The classic network era is one of the most easily recognizable and distinct eras in television history. Both Bewitched and I Love Lucy were huge sitcoms that took up issues of gender representation and patriarchy in their programs through the representations of the main male and female characters of their respective series. While both of these series pushed boundaries when it came to the representation of women, in the end, the costuming of these men and women, how the main characters are introduced, and the domestic environment that the atmosphere takes place in, all serve to reinforce traditional gender norms and reveals that patriarchy is dependent on maintaining dominant ideas about masculinity and femininity. In both of these series, …show more content…
In the first scenes to the I Love Lucy episode, “Job Switching,” Lucy attempts to give her husband a hug, while saying, “Oh, gee, I’m glad you’re home.” Both of these women are introduced in a manner consistent with dominant ideas of femininity. Samantha’s first actions of cooking breakfast for her husband, while Lucy’s actions of greeting her husband after he’s had a long day at work in the opening scenes of their respective episodes subtly emphasizes the wife’s role in a heterosexual relationship. Based on these episodes, the role of a wife is meant to support their husbands in every way possible, such as cooking their meals and pleasantly greeting their husbands when they come home from work. On the other hand, the audience is introduced to Lucy’s husband in the episode, “Job Switching,” as the breadwinner in their relationship because in the opening scenes of the episode, he confronts Lucy about the exorbitant amounts of money that she spends. He makes specific reference to the fact that the money is “his,” implying that the money is owned by the husband. In the episode, “Be It Ever So Mortgaged,” Darrin is introduced to the audience as the breadwinner in their relationship too, since over breakfast, he mentions that he has to go to work. The sense of ownership that their husbands feel over their …show more content…
In both of these series, representations and meanings of masculinity and femininity are affected by the ideology of patriarchy. Even though it is true that these shows tried to fight back against stereotypical representations of men and women, the subtle textual evidence in these shows show that there are limits to how gender norms can be represented on television, especially in the Classic Network
Sex and Gender was the subject of the two movies Dreamworlds 3 and Further Off The Straight & Narrow. In Dreamworlds 3 Sex is portrayed as a status of life and happiness in the media. This media displays people as objects that can be manipulated for sexual pleasure. As the media is populated with sex it tiptoes around gender, specifically that of gays or lesbians. The film Further Off The Straight & Narrow emphasized the movement through media gay and lesbian topics. This text analyzes iconic television programs and how they reflect the societal stance during that time. As a member of a generation that has had the topic of these issues prominent I believe they are important but are banal. In this reflection I will be responding to two questions, what would woman driven Dreamworlds look like? And Do you agree with the statement that if you are not on television you don’t exist?
Elizabeth Montgomery was an American actress who lived from 1933 to 1995. Of her five decades of work in the entertainment industry, her most renowned role was as Samantha in the comedic-fantasy TV series Bewitched which aired from 1964 to 1972. During the period when Americans were experiencing trying events such as the assassination of President John Kennedy and the civil rights movements, Samantha’s magical powers and almost perfect life served as a means for the stressed public to periodically dismiss reality. In real life, Elizabeth Montgomery was an empowered activist. However, this paper will explore the influence of social and cultural aspects in regards to gender and women’s leadership roles as observed through the character Samantha, which Elizabeth Montgomery developed and brought to life.
On September 20, 1984 a show aired that changed the way we view gender roles on television. Television still perpetuates traditional gender stereotypes and in reflecting them TV reinforces them by presenting them as the norm (Chandler, 1). The Cosby Show, challenged the typical gender stereotyping of television, daring to go against the dominant social values of its time period. In its challenge of the dominant social view, the show redefined the portrayal of male and female roles in television. It redefined the gender role in the work place, in social expectations, and in household responsibilities. The Cosby Show supported Freidan in her view of “castigating the phony happy housewife heroine of the women’s magazines” (Douglas 136).
In American culture today, women continue the struggle of identifying what their roles in society are supposed to be. Our culture has been sending mixed messages to the modern day female, creating a sense of uneasiness to an already confusing and stressful world. Although women today are encouraged more than ever to be independent, educated, and successful, they are often times shamed for having done just that. Career driven females are frequently at risk of being labeled as bossy, unfeminine, or selfish for competing in many career paths that were once dominated by men. A popular medium in our culture such as television continues to have significant influences as to how people should aspire to live their lives. Viewers develop connections with relatable characters and to relationship dynamics displayed within their favorite shows. Fictional characters and relationships can ultimately influence a viewer’s fashion sense, social and political opinion, and attitude towards gender norms. Since the days of Bewitched and I Dream of Jeanie, where women were commonly portrayed as being the endearing mischievous housewife, television shows have evolved in order to reflect real life women who were becoming increasingly more independent, educated, and career oriented throughout the subsequent decades. New genres of television are introduced, such as the workplace comedy, where women are not only career oriented, but eventually transition into positions of power.
Since its inception, American mass media and entertainment has had an indelible impression on how our culture develops our collective identity. Mass media’s grip on cultural perspective has unprecedented power in molding how society communicates, why we communicate and what the communication ultimately means in our everyday lives. Say what you will about television, but what has been made excruciatingly clear over the past few decades is that the small screen is a teacher and what it teaches us more than anything is our roles in civility. Representation is key in this respect. Generally, much of television is concerns heterosexual, white males and their constituents, most of which are too white, heterosexual and male. In the age of being able to access television shows with a few clicks of one’s phone or computer, media’s presence continues to envelope the lives and perspectives of everyone. Young people who are growing up with new technologies that beam copious amounts of mass media influencers by the second are especially affected--their identities become cookie-cut before they even enter kindergarten. The AMC drama series, Mad Men is a marvel that has won four consecutive Emmy-awards for Best Drama Series and continues to receive glowing reviews every season. The wildly popular and critically-acclaimed television drama series expresses every concerning aspect of media’s representation of “US”, our history, our ideals and beliefs. What is perhaps most interesting about this award-winning show is how it always generates a dialogue about the state of our current cultural identity, saying so much about the nature of gender roles, sexuality, race and more. It is a reminder that whilst we are being entertained, we are also having our...
I chose to analyze the sitcom That 70’s Show, a show that follows the lives of a group of teenage friends: Jackie, Donna, Hyde, Kelso, Eric, and Fez. The show addresses several social issues of the 1970s, including: sexism, sexual attitudes, drug use, politics, and the recession. I selected certain episodes from Season One based on their titles and descriptions; ones I thought may deal with sexism more in-depth than other episodes.
Allyson Jule’s article on feminism in conjunction with Mary Tyler Moore establishes that the show can be used to teach the American movement of second wave feminism (123). She looks at the show as more of a historical teaching tool rather than just a comedy. On the other hand, Willa Paskin explores another view of the show, the comedy.
Historically, the representation of gay, African-American men on television has fallen short of the mark . We have seen “sissies, faggots and finger-snapping queens” sashaying across the screen, feminizing and marginalizing African-American men by these racially insensitive and homophobic caricatures. In this paper I examine the characters: Keith Charles of HBO’s Six Feet Under, Omar Little of HBO’s The Wire, Lafayette Reynolds of HBO’s True Blood, and Julien Lowe of FX’s The Shield and how their characters manifest their masculinity. The three characters that appear on HBO shows are portrayed as strong, masculine, openly gay men. Only Lowe, the sole African-American gay man who has appeared on a basic cable hour-long television drama is a closeted gay character. Since the “out” characters appear on HBO and the closeted character appears on basic cable, is it possible that an audience who can afford to pay for HBO is tolerant of the representation of masculine gay men while an audience watching on basic cable is not tolerant of that representation? Or is HBO’s marketing campaign, “It’s not TV, it’s HBO” an experimentation with “genre, coupled with their strategy of distancing themselves from broadcast television culminating in a distinguishable brand name and a noticeable schism between pay cable and broadcast television” (Jaramillo 60). Or rather, is the HBO audience one that is able to pay for a subscription to HBO, just gazing at these characters? Are these characters just a twist on the “big black buck” stereotype for a post-modern audience – one comfortable with explorations of masculine, racialized, gay desire? HBO’s marketing certainly attempts to position itself as a step above broadcast TV, airing programming that is de...
During the 1950‘s suburbs such as Levitown were springing up all across the country, and the so-called American dream was easier to achieve for everyday Americans than ever before. They had just come out of two decades dominated by The Great Depression and World War Two, and finally prosperity was in sight. The need for women to work out of the home that was present during the war was no more, and women were overwhelmingly relegated to female-dominated professions like nursing, secretaries, and teachers, if they worked at all. Televisions became very popular, and quickly became part of the American cultural canon of entertainment. Leave It To Beaver is a classic American television show, encompassing values such as respect, responsibility and learning from your mistakes. But, at least in the episode used for this essay, it is also shockingly sexist to a modern viewer. This begs the question, what does the episode The Blind Date Committee1 say about the gender expectations of the 1950’s?
Gendered roles are evident in all forms of the media. For my research, I decided to view the gender construction in cartoons. After viewing the Cartoon Network for a day, I decided that Dexter’s Laboratory would be the best show to document the gender roles and common ideologies of men and women in society.
...he same time the show is providing sensualist appearances of it's female characters outside the help of it's derogatory comments of it's male characters, which almost insinuates that they 'cant help' but sexualise them, as they always look so great in their perfectly fitted dresses. As exampled in the episode Hands on Knees (4:10) we meet the Playboy Bunny in her satin ‘bunny suit’ with collar and bow tie, cuffs and cufflinks, satin bunny ears, black fishnet stockings and her name on a rosette attached ton one hip. Such scenes position the sixties as seductive in ways, yet another triumph of the image happily congruent with nostalgia.” (Black & Driscoll, 2012, 196) The show can at times counteract it's own message, as it is trying to tell us how bad 'the old days' actually where, sometimes it full-fills the nostalgia it is trying so hard to deny to it's audience.
This essay will examine my thoughts and those of David Sterrit on the critically acclaimed television show The Honeymooners. First, I will talk about the Honeymooners and it’s setting in postwar America. Secondly, the social and cultural issues the series portrayed. Next, would be the psychological perspective and the aesthetics of the show. Finally, the essay would conclude with my thoughts on how the Honeymooners were impacted by these aspects, but also how the show managed to leave a legacy in television today.
... as a society, we are still allowing, even encouraging, the reproduction of the patriarchy through our choice of entertainment. We are allowing ourselves to be socialized into old-fashioned, out-of-date roles. While sitcoms make us laugh and provide us an escape from our troubles, they may be creating problems all their own – problems that, as a society, we cannot easily escape from. Certainly, that is no laughing matter.
HBO's Sex and the City has become a cultural icon in its 6 seasons of running. Based on Candace Bushnell's racy book Sex and the City, the show exhibits an unprecedented example of the sexual prowess of women over the age of 35. The result is an immense viewing audience and an evolving view on the "old maid" stigma that a woman's chances of finding love are significantly reduced after thirty-five. In this paper, we will closely analyze the characters and themes of Sex and the City to explain the significance of what the show represents in American culture.
A television is defined as “a widely used telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images, either monochromatic (black and white) or color, usually accompanied by sound” (Webster’s). Since the invention of this device in the 1930’s, people have been able to be entertained by various television shows in the privacy and comfort of their own home. Although each of these shows relate to different age groups, nationalities, race, and genders, they all seem to have one thing in common. They all act out and portray the stereotypes placed on people because of their age, sex, job, culture, race, look, and position in the household. Due to these different categories being presented in the media pre conceived notions are formed about how people should behave, specifically men and women. Women generally take care and men take charge. But why does the television represent this “take care” and “take charge” image of women and men? In this paper, I will focus on one of the highly popularized television shows that viewers watch today; Desperate Housewives. Using this television show, I will be able to show and analyze how women are represented in the media and why they are represented this way.