I was rewatching The League in preparation for the new season, which started last night, and because my amazing-on-paper fantasy team has been underperforming and I needed a pick-me-up, and I started thinking again about the show’s gender politics. The League is probably the show I watch regularly and deeply enjoy with the highest rate of characters saying terrible things about or doing bad things to the women in their lives (Game of Thrones is a serious competitor). But while I think Game of Thrones is, and will continue to be, long-term, an exploration of the cancerous impact of sanctioned violent misogyny on society, The League is rather different: it’s a story about basically likable men who say bad things about women or do bad things to women largely out of fear or venality. Sexism less looms big than it makes them look small.

Perhaps the best example of this is Shivakamini Somakandarkram, the high school valedictorian in the same graduating class as the male members of the League. The League absolutely objectifies Shiva: an awkward picture of her from high school adorns the League’s championship trophy. Her name is invoked as if she’s some kind of exotic goddess, which is particularly gross and othering given her South Asian heritage. In last night’s episode, Jenny MacArthur, the League’s sole female member, even fantasized about a sexual encounter with Shiva while her husband was away on a pre-season visit to the Dallas Cowboys training camp. In almost any other show, this kind of behavior would be gross beyond belief.

But the League’s doing something careful with Shiva’s character, namely revealing that the League’s memories of her and the idol they’ve built her up to be have nothing to do with her actual person. Far from being a hopeless, awkward nerd, Shiva’s grown up to be a beautiful, accomplished urologist—in fact, she’s probably matured more and better than any of her high school classmates, who for some reason cling to the high school vision of her as if it remains a reality. We learn over the course of the show that even though the League treats Shiva like she was a weird object of study in high school, she at least played an important role in the life of Kevin MacArthur, Jenny’s husband: he lost his virginity to her. Their memories of Shiva aren’t true to who she is now, or what she was to them then.

And the show has progressively reinforced the gap between who the members of the League make Shiva out to be and who the audience at home knows her to be. The first season brought the reveal that she had grown up gorgeous and smart, and that Andre, a member of the League, was dating her. The second brought the news about her prior relationship with Kevin. In the third season, her appearance brought about Ruxin’s miraculous recovery after a stroke, a scene that reveled how inappropriate and irritating the League’s fetishization of her is when Ruxin planted a series of kisses on her after he recovered his inability to walk. And in an upcoming episode this season, Shiva tells Ruxin directly how irritating she finds her presence on the League’s trophy and directly asks him to remove it. Things don’t go as planned, of course, Ruxin being Ruxin, but it’s nice to see Shiva call the League’s behavior out for what it is. The League has made the case that Shiva would be a pretty awesome person to have around, in the flesh and on the regular if only the members of the League could be mature enough to know her as a person, rather than as a fading photograph and a silly myth.

Iranian state television has apparently just handed down a ban on shows where men appear shirtless, and is looking with disapproval on shows about men and women who work together. If True Blood and The Office are out, here in no particular order are five shows we (and the U.K.) could try exporting to or remaking for our favorite wacky-leadered Middle Eastern nation:

1. Entourage: It’s not like any of the show’s romantic relationships (other than Ari and his wife) are remotely compelling, so edit out ever scene of Vince having anonymous sex with a groupie, every scene of Domenick Lombardozzi (can’t. unsee.) and other characters having sex with hookers, and you’ll have a tight little Hollywood business drama. Ari’s Judaism might be a challenge for the Iranian market, though.

2. The League: What more comforting national stereotype can we export than the idea that America’s top doctors, lawyers, etc. become absolutely helpless between September and March in the face of the football season? The League is the perfect tool to explain to international audiences why we’re moving towards a multi-polar planet rather than a uni-polar one, while also expanding our soft power through the unifying awesomeness of football. The sight of Ochocinco rapping is enough to mollify all enemies.

3. Men of a Certain Age: Aches, sexual anxiety, and getting treated badly by your domineering father are all universal emotions. Plus, now that it’s canceled, I bet TNT is hungry for a syndication deal to keep the profits coming from it.

4. Spooks: See what happens when those decadent westerners let men and women work together in charged circumstances? Someone has an unfortunate encounter with a deep-fryer.

5. Real Housewives of…: Hey, if you want women to stay out of the office to avoid tension and can’t stand the sight of passionate romances, it’s hard to do better than the passionless marriages and substance-free lives of Bravo’s Real Housewives. As long as there’s not a ban on wig-snatching or table-flipping, the ladies should do just fine by Iranian state television censors. Or just shoot Real Housewives of Tehran already.