Panel discusses the media’s influence on gender relations

Notre Dame’s Men Against Violence club, a group of male students who work to raise awareness of sexual violence, hosted its annual Media Literacy Night last Wednesday in DeBartolo Hall. During the event, a panel of Notre Dame professors and graduate students discussed how gender relations and masculinity are portrayed in an episode from a hit TV show.

The panel consisted of Michael Urbaniak, a student in the Master of Divinity program; Robinson Murphy, a PhD candidate in English; Elizabeth McClintock, Professor of Sociology; and Kinohi Nishikawa, Professor of English.

The night began with a screening of “The Playbook,” an episode from the popular NBC series, How I Met Your Mother. In this particular episode, one of the main characters, Barney, shows his friends “The Playbook,” a men’s guide for picking up women in creative and manipulative ways. Barney uses its different tactics and is shown successfully swindling any women he desires.

Following the episode, the forum focused on the media’s portrayal of gender relations, especially regarding men and masculinity. Urbaniak spoke about how the “playbook” holds the secret to successful dating, offering that men might prefer it to dating advice from others simply because they lack good role models.

Murphy talked about the show’s production, pointing out how the use of laugh tracks compels the audience to feed into—and almost endorse—“rape culture.” Rape culture involves predatorial men easily taking advantage of women. Murphy said the “weirdly aggressive” music of the episode emotionally connects the audience to this desire for false relationships.

McClintock said that she is disheartened by “just how inaccurate the stereotypes are about men and what they want.”

The men in the sitcom are portrayed as sexually predatory, while the women seem to really want relationships. McClintock debunked this by citing statistics that show men are actually more likely than women to want relationships, marriage and children.

Nishikawa followed by discussing the stereotypes of women displayed in the show and the media as a whole: Women are presented as “isolable, gullible and exploitable” targets for predatory men. He said that the episode portrays Robin, a central female character, as a liar because she denies wanting a relationship, a prime example of the “mainstream Hollywood take” on gender relations.

Nishikawa said that in relationships, one’s “ethics should be framed by treating someone like a fully-formed human agent who must consent to an approach and anything further … Our culture has forgotten that you are supposed to treat women this way.”

Sophomore Thomas Deranek, a club member who moderated the event, concluded, “It’s great to have these discussions and to talk about these issues; a lot of good points were made.”

Deranek stressed the importance of discussing these issues in daily life.

“When someone says something that displays they aren’t aware of the satirical nature of the show, or say anything else which undermines the masculinity or femininity in a similar way to how the media does, this is when we should speak up,” he told the Rover.

“I don’t think that there is anything wrong with people laughing at a show like this where gender relations are portrayed inaccurately. It is a sitcom and it is a good one. People watch the show, laugh at it, and then enjoy laughing about it again with their friends. That is a good thing,” Deranek continued. “The important thing is to recognize that this is a TV show, though, and is in no way a realistic portrayal of how men and women should be in real life. Some people forget that at times.”

Sophomore attendee Jessica Keane disagrees with Deranek.

“The point that Professor Nishikawa made about the importance of distancing ourselves from media like How I Met Your Mother, which highlights stereotypical gender roles for men and women, is vital in shaping our society,” she commented to the Rover. “It is important for people to realize the implications of watching certain shows … placing men in a predatory position is not representative of most men. This gives viewers the wrong impression and can cause their view about dating and relationships to be distorted.”

Any Notre Dame men interested in getting involved with Men Against Violence can contact Thomas Deranek at tderanek@nd.edu.

 

Owen Smith is a sophomore American studies and sociology major living in Stanford Hall. He is studying abroad in Dublin next semester and is taking recommendations for must-sees in Europe at osmith1@nd.edu.