S01.E08: So the Dad is Now Mom?

[radishcake]

Ari's friend, Zach, has something to say that shocks her and Jazz. Ari attempts to get back to her musical roots for the summer.

[Bastet]

So does anyone think that in a year of friendship Zach never previously told Ari his dad is transgender and used Jazz's video to make the announcement, and chose to reveal this for the first time on camera?

 

Yeah, me neither. 

 

I don't know that this sort of staging that permeates reality TV is a big deal, but it's one of the many things that has always turned me off the genre -- just tell (and, where possible, show) me the real story.  I understand why they opted to compare and contrast Jazz with a transgender woman who started her transition much later in life, but just do that -- don't set up some phony pretense for it.

 

I don't know ... I'm trying to hang in because I think it's helpful for Jazz's story to be told, even in this way, but reality TV is just not my bag, and as this goes on I get more and more distracted by the machinations.

[CousinAmy]

I wish people over 40 years old wouldn't persist of calling themselves "girls" or "boys." It's appropriate for Jazz to use that language, because not only is she still, literally, a girl, but she doesn't have the mind-set of a 40-year-old (I'm guessing here) like Zach's mom, and so in her world there are boys and girls. But Zach's mom isn't a girl, she's a woman. We (women) fought a long time to earn the right to call ourselves women, rather than the patronizing "girls" - like the "girls in the office," who were often in their 50s and 60s. 

 

In my lifetime I always heard, "cleaning girls" even if the cleaner in question was a grandmother. I think it diminishes the woman by not acknowledging that she is an adult. (And yes, Caitlyn Jenner does it too, calling women well into adulthood "girls.")

[Maharincess]

I've never seen the big deal about women being called girls. I don't understand why its a bad thing.

Like Lucy Ricardo said "if the world was split between boys and girls, we're girls".

It's just something that has never bothered me in the least.

[CousinAmy]

I think it's demeaning. And Lucy Ricardo was a television character from the 1950s. I'd like to think we have evolved since then.

[Human]

Lol, if an adult woman to call herself a girl, I'm perfectly fine with it.  Just like I'm perfectly fine with a ciswoman who does not want to be defined as cisgender.  

 

About the show, the scripting is sooooo clunky.  I'm wondering how quickly this was put together.  I love Jazz but it's really hard for me to watch because I prefer to boycott TLC, the channel that was almost gleeful in their anti-LBGT support.  I almost wonder if this was slapped together quickly in response to the backlash they faced over their loving support of the Duggars and their transphobic campaigning as well as the show filming one of the kids going to work at a known hate organization.  We can't even pretend that this episode wasn't part of a scripted storyboard.  

Edited August 13, 2015 by Human

[whoknowswho]

Lol, if an adult woman to call herself a girl, I'm perfectly fine with it.  Just like I'm perfectly fine with a ciswoman who does not want to be defined as cisgender.  

 

About the show, the scripting is sooooo clunky.  I'm wondering how quickly this was put together.  I love Jazz but it's really hard for me to watch because I prefer to boycott TLC, the channel that was almost gleeful in their anti-LBGT support.  I almost wonder if this was slapped together quickly in response to the backlash they faced over their loving support of the Duggars and their transphobic campaigning as well as the show filming one of the kids going to work at a known hate organization.  We can't even pretend that this episode wasn't part of a scripted storyboard.  

Bolded by me- you can bank on it. I think it's scripted, but I think Jazz and her family are quite awesome, far more relateable than the Duggars with their side-hugs and street clothes to bed...

[Bastet]

I hate hearing women referred to as girls, but I didn't notice it last night; goes to show you how much trouble I was having paying proper attention to this episode (and I paid even less to the one after it).

 

Other than a few episodes of Little People, Big World way back when it first began, I’ve never watched candid reality programming on TLC, so I’m not familiar with their MO (although, any network that would give the Duggars a platform is automatically suspect).  That’s interesting if this show was a concerted effort to counteract backlash.

 

At any rate, clunky is the perfect word, and this episode was the worst so far.  I don’t believe a moment of the Mother’s Day episode was organic, either, but even something more obviously a pre-planned storyline came off feeling less scripted than this episode.

[Honey]

I've never seen the big deal about women being called girls. I don't understand why its a bad thing.

Like Lucy Ricardo said "if the world was split between boys and girls, we're girls".

It's just something that has never bothered me in the least.

I agree.  No big deal.  If I let every little thing like that bother me, I'd go crazy.  :)

[CousinAmy]

I guess it's part of the first wave of feminism from the mid to late 1960s. It was a response for being compared to a child, while men were always referred to as adults. Maybe it's not as jarring to a younger generation, who don't have the same concerns we did, because they (you) weren't raised in the 1950s, by parents raised in the 1930s (think the Don Draper generation, although my parents were actually born in the 1920s). That's a lot of sexism to overcome. 

 

But while I think Ava looks like an adult woman, she doesn't look like a girl. (To me.) 

 

I noticed she said she had lost a job when she transitioned, and Jazz was very proud of her. I don't know if Jazz knows how important an income is to an adult, but I know when my adult friends lose their jobs (dismissed, not resigned) they are not usually so chipper about it. Of course 14-year-old Jazz, who seems to come from we-to-do family, would think it's more empowering to have someone be their authentic self rather than hiding it to be able to hold onto a job, but I don't think she's mature enough to weigh the consequences. 

 

It's more likely that Ava has already found a new job, but for dramatic purposes it looks like she's OK being unemployed. 

[Maharincess]

I agree. No big deal. If I let every little thing like that bother me, I'd go crazy. :)

I just don't see how it's derogatory. I'm a female, a woman, a girl, a lady...to me they're all one and the same.

[radishcake]

I just don't see how it's derogatory. I'm a female, a woman, a girl, a lady...to me they're all one and the same.

Oh I find it so dismissive. As someone who has to fight to get respect in my position (I'm young and a non-attorney in a law firm) I HATE it when people talk down to me. It's super obvious when people do it too. I'm not talking about a friendly "hey lady!" or what have you but "Well you girls down in Records just need to handle it" = me in a icy staring fury.

[Rigoletto22]

I could see in an office setting that it would be rude and offensive. Like on MadMen all the men had a "girl". They would say "ask your girl" etc. However in an informal setting, such as among friends, it does not bother me at all. I often say "come on girls, let's go get a drink" to my friends and I am 55. However if someone in a corporate setting used "girl" to refer to me I would take offense.