TV by men, for men

Press, 20 December 1985, Page 15

TV by men, for men

Review Ken Strongman L • i

“Simon and Simon” look like two Australian fast bowlers transmuted to San Diego, and are just about as effective. They are among the casual, fun-loving, wisecracking devil-may-care desperadoes who con on the right side of the law. Everything is conning these days, but some is done in white hats and some in black.

The brothers Simon are a little like Crockett and Tubbs stripped of their panache and style; or a more cowboy-like form of Starsky and Hutch — a sort of southern Californian version of Noddy and Big Ears, the true forebears of all dynamic duos. Certainly, they are as nothing in comparison with Terry and Arthur whom they have replaced. Last Monday’s plot was jotentially interesting. A >lind woman was an earwitness to a murder. Will she be believed? Is she in danger? Can she really recognise the sound of a specific vehicle heard only once? Meanwhile, both Simons fancy her and as luck would have it she has a Ph.D. in acoustic engineering, which adds to her credibility if not to the plot’s. Series such as this are essentially non-television with no grace, no style and very little content. They depend heavily on vehicles, either long sleek cars or power-bursting trucks, all flash and no guts. They would be lost without the telephone and the camera that focuses on legs, waists and groins, so that faces remain part of the mystery. This is modern pulp television.

Presumably, programmes such as “Simon and Simon” are popular. There has been more than one series and it is now replacing “Minder”

in the middle of the evening at hard core viewing time. Why should this be? It is perhaps because it is perfectly safe television. Eveiything runs through with the predictability of the rising sun and the inevi-| tability of taxes. Pairs of friends bicker their way through adventures, but can count on each other in extremis.

The Simons live in a world where they are surrounded by the members of some other gender known as sex objects. Their aim is an easy life which involves no work and no effort, but when things become difficult they are unshakingly on the side of right. They are fun-loving heroes with no intellectual pretensions; indeed, they are creatures of very little brain. They are ordinary jokers who get into lovable comic-book scrapes. All of which means, at first sight, that the average viewer can identify with “Simon ahd Simon” very easily. But at second sight, there is a fallacy in this analysis which points to an insidious aspect of modern television. Even if programmes such as this are aimed at the average, passive, feet up, docile viewer, they must fail with half of the population. Surely, women can find nothing of merit in them, unless they enjoy identifying with sex objects or oggling macho males.

This is sexism at its unthinking worst. Think of the programmes equivalent to “Simon and Simon” which feature females — these are also aimed at men. Recent attempts at exceptions to this have been ‘’Dempsey and Makepeace,” although in the end they had the same sort of relationship as the Simons. “Cagney and Lacey” was a little different, but again was probably more appealing to men than to women.

What conclusions can be drawn from this? Either there is very little primetime pulp television car chase drama aimed at women, or the programme makers have given up and simply assume that the average woman is too bright to be beguiled by this rubbish. Or is it just possible that women watch “Simon and Simon” because they are male sex.,objects, and the programme makers have got it just right. . .One way or another, society might be evolving, but in this matter television seems not to be. It remains produced largely by men for men.

Tailpiece: Notice that one result of a shaky political relationship with the United States is a television advertisement for butter which patronises the Americans by telling them that natural foods are healthy. Note too, that since it concerns a domestic matter it features women.