Essay #3

For my final essay I want to still focus on the show The Millionaire Matchmaker, but create my own twist on it and discuss the impact the show would have if it was the women who were the active characters instead of the men. What differences would be seen in the show if it was the women who were the millionaire clientele and they were the ones choosing who they wanted to go on a date with?

The way the show is currently set up, the men are the active characters and the women are passive. The Millionaire's Club caters to wealthy, millionaire men who need help in the dating arena, in order to find their beautiful wives. Most of the time these guys are very handicapped in the area of social interactions but since they are powerful and have money, think they are entitled to have unrealistically high standards for who they should be dating. This perpetuates the notion that women are just sexual objects there for men's pleasure and that women are the submissive gender.

So, in my paper I want to discuss how gender roles would be portrayed differently if it were the women who were the ones in control. How would the show be different if it were powerful, millionaire women choosing young, handsome men. I think that this would really challenge the normalization of heteronormativity that is dominant in our society today. The way the show is now really conforms with the gender roles in our culture. It solidifies the idea of a dependent woman, whose only aspiration in life should be to marry wealthy and take care of her husband and children.

For my essay I will focus on a couple different episodes. I actually found that there have been two millionaire women in the club so I will look closely at those two episodes and show the contrasts between when the women and men are in the active role.

Millionaire Matchmaker

When I was thinking of what to write my paper on, Millionaire Matchmaker was the first show that popped into my head, because I think it is a perfect example of a show that perpetuates the negative stereotypes of women in our society. Millionaire Matchmaker is a reality T.V. show on Bravo that features Patti Stanger (the matchmaker) and her staff at the Millionaire's Club who cater to successful men who need help in the dating arena. These men select their prospective dates pretty much on the basis of looks. On the show the men are shown looking through dozens of photographs and through two way mirror at women, while Patti asks them "what their pecker wants." They are then able to pick a few women to go on "mini-dates" with (which is pretty much a five minute interview) before deciding on one woman they want to date.

To me there are a lot of things wrong with this set up. It objectifies women making them sexual objects. This is similar to the article we read in class by Mulvey where she discusses the objectification of women by the male gaze. Men control the action while women are simply there for the pleasure of these men.

Along with The Millionaire Matchmaker perpetuating the role of women as sexual objects, it also reinforces the false notion that women are incompetent and need to be taken care of by a wealthy man. The goal of the club is to match men and women together to form, old-fashioned, traditional relationships where the women stays at home raising children while the man is the breadwinner.

Another aspect of the show that portrays women in a negative light, is the screening the women must go through before they are admitted into the club. The only requirement for men in the club is for them to be millionaires, while women must fill requirements based on their outward appearances instead of their career successes. On the show, women are subjected to embarrassing critiques of their appearances and Patti tells them all the same thing; that they need to have long, straight hair, perky boobs, wear heels, show leg and lose weight in order for men to want them. sometimes she even tells women that they simply are not good enough for her millionaires. This show is an example of the gender roles our society has placed women in, based on inferiority and sexual objectification.