Originally Posted by
Erin
Well, I don't watch TV all that much really, so I'm not really in a position to answer your question directly, but I can answer it generally:
People want to watch shows with characters they can identify with. That much is really obvious, and you only have to look at how many lesbians in the US / UK who have watched "The L word". When you have a society where men in movies are shown as anything and everything that they desire to be, you have a huge array of role models to look up to, people to aspire to. Pick any treat that you find admirable (be it strength, intelligence, whatever) and you can find hundreds of male role models in the media to look up to. If you are a big tough guy who wants to watch big tough guys doing big tough guy things, you can find 100 shows about it. If you are a intelligent critical thinking kind of guy, you can find 100s of shows about men doing intelligent critical thinking kind of things. If you are a sensitive kind compassionate guy you can find 100's of examples of shows with these types of guys represented - And everything in between.
If you are a woman, and you want to watch a show with someone you can relate to as a main character, and you don't see yourself as a love interest for a man, or a damsel in distress, or generally inferior to your male counterparts, there are very very few examples of this and you are really limited in what you can watch.
The result of this is a society of people who grow up seeing men as capable of anything they want, and women as capable of little more than being a love interest and a damsel, and women growing up with very few people in the media that they can relate to and look up to.