Oregon Daily Emerald
Thursday, April 7, 2005
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■ In my opinion
Perpetuating ^stereotype
I teel sorry tor middle-class white
guys. They get no respect. They must
be feeling pretiy cheated right about
now, too. If I didn’t know so many
personally, I would think they were
all fat, stupid, lazy and helpless.
Why? Because that very image is
what I am inundated with on a daily
basis in all forms of media. Morning
radio shows showcase Idiot Every
Dudes obsessed with sex and bodily
functions. Print ads offer a slight vari
ation on this theme: young men with
unachievable-for-most physiques, but
still addicted to sex and dumb as
rocks. But television, the most perva
sive of all media, is the greatest cul
prit in the “guy as stupid/fat/
lazy/helpless” campaign.
The joke is as old as the situation
comedy, starting with fat Jackie Glea
son and thin Audrey Meadows in
“The Honeymooners” back in 1955.
But while Gleason’s threatening,
ready-to-punch “to the moon, Alice!”
gesturing has long been outmoded by
women who give as good as they get,
the physical stereotypes have far from
disappeared, actually being promoted
to new heights in recent years.
The standard sitcom formula
seems to be the aforementioned port
ly male, coupled with a thin, smart,
sexy, young woman. The examples of
this on network television are many.
FOX has “Family Guy,” “King of the
Hill,” “Quintuplets” and “The Simp
sons.” ABC: “George Lopez” and “Ac
cording to Jim” (albeit the former is
about a stupid Mexican-American
ANNEMAR1E KNEPPER
WORKS ON PAPER
male, but the formula remains the
same). But the all-time greatest con
tributor to this myth of the stupid
white male by far is CBS, with its ar
senal of “The King of Queens,” “Still
Standing,” “Listen Up” and “Every
body Loves Raymond.”
For the formula at its best, observe
the genuinely funny Kevin James as
Doug in “Queens.” To his fit, witty,
sassy wife, Carrie (played by fit, wit
ty, sassy Leah Remini), he often
quips, “I’m fat, but you’re mean.”
Their believable chemistry and the
juxtaposition of her non-physical
flaws make the relationship some
what plausible. However, the show’s
theme (Doug gets himself into trou
ble, Carrie fixes it; Doug irritates Car
rie with his stupidity, Carrie gets over
it because Doug is so gosh darn lov
able) feeds into the disturbingly
prominent ideology that a woman
can be a bitch as long as she’s thin
and a man can be fat as long as he’s
an idiot and, therefore, no real threat
to anyone.
But “Queens” is where the come
dy goodness ends for CBS. For the
formula at its worst, see any of the
above-listed shows. For our purposes,
“Listen Up” offends greatest with its
pairing of everyone’s favorite stocky
guy, Jason Alexander, with wispy,
mostly unknown (unless you remem
ber “Sister Act 2” very well) Wendy
Makkena, as Tony and Dana Klein
man. What made Alexander so
believable in his “Seinfeld” days was
his character’s uncanny ability to
repel women.
One episode of Alexander’s new se
ries (“Tony Whine-Man,” episode
1.17) was deemed “so bad it baffles
science” by one Internet Movie Data
base user. In this episode, Dana dress
es in a slutty, age-inappropriate outfit
to show Tony’s old summer camp
buddies that the once slouchy, be
spectacled Jew married a “fox.” She
proceeds to prance around in hooker
heels, coming on to his “friends” and
embarrassing all who watch the show
and hopefully all who had hand in
creating it.
People watch television for sever
al reasons: to escape, to be enter
tained, but mostly to identify
with other humans. They want to
see themselves on the screen
and know that others, even pre-con
structed, exaggerated, false others,
are going through the same trials and
tribulations that make up our Ameri
can life.
Just whose American life are we
watching?
annemarieknepper@ dailyemerald, com
■ Guest commentary
U.S. leaders need to actively, proudly,
passionately stop massacres in Sudan
As a citizen of the United States, I
am completely outraged by our for
eign policy regarding Sudan. It is a
sad day for all American citizens
when we (President Bush, Colin Pow
ell) openly admit to the ongoing
atrocities afflicting Sudan’s Darfur re
gion, referring to the continuous mas
sacres with one word that should im
mediately instigate action,
“genocide,” but as of yet have effec
tively accomplished nothing to stop
it. Even while the United Nations de
nies the act of genocide in Sudan, the
U.N. Security Council admits that ter
rible acts against humanity are occur
ring regularly in that region. And yet
again, the United Nations has effec
tively done nothing to stop these ter
rible acts of violence.
Have we actually reached a time in
history in which the only way to stop
the brutal killings of hundreds of
thousands of people is to follow laws
laid down in conventions and
act only when certain terms are
used? Using terms such as “geno
cide” and following guidelines laid
down in human rights conventions
are important but must not be the
sole purpose behind action. It seems
that we are ignoring or have lost
the value of the most important
thing on earth: living, breathing,
human beings.
It’s not that we are ignorant on the
issue but that we have consciously
stepped aside, accepting the role of a
spectator. We have watched the tor
turing and killing of loving wives,
mothers, husbands and fathers. We
have witnessed the countless slaugh
ter of brothers, sisters, sons and
daughters by the hands of their heart
less enemies. Worst of all, and what
is truly unjustifiable, we have seen
the innocence of a child stripped
away by the simple movement of a
finger. The finger attached to men of
true evil.
Must we be reminded that the fam
ilies of those who are maliciously
slain love their families to the full ex
tent that we love ours? That they feel
the same anguish when their beloved
dies? That they, like us, are filled with
the ugliest feeling in the world when
death is involved? Understanding
that state of sorrow, do we really wish
that ugliness upon someone else? Are
we actually conditioned in such a
way to only help people not because
they need help, but because we have
our self-interests in mind? Do we only
act when we will become the benefi
ciaries, not the people in dire need?
I could not feel this passionate
about the issue if we as a nation were
incapable or unaware. But we are
both fully capable and aware of our
options to act. The only question we
consider is should we act, are we
willing to act. Thus far, it is clear that
we are simply unwilling.
As a plea from an American citizen
to the elected leaders of the most
powerful nation in the world, I urge a
flaunt of power. If only those leaders
can muster up the strength and
courage to act as leaders in this des
perate time of crisis, others will fol
low. We have not gotten to where we
are as a nation by playing a minor
role in world affairs.
Although it is a heavy burden,
it’s one that we have taken on in the
past, and I urge this nation’s leaders
to take the initiative in actively, pas
sionately and proudly stopping the
massacres perpetrated against Ihe
Sudanese people.
William Hathaway, Eugene
OREGON DAILY EMERALD LETTERS POLICY
Letters to the editor and guest commentaries are encouraged, and shouid be sent to letters@dailyernerald.com or submitted at the Oregon Daily Emerald office, EMU Suite 300. Electronic
submissions are preferred. Letters are limited to 250 words, and guest commentaries to 550 words. Authors are limited to one submission per calendar month. Submissions should
include phone number and address for verification The Emerald reserves the right to edit for space, grammar and style. Guest submissions are published at the discretion of the Emerald.
■ Editorial
PATRIOT
Act hinders
U.S. rights,
not terrorists
Take a moment and consider that we are
living in the year 2005. Almost four years
have passed since the infamous and devas
tating Sept. 11 attacks, and much has
changed in our nation during that span of
time. Along the lines of instigating a pre
emptive war and imprisoning Saddam Hus
sein, the United States government has
made terrorism the defining force in both
national and international policy, and the
USA PATRIOT Act is a prime example of this
new national agenda.
Since its passage on Oct. 26,2001 the PA
TRIOT Act has been hotly contested by both
liberal and conservative groups, the most
vocal of those being the American Civil Lib
erties Union. The act was, and still is, touted
by supporters as an important mechanism
in fighting terrorism because it grants U.S.
government and federal officials powers
specific to an international tone of terror
ism. The right of federal investigators to
search and seize electronic information
without a warrant, for instance, could be
key to swiftly understanding and stopping a
future terrorist attack. Yet many deem the
act an infringement on constitutional rights.
The Emerald stands as one of those many.
Now, three-and-a-half years later, 15 sec
tions of the PATRIOT Act will expire if Con
gress does not renew them at the end of
2005. Among others, those provisions being
considered for renewal, and heavily dis
cussed this week in front of the Senate Ju
diciary Committee, include: Section 505,
which allows the FBI to seize records with
out a specific or concrete subpoena; Section
214, which allows investigators to watch
and record the numbers of all incoming
calls to a particular phone line; and Section
207, which gives federal officials the right to
monitor any individual communications,
through a wiretap or other means.
This means that were you, a university
student, fingered as a potential terrorist by a
federal investigator, it is legal for him or her
to listen in on your phone calls, analyze
your text messages and read your e-mail —
without your knowledge. Shall we play a
game of Are You Nervous?
The provisions within the PATRIOT Act
as a whole are still largely unnecessary.
Sept. 11 did not occur because the FBI did
n’t have time to get a warrant and go
through someone’s library records. The at
tacks occurred primarily because of a gov
ernment that chose to ignore both the world
community at large and the warning signs
that members of that community were
preparing a massive act of vengeance. Un
warranted seizure of documents can hardly
make up for the terrorists’ belief that the
United States is inherently evil and deserv
ing of violence.
It is important to remember that guaran
tees of liberty found within the U.S. Consti
tution were not designed to be applicable in
only times of peace. Rather, provisions such
as the fourth amendment right to privacy,
or the guarantee of a fair trial by jury, were
created so that even in times of country
wide turmoil, the needs and rights of the in
dividual could be ever-present.
The U.S. Congress should remember the
values that this country was built on, as it
failed to do at the original passage of this
act, and begin a disintegration of the
PATRIOT Act this year by rejecting the re
newal of any provisions.