Valentine's Day and Sports Radio

You know it's a slow day in sports radio when a great deal of time is spent on Valentine's Day. As it is, sports radio is not so much about news, as it is about commentary, and partly because of that, opinions spill out. For example, sports commentators, unlike news broadcasters, are much more likely to talk about who's hot and who's not, i.e., women celebrities they find attractive.

Today I was listening to the radio, and on one show they wanted listeners to call in and describe the most embarrassing thing they had ever done on Valentine's Day (or a friend), and by that, they meant something inappropriate, such as a guy buying a car for a woman who wasn't all that interested in them.

This topic, though somewhat deplorable, had a few nuggets of interest. First, it's always OK for the guy to look or act like a fool, because guys don't really believe they are the fools. To get a sense of this, notice they never ask women to call in and ask what silly thing they tried to do for their boyfriends or husbands. There's already some kind of deep-seated feeling that women are, in some way, inferior.

Having said this, I need to backtrack a bit. Men can insult themselves on radio, and often do. But they do so realizing there are no real negative stereotypes for white males, and the few that exist, white males can live with.

Have you ever noticed that no woman calls herself stupid or idiotic on the radio. Why not? Because even as men praise women, there's been subliminal suggestions that women aren't as strong, as bright, or as self reliant as males. Even if this is partly false, and even as males deny it, there must be some belief this is true, otherwise why do so few women insult themselves? They already feel some pressure to provide credibility because society is as likely to think they caught a break simply be being a woman.

Similar, African American commentators are also unlikely to say they were stupid (though probably more likely than African American women), again, because there is a perception (fortunately less than once upon a time) that African Americans are "stupid", and to then say that, would be to reinforce negative stereotypes, where as a white male, even if he claims he's stupid, somehow does not reinforce a stereotype of dumb males. Heck, former athletes can also call themselves stupid, and even with a dumb jock stereotype, they don't seem to have any problems.

But beyond that, there's the notion (though it seems quite true) that women find Valentine's Day a holiday they enjoy more, mostly because they take it more seriously than men, and that men are expected to expend as much effort. I was listening to Garrison Keillor, whose radio show, Prarie Home Companion (A), talks about Lake Wobegon, a fictional town.

The radio show is somewhat anachronistic, taking its cue from radio shows of the 1940s (most notably from the inflection which the speakers speak) combined with more recent events. Thus, they introduce a guy who has spent all of two minutes getting a gift for his woman, while his woman has spent weeks doing the same for him. She eventually leaves him and winds up on Oprah telling her sob story. The joke is Oprah keeps giving everyone a car in the audience. Of course, the problem with getting an Oprah impersonator is that Oprah doesn't sound stereotypically black (though to be fair, she doesn't sound stereotypically white--she just sounds like, well, Oprah), yet the person they have doing Oprah does sound that way.

Again, point is that the story tells about how men are the fools, and only women care about Valentine's Day. I ain't saying it isn't mostly true, but that this is almost the attitude that is taken. It may reflect a male perspective, that to get into all the sentimentality and romance would make it too mushy, and would probably make an excellent episode on Oprah (men who are romantic on Valentine's Day).

But what I really want to discuss is how Valentine's Day tends to reinforce heterosexual (and capitalist) ideas of romance. Occasionally, people are good as mention significant others. Heck, John Riggins did this on his own show where he recounts some incident in a steam room where some oversized guy ends up shaving in the steam room (and he mutters "that ain't cool"). When did SO become used? And when did John Riggins pick it up?

I first read about this in the venerable and mostly defunct newsgroup, alt.sex, where SO was the politically correct term instead of wife, girlfriend, boyfriend, husband, where a certain gender preference (or living arrangement) was implied. SO, antiseptic as it is, implied that it was someone in some reasonable relationship. To be fair, it kinda excluded relationships that involve three or more people, but I suppose that's rare enough to be acceptably excluded.

Sports radio doesn't seem ready to hear about those same-sex Valentine's Day, or to talk about the lonely hearts (and maybe they aren't all that lonely) on this holiday, which, despite having some historical basis, has always seemed as artificial as White Day.

Ah White Day. In Japan, where there's still of, well, if not machismo, then male-dominated society, it's the women that give gifts to men. The retail industry has pushed for a holiday called White Day celebrated on March 14, where men are supposed to give gifts to women. Heck, there's even the Korean, Black Day, the following month for people not in a relationship, but want to give gifts for their friends, i.e., for the rest of you, you can have gifts now.

There's always been something odd about Valentine's Day, where women (again, stereotypically) feel they deserve something special on this day, and men scramble to provide it to them. And they do so because of...well, yes, sex. If men weren't so beholden to sex and their fear that the women in their lives may leave and deprive them of this, then they may not have to broker agreements with their women about what they're willing to put up with, and what women are willing to put up with. Heck, were it not for sex, men would, in general, find more to do with men.

Of course, because of sex and such, men are compelled to deal with wants and needs that are potentially significantly different from theirs, especially if they are a sports nut. The metrosexual male who loves to cook, get manicures, wear fashionable clothing, and so forth have far more in common with women (what's the metrosexual equivalent for women? A topic rarely broached) and therefore may not have to do as much compromising. A chap such as Mike Greenberg might not only be thrilled to join his wife in her shopping travails but may actually have advice she's willing to listen to!

So while Valentine's Day hasn't left me depressed in the traditional lonely hearts way, it does leave me depressed because it dredges up the same stereotypes of stupid males (it's always so male-centric...what about her needs?), and it takes the always surprising John Riggins to actually use the PC term SO. Way to go, Riggo!