Morning Radio
Morning radio shows with funny hosts used to be my guilty pleasure. Especially when I was still living in L.A., Kevin and Bean on KROQ cracked me up every morning as I drove to work. Since coming to Atlanta, I haven't really driven much in the morning, so I haven't been exposed to the morning shows here. But this summer since I've been driving to the hospice, I had been listening to them quite a bit...up until a month ago. That was after many days of screaming at the radio in frustration for the awful, crude, ignorant crap that passes for entertainment, but which actually just continues our culture's progression into total idiocy. It would be too long to explain exactly what pushed me over the edge, but I heard a snippet yesterday that is a good illustration of what I absolutely loathe.
A guy was talking about how men and women deal with break-ups differently. (Already I hate the ignorance of a claim that separates by gender and takes for granted that basically everyone in that group will fall in line with the generalization.) And he said that after a break-up women stew and dwell on it (crying, sappy movies, and Haagen-Dasz were mentioned), and men go out and party that very night (liquor, Hooters, and strip clubs were mentioned). I believe his pool of reference was, according to him, "me and my buddy." Yeah, that sounds like a large enough sampling to go on the radio and make generalizations about entire genders. His main point was that when it's over, men don't want to sit around crying, they just want to move on right away. And here is the line that absolutely KILLS me...all of this is shrugged off with the phrase: that's just how men are.
Forget that. That pisses me off so much I can't even begin to tell you. I mean, sure, running from pain and ignoring grief and not dealing with loss are easy ways to keep from having to have any negative feelings. But is that really the way we should be? I'm not saying people need to dwell on things forever, but there's a lot of wiggle room between dwelling forever and immediately deciding to move on to run from the feelings associated with the loss. One guy who called in said he was drunk every day for 3 months after his break-up. Should we really just write off that kind of crap with the statement that's just how men are? I hate these idiot radio guys. These stories are not only incorrect, they are destructive.
Goodbye radio morons. Hello NPR.
A guy was talking about how men and women deal with break-ups differently. (Already I hate the ignorance of a claim that separates by gender and takes for granted that basically everyone in that group will fall in line with the generalization.) And he said that after a break-up women stew and dwell on it (crying, sappy movies, and Haagen-Dasz were mentioned), and men go out and party that very night (liquor, Hooters, and strip clubs were mentioned). I believe his pool of reference was, according to him, "me and my buddy." Yeah, that sounds like a large enough sampling to go on the radio and make generalizations about entire genders. His main point was that when it's over, men don't want to sit around crying, they just want to move on right away. And here is the line that absolutely KILLS me...all of this is shrugged off with the phrase: that's just how men are.
Forget that. That pisses me off so much I can't even begin to tell you. I mean, sure, running from pain and ignoring grief and not dealing with loss are easy ways to keep from having to have any negative feelings. But is that really the way we should be? I'm not saying people need to dwell on things forever, but there's a lot of wiggle room between dwelling forever and immediately deciding to move on to run from the feelings associated with the loss. One guy who called in said he was drunk every day for 3 months after his break-up. Should we really just write off that kind of crap with the statement that's just how men are? I hate these idiot radio guys. These stories are not only incorrect, they are destructive.
Goodbye radio morons. Hello NPR.
posted by bethany at 7:57 PM
1 Comments:
NPR is great...A little full of itself sometimes, but better than most other news.
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