#The Ticket Too?

A long, long time ago, I wondered on this site if The Ticket were going to get in trouble with women.

At the time, my concern was with The Hardline.  With Greg Williams, Mike R, Corby, and Danny, the show would frequently take what I characterized at the time, and still recall, as a frankly misogynistic turn.

Even after HeeHoo got the boot, the show would frequently veer into that territory.

I'm not a politically correct guy at all.  But I really disliked the attitude toward women I heard from The Hardline from time to time, all three of the remaining personalities.  And I would also sometimes hear it from Dan McDowell.  Real disrespect and even hostility that was not just a bit.

At the time I thought:  Man, some of this Hardline stuff is really rough.  I wondered what would happen if some women's group decided they were going to make a name for themselves by urging listeners to boycott The Hardline and, more importantly, boycott advertisers who bought time there.  Get some picketers outside the building for photo opportunities for the local journal.

Never happened, of course, Dallas not being a hotbed of feminist activism.

And then, over time, The Hardline seemed to drop the hostility towards women, or greatly reduce it. In any event, I stopped noticing it.

I have noticed it some with Dan and Julie -- not too much, maybe just Dan trying to figure out if he's still the Sports Humorist with the realignment, nothing that made me punch out (I'm liking the show) -- but apparently something popped up the other day.  I didn't hear it and I'm not entirely sure what took place (something to do with Tyson Fury's training regimen and his wife) but the subject of The Ticket's relationship with women seems to have moved closer to the front burner.

We've all noticed The Ticket's recent celebration of The V1, a phrase I personally dislike -- talk about objectification of the female -- but looks like it's here to stay.  And Julie's participation in noon-3 seems to have been a success.  So seems to me that things are taking a turn for the better in terms of gender outreach.  Which I don't necessarily favor when it looks like pandering or bowing to PC pressure (which Julie's elevation doesn't feel like), but it beats what the station was throwing out in its earlier years.

But perhaps there's some way to go.  With #MeToo reaching even Dallas, there may be women out making picket signs as I sit here typing.

A Question for Junior

I was fascinated by Junior's "neighbor talk" last week.  He has an across-the-street neighbor lady who will not return his hearty waves and greetings, hundreds of efforts at neighborly reaching-out completely snubbed by this woman.  Gordon reported a similar experience with a next-door neighbor.

Both Craig and Gordon professed utter incomprehension at this treatment.  Was it something they did?  Junior asked the group whether he should confront this woman personally to find out what her problem is. The sense of the showgram was that he should not waste his time.

What surprised me about this discussion was that no one considered whether the neighbor's attitude might have had anything whatsoever to do with the fact that Junior/Gordon work at The Ticket.  Not everyone in the Metro would recognize a Ticket host, but I'll bet the neighbors of each of them know who they are.  [SEE CORRECTION -- FIRST COMMENTER BELOW.]

And some people just don't like The Ticket.  Some people, in fact, dislike The Ticket a lot.

Sometimes some of you guys take me to task for my complaints about Ticket vulgarity and its attitude toward women. In fact, I seldom mind it very much, but among people who don't like The Ticket, a substantial percentage of them object to that aspect of its broadcast ethos.   In other words, among people who don't like The Ticket, a lot of them dislike it for reasons that relate to issues about which people are culturally sensitive and highly judgmental.   Although Junior is by no means the chief practitioner of the racy arts, perhaps his neighbor is tarring him with that brush. 

Here is my question for Junior:  Is your unfriendly neighbor a churchgoer?  OK, hold on:  One does not need to be a Christian in order to dislike The Ticket, of course, nor does being a Christian disqualify anyone from being a P1. However, among people who object to The Ticket on broadcast-standards grounds, I would think that a fairish percentage of them are churchy types who might well believe The Ticket to be at the vanguard of the decline in public and private morality and civility, the home of broadcast profanity and lewdness.  They see it as a symbol of what has gone wrong with America.  If the answer to my question is "yes," you might be on the road to an answer as to why your neighbor has no interest in brightening your day. 

Um  .  .  .  of course I have absolutely no idea what Craig's neighbor has against him.  Maybe she thinks his bike shorts are too revealing.  In any event, I was surprised that neither Craig nor Gordon ascribed any significance to their own prominence, and what it might mean to people they encounter from day to day.

Don't laugh, and don't scoff.   (Well, of course you can laugh and scoff, and feel free to do so in the comments.)   But it would not shock me in the slightest if Junior's and Gordon's neighbors not only have  no objection to how they keep their yards, but believe that they're actually bringing down property values.