Wrong Role Models

Recently I've been thinking about how the media can effect people. Particularly their view on relationships and such.
I don't just mean TV, I mean music and movies too.

This idea came to me while I was sitting through an episode of "Friends" - a famous American sitcom which my Mum loves and which I watched for the sake of one character. Those familiar with the show know that for most of the series we sit on the edge of our seats, waiting for Ross and Rachel to get together. I realized that Ross was a horrible male "role model" - that is a horrible model of a male for women. He cheats, he's spoilt, he's arrogant, he's not a good catch. At all. But we're supposed to think he is.

Then I realized that this happened in most sitcoms, especially the ones of note.

Happy Days had the Fonz, whose influence upon society was so great that when he bought a library card in the show US library card sales skyrocketed. With the exception of a short story line, he has multiple girls on his arms and is never seen with the same one twice. And despite him going through women like tissues all the girls still wanted him and the guys wanted to be him. In the Happy Days universe, everyone treats him as something special.

The aforementioned Friends had Ross Gellar and Joey Tribiani. While I know quite a few people who despise Ross, we still had to hear the "audience" ooh and aaah over his every action. Cheat on Rachel? But look how sad he is! Say Rachel's name when getting married to Emily? Awwww, he's in love with Rachel. Some guy leaves Rachel a phone message? Oh of course hide the message Ross, that's the mature thing to do. But he's in love with her! Never mind that he can date other women!
And then we have Joey, who will sleep with anything. Sure he's sweet and kind to his friends - just hope you're not one of his one-night stands.
The only male left is Chandler - who is pretty much the butt-monkey of the group despite being the only one whose One True Pairing isn't disfunctional as hell.

Finally, the worst of all offenders, and I know this isn't a popular opinion, is How I Met Your Mother - my sister's favourite program and one that I have seen every goddamned episode of.
I'm not going to mention Barney though - Ted's the one I take issue with. The lead character, the one out for "true love". One one-night-stand at a time. I understand that we have a girl-of-the-week show here so I shouldn't be expecting long term relationships. I know that he was serious about Stella (that was a sad storyline - I do feel sorry for him there). But look at the how many girls - look at the breakup with Robin. He, like Ross, got all up in arms after Robin started dating one guy despite all the girls he had dated since. Also, we do realize that he's telling his kids these stories? And not in a cautionary way or anything.
Not to mention how the "moral of the story" of each show almost always results in "Ted's right". And even if it doesn't result in that we have things like "Nothing good happens after 2am". Really? Blame it on the time? I've stayed up later than that and still managed not to act like a douchebag. Barney at least owns up to the fact that he's a manwhore - more importantly, so does everyone else in the program. Ted is just "looking for The One" - and that's how everyone treats it.

Finally, take some pop music from the 70s or 80s and listen to the love songs in particular. You will be hardpressed to find one where the theme isn't "I'll die without you", or "Let's get physical (and that will fix everything / show how much I love you)". Mum says that the music my generation listens to is bad - at least it's not trying to disguise it's meaning. The songs of her generation seem to spout the myth that sleeping with a person is the magical fix-it to every relationship problem which, when combined with the sitcoms and even on it's own, is a bloody awful message.

Ultimately, my problem here is that these males are being portrayed as "good". Really look at them. They're men who believe that they are entitled to a sexual past but the women they want aren't - or a future after them. Everything bad that happens is never their fault. Basically, they're full of double standards - and they're portrayed sympathetically. It's much like the biggest complaint about Twilight - Bella doesn't even recognize that the relationship is abusive.

The message is that this is what a good man is. Maybe for some women this is their dream guy, but a show needs to portray them for their flaws too and not try to turn those flaws into some sort of "awww how cute" thing.

The media needs to realize the subtle messages it's sending. It's not the Barneys who's dangerous to the generations watching him - it's the Teds because their flaws aren't addressed in-universe (at least not for more than one episode). If those around the problem don't recognize it, then the viewers (especially the younger ones) don't recognize it as one.