Anatomy of a Talk
Show 
Menstuff® has compiled the following information on how one
particular television talk show "set up" men.
Anatomy of a Talk Show
Notes from the 2/19/86 Donahue show titled
"Men, Sex & Power"
Resources
Anatomy of a Talk Show
While going through my files on the men's movement, I ran across a
folder that brought back a lot of memories. It one of the few shows
Donahue did where men actually got to talk a bit. The date, February
19, 1986. The show "Men, Sex & Power" from a workshop
that Justine Sterling created. In fact, a number of the men in the
audience had taken that program, and gave their gorilla growls (sort
of like Tim does on "Home Improvement") The show featured five men on
the stage and two plants in the audience. Donahue walked around the
audience making statements and asking questions. In his hand were
typed reference notes prepared by his producers. (See
below.) One page had a paragraph on each man on stage: name,
what he does for work, marital and children status, and a few words
taken from phone interviews (1). A second sheet has information on
the two plants in the audience (3) and statements that they made that
Donahue goes off on later in the show. Next, he's got a full page on
each one of the five guests. Some of them note statements the men
made that the staff knows will get negative audience reaction. They
are usually in bold type. Leonard Goldstein (6), Tom Kelley (5), Tony
Smith (9), Stuart Blaustein (8) who calls himself a male feminist and
Ken Druck (2), who wrote The
Secrets Men Keep. Another sheet lists what was to come up
during the show on the Chiron (4) and another about tape insert of
Goldie Hawn, which one of the men talked about in his interview, with
in and out lines from the 1:04 minute tape (7). It even included
"group applause" typed in at the end. I wish I still had the tape of
the show. I think I sent it to Michigan State University which has a
large Changing Men collection in its campus library. I remember three
major things about this show. On the notes about Ken Druck, near the
bottom a reminder to Donahue "Don't forget to talk about the
BEER DRINKING..." It's a way to become just one of the
boys"...And you certainly know what all that leads to." with a big
underline here. which was Donahue's cue to do his drunk impression
"Honey I'm home." which looked like it came from personal experience
more than role-playing. He did the impression often, usually when
there weren't many men in the audience. The second, was his interview
with one of the plants, which I'm sure they put up on purpose to make
men look bad. I was embarrassed for men. Third, at the end, Donahue
shows his disgust, throws the script down and walks off. Thanks,
Phil. That's how I got a copy of the script. A friend of a friend of
a friend picked it up. Donahue was famous for finding ways to put men
down, usually when they weren't present. On the few shows where men
were the focal point, there was almost always a woman on stage to
refute whatever they had to say. Not so when it was women talking
about the Dead Beat Dad or the Broken Relationship or Spousal Abuse.
Only one side of those stories were allowed. He only did one show on
circumcision the whole time he was on the air, and swore he would
never present that subject again. He did two that I remember on
Fathers, over two years apart. Each had an audience full of dads and
kids, from babies to pre-teens. I remember one comment he made was
something to the effect that he must have all the single dads in the
country right there in the studio. Another jab at men. Another show
had men who had been physically abused by their wives, including stab
wounds and women in the audience who admitted to being violent toward
their husbands. One woman was telling her story. She was angry that
the police had cuffed her and taken her to the station, during the
time her husband was being taken to the hospital in an ambulance.
Phil asked what she did and she said she threw a staple gun at him,
it bounced off the wall, hit him in the head with enough force to
require something like 20 stitches. Donahue quips, "Oh, a bank shot,
eh?" And the audience laughs.
Donahue is off the air now but there have been plenty of talk-show
hosts to replace him. They now get unsuspecting guys on who think the
show is about patching up their relationship when it's really "How to
Dump Your Boyfriend" on national TV. I've been on my share of
talk-shows, from Oprah to Hour Magazine, and a number of local talk
shows. You can really see, once you know, how it's set up, usually
not to present men in a positive light, though around 1/3 of the
television viewing audience of these shows are men. There was an
exception in one program on Donahue - and believe me, I used to tape
three talk shows a day and edit them by subject so I had seen a lot
of talk shows and how men are treated. It was during the summer and
Phil was on vacation. They taped what had originally been planned for
one hour, which he watched from home. He got so excited about the
show that he had them continue taping to make a second show so he
could get down to the studio for it. (I remember we didn't get to see
it in San Francisco because KGO-TV decided it didn't want it and did
a re-run, as I remember, that was very male negative.) Now, most
producers try to set things up especially to trigger a man into
making a fool of himself. One of the women said something like,
"Well, do you drum and run around nude in the woods?" Joe Laur, a man
that does week long survival trainings for men in the wilderness,
took a deep breath, looked at the woman, and in a nonjudgmental, no
reactive way said, "What do you think?" At the end of the taping,
Donahue, who was off screen in jeans and a shirt, was coaxed on
stage, was asked to honor his father and grandfather, Phil and Phil,
and left the stage, appearing somewhat embarrassed. Ironically, Ken
Druck was also on this show, years after the original one. It was one
of the cleanest, most honest portrayals of men doing their work and
the talk show honestly presenting it without a lot of manipulation,
ploys and shame. And, while it didn't make up for all the other
put-downs of men who were really working to change their lives for
the betterment of everyone around them, it was a welcomed start..
Notes from the 2/19/86 Donahue show titled
"Men, Sex & Power"
Here are Donahue's 9 pages of notes. They were originally on 8 1/2 x
11 paper. The only alteration I made was to trim the blank sides to
make the type larger and still work within the format for this web
site.
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