ARP final

The first time we hear the little girls speak, we hear them articulate their professional dreams. They list off typical careers that are viewed in high regard, such as engineer and lawyer. One of the girls, Stacy, says she wants to be “the nation’s number one investment banker”. This is met by the narrator condescendingly asking her if she really thinks she can be number one, as if the narrator knows that a woman could never hold that title. To this, Stacy responds, “why not?”. This interaction presents a theme that proves prevalent throughout the sketch: women slowly realizing that the deck is stacked against them, both literally in the sketch and metaphorically. Compare this interaction with how the girls react after getting cards that set them back in the board game again and again. They eventually react with anger, culminating with the girls chanting “break it” as one hits the ceiling game piece with her shoe after getting a card that left her unemployed after a sexual harassment scandal. This reflects how women slowly, over time, learn to temper the expectations of what they can get accomplished in their respective professions. Through a series of many sexist roadblocks, women have their excitement stripped away from them as they realize those in current managerial positions are more likely to view male candidates as serious contenders for positions. “None of these choices get you above the glass ceiling.” Laments Stacy, to which the narrator exclaims “Now you’re getting it!”.

The sketch also explores the futility of firms to protect their female employees from this institutionalized sexism that is discussed. This is evidenced by the choices that the girls are given when drawing a card from the deck. When one of the children draws a card from the deck describing a situation wherein she is sexually harassed by her boss, she is left with three options: go to HR, put up with it, or sleep with him. Two of these choices are clearly intended to be viewed as the incorrect way to put up with the situation, leading the viewer to expect that going to HR would provide a helpful solution. This assumption is then flipped, when after the girl chooses to go to HR, she ends up unemployed. Her game piece, which was once a smiling cartoon women dressed up for work, now changes to a cartoon woman lying down on the couch crying. This reflects the theme of intra-company departments being totally unhelpful when it comes to assisting victims in the workplace. Other examples from the sketch also reflect how those in positions of power or management abuse those positions in order to fit their sexist feelings. When one of the children draws a card, they are met with disappointment after finding out that their ivy league education emasculates their boss, preventing them from getting a promotion.

The narrator in this sketch acts as a vessel for the sexist management that exists in the workplace. The narrator is constantly condescending to the children, saying “typical women” in a dismissive tone after one of the kids is confused after having to deal with extremely adult themes. As previously stated, she (the narrator) also questions one of girl’s abilities to become the number one investment banker, presumably due to her gender. It is also important to note that the narrator is a female adult voice. This is presumably to allow her to act as a sort of guidance for these young women, and teach them the harsh realities of the real world. However, it is not explicitly stated that she believes this reality is “harsh”. Her cheery demeanor and seeming pleasure in crushing the dreams of these kids shows that she is accepting of the double standards and unfair treatment of women in the workplace. Her apathetic, and almost supportive, views of sexism in the workplace paints her as the ideal worker for the sexist powers that be. It is the narrator’s comedic delivery of the lines that really drives the point of the sketch home. She over-normalizes the prejudices that women deal with; which in turn brings light to these problems, and highlights how ludicrous it is that so little is said or done about these problems.

After analyzing this sketch, I would like to research the following questions: How do women fight the rampant sexist workplace culture? How do children find out about the realities of sexism? Do apathetic attitudes have an effect one way or another on social issues? How are problems like these normalized and accepted in society?