Anti-Science

Women’s Mindless Entertainment

Your friend and mine, total ass clown John Edward, has a brand new show coming out on Women’s Entertainment. He’ll be traveling the country, dispensing his down home wisdom delivered from BEYOND THE GRAVE to torture the already grief-ridden masses.

Ass clown?

I visited WE’s (they pronounce it “wee” and to be perfectly childish I couldn’t agree more) message board, where they have a category called “WE Empowers Women.” Unfortunately for WE, just saying it doesn’t make it happen, as can be seen by some of the posts there, such as this:

Author: Michelle from Orlando
Subject: WE Empowers Women? How?
Date: 2/23/06

How does WE empower women? The shows that they air all show women as spoiled or whininy. I am neither and neither are most of the women that I know. We are stong women who raise faimilies, have jobs, and in general work very hard in our lives. WE SHOWS DO NOT PROTRAY WOMEN AS THEY ARE IN THE REAL WORLD. Yet WE claims to be for real women. That is the biggest load of (pradon my language here) CRAP I have every heard. I hope that WE wakes up to some facts before their network goes under because no one is watching.

Then this response:

Author: Tammy from sunbury
Subject: RE:WE Empowers Women? How?
Date: 2/24/06

I also would like to know how We thinks they empower woman??? What shows on your net do. Daddys spoiled little girl???bridelizzla??? Give me a break,lol. Move repeats????Maybe you should watch alittle of Life time and get an idea of what shows and movies empower woman. The only show thats on now that shows strong smart woman is MD and your taking that off.

Here’s another:

Author: june from raleigh
Subject: RE:WE took away our power……
Date: 2/14/06

Why can there not be shows or interviews with real people, history, teachers need things they can use, Prince William interview, shown in Jan 06, needs to be shown again and again. Great history of our times and good way to interest young women in historic topics. Women have brains and want better viewing. You are doing nothing to help the 20 somethings.

Oh and also this:

Author: kate from grand Haven
Subject: I haven’t watched WE in 3 weeks
Date: 2/22/06

I am SOOOO sad not to be able to turn to WE as I cook dinner and watch Felicity. I hope someday you bring it back…. I ‘ll check your webpage every now and then to see if you put it back on. I will NOT be watching weird weddings, hours and hours of Dharma and Greg or voodoo man John Edwards!

Aw, no love for Dharma and Greg? But she’s so whacky! And he’s so conservative! It’s funny because it’s true.

These are our people. Women who actually want something intellectually stimulating (well, I’ve never seen Felicity but the poster calls Edward a “voodoo man,” so she’s okay in my book), and in return all they get is Daddy’s Spoiled Little Girl. Click that link at your own peril, as seeing what a group of network programming executives thinks is “empowering to women” may just send you whimpering into the fetal position.

I started a discussion in the Skepchick forum to get some ideas on how we can combat things like this. Donna came up with a gigantic idea — producing a show for skepchicks. That’s so huge. It’s so huge that at first I thought, “No way will that ever happen.” But man, do I love a big idea. Hell, that’s what I get paid to do all day — sit around and come up with big ideas.

What if we could make a show, something like Mythbusters targeted more at women? But instead of tackling urban legends, we have fun showing women how cold reading works, and why horoscopes sound so right, and what homeopathy really is. That’s a big idea.

So who here is a TV producer? Come on, hands up. Hmm.

Rebecca Watson

Rebecca is a writer, speaker, YouTube personality, and unrepentant science nerd. In addition to founding and continuing to run Skepchick, she hosts Quiz-o-Tron, a monthly science-themed quiz show and podcast that pits comedians against nerds. There is an asteroid named in her honor. Twitter @rebeccawatson Mastodon mstdn.social/@rebeccawatson Instagram @actuallyrebeccawatson TikTok @actuallyrebeccawatson YouTube @rebeccawatson BlueSky @rebeccawatson.bsky.social

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13 Comments

  1. I like it. I bet you could get help from Penn and Teller and the Mythbuster folks. Go for it! I'd watch.

  2. Sounds like a great idea to me, and Penn & Teller would certainly be a good place to start.

    Still, if folks are hoping for empowerment from a t.v. show… well… I reckon it's gonna be a long wait.

  3. Awesome idea Rebecca!…I'm not nearly smart enough to know how to go about getting a regular TV show created, even less so how to get one marketed/distributed to a network (they never taught us that in engineering school ;-) ), but it would be wayyyyyyy cool to pull off something like that. I hope you don't let go of the idea too easily…

  4. I think a thread should be started on just what we could do if given the money and the resources to make a documentary. Just so we have a plan in case the occasion should ever be real.

    Hahaha. Right …

  5. Well, if the fundies can manage big documentaries about such nonsense as creationism, Noah’s ark, the Grand Canyon, etc…, how hard can it be to make a documentary about something that has plenty of evidence to be incorporated?

  6. exarch said,

    "By the way, what happened to the time? I posted the “Hahaha” comment in response to writerdd about three hours after the one on the fundies ??.

    Am I being punished for being European? "

    Afraid so.

    I finally noticed that it was listing a time, so I fixed to be in REAL time. MY time. EST. I (incorrectly) assumed it would adjust the other times.

    Thanks for all the input, guys. Donna, let me know what your friend says. I'm definitely more interested in doing an actual series, not a one-off doc. I'm thinking: I team up with a super smart scientist to explore pseudoscientific claims. Like Bullshit, but focused on women and with less cursing.

    Despite the fact that I love me some cursing.

  7. I just remembered a woman who used to be in my writer’s group who produces TV documentaries. Maybe she’d be interested in this idea. She’s done shows, if I recall correctly, about several medical issues and other topics for Discovery or The Learning Channel. I’ll drop her and email and see if she has any ideas or tips.

    First we’d need a theme and a hook, decide on a format for the show. It would take a lot of brainstorming to come up with something catchy.

    Would it be a series or a 1-time documentary? I like the idea of a series. Hey, if the fab-5 can pull of what they do, anything is possible! Maybe we can makeovoer believers into skeptics!

    Donna

  8. By the way, what happened to the time? I posted the “Hahaha” comment in response to writerdd about three hours after the one on the fundies ??.

    Am I being punished for being European?

  9. I actually saw John Edward live in Las Vegas. My aunt (a believer) took me there years ago. It was disgusting. The tickets were $75 a pop, and the auditorium held at least 1,000 people. It was huge, and it was sad. I couldn't bring myself to tell my aunt my true feelings about John Edward (she really wanted to connect with her dead children). She didn't. I'm glad he didn't go to her (it would've put me over the edge).

    I will let you know if I find a producer for you. It is a great idea. We need something better than WE drivel.

    Keep up the good work!

  10. Hey this is a GREAT idea, Rebecca! Superskeptics! Here to bust your favourite wooisms with truth, justice, and the…but I digress.

    I think there's got to be enough out of the various skeptic fora around here to make a whole year's series. Thirteen episodes, thirteen woo topics. Let's see: The Wacky WACKY World of Kent Hovind; Hate City – Life on GodHatesFags Family Farm; John Edwards As You Have never Seen Him (NOT Lying); and maybe even dear old Gene Ray – TimeCube Guy as the comic interlude!

    A ratings winner!

  11. Dear old Gene Ray the TimeCube guy would make for a great orator of superhuman wisdom. Time Cube is true and cannot be rationally denied. See CubicAwarenessOnline for cube explanations. Seek the Time Cube Truth!

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