According to film-critic Roger Ebert[1]: “Women are nicer than men. There are exceptions. Most people of both sexes are probably fairly nice, given the nature of their upbringing and opportunities. But in terms of their lifelong natures, women are kinder, more empathetic, more generous. And the sooner more of them take positions of power, the better our chances as a species.”
That is the beginning of Ebert’s 1500 word pean to women, published on Mother’s Day, and yes, it’s another one of those articles. Men are bad, women are good, men are worse, women are better, men are the worst thing ever, and women are just the best, squee!!!
The top rated comment on the movie reviewer’s tedious recitation of gender feminist dogma is:
“Bravo, Roger! 🙂 Now *this* is a column that took balls to write! I hope you get lovely comments from your readers. Bollocks to the ones who don’t like it”
Considering that Ebert is a professional reviewer of commercial entertainment, the principal consumers of which are women, I can certainly see that it really did take big brass balls to devote an entire column to flattering his audience. Well done Roger, you brave, brave soul.
It is also just a coincidence that the movie reviewer’s view on the relative merits of women as better, smarter, more nurturing, more human, and just generally superior is a perfect reflection of the common thread of female flattery and disdain for men prevalent in all commercial entertainment. Coincidentally, one of the reasons men are a minority of the consumers of such entertainment, is it’s not-quite-so entertaining to be told over and over that due to owning external genitalia, you’re worthless.
Ebert, in his attempt to ingratiate himself to a mostly female audience has done what countless other approval seeking men have done. Simply, to metaphorically prostrate himself – declaring – look, I’m a good man, not like those other bad men, you see how I heap scorn on them and flatter you? Approve of me!
Interestingly, this is where Ebert inadvertently reveals his contempt for his audience. How debased must women be, how small minded, selfish and weak; that to feel better about themselves – they must degrade their brothers, fathers, sons and other men around them? What’s worse, is how stupidly childish must we think women are to heap them with such degrading sexist flattery – assuming they will not notice our assumptions of their vain and venal character. Surely, we can hold women in higher regard than this. Not Roger, but if he is not rejected in his sycophantic pseudo flattery, his assumptions of his audience’s character might even be right.
Aside from notation that his attitude mirrors the standard trope of movie and television that women are superior in every way, Ebert’s male-abasing and false esteem is a tired and monotonous repetition of standard gender ideology.
Sing along with me, you all know the words!
Women are better then men!
Boom boom boom!
They do everything better than them!
Boom boom boom!
Ladies are generally nicer!
Quack quack quack!
Their thoughts and feelings are higher!
Quack quack quack!
Girls and women are smarter!
Bing! Bang! Smash!
To keep up, men must try harder!
Clang! Bang! Bash!
Et Cetera.
Ebert actually admits that his view of the “superior sex” is based on too many hours immersed in the fantasy world of produced entertainment, although he doesn’t seem to notice his own admission.
According to Ebert: “This occurred to me while watching a forthcoming movie named “Where Do We Go Now?” It could have occurred during dozens or hundreds of movies.”
Women in movies generally are superior to men, because they’re written that way, to flatter the sensibilities of the intended audience. The failure to notice that fiction reflects the assumptions and intentions of its authors rather than objective reality being a common thread in women-are-better social commentary from other writers, which base those assumptions on movie and television reality rather than, **ahem** real reality.
The sycophant notes the trend of women’s rapid displacement of men in higher education, but fails to connect that to decades of overhaul of the educational system, rendering it hostile to men.
Referring again to Ebert’s words: “I could bore you with more statistics, but I doubt you need convincing. Most of these things are intuitively true.”
This, by the way is how bigotry works. Facts? We don’t need no stinkin facts! I know Whites are smarter than Blacks because it feels right!
Whoops, not blacks, I meant women are better than men, Ha, silly me, putting one demographic above another based on biological characteristic of identity would be racist, which is just stupid bigotry with no place in a modern, enlightened society.
Oh, dear me, how embarrassing that I almost suggested something so bigoted. Anyway, back to Ebert’s astute observations of superiority of one biological group over another.
Ebert repeats the endlessly debunked wage gap myth, and also lies about the social science showing fatherlessness as the largest predictor of negative outcomes for children. Ebert skips entirely over the champion position mothers hold in the Olympic sport of infanticide and child killing. He also notes that fathers are more likely to be missing from their children’s lives, but fails totally to examine a monetized family court system and cultural norms which forcibly sever men from their families. Ebert goes on to predictably characterize men’s attraction to strippers as childish mommy-seeking. The point of his piece is, after all, not to enlighten, but to vilify one group and flatter another.
However, throughout all this naked sucking up to women, Roger Ebert depends on those superior beings to never notice that if compliment or admiration depends on the rhetorical degradation of men, his view of women is of infants lacking self reflection or empathy. Ebert depends on his preferred sex being cruel and cowardly, and never noticing this assumption he makes of them. Interestingly, he steers close to self parody in a few places. One such is in naming the superior sex’s inclination to nurture the defenceless.
This ignores the entirety of human history in which men have killed and died in the defence of women, and that in all our eagerness to vilify men, calling them lesser humans, and calling women superior, more ethical, more empathic, we demonstrate a failure of the vaunted womanly empathy and ethical supremacy we lay a claim to.
[1] http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2012/05/women_are_better_than_men.html
