Myth Of The Virtuous John

I'm watching the premiere episode of Fox's "Lie To Me" starring the very good Tim Roth. I don't care for the show, but that's not at issue here. Interesting to me is a plotline in the episode where a congressman goes to a prostitute, but not for the purpose of having sex. This brought to my mind this idea that I have.

There are a lot of things in the world that are vastly over-represented in pop culture and the media. A prime example is hitmen. I'm inclined to believe that there are more hired assassins in movies and on TV then there are in real life.

But let me get back to the virtuous john thing. In movies and TV, there often seem to be men who hire prostitutes and call phone sex lines not to have sex or talk dirty, but in both cases, just to talk. The involved women either find this reasonable or get angry. Both reactions seem difficult to understand.

I think I first saw this phenomenon in Spike Lee's "Girl 6". In it a woman goes to work for a phone sex line, encountering a grief-stricken widower who just wants to talk about his feelings. It also pops up in Scorsese's "Taxi Driver". Travis Bickle initially visits Jodie Foster's teen prostitute character not because he wants sex, but because he wants to extract her from her depraved situation. I think there are more examples like those out there. In truth, I don't believe there are such men paying women not to have sex.

Come back for more of my media over-representation theories.