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"Desperately" Out of Touch
If you haven't seen it yet, here it is.
"It," of course, is the "Monday Night Football" opening that aired on ABC last week featuring Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver Terrell Owens and "Desperate Housewives" actress Nicolette Sheridan. In it, Sheridan, clad only in a towel, enters the Philadelphia locker room right before the game (which was played in Dallas, but, whatever) and seduces Owens, who protests that he's got a game to play.
When Sheridan drops her towel, however, Owens says, salaciously, "aw, hell... the team's gonna hafta win this one without me." Then Sheridan, naked, jumps into Owens' arms.
Lovely.
I know, I know; if you find anything remotely inappropriate about this, you should probably just run for Mayor of Jesusland and start with the mandatory female circumcision. Yes, other countries have naked ladies on TV all the time. Yes, we should all be just like Europe (except maybe the part where, due to a decline in -- or, more accurately, a snotty contempt for -- traditional values, we don't produce enough children to repopulate ourselves, and the part where we end up in violent clashes with our unassimilated immigrant population).
So, since only a complete prude could possibly object to a pregame sketch that was indistinguishable from the first thirty seconds of a porno only because of the higher quality of the production values, I'd like to tell you why I, personally, was offended.
Terrell Owens pretty much personifies, rightly or wrongly, goodly or badly, what some people -- not me, necessarily; I've said before that I love end zone celebrations, for one thing -- think of as the stereotypically ill-behaved modern black athlete (or, if you're a particularly angry redneck, the modern black person). He runs his mouth, he criticizes teammates, he showboats, he doesn't seem grateful for what he's got, he complains, he bitches... all that.
So, let's put him in a sketch in which he chooses sex with a hot white chick over playing football? Isn't this a little bit of a miscalculation? "Aw, hell... team's gonna hafta win this one without me." "Aw, lawd, I gon get me some a dis' white girl right heah."
Obviously this wasn't the intention of anybody involved in this sketch. I'm sure it never even occurred to anyone who produced it that it might be read that way. But neither, obviously, did it occur to anyone involved with the Owens/Sheridan bit that it might be wildly inappropriate for "Monday Night Football," so, it shouldn't come as a shock that those responsible were capable of being racially as well as culturally tone deaf. How out of touch with reality must you be to have the following conversation:
"Hey, a loudmouth black athlete -- not just anybody, either, but, the personification of the loudmouth black athlete -- should skip his game to have sex with a white chick!"
"Yeah, great idea, let's do that!"
A few people have complained about just this aspect of it, most notably Colts head coach (and former black athlete) Tony Dungy. "I thought it was very much [racially insensitive]," Dungy said. "I thought it hit at a lot of stereotypes towards athletes, black athletes in particular." Dungy also thought the racy sketch was inappropriate subject matter for "Monday Night Football," racial overtones or no racial overtones.
So it's not just me.
I won't give you the "Stereotypes are Bad" lecture; they aren't, necessarily. Realistic stereotypes can be helpful, and not just if you're a criminal profiler trying to catch a serial rapist. Stereotypes aren't bad; bad stereotypes are. Heterosexual men can barely think straight in the presence of gorgeous, scantily clad women? That's true. Black athletes care only about (sorry about the language) pussy, to the exclusion of anything else, including their professional duties? I'm not sure I'd agree with that. That's what I'm talking about. That's a bad stereotype, and ABC probably could have lived without perpetuating it.
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