at least now men are losing control of pornography and corporate profits from it are being drained away by individual women with their own cameras.
Also realize that while the internet has spread pornography throughout society it has also democratized it
Oh, really? And where might I find what I want to look at?
Thank NA for posting the Palin item. Nothing in the MSM, NOW or Huffington, ya, I know, the governor is” fair game”, anything goes because she is the”wrong” woman,, but I wonder if it was “Nailin Michelle” would we be hearing more about it-? hm
I am honored that TNA blogged about my suggestion about Kate Gosselin. Thank You!
I really just cannot believe the Jack in the box commercial or that a porn star is playing Sarah Palin either.
Why is it that the media has to turn positive things like food, family and history making women into sexist, sexual atrocities?
Great alert here Amy on Burger King’s sexist ads. I’ve alerted dozens of friends, etc. and they should learn a lesson that the Obama campaign obviously failed to learn: Sexism does Not sell! (okay, I admit, should not sell)…
Excellent idea on drawing content from internet sources and removing necessity for cable. Here’s hoping Chris Matthews and K. Olbermann will no longer be able to support their leg-thrilling habits….Interestingly, Rachel M. seems to have come to her senses on Obummer calling him on the carpet for his now religiously practised flip-flops. Guess with $665 billion on Pentagon’s warmongering, the poor empty-suited Teleprompter doesn’t have time to focus on consistency. Why is it that poor Dubya got blamed for being a “warmonger” when Obummer has surpassed him….
I like your suggestions on creating our own alternative “cable” sources. Far more democratic and we can get rid of sexist content. Just watched Hillary on CSpan being confronted with “reproductive rights” question. Without a teleprompter in sight, she responded *brilliantly*. What a thesaurus of information on issues abroad that really matter to girls and women…How passionately, intelligently and absolutely thorough was her answer…Ah, what the world has missed…
You know, I just love it when liberals defend porn on the grounds that it’s hip and sexuality is beautiful … and then they turn around and use it to degrade someone.
If sexuality is so “beautiful” according to them, then why do they always seem to view is as a horrific insult to be dumped on some undeserving broad? Clearly, they consider sex to be a bit like a using a woman as a toilet, or else they’d be making laudatory porn about Barky? (The mind reels, but it’s a fair thing to say.)
If porn is so “empowering” for women and sexuality is so beautiful and natural, where’s the Obama-themed porn, huh? I know, brain scrubber territory. But seriously. It’s like men always talk about motherhood and staying home ot raise the babies in reverent terms. If they really revered it, they’d hoard it for themselves.
I’ll believe that they REALLY DO think that sex and porn is empowering and beautiful when someone writes and films laudatory porno about James Madison and Frederick Douglass. Until then, I know what they really think about it — and about us.
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