Analysis Of Parks And Recreation

Parks and Recreation

The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Murphy Brown led way for shows like Parks and Recreation. Showcasing the new era of career women in 21st century television tackling feminism and gender politics in the workplace. The era in which career women are accepted unlike The Mary Tyler Moore Show but are faced with gender inequality, stereotypes and criticism. Parks and Recreation aired in 2009 and followed the challenges and adventures of Amy Poehler’s character Leslie Knope. Parks and Recreation takes in small town Pawnee, Indiana. Leslie Knope is both the main character of the series and Deputy Parks Director of Pawnee’s Parks and Recreation Department and later Councilwoman. She is depicted as passionate, enthusiastic, career driven,

The show was filmed in a mockumentary format that allows for the audience to connect with the characters. Parks and Recreation uses satire in order to ridicule the blatant sexism which is rooted in the government, workplace and town in which Leslie resides. Including the lines “In the result of a exact tie, the seat is awarded to the male candidate and the female candidate goes to jail” “I believe one problem with hiring women is that they’re frail and breakable” and “Any woman caught laughing is a witch”. Leslie Knope, rises against the patriarchy and makes light of the injustices that she faces and the place in which she resides in the sexist system through her ability to emphasise the absurd amount of prejudice in Pawnee’s government and her ability to be successful despite it. Parks and Recreation approaches feminism in a more subtle way through Leslie’s pro woman stance and her progress through the patriarchal hegemony. While the humour of Parks and Recreation is satirical and dry, the overall message of the show is that inequality in life and in the workplace is

The woman talks about what happened to her when she worked in city government, where the councilman even kept her “menstrual cycle on a calendar” to use against her later in council when she wanted to hire more women. The way in which the show uses satire and it’s jokes about anti feminism helps the audience to connect that this way of thinking is an outdated belief. As the show’s main target was the younger generation, who are statistically more open minded regarding gender equality. In the same episode Leslie confronts the City Council about the lack of women in the sanitation department. At the meeting regarding equal employment every department in the city council never sent any women representatives, highlighting the issue at hand. City Manager Chris Traeger even exclaims “Oh my god, I’m part of the problem”. Councilman Milton, a known racist and sexist even congratulates Leslie on organising the snacks and tells the room “She has to leave now to go get more snacks.” In order to show that women should be hired in the department, Leslie and April volunteer to be thrash women for the day. When the male employees in the sanitation department claim that the women cannot move an extremely heavy refrigerator, Leslie and April take the challenge and gather women from around town to help move “the