I’ll be honest: I watched the Oscars live on Sunday, and though I found MacFarlane spectacularly unfunny, didn’t find a whole lot to be offended over.  So imagine my surprise upon waking up to a Facebook news feed full of proclamations that the host was not only unfunny, but misogynist and racist, to boot (In my defense, I appear to have missed several of the most egregious displays of sexism and racism while chatting with fellow partygoers and/or noshing).  There’s a lot of excellent reporting and analysis out there, so I won’t spend my space here recapping it (Two of my favorite pieces include this one from The New Yorker, and this from The Atlantic).  Throughout the day, I not only learned about the moments I’d missed, but entered into online discussions with folks far and wide about the controversy, and by mid-afternoon, came across several instances of backlash in which people defended MacFarlane’s right to make the jokes he wants to make, and accusations that those upset by the ordeal were overreacting.

For my money, Margaret Lyons’ Vulture piece offers the best response to this particular counter-critique:

Jeez, the song was a joke! Can’t you take a joke? Yes, I can take a joke. I can take a bunch! A thousand, 10,000, maybe even more! But after 30 or so years, this stuff doesn’t feel like joking. It’s dehumanizing and humiliating, and as if every single one of those jokes is an ostensibly gentler way of saying, “I don’t think you belong here.” All those little instances add up, grain of sand by grain of sand until I’m stranded in a desert of every “tits or GTFO” joke I’ve ever tried to ignore.

Lyons’ argument offers the jumping-off point for this post.  I’m not here to make any grand claims about whether MacFarlane was funny or within his rights as a comedian.  I’m not even here to argue that his jokes were sexist or racist, appropriate or inappropriate (Though I welcome thoughtful arguments on all sides in the comments, or as another Antenna post entirely!).  I’m here to make a plea that before we each go to our separate corners, carefully guarding and maintaining our own position on the controversy, we open ourselves up to the opportunity to interrogate what happened and consider what it reveals about comedy, about Hollywood, about society.  I would argue that MacFarlane is not so much the problem as a symptom. There’s a lot that’s problematic about Hollywood’s treatment of women, and it neither begins nor ends with MacFarlane OR the Oscars.  But if we stop identifying the symptoms, we stop thinking about the problem.  So let’s seize the moment and have conversations about these issues.  They’re incredibly complex, but absolutely worth taking seriously and unpacking.

Hegemony is pernicious because it relies on invisibility.  The system can only be maintained by convincing everyone that the way things are is the way they should be–that our beliefs, our existing social structures structures, our interactions are normal, and thus not worth interrogating.  Even for those of us personally and professionally committed to challenging ideological structures, normalization proves a difficult force to escape.  I confess that at the party I attended, a colleague said, “Man!  Does he think that by telling all the women how nice they look, he can get away with murder?” and I failed to see the brilliant critique that comment articulated.  Most of the time, most of us walk around without seeing the ideologies which guide our lives as constructed.

And that’s why moments when the machinations of hegemony are laid bare are so powerful.  For a few days after MacFarlane’s hosting gig, discourse has opened up around questions of patriarchy and the media’s role in perpetuating misogyny.  These moments when some of us are thinking, “Wait a minute…there’s something wrong here” and some are saying, “Oh come on.  It’s fine.  It’s normal” provide us with an opportunity to have conversations about the things we take for granted.  Take to Facebook, to Twitter, to the classroom, to coffee klatsches and have the conversation.

I admit that I didn’t necessarily expect this semester’s opportunity to unpack the relationship between media and ideology to come in the form of an awards show.  But I am spectacularly grateful that it did, and for the chance to open essential dialogue about these issues with my students, colleagues, friends, and family.  (And you!  Feel free to continue the conversation in the comments!)

One night as I flipped through the channels, I came face to face with Brad Womack, this year’s bachelor. His vacant look, mannequin smile, and pumped-up physique reminded me of everything I loved about The Bachelor: An Officer and a Gentleman, the last season I watched, where a beefcake guy walked around with his shirt off, said cheesy lines such as “I’m in Heaven when I’m with Bevin” (the name of a female contestant), and spouted every romantic cliché possible. I figured the new season with Brad Womack would show how hollow an unquestioned embrace of traditional patriarchal romance and romantic coupling can be. Mainly, I thought I would be experiencing the carnivalesque pleasures of reality dating shows that Jonathan Gray has astutely noted, ones that can subvert gender roles and patriarchy. I hadn’t seen Brad’s previous season when he left two women at the altar and incurred the scorn of viewers who believed in fairytale romance.

Normally I find the carnivalesque pleasures of certain reality series or subgenres painful. They lead to such corny moments that are both hard and delightful to watch, and usually the painful moments question normative assumptions about our identities. I’m all for this type of pain. It’s masochistic, but fun.

I think I’ve found a different type of pain on this season of The Bachelor. While this season has carnivalesque moments filled with over-the-top romantic clichés, love-crazed women, and a zombiefied prince, I’m amazed by the way the season has the patriarchal past impinging on the happiness of the present and the hopes of the future. So far episodes have spent an inordinate amount of time explaining how Brad went into three years of intensive therapy after ditching his two love interests in his last season, and Brad goes on about how he had commitment issues because he felt abandoned by his father at a young age. Brad recounts numerous stories of his father coming back into his life, only to leave quickly and devastate our beau. I was particularly surprised when Brad talked about how he turned to body building in an effort to overcome his emotional weaknesses that he developed from being abandoned. Even he concedes that his inflated body is meaningless. Brad claims he came back on The Bachelor in hopes of freeing himself from the past and finding happiness in the present and future.

A few contestants add to the theme of patriarchal ruins destroying the happiness of the present and future. Emily seems trapped in unhappiness because her husband died in a plane crash on a business trip, yet she has come on The Bachelor in hopes of discovering happiness in life. And Ashley S. talks to Brad about the devastating sudden death of her father and how she is trying to find peace in the present. Brad has developed what I call the “patriarchal crisis” look. Every time a woman tells Brad of a devastating loss of a man in her life, he clenches his lips and looks down to the right. It seems to be the image of the season.

Sometimes I feel this season of The Bachelor shares more in common with Vertigo than it does with other seasons; however, maybe I haven’t seen enough previous seasons to make such a grand claim. But I feel like I’m watching a traumatized man re-enter the same love story when history might not allow him to find happiness this time around either.

This season is painful to watch, but not in a fun, carnivalesque way. Rather, the pain seems to be much more serious and reveals the emotional trauma that we can experience when we blindly submit ourselves to normative ideas of patriarchy and the nuclear family. Common sense tells me that the producers aren’t consciously promoting this, but it appears prominently in this season because of casting.

Where is this theme going, and what are we to make of it? Perhaps this theme about the past and patriarchy will simply die out and be replaced by the carnivalesque that dominates reality dating shows. I’d be fine with that, since I initially started to re-watch The Bachelor to experience some subversive fun. But I hope that if the season continues with issues of the past and happiness, it envisions a coupling that doesn’t fall back on assumptions of a good man simply being there for his family—as if that in and of itself is good enough—or a good woman simply standing by her man just because he is there and alive. If issues of the past continue to concern the series, can The Bachelor work through a vision of love that truly frees these people from the ruins of patriarchy instead of redeeming patriarchal roles for them?  Promos for the season hint that Brad might be abandoned by the woman he proposes to because she can’t free herself from the past. If this season continues with its Vertigo trajectory, I hope the final rose ceremony isn’t on an exotic ocean-side cliff with nuns lurking around. If it is, I hope the producers attach Brad’s love interests to bungee cords and harnesses.