TV Reviews : Esquire to Air Its Version of the American Male

Women: Did you know that men are slobs? That they’re really just little boys? That they have no trouble sharing their feelings?

No? Then tune into “Esquire: About Men, for Women,” a 13-part Lifetime cable channel series from Esquire magazine, with its self-proclaimed “authoritative view of the American male,” beginning tonight at 10:30. Each program has four parts.

In “Coversations,” you’ll “eavesdrop” on the “innermost feelings” of four men “privately” rapping (on camera) about marriage, parenthood, sex, genital size and being short.

You’ll get the inside scoop in “Celebrity Interviews,” where celebrity interviewer Ali MacGraw awkwardly talks to--you guessed it--male celebrities. (When Troy Donahue tells of meeting a teen-age son he didn’t know he had, she breathes, “Oh, wow.”)

You’ll hear “secrets” on “Byline,” with humorists joshing about sloppiness and the “new cheating.” If women knew what men really did during the day, “they’d hate them as a species even more than they do,” says Marty Goldensohn. (He’s just joking, right?)

On “Documentary,” you’ll see men relate experiences with second families and baseball.

On the first show, Linda Ellerbee spices things up. What does she want to know about men? “Not a damn thing,” she deadpans, “having married several and raised one.”

Yes, it’s all meant to be lighthearted, and some of it is enjoyable and rings true. But it also generalizes (do all men love baseball?), perpetuates stereotypes and patronizes its audience. When glossy, fashion-statement host Matt Lauer winsomely confides, “We all know men are slobs,” he doesn’t bat a well-groomed eyelash.

You know the guy at parties who thinks calculated “sensitivity” is a great way to score with women? Some TV producers seem to have the same idea.