Thoughtless for the Day

Every night I pray to Mithras that some Anthropology major will find a way to mine the cultural goldmine that is Bad Girls Club for his or her Doctoral Thesis.

For decades now, smelly hippie types have claimed that a matriarchal, gynocentric society would be non-violent, but the last few episodes of BGC have doomed that theory. The girls have essentially divided themselves into two warring tribes - Hell, the last episode even had the word "War" in the title - "The Hyena Clan" led by bipolar ham-beast Tanisha and the "Slut Clan" led by the alluring (in a feral kind of way) Jennavecia.

When viewed through the prism of the "Bad Girls Club Effect" (Remind me to copyright that term), the behavior of Lynndie England may not have been anomalous. In other words: just because a group is dominated by women, doesn't necessarily mean that group will be a bunch of stanky tree-hugging pacifists.

By the way, if you think I'm going overboard with the tribal analogy, consider, for a moment, the fate of "Clayboy". Clayboy was, in essence, the tribal fetish of the Hyena Clan, which helps to explain why the members of the Slut Clan felt the need to deface him. What I find most intriguing is the manner in which Clayboy was vandalized: Most primitive fetishes tend to feature large phalluses (the Roman God Priapus would be an example) that are often hacked off by opposing tribes. In the case of Clayboy, a large phallus was added, in effect transforming him into a fertility symbol!

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that it might be easy to mock BGC as dumb TV, but with just a little digging, you might discover that the anthropological and sociological issues tucked away in an episode of BGC is just as valid as anything you might find on PBS - and twice as entertaining with not a single goddamn pledge drive.

By the way, I'm also awarding last night's episode bonus points for the attempted recreation of the “pissing in the mouth" scene from Hated. Not that it had anything to Anthropology, I'm just glad I lived long enough to see it on TV.