Interesting video posted by CBC 22 minutes apparently some time ago. Just saw it recently.
Intended as comedy, it's actually a sad and disturbing rendering of modern relationships. I suppose CBC has, as Canada's self-appointed storyteller, told the story of the modern Canadian man. Perhaps unwittingly but maybe not.
In the video a man comes home with a brand new truck that he bought. Before he even gets in the door of his own house he is attacked by his wife for buying the truck. Watch it in the video. A screaming, foul mouthed, public tirade against a man. The justification for her vicious attack? oh of course these invisible three kids.
Suitably shamed and humiliated, the video ends with the "man" agreeing to return the truck to the dealership for a vehicle of his wife's choosing.
Imagine for a moment CBC, doing it the other way. a wife comes home with some purchase husband disagrees with and is attacked as a result. yeah any day now we'll see that segment on 22 Minutes.
The poor guy and his 3 kids. loser should have never had kids or stopped after 1 with harpie. kids prevent him from doing the right thing and leaving her.
For the guy, the 10 minutes that it took to drive the new new truck from the dealership to his house was probably the only 10 minutes of satisfaction he's experienced in the last 10 years being married to her. loser, he should leave her for disrespecting him. that's 10 minutes too much of his happiness for his wife to allow. so he goes back to the dealership, back to paying for everything, back to his job with it's prescription drug card.
Look at themes here. man attacked by his wife in public, openly berated, treated with hostility and contempt. the video is unfortunately so sad because it's not comedy. it's documentary, an accurate description of everyday life for all too many modern men. confirming and normalizing this type of abusive behaviour by women. The video is in poor taste.
1 comment:
I'll give you half points for this blog post.
You're spot on about some stuff. If the video contained a man coming out of the house, swearing at a woman, pushing her with his finger and then threatening her with death, heads would roll at the CBC. You're not going to see that in a comedy skit, and you're right in that this is just as unacceptable. It sounds more like the intro to an episode of Criminal Minds than something that's supposed to be funny.
So let's put the physical and emotional abuse aside for a moment. It's established as wrong and not funny.
It feels as though you're intentionally ignoring the underlying premise of the skit.
It spoofs all those truck commercials where the voiceover tells you in a gravelly manly-man voice that you need to buy this pickup because it will make you rough and tough and strong. But then the twist. They had agreed on a minivan. That doesn't make her a harpie. It makes him a selfish asshole. She has every right to be upset with him for doing something so irresponsible. And you're damned right that he better take it back and get the van. A base Chevy Silverado is 30K MSRP, so throw in some floor mats and tax, and you've blown $35-40K (low end) to pretend to be in some fantasy land where you're towing heavy gear out to the oil sands, or taking a pregnant woman in labor to the delivery room in a snowstorm. It's completely impractical for their lifestyle and location. He's an idiot.
If your overall reaction to this skit is "Ugh, what a bitch!", then I can only surmise that you've had a pretty nasty relationship in the past. Good for you if you're out of it, nobody should be in one, but I fear it's coloring the way you see the world now, and that's a shame.
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