The programming executives at ABC have been secretly replaced by alien pod-people from planet MRA. That’s really the only logical explanation for “Work It,” an upcoming ABC sitcom whose premise seems to have been lifted straight from the comments section of The Spearhead. Here’s a description of the show from ABC:
With unemployment an ongoing issue and women now outnumbering men in the workforce, the new comedy series Work It follows two alpha males who realize the only way to beat the current “mancession” and land a job in pharmaceutical sales is to pass themselves off as women.
Yep, it’s a retread of Bosom Buddies, this time sprinkled with MRA buzzwords. Alpha males, mancession – all we need is a few false rape accusations to complete the MRA-cliche soufflé.
Gawker has already hailed the show as an abomination that “Could Be the Worst Television Show in History.” After watching the promo clip below, I’m thinking that may be an understatement.
Of course, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe this isn’t an MRA show at all. Maybe it’s just a really inept and misguided attempt to explore the issues faced by trans women in the workplace. But somehow I doubt it.
Agreed with DSC. Roger Ebert claims that’s the greatest closing line in cinema, if I’m not mistaken…
There’s also, arguably, in the classic comedy of gender category – Victor/Victoria, (SPOILERS) and while the man who falls in love with Julie Andrew’s character is fairly sure she’s a real woman pretending to be a female impersonator, he flat out tells her with conviction that even if she’s a man, he still loves her.
That ending made me go awwwwww.
If you can watch that scene without a GIANT GRIN plastered on your face I am convinced you are not human.
zhinxy: Victor/Victoria dealt with some heavy issues really, really well. It also had several great musical numbers (‘Le Jazz Hot’!) and was effing hilarious to boot. They don’t make them like they used to…
An actual real show showing the difficulties a trans woman (or man) face would make changing the laws easier to include transsexuals in anti-discrimination laws nationally here in the states.
I don’ t see how this could fail. After all, Bosom Buddies lasted two whole seasons despite being burdened with Tom Hanks. Also there’s no way the show’s premise didn’t age like a fine wine.
As I seem to remember, La Cage aux Folles (the french/italian film from 78) wasn’t horrible, though I can’t remember if it aged well or not.
@Crumbelievable
So from 2007-2010 men lost close to 10 million jobs(women also lost jobs but not as many) because the industries that employ most men were hit hardest, then in 2011 the industries that employ mostly men start to turn things around and men surpass women in new jobs gained in the year. Unemployment drops for both groups, however combined both are still lower than the number of males employed in 2007. The recession affected everyone, but when men lost the most jobs during it I don’t see why you (and others) disagree that the recession hit men the hardest.
As for the threads topic, I don’t watch any Television that isn’t on demand and I doubt I’ll be demanding to watch this. I can only guess it’s really easy to make money from network TV.
@hellkell “People wonder why network TV is in the toilet, here’s there answer. It’s sad when shit like this gets made and projects that require slightly more attention span than that of your average gnat go begging.”
The proposition that “no one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public” has been common knowledge for so long that it is no longer checked against current reality. Especially not by people like TV programmers, whose careers depend on being cynically manipulative as much as on anything else.
Community is going on hiatus and yet they’re greenlighting this. Fantasmic.
i saw community for the first time last night and i was kind of unimpressed
but i don’t think i can evaluate that show objectively, because i went to high school with donald glover and i wish he was still doing the weird, poetic, artsy shit he did so well back then.
Bagelsan. I know this isn’t really an MRA show. It’s pretty clear the two main character dudes are going to be portrayed as doofuses, which to MRAs is basically worse than genocide.
Also, Some Like it Hot is one of the greatest movies ever.
On the “men dressing up as women” front, I actually quite like Monty Python and Kids in the Hall.
You mean, it’s worse than refusing to have sex with short men? :O
I’m so sad about Community, that show made my life a better place. But it’s cool, I’ll just watch… Work It… now. Perfectly good replacement. Sniff.
Actually though, the fact that women and men are employed at similar rates and yet there are claims that men are unemployed more are a strong indicator of just how flawed traditional US methods of counting unemployment are. Women are every bit as likely to not have a job, and more likely to be under employed (not have full time work, and make less on average for the jobs they do have. So, considering that men are just as likely to have work, more likely to have full time work, and have higher income on average for that work, I fail to see how it is sensible to claim that they are worse of than women in terms of employment.
at least a show like this has a built-in shelf-life: there’s only so many times you can have them almost get caught but escape at the last minute before that particular tension loses its effectiveness, and without that, the show basically has nothing.
Man, I just wish that some comedy somewhere would feature a trans protagonist in a sensitive way. There’s movement towards it (I loved Athena/Alastair on Huge and I’ve heard good things about Ugly Betty) but we are SO not there yet.
I wonder what Peter Scolari’s up to. I see a HILARIOUS guest spot in his future, if the show makes it past episode 3 or so…
From the site that I was responding to http://money.cnn.com/2011/12/02/news/economy/men_women_jobs/index.htm Men are employed at about twice the rate of women. I haven’t looked for any other verification as this was the site crum linked.
I accept it cannot work both ways and that there was be many more women who aren’t in employment than men that aren’t counted as unemployed. The link that Crumbelievable provided mentions women not seeking employment, or leaving the job market as one of the factors for womens unemployment being lower than males.
It’s also not correct to list it as numbers as more men were employed prior to the recession than women, so even if they were proportionately affected more men would lose their jobs than women. However the link shows that a disproportionate number of men lost the jobs relative to women, this shows men were more affected by the recession than women.
Now you could argue that with the end of the recession and the male employment numbers shooting up far faster than female employment shows that the end of a recession disproportionately favours men, which I would agree with, although most of the regained jobs aren’t ‘new’ jobs as the link says, simply jobs that were previously lost in the sectors in the economy that have higher numbers of men in them.
Additionally you could argue that the higher numbers of men in the economy shows that men are disproportionately favoured in the work force.
However that men disproptionately lost jobs at a higher rate than women as a result of the recession is plainly shown by the link Crumbelievable gave, this shows that men were more affecting in terms of job losses by the recession.
‘I fail to see how it is sensible to claim that they are worse of than women in terms of employment.’
I don’t think anyone has made that point, I guess the numbers of work place accidents, deaths or indeed the later retirement age could be used to debate that point. But this is far removed from the impacts of the recession.
‘Women are every bit as likely to not have a job, and more likely to be under employed (not have full time work, and make less on average for the jobs they do have.’
Actually women are more likely to not have a job, according to the CNN link I was responding to anyway. The under employment thing goes hand in hand with being paid less on average, it’s pretty inaccurate to compare part time rates to full time. Some women also earn more to men relative to their occupation and their age group/social status, it’s not a black and white issue, it is however not connected to the impact of the recession.
Actually I apologise DarkSideCat, I just realised you may have been adressing the shows premise instead of the post I made about the Cnn link.
I quite liked this line from that review:
Imagine combining the two into the The Jack and Jill Centipede: a four-man, ass-to-mouth daisy chain of Adam Sandlers surgically attached to Adam Sandlers in drag.
I maintain that the definitive cross-dressing movie is and shall always be Glen or Glenda. It isn’t a proper movie without Bela Lugosi shouting at a herd of buffalo.
What this needs is Kickstopper