- Aug 20, 2000
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Now now, let's not jump to conclusions. This is just an amusing anecdote, and a quote from something you'd think would have turned out a lot differently.
At the 46:47 minute of the 'Quiz Show' broadcast from This American Life (public radio), they talked about the debut of the Oxygen Network. Oxygen at its creation featured a quiz show called 'Clued In' meant to showcase the intelligence of young women. Hey, it's no secret that women are excelling in school in ever greater numbers, and slowly but surely moving into every career line there is to be had.
Oxygen, however, found out something rather unpleasant: Young women absolutely sucked in answering the 'intelligent' questions on the show.
Host: "When stocks rise, it's a bull market. What animal symbolizes a market decline?"
Contestant 2: "Chicken?"
Host: "No. *chuckles* Good guess but incorrect."
Contestant 1: "Bird?"
Host: "No that's incorrect. You want to give it a shot Jackie?"
Contestant 3: "Nah."
Host: "No you don't? You won't embarrass yourself... Okay, actually the answer is a bear."
The host of This American Life (Ira Glass) asks a telling question to the producer of 'Clued In' who he's interviewing:
Glass: "Now this is a show on a network for women, and it's aimed at girls. Why is the host a guy?"
Producer: "Yeah, that is a great question. Well, we actually auditioned scores of women to be hosts of the show. There was one girl who was possibly a good fit for the show."
Glass: "And, um..."
Producer: "And she was not really pretty enough to be on TV."
Glass: "Are you serious? She was good but she wasn't pretty enough?"
Producer: "Um, yeah."
The producer of the show starts to realize - we have a problem. The made-for-TV solution? Dumb down the questions.
Glass: "So what do you do?"
Producer: "You give them questions that anyone, of any age, of any mental capacity could possibly answer."
Host: "Jesus is known as the son of who?"
Contestant 1: "God."
Host: "Without fumbling, who can spell her first name backwards."
Contestant 3: "E-I-T-A-K."
Host: "There you go! On the board with 400 points!"
Contestant 3: "I'll take 'Sign Me Up', please."
Host: "This is actually a physical challenge. We want to see who can get an autograph on their arm from the cutest boy in the audience. Okay, each of you, here's a pen, go go go!"
Wow. Well, I guess this leads me to the moral of the story as voiced by the producer of the now-defunct quiz show 'Clued In'.
Glass: "And the end of all this, how did you feel?"
Producer: "I felt... girls are dumb."
Glass: "Girls are dumb."
Producer: "Girls are dumb."
Glass: "Just listen to yourself."
Producer: "I know. This experience remains one of these things that I'm not entirely sure how to explain. I do think women are smart, but the lesson of what I saw versus what I want to believe is very different..."
Producer: "...for a lot of it, the girls seemed much more interested in just sort of showing this really superficial side to themselves. You know, that it was all about what they looked like and it was all about how they're presenting themselves as opposed to what was more on the inside and what seemed like good things to achieve."
At the 46:47 minute of the 'Quiz Show' broadcast from This American Life (public radio), they talked about the debut of the Oxygen Network. Oxygen at its creation featured a quiz show called 'Clued In' meant to showcase the intelligence of young women. Hey, it's no secret that women are excelling in school in ever greater numbers, and slowly but surely moving into every career line there is to be had.
Oxygen, however, found out something rather unpleasant: Young women absolutely sucked in answering the 'intelligent' questions on the show.
Host: "When stocks rise, it's a bull market. What animal symbolizes a market decline?"
Contestant 2: "Chicken?"
Host: "No. *chuckles* Good guess but incorrect."
Contestant 1: "Bird?"
Host: "No that's incorrect. You want to give it a shot Jackie?"
Contestant 3: "Nah."
Host: "No you don't? You won't embarrass yourself... Okay, actually the answer is a bear."
The host of This American Life (Ira Glass) asks a telling question to the producer of 'Clued In' who he's interviewing:
Glass: "Now this is a show on a network for women, and it's aimed at girls. Why is the host a guy?"
Producer: "Yeah, that is a great question. Well, we actually auditioned scores of women to be hosts of the show. There was one girl who was possibly a good fit for the show."
Glass: "And, um..."
Producer: "And she was not really pretty enough to be on TV."
Glass: "Are you serious? She was good but she wasn't pretty enough?"
Producer: "Um, yeah."
The producer of the show starts to realize - we have a problem. The made-for-TV solution? Dumb down the questions.
Glass: "So what do you do?"
Producer: "You give them questions that anyone, of any age, of any mental capacity could possibly answer."
Host: "Jesus is known as the son of who?"
Contestant 1: "God."
Host: "Without fumbling, who can spell her first name backwards."
Contestant 3: "E-I-T-A-K."
Host: "There you go! On the board with 400 points!"
Contestant 3: "I'll take 'Sign Me Up', please."
Host: "This is actually a physical challenge. We want to see who can get an autograph on their arm from the cutest boy in the audience. Okay, each of you, here's a pen, go go go!"
Wow. Well, I guess this leads me to the moral of the story as voiced by the producer of the now-defunct quiz show 'Clued In'.
Glass: "And the end of all this, how did you feel?"
Producer: "I felt... girls are dumb."
Glass: "Girls are dumb."
Producer: "Girls are dumb."
Glass: "Just listen to yourself."
Producer: "I know. This experience remains one of these things that I'm not entirely sure how to explain. I do think women are smart, but the lesson of what I saw versus what I want to believe is very different..."
Producer: "...for a lot of it, the girls seemed much more interested in just sort of showing this really superficial side to themselves. You know, that it was all about what they looked like and it was all about how they're presenting themselves as opposed to what was more on the inside and what seemed like good things to achieve."
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