What are the values of "Heartland" America? Well, you can believe what people say about themselves or you can believe instead what their behaviors say about them. Personally, I think that the latter is probably more accurate and informative. So what do we learn from the popular shows on TLC, a network which has recently been touted as targeting the "Heartland"?
This week, TLC gives us a 3 year old little girl prancing around in an outfit meant to mimic Julie Roberts in "Pretty Woman." You know, the movie where she was a prostitute? This little girl wears the blonde wig, the thigh-high boots and the mini skirt, all a part of the TLC show "Toddlers and Tiaras," a consistently horrifying peek at the over-sexualization of toddlers in beauty pageants. ...
TLC also brings us the Quiverfull Dugars in "19 Kids and Counting", "I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant", and "Sister Wives". TLC started marketing and targeting the "heartland" several years ago with their "red state strategy". Somehow these shows are supposed to be about family values, but they are a pungent mixture of religion, Barbie fetishes, pregnancy fetishes, and food. And that's fine; something for everyone and all of that. But I personally draw the line at toddlers dressed as prostitutes. ...
I'm all for TLC making money off of targeting an under-served market, but what I find horrifying is what that market wants. In what way is dressing a 3 year old up as a hooker a heartland value?
Source: Policus USA
It might at first seem like there is a conflict here between the messages communicated in shows like these and traditional Christianity, but not so much -- at least, not the Christianity practiced by so many conservative evangelical Christians in America today. The hyper-sexualization of little girls may sound un-Christian, but it reinforces the Christian message that sex (read: pregnancy) is the primary purpose for females. Focusing on the little girls like this helps reinforce the message at earlier and earlier ages, before conflicting messages from modern society can take hold.
Polygamy certainly conflicts with traditional Christianity, but it nevertheless sends messages about the secondary and submissive role of wives, the need for women to stay home and take care of children, etc. The other shows are also rather blatant in reinforcing the idea of pregnancy being the primary job of women -- if you aren't shooting out another fetus every year or so, you must be doing something wrong and have failed as a woman.
These are the messages that are being broadcast to "Heartland" America every week, several times a week. What's more, they are being received in a context that is sufficiently non-religious and non-political that they can be absorbed more readily without going through conceptual or ideological filters. This ensures that the patriarchal, misogynistic ideas are imprinted even more deeply and strongly than they otherwise might.
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