Steve Harvey- Season 4 Premiere

suzy7soars
Sep 10, 2015
5 min read

Steve Harvey kicked off season 4 of his eponymous show with the promise that this season will be the "season of surprises" as he surprised 150 women sitting on stage with an audience of 2000 men who were there to tell the women what men really think on a host of topics in a two-part season premier called What Men Really Think: The Event. The show was packed with Harvey's trademark advice and insight to women on what men are thinking and how he believes women should respond to that male thought. MY ONE MAJOR CONCERN was that in explaining men's behavior, Harvey seemed to imply that men wouldn't change their ways and it would be up to women to adapt to the conduct of the men in their lives. Had there been more substantive input from the woman's perspective, perhaps some food for thought would've been elicited on what men can do on their end to improve things in romantic relationships. Overall, it was an energetically interactive show with the audiences of men and women cheering, booing, clapping, standing, and shouting their reactions at different times during the show. Advice from one male audience member regarding communicating garnered hooting and cheering: "we're like Twitter - you [sic] got to keep it to 140 characters and we [sic] got you."

Some of Harvey's positive and supportive advice to women included telling women that they should not operate from a position of low self-confidence in the dating arena because "at the end of the day, for every woman there is a man who needs you too." Another Harvey pearl of wisdom: "We don't stress about a marriage because the marriage is your dream. Our dream is the woman of our dreams." That, he informed, is why men don't stress over wedding preparations or a wedding period: "if we can get you without giving you a day - cool!" (That was an eye-opener!) He also warned, "Do not bear the responsibility when you're being cheated on. It's not yours.... Some of these guys, and they'll tell you - are just butt-holes."

By way of explaining his rationale for these kickoff episodes, Harvey venerated his wife, daughters and other women in his life and then said, "I thought I had 4 daughters but I realize I have 4 million daughters," whom he apparently wants to help with relationship issues. In his "Ask Steve" segment, one woman asked Harvey to divulge the best advice his mother gave him. His mom advised him to "always be decent to women," even though he'd make mistakes with them. Harvey claims that he has done that in his life: ''I've made many mistakes with women but I've been decent about it - I've never called them names." That statement reminded me that men and women really do often have different perspectives, because name-calling isn't the only thing that comes to mind for me as potential indecent behavior in romantic relationships.

This was exemplified on day two of Harvey's premiere, where he supported women "ghosting" (the practice of one dater ending a relationship by disappearing - no text responses or communication of any kind - without explanation). He said men had been doing it for years. Is that really acting decently to a woman/man you've been dating?

For a short time on this second day, Harvey reversed things and called the episode: WHAT WOMEN REALLY THINK: THE EVENT - where the men could hear women's frank responses to questions/issues befuddling men. I thought Harvey was at his best handling the question, 'Why do women need to know what we're doing every moment of the day?' because he urged the men and the women to see the other side's point of view. Men interpreted women's constant questioning of their whereabouts as distrust. However, the women said that wasn't what they were thinking at all - women simply wanted to guide men away from repeating past bad decisions (e.g., extravagant impulse buying). Harvey advised that to forge better relations, women should consider kindly telling their boyfriends / husbands 'we think you may not be making a good decision and we want to help you out with that.' The applause from the male audience seemed to support this advice.

Another question men asked was, "Why do ladies lose interest when men struggle financially?' The women said it was because men "lash out at us" during times of financial struggle. The boos from the men indicated they didn't believe they lashed out at their women counterparts. Harvey deftly stepped in as moderator once again and explained men's thinking in this situation: men feel ashamed when they aren't where they want to be financially and feel emasculated when women offer to pay for things even if done with the best of intentions. Men would rather women not make such offers and, instead, give the men time to figure out how to fix their finances. Harvey intoned, that men are not lashing out at women, but lashing out at themselves. I felt like this let men off the hook a bit and wish Harvey had said that it's a guy's responsibility to appropriately handle his feelings of shame and not mis-direct those feelings at the women in their lives. Is that an unrealistic request coming from a woman's perspective?

'Why do women need closure?' The guys Harvey polled think it's because women want men to feel as bad as we do. The truth is that it drives women crazy not to know why a man broke up with us and we want to know so that we don't make the same "mistake" in our next relationship. With directness, Harvey said 'we don't care about your closure' and while it's admirable that women want to learn from past relationships, '[men] don't care" about your next relationship.... To us decent is: it's over, let's not drag it out, no hassle.' The women in the audience pushed back and said that's not decent behavior and insisted that men should at least say 'we didn't work out because....' Harvey initially appeared to concede that point but backtracked when he seemed to imply that women should be thankful men end relationships without explanation because, upon reflection, women know, intuitively, that those relationships weren't good anyway. I repeat: once again, this seems to let men off the hook for their bad behavior. In my opinion, a troubled relationship doesn't justify men ending it poorly or cowardly.

Harvey had three women who helped him during these premiere shows: Carrie Keagan, a pop culture guru, Kim Gravel, a confidence coach & reality TV personality, and The Smart Dating Academy's, Bella Gahdhi. Keagan and Gravel were relegated to walking through the male audience and distributing microphones while Gahdhi was able to provide a few dating tips at the end of the show. Had these women experts had opportunities to weigh in substantively throughout the show, perhaps an additional facet of decency within romantic relationships would have been presented.

One segment of show #2 that I found enjoyable was the panel Harvey assembled of his celebrity men friends: Todd Chrisley, Bill Rancic, Geraldo Rivera, and David Otunga. It was cool to hear these men, of different ages, backgrounds, races/ethnicities weigh in on topics like whether men in their 20s (or younger) should rush to marry and have kids. For the record, all of the men, said, ‘no’ because, as Chrisley said, men are just young and dumb at that stage of their lives. So then, perhaps, culturally, we women ought to stop pushing ourselves and our friends/family members to marry just because we’ve dated for while. Maybe we’re asking too much of guys in their 20s who recognize, they’re just not ready to take on the responsibilities of a husband and a father. They need to “have a little more dough” and time, as Rancic said, so they feel prepared to support a spouse and kids.

The premiere event is over. We'll have to stay tuned to see what the self-proclaimed "love guru" does to make good on his promise to surprise us throughout season 4.