THROWBACK

NBC’s ‘Whitney’: Retro-Sexist?

Features jokes about PMS, women’s weight, and tired gender wars.

The most retro-sexist show of the season isn’t Pan Am or Charlie’s Angels or even The Playboy Club, rather it’s a show that is about a thoroughly modern woman living with her scruffy boyfriend: Whitney. According to Slate’s Mary Elizabeth Williams, the promos alone promise that Whitney features tired, clichéd jokes about gender wars, PMS, cellulite, and what women “really mean” when they talk. Williams warns that the show’s star, comedian Whitney Cummings, is poised to take over, or at least the media would like everyone to believe that. But given the failure of the recent I Don’t Know How She Does It, which features similar clichés, Williams wonders if there is even an audience for this type of retro-sexism, despite it being pushed down everyone’s throats.