Gender Based Insults

[ugotslimed]

One of the common features of every season of the show seemed to be kicking the slime victims when they are down. Saying things like "you idiot!" to them as they stand there all green and gooey, but it seems some of the later seasons had a lot of insults where the girls made fun of the boys for being stupid. I just saw a clip in an episode where the kids were farming and one of the boys kids watered. Vanessa then calls him a "stupid boy" -and there is another episode-I forget which-where a girl says something like "without any boys in the show you won't have anyone stupid enough to say I don't know and get slimed"-of course then the girl gets slimed. I don't remember which girl that is or why there wasn't going to be any boys on the show. Was this mocking of the boys more prominent in the later season? I don't remember it being so gender based in the early days-particularly because girls got slimed a lot more than boys back then.

[vaghoul]

i remember Moose told Alasdair that he is a "dunderhead" during an episode...

[BBOvenGuy]

As Vanessa got older, her on-screen persona became more and more hostile toward boys. It started with the "Romance & Dating" episode. I remember watching them tape the "Laura's Love Letters" sketch and Roger thinking that was a good direction for Vanessa's character. That's also the episode where Vanessa keeps dumping popcorn on Doug's head, a running gag that wasn't originally in the script but evolved spontaneously as the show was being shot.

[ugotslimed]

why would that have been a good direction for the character though? Because she -shall we say-wasn't as attractive as the other female cast members? When kids get older that sort of thing shapes your perception of the opposite sex. You start to hate them out of pure resentment if they don't find you attractive. Actually, in retrospect, a good character to be hostile to boys would have been Alanis! It would have worked well for her as a trial run for her angry woman persona she had as a pop star.

[ChrisInMI]

You're thinking of the "Mistakes" episode from 1989. Ross tells Stephanie and Sariya that he locked the boys in the bathroom (after they wolfed down lots of chili) and the girls will have to do the show by themselves. Sariya remarks, "But Ross, if the boys are missing for all the links, you won't have anyone stupid enough to say Water or get slimed." She then gets drenched. Ross tells her, "Y'know, Sariya, I never seem to have a problem finding stupid kids."

It seemed like most of the girls in the 1989-90 seasons had a sort of "anti-male" thing going themselves. Witness: Sariya in "First Times" '89, advising Stephanie that it's better for her to dump her boyfriend before he dumps her first (for the sake of her reputation), and later advising Stephanie of the best way to repel pesky boys: eat some garlic and onions. And Jennifer in "Blame" '90, telling Amy that boys are as much to blame for the unfortunate things that happen to girls as are parents and teachers. (or something like that)

One of my favorite gender-humor skits was in "Hanging Out" (1984), in which Alasdair, who is going to the costume party as a '60s flower child, remarks that he hasn't made himself a costume because "that's a girls' job." Lisa bristles at this sexist comment, but Ruth calms her down and proposes that they SHOULD make Alasdair's costume. At which moment the girls turn Alasdair into a "flour child" by dumping an entire bag of flour over his head.

Of course, for a lot of classic gender-specific humor YCDTOTV-style, one look no further than the "Sexual Equality" or "Equal Rights" episode, way back in 1981.

[MarcD]

Yes and later in the 1989 and 1990 shows they had no shortage of "stupid" kids, both male and female. Christian, Nick, Jill, Ted....at times all of them were written to be "dumb" to varying degrees.