TV Land

I love funny commercials just as much as the next guy, one of my favorites right now is a guy in his living room in the middle of the night on the phone with his (male) insurance agent.  His wife storms into the room and accuses him of having an affair, she snatches the phone from her husband and after she hears a man’s voice on the other end, she tells her husband in a very snotty tone “She sounds hideous!”  Cracks me up every time.  There is also a sitcom that I like to watch, it is about a husband and a wife and their children and some other family members.  The wife is constantly nagging her husband and commenting on how lazy/dumb/useless he is.  This is one of my favorite TV shows, it is hilarious!

I’ve been noticing a common theme more and more in TV and commercials.  Women are portrayed as nagging, untrusting and basically, a major buzz kill.  I see it time and time again, a commercial where a wife is in the background rolling her eyes at her husband for joking and having fun with friends, a husband hiding out at a bar to escape the irksome wife and her “honey do” list, a group of women sitting together and complaining about their men or a wife scheming to use sex as a tool to control and discipline her husband.

While all of this makes for a good comedy, what is it doing to our relationships and how husbands and wives perceive each other?  I know, we are adults, and we are supposed to be able to tell the difference between real life and fantasy TV life, but this constant message has to have some kind of effect on our subconscious.  I will admit that when I was a young wife many years ago, I treated my (then) husband partly based on perceptions that were created by the media.  (Partly based on other things too, but that’s a whole other blog post that I won’t get into.)  Don’t we make decisions on how we eat and what we wear based on media?  We see these shows and women are degrading their men and making them the butt of their jokes but at the end of the 30 minutes the couple is snuggling on the couch and all is right with the world again.  The only problem is, our life and our marriages are not lived out on a set where the happy ending is already written out for us.

I wonder what the ramifications of this trend are.  Are we getting the idea stuck in our heads that we can treat our husbands like little children?  Do we feel we earned the right to treat them poorly because we are the ones who gave birth, cook dinner, fold the laundry and go to work?  Do we think it’s OK to be this super cool chic while we are dating then pull a switcharoo once we are married and turn into Captain Super Bitch?  Is this why the divorce rate is skyrocketing?

What about men?  Do men expect this out of women? Are men afraid to get married?  The “Before Girl” is great, but what about the “After Wife”?  Have we conditioned men to put up their defenses and try to avoid serious, meaningful and lasting relationships?

This is not a call to the media in hopes that they will change all their programming for the good of all mankind.  I’m no fool, it is what it is and I cannot change that. I am also not asking anybody to boycott TV; I myself am not willing to give up my favorite Wednesday show.  This is a call to wives to treat your husbands with respect and honor. (And yes, obey them!)  Realize that your life is not a sitcom, even though it may seem like it sometimes. Don’t take marriage advice from the so called “real” housewives.  Don’t try to be the master of your household by tricking your husband; God didn’t create us for that role. 

I know, I know, you are thinking that I am still in newlywed mode so this is easy for me to say.  I know life and marriage are hard, and I find myself rolling my eyes and making rude comments occasionally.  That’s why I am writing this today, not only as a plea to you, but a reminder to myself; while all the world is trying to look and dress like a celebrity, don’t act like those bitches on TV.