Women are being beaten, tortured, and brutally murdered more than ever on network TV: A new study by the Parents Television Council shows violence against women on television is up a stunning 120 percent in the past five years. Violence overall in the same period increased only 2 percent, which seems to indicate there’s very little guy-on-guy combat happening, relatively speaking. Those stats also seem to implicate procedural dramas, which have taken over the airwaves ever since CSI became a hit nearly 10 years ago.
There’s definitely an arms-race mentality when it comes to making one team of whip-smart crime-solvers stand out from another — and one way to do that is with increasingly gory, baroque crimes, often against women. (You know, dudes just shoot or knife each other, but oh, the things that can happen to poor, innocent women…all the better to make the clues ever more twisted, the heroes ever more heroic.) And brutality specifically against teen girls has risen a whopping 400 percent, mostly in crime-solving shows as well — CSI is cited in the report as a repeat offender — which indicates perhaps that pretty, young victims grab more eyeballs than any others. (CBS hasn’t yet responded to EW’s request for comment.) One of the bigger surprises from the report comes courtesy of Fox animated comedies, which are apparently using more violent acts against females — say, shooting a woman as part of standard 18th century divorce procedure on Family Guy — as a punchline. (Though, to be fair, those shows are just plain chock full of intentionally shocking stuff.)
ABC was the only network not to see a significant increase in female victimhood — no surprise from the home of Grey’s Anatomy and Desperate Housewives (though even the latter is basing this entire season on the strangling of a young girl, Susan’s daughter Julie). We’re not asking that every network dedicate itself entirely to post-feminist hospital staffs and empowered ladies of a certain age, but it wouldn’t hurt to lay off the gruesome playbooks for committing intricately heinous acts against women.
What do you think, PopWatchers? Is there too much violence against women on network television? Have you noticed more of it in the last few years? Does it turn you off to certain shows?
Photo Credit: Robert Voets/CBS
No, not at all. The PTC will always be there to whine and complain and try to step on other people’s freedom of expression. The shows that turn me off the most are reality shows and shows on the CW. I’d much rather watch violence than say, gossip girl, which I find offensively boring.
It says something about all of these procedural shows that after working all day/taking care of family that a large chunk of America wants to unwind by watching someone, woman/man, become victimized.
I would say it’s more a case of, in the present climate, people wanting to see justice done. Unfortunately, it means that CSIs and Law & Orders feel that the biggest outrage (and therefore, the biggest sense of “things put right” when the Murderer is caught/punished) can be sparked by just this kind of brutality.
As far as the Family Guy goes, it’s violence against *everybody*, from Stewie, through Brian, all the way up through to that most abusable idiot, Peter Griffin himself. Have you seen some of the stuff they’ve done to Joe?
I can only really comment on the shows I watch, or used to. NCIS, for example, does not hone in on violence against women, but if they happen to be in the Navy, well, that’s another matter. I see more male victims than female victims on that show.
I’m a big fan of Family Guy, but since the show is so incredibly over the top, I cannot really count that show as being violent towards women in general because there is a talking dog and an evil baby in the show, which to me, anyway, negates the violence.
CSI, however, I have noticed a trend in the badness towards women, which does not necessarily turn me off, but at least they throw some women perps in there to mix it up a bit.
I no longer watch “Law and Order”, nor any of the L & O incarnations, especially SVU, which seems to focus primarily on crimes against women, children, and other perceived easy targets of evil. A lot of the episodes seem to border on torture-porn and kiddie molesting killers, and now I just think that the writers of the L & O shows, SVU in particular, need therapy and medication.
SVU is supposed to focus on those kinds of victims; it says in its intro that it’s a show about sexually-based offenses, and not to say that men never get sexually attacked, but most victims of sex crimes are women and children. I don’t actually watch any L&O, but SVU’s subject matter is why I think it seems to be the most popular of the franchise.
I’ll preface by saying I regularly watch The Family Guy, and I get that they make fun of EVERYONE.
BUT, I just had a discussion with a friend about the violence against women on Family Guy. I’ve always been irked by how often it is made into a bit. It seems like somebody’s wife or daughter (usually Meg) is getting beaten or killed every week. I don’t understand the fascination. Let it go, Seth McFarlane, let it go. It’s time to find new material.
I agree. I’ve often had the feeling when watching Family Guy and American Dad that Seth McFarlane really doesn’t like women. It’s not as noticeable in Family Guy because everyone is the target of abuse, but the chauvinism in American Dad is really blatant, and often not that funny. In almost every single episode, both Roger and and Stan verbally and physically abuse Francine. Francine is depicted as sort of a bimbo and a doormat.
But I do think Brandi has a point in saying that crime shows shed light on a problem that’s often overlooked. I think it’s good to draw attention to it and reiterate that it’s wrong.
i’m with you too. Judging from the show’s material it just gets more and more vile. ‘Mysogynist’ doesn’t even begin to descibe this guy. I wouldn’t even say anything if it just appeared every now and then, but you can scarcely go one episode without it. enouh is enough….
I dunno, I’ve never seen CSI using female victims to titillate or grab ratings. I think that crimes against men are often very mundane, while crimes against women often tend to be much more complex and therefore make for better stories on tv. CSI has had plenty of male victims over the years, and they certainly don’t “glorify” crimes against women. If anything, the stories usually show how terrible they all are.
I agree with your post 100%. I have never felt as though CSI glorified violence against women. I think it actually brings it more to light.
Yes, but it is their need to show everything. And lots of skin and nudity in the process!
This is a really disturbing trend – and given the news out of Richmond, CA this week about the high school gang rape where several boys watched and did nothing, I think it’s worth addressing. Do I think people who see a violent act on tv are going to go out there and kill someone? No, but I think it desensitizes viewers to violence, especially violence against women, and makes that sort of thing seem acceptable and makes women seem disposable.
amen
Desensetizes us from violence. People should complain about the violence itself, the discussion shouldnt revolve around gender.
Equality… if you preach it.
I spent several years as a domestic violence advocate and, while I acknowledge the problems involved in such a stark increase in portrayals of violence against women, I can’t help but think that, at least in the crime dramas, it highlights a serious problem in the US, with one quarter of all women experiencing sexual or relationship violence at some point in their lives. And I have to admit, it’s nice to see the abusers and rapists getting caught for a change, as so many abusers and rapists get away with their crimes and go on to victimize other women as well, although I suppose by that same token, it also sets unrealistic expectations for women that their abusers or their rapists will be prosecuted and convicted for their crimes when this happens less frequently in real life. However, these portrayals on television send a signal that rape and relationship violence are crimes and that they are unacceptable. And like the previous commenter, I find reality programs that exploit participants’ emotions through unhealthy competition to be far worse than crime shows in which rapists and abusers get caught.
Sorry Jen, but if your going to the rapidly xenophobic halfwits at the PTC, for your stats, your point is already based on a fallacy. (Don’t slow pop-watch days suck?)
I absolutely do not watch procedural shows because the predominantly focus on brutal violence against women. My thought has been that violence against women has increased in recent years on tv, and I am glad someone is finding the evidence to support it. There are excellent shows that do not focus primarily on this sole topic, and I would hope the men in charge in Hollywood would realize that many of us do not want to see such brutality against women and most certainly do not want our society to become immune to it.
So glad someone else has noticed this disturbing trend. When Criminal Minds started I noticed the emphasis on torture stories. Then all sorts of violence seemed to fall on women on almost every drama I watched. Look at the local news and you see more violence among young adults. It’s no holds barred. And husbands are taking out their frustrations on their wives and kids even more than usual. It’s a case of garbage in, garbage out.
As you can see from the earlier posts, violence, especially sexualized violence against women, has become so normalized within society that people have stopped flinching when say, a woman victim on any procedural is kidnapped, raped, tortured and murdered. Why is this “entertainment”? It only serves to desensitize people to the serious problem of violence against women that occurs in every society. I for one, choose not to watch these shows.
I’m no fan of the Parents Television Council and I don’t believe in strict TV censorship but I can totally understand the concern over the amount of violence depicted on television.It is disturbing how people have gotten so used to seeing brutal crimes against women. I’m not advocating censorship but I understand why people are worried about this trend.
Armstrong is right about increasingly gruesome murders being invented to increase the plot difficulty..it’s quite icky.
Sort of sad that creative minds in our culture are asked to dream up torture scenarios for SVU shows etc.
I agree with others above–its so perplexing to me that watching murders and their subsequent solving in a major form of entertainment.
I do get so tired of women being portrayed as victims–especially rape victims. It’s very disturbing to me personally. I’d even like a rape free–RF designation added to movies.
Pulp fiction stands out in my mind as one of the few films that showed male rape–and I’ve always wanted to know how it made the male audience feel.
women make news
Violence is Equal opportunity
While I do wish that the report came from someone other than the PTC, I have noticed in my (albeit not scientific) viewing that it does seem that television has become very violent, especially towards women.
I think one of the telling comments is in the earlier article in which the Janet Jackson incident is referenced and they say that they are much more able to get away with showing violence than sexuality. I still remember back when the Without a Trace episode about the teenage orgy (which was so not glorifying it and didn’t really show anything) was fined. However, all kinds of bloody, disgusting things can be shown. I guess I am much more “European” in that I would so much rather to see (and have my kids see) sexuality portrayed on television than violence.
It’s actually one of the reasons I so enjoy watching Castle. Yes, it is a procedural, with lots of murder victims. However, those victims are pretty evenly distributed between male and female and not much violence/gore is usually portrayed.