Blog of the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research
In the grand tradition of Ms. magazine, we present the latest installment of SNL’s “Classic ESPN Women’s Sports Tournament” with NO COMMENT.
(OK, if you really want to know what we think, see our previous posts about this misogynist series. We’re just too tired to say it again.)
First, it was Tampax, and then it was Vagisil. But it’s good they didn’t leave out Summer’s Eve. And I expect Midol (for those irritating PMS-y women) and something about menopausal women’s hot flashes (can’t they control themselves with hormone therapies?) to be next. Although probably SNL writers aren’t savvy enough yet to even contemplate what menopause is or how they feel about it, so they’ll probably stick with skits that revolve around women’s body parts and younger women’s reproductive experiences.
I was frustrated with SNL’s skit about ESPN’s coverage of a women’s billiards tournament, “Tampax to the Max Tournament of Champions” (see my blog post about it). I was disgusted and concerned that SNL writers revised this skit for a second airing, to include a spoof about women’s yeast infections during a Women’s bowling tournament, “Vagisil Superstars of Bowling Tournament”. After seeing the second skit, I (along with many other critics) knew that the power of the skits was not in jokes about women’s menstruation alone but, rather, in jokes about the disgusting nature of women’s bodies more generally.
Readers of re:Cycling know that we love menstrual humor – we’re always willing to mock femcare adverts and can even laugh at ourselves. But, honestly, what’s funny about repeating the names of feminine hygiene products? It wasn’t funny when SNL had their fake sportscasters say “Tampax” over and over again in October, and repeating the same skit with Vagisil last weekend wasn’t funny either.
The show has a history of having a writers’ conference room that resembles a men’s locker room, and it appears that little has changed since the days when John Belushi would run around the set ranting about how “Women aren’t funny.” I wonder if he would think vaginas are hi-larious the way the show’s current staff does.
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