Does this offend you?
Just caught the tail end of a Nickelodeon sitcom. I think it's called "Yes, Dear." Just as I tuned in, a young dad was with his little boy at an outdoor school lunch area. The dad counseled his son not to sit with the girl eating lunch by herself. The dad told him the she was "smart, pretty, and self-confident" and that he should leave her alone. The dad then put his hands on his son's shoulders, turned him to face a table where six girls were eating lunch and advised him to flirt with them by encouraging him to go for "six chicken nuggets" instead of just one.
The only redeeming thing about it was that the little boy ignored his dad's advice and sat with the little girl who was eating alone. But this kind of stuff, even though it's supposedly comedy, bugs me. It sends the wrong message and reinforces the objectification of people, in general, and girls, in particular.
= new reply since forum marked as read
But it appeared in this example that the father was devaluing the girls and so the young man made the right choice, a good example.
I don't like the way the media portrays people many times. Women shown as greedy airheads, men shown as airheads or beer swilling, coarse and uneducated. Those are not examples for people to aspire to, those are consumers who don't get much done in life.
Then become couch potatoes and get old and bitter, like Tea Partiers. And the other roles they show, the smart people are sometimes cruel and over competitive, like Paul Ryans. There are a lot of pyschological messages pushed in programs.
I think we need to remember they are called programs for the same reason that word is used in computers. It's an operation that we are being taught to follow to live our lives. We are not just things to be programmed. We are sentient beings who are bombared with anti-social, unhealthy stuff from Fox, etc.
That's why I got rid of the tv, although I've never been a big lover of it most of my life. It's not like it's essential. Most people I know don't watch television for years on end. And they manage to do just fine withjout it.
But we know many people do, and as social creatures we try to keep up with what fascinates our fellows, naturally. I know 'relgious' types who have turned off the tv because of what they see as negative stereotypes.
But then they fall into, in the case of men who object to being portrayed as stupid, into these cult like groups that are too conservative. I love good liberal people and the way they behave, they don't have to spout a line of religion, or if they're men, acting like they are John Wayne.
They just live and let live in their associations with others and don't judge people.
That's the kind of people I wish that tv would portray. Instead, from the 'news' to advertising and programs we are shown a lot of shallow, consumeristic, judgemental people. Not good fof society as a whole or children.
Shows in the Bush era promoted an acceptance of torture and brutality, and some plot lines were as if no one had really grown up if they were not prepared to kill their fellow human as the enemy or the competitor. That's when I decided that foul crap was not coming in my house.
I don't know if you and I are on the same page or if I answered you well, as I didn't quite understand all that you said. Anyway, 
