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.)
Four years ago I published an article in Sex Roles (March 2006) about the twists and turns of the media coverage of a scandal that came to be known as “Camillagate.” It concerned the publication of a surreptitiously recorded phone chat between Prince Charles, heir to the British throne, and his lover, Camilla Parker-Bowles, that occurred in 1993. The reason the mild sex banter between two horny middle-aged royals got so much attention was that at one point they made joking references to tampons in an erotic context. The exchange was widely misreported with a distorted claim that Charles expressed a desire to be transformed into a tampon. It even became the basis for a skit on Saturday Night Live (only a small portion of it is available now online).
At the time I predicted that Charles would never get away from the tampon association. What I could not predict was how nuanced the forms of mockery would be. Who could possibly have guessed that the story would play out as a means of bolstering George W. Bush’s faltering reputation by contrasting his macho style with the more effete image of The Prince of Wales?
In October 2005 as Charles was about to visit the U.S., he told an interviewer in London that he hoped to speak with President Bush about improving relations with Muslims. The thought of a Brit having the temerity to advise Bush so enraged some in the right wing that they attacked with menstrual guns blazing. A blog called “The Citizen Journal: Conservative Political Forum, Articles & Resources” headlined a brief screed, “’Prince Tampon’ aka Prince Charles to lecture Bush on Muslims!!” (exclamations in original). The next day (Halloween!), the blog of a woman named Debbie Schlussel, a self-described “conservative political commentator,” echoed the same theme and in a far more vicious tone. Her piece was titled “Another Halloween Costume: Tampon Man Now Islam’s Envoy to U.S.” She repeated the phrase “Tampon Man,” “Prince Tampon,” “Prince Charles of Tampon” or “Tampon Prince” eight times and also included a crude cartoon depicting a box of Tampax with legs and arms and several tampons sticking out of the top, one with a crown and Charles’ face with the caption, “Sweet Camilla, Your wish is granted.”
Whew! What a lesson! Would it be any wonder that men, particularly any men exposed to this kind of vitriol, would conclude that menstrual contact of any kind must be avoided at all cost? The threat to one’s social standing is too great. If the reputation of an heir apparent of a great nation can be so publicly bashed over an innocent and misreported sex joke, can any man escape menstrual mockery?
The public’s fascination with the story has manifested itself in curious ways as it has settled into the realm of popular myth. In 2006 a British paper, the Daily Star, ran a survey to mark the 130th anniversary of Alexander Graham Bell’s invention of the telephone asking its readers to select “the biggest phone scandals of all time.” To the paper’s surprise, Prince Charles and Camilla’s “saucy” chat edged out all others including soccer super star David Beckham’s text sex exchanges with Rebecca Loos (number two on the list) and Richard Nixon’s Watergate recordings (number four). Further evidence of how well entrenched the tale has become is revealed by how efficiently and subtly it can be evoked. An episode of the cartoon program The Family Guy once had the lead character say on the phone “I want to be your tampon,” and a ballet performance titled “Diana the Princess” choreographed by Peter Schaufuss in London in 2005 featured dancing tampons. Is it possible that one day “Charlies’ tampon” will be as familiar an allusion as “Achilles’ heel?” It would be shorthand for any man who even toyed with the thought of voluntarily exposing himself to anything menstrual.
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.
This past weekend, SNL revised the skit once again to be a skit about ESPN coverage of a women’s darts tournament, and the main sponsor was Summer’s Eve, “Summer’s Eve Stars of Darts Competition”. The skit was as dumb as it was the first two times, but the one-line jokes within the skit carried even more jarring phrases in my opinion (e.g., “when your situation down south makes him breathe through his mouth” or “when your man’s in a coma from your panty aroma”). As a trio, these skits point to the fear, dislike, and disrespect for women’s bodies. The three skits also all revolve around talk about women’s vaginas, and the mysteries, misunderstandings, fears, and disgust surrounding this body part. As a trio, the skits produce the message that vaginas are gross, that men do not understand women’s reproductive processes and conditions, and the not-so-subtle message specifically to women is that women should keep their vaginal “conditions” private and not bother men with them. Indeed, the message in the one-liners this time around is that vaginas should be good-smelling, unbloodied, and available for men’s use at all times (and no other situation is acceptable).
After watching all three skits, I think we can safely conclude the following:
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Trying to find a reason to stay up late this past Saturday night, I found myself watching Saturday Night Live for a few minutes. Unfortunately I tuned in right before a skit called “Tampax to the Max,” a skit within which two male SNL actors played sports announcers for a “Ladies’ Billiards” competition. Drew Barrymore and SNL’s Kristen Wiig played the two billiards players, but the skit wasn’t really about the billiards tournament at all. The skit was written specifically to highlight Tampax as a sponsor of the billiards event and, therefore, the skit was filled with superfluous tampon jokes and random interjections of the word “Tampax” (which, of course, brought the most laughs for the skit). Putting all other comments aside about the perpetuation of gender inequality in sports as well as all of my feelings about how ridiculous Drew Barrymore and her SNL counterpart (Kristen Wiig) were made to look in this skit, I think that we cannot just sit by and let this skit air without commenting about the place of menstrual products (and, by default, menstruation itself) within it. On one hand, this skit was simply a way for some SNL writer to air some really bad Tampax jokes and allow male actors on SNL to get a chance to say “Tampax” as many times as they could within one skit. In this context, perhaps some could characterize this skit as harmless. Yet, on the other hand, menstruation and women’s activities surrounding menstruation become a complete joke in this skit as a result. The inferences made about the connections between menstrual products and women’s sports are strange (Is Tampax what everyone thinks about when they watch women’s sports events? And are the sponsors more important than the actual sports event, if it is a female sports event? And is it more fun to think about women’s menstruation than to watch women compete?). The fact that the billiard players’ place within the skit becomes shadowed by their menstrual products is maddening, however. The skit makes clear that women’s involvement in billiards (perhaps sports in general?) is unimportant but their use of menstrual products is much more interesting to men…
While I understand that SNL makes light of all different kinds of bodily processes (and that IS funny at times), the underlying equations of women with their reproductive processes and the laughs gotten from the pure mention of Tampax in this skit are disturbing. As I watched this skit, I couldn’t help thinking about why we haven’t moved on from laughing about menstruation and menstrual products. As we all know, jokes often let us know exactly how unequal the world is and, in my opinion, letting male SNL actors just get a chance to make some random Tampax jokes in a skit is not doing women or reproduction or menstruation any good at all. Does menstruation become any more positive or any more well understood because of this skit? I don’t think so. I was offended by this skit, and would be interested to hear if I was the only one who was….
