Page 101 - Living Room Wars Rethinking Media Audiences for a Postmodern World

7
Gender and/in media consumption

(with Joke Hermes)

In the evening [Mr Meier] gets involved in conversation,
otherwise he would at least have watched the regional
news; so he does not see the results again until after the
news. In a way he wanted to go to bed early, and that is
what he told his wife. But now he has a faint hope of being
able to see the Mueller goal on the Second Channel sports
programme. However he would have to switch channels.
He tells his wife she looks tired. She is surprised he cares,
but she does go up to bed. He fetches a beer from the
kitchen. Unfortunately his wife comes back to get a drink.
Suddenly the penny drops. ‘My God! The sports
programme! That’s why you sent me to bed!’ He doesn’t
want to get involved, and quickly goes to the toilet. In the
meantime it happens. His wife shouts, ‘Hey Max
Schmeling is on!’ He doesn’t react. He can’t stand
Schmeling because he has something to do with Coca-
Cola. He deliberately doesn’t hurry. When he comes back
United’s game is in progress. He, is just in time to see the
second, rather third-rate, goal. […] In the afternoon (the
next day) a neighbour tells him that his club has lost again,
which is what he thought anyway, because when there is
no wind he can hear the crowd in the stadium from the
balcony and there has been no shouting. He goes for a
walk with his wife and their younger children; some
acquaintances delay him. When he comes home his elder
son is watching the sports review after having slept till
midday. Meier gets angry because he has wasted the day,
and even more so when his son asks, ‘Have you heard,
United won 2–0!’ As if he was an idiot! He gives his son
the Bild, and the son says, ‘I thought you didn’t read that.’
Offended, the father goes to his room, while the mother
sits down next to her eldest son and watches the sports
programme with him. It does not interest her, but it is an
attempt at making contact.
(Bausinger 1984:348–9)