Patronizing
Patronizing: (Verb) To treat with an apparent kindness that betrays a feeling of superiority.
"Ugly Betty" star America Ferrera had some choice words for shows like "Gossip Girl" and their ilk, and acted like it had nothing to do with her totally hating on that skinny white bitch Blake Lively and her stupid show about skinny white bitches; as evidenced in the above clip from "The Soup."
"Close, genuine female relationships are not what generally gets depicted in movies and TV shows," she says in the October issue of Seventeen. "Like, if you're watching The Hills or 90210, all the backstabbing shapes the way we act - you go to school, and you think your job is to find a sworn enemy and be jealous of each other," she goes on.
Adds Ferrera, 24: "I mean, I love Blake [Lively, her Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants co-star]; she’s a wonderful friend of mine, but shows like "Gossip Girl" kind of condition us to be mean." (Source)
Personally, I've never seen a minute of "Ugly Betty," but based on the title I'd have to guess that her show conditions us to be ugly. And no one likes a fuggo. Like my mom used to say: "Ugly people are like the boils on the ass of society." Say what you will about her parenting methods, but one person's "psychological abuse" is another's "preparation for real life."
America and the original Mean Girl herself on the set of "Ugly Betty:"
I acknowledge that this post may have been written ironically...
However. I think Ferrera is dead-one in her comments about the way that certain pop-culture elements condition girls to be mean to each other. She could have gone further and speculated that these shows are, arguably, the work of a male-driven media culture and are part of a cultural paradigm that encourages women to be divisive. After all, if women are divisive, it keeps them from unifying to lobby for, I don't know, their rights or something...
At least, that's what I would have said.
So back off Ferrera and stop hating on your sisters.
They've gotten to you, haven't they, Nosek? What was it? Free purse and shoes? Seven minutes in a closet with Jared Padalecki? What did they do to turn you, woman? Tell us!
Who, the Gossip Girls?
I only watched that show one time so I could review it, and then I forgot to ever watch it again. But I'd reconsider if you could pull some strings with the seven minutes with J-Pad. Eh?
And excellent points, pseudoliterati. I would have made them myself if this was a preachy feminist blog instead of a satiric gossip blog. But since, you know, it's the latter -- you probably could have saved your breath after the acknowledging the ironic writing part.
Ok everyone is being ironic, let's stop patting ourselves on the back and get to the nitty-gritty of this whole "women must band together, not hate on each other". It's embedded in our mentality because of mass market economics! See how they play out so nicely in both Gossip Girl AND Ugly Betty if you want to...but I'm sure as hell not sacrificing two hours of my life for either show to demonstrate how messed up society is...fact is much stranger than fiction and probably way more harsh! Things do not always work out so well tied with a Gucci bow or whatever either!