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What is the importance of character development in literature
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INTRODUCTION
I compared Friday Night Lights, Freaks & Geeks, and Suburgatory in parents/family, major character death/injury, and relationships (which includes friendships and dating)
Parents:
I chose parents/family as a category because in a lot of teen tv shows and movies the parents are portrayed as the bad guys and they’re generally too strict or they try too hard to seem cool and they end up having no control. Also because I have lived with my mom for almost all of my life, and then moved to live with my father for a year and he had a very different parenting style than my mom did.
Friday Night Lights portrayed families in a way that the kids who were poor didn’t have their parents around, the well off kids had both parents who had
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Tessa’s mom left when she was young and when she moves to Chatswin there’s a lot of focus on mothers. Dallas puts a lot of focus on making sure her daughter feels beautiful. Some of the moms realize that Tessa is motherless and try to mother her and kinda insert themselves into her life. George has been with Tessa her whole life so he understands her and how she’s feeling. Tessa calls him George but he questions it in the first episode which means before the move she called him dad, the reason behind her doing this is probably because he went through her things and violated her trust and privacy.
Major Character Injury/Death: I chose major character injury/death because it’s present in all of the shows that I watch. There wasn’t a lot of major character death in any of the shows, but in Friday Night Lights Jason Street, the star quarterback, gets paralyzed from a football injury in the first episode of the show, and Smash, the running back of the team, gets asked about the death of his father in the beginning of the show. In Freaks and Geeks Lindsay starts acting differently after her grandma tells her there’s no heaven or hell after death before she dies. And in Suburgatory there isn’t any major character death in the show.
Relationships
Yes, when thinking about social classes in the Unites States, it is easier to gravitate towards the differences among them. However, through reading about the different families in Unequal Childhoods, there are similarities across social classes. One of the similarities among the middle, working, and poor class is the “absent” of parental involvement. Now, this also depends on how the reader views the situation. For the poor class or working class families, such as Katie Brindle and Tyrec Taylor, their parents left them alone to play on their own. Katie Brindle is a White girl who comes from a poor class family. Tyrec Taylor is a Black boy and is part of working class. Lareau observes, “Most working-class and poor parents did not consider children’s
The differences in family values are shown in modern sitcoms. "Gilmore Girls" is a sitcom that demonstrates values of gender and children roles that are significantly different to those in 1950s. From Lorelei and Rory, they show that family organization is not always the father working, mother looking after children. Through the plot of each episode, financial, racial, other general problems such as Rory's school and relationship are actually shown and realistically too. Every family is different, different race and classes have different families. Today, we do not watch shows to copy their ways of living and we do often share the same values. Therefore this shows significant changes in family values from the 1950s sitcoms to today's sitcoms.
Ultimately, the children lacked security all of their childhood and were still able to get out of poverty and be successful for once in their lives. This story is a perfect example that people that are brought up in poverty can get themselves out and live a healthy life style. Security would have shielded the children from traumatizing events such as Jeannette getting raped by Billy Deel and Brian getting molested by Erma. Mom and Dad handled their economic situation poorly because they could have started their life from scratch again with one million dollars, but instead chose to live off the land and on the streets.
Americans love their television, and television loves the American family. Since the 1970’s, the depiction of the American family on television has gone through many changes. In the 70s, the Brady Bunch showed an all-white nuclear family. Today, Modern Family, shows a family of blended races, ages, and sexualities. For thirty years, the sitcom family has reflected the changing society of its time and there is no exception of this for the families in The Brady Bunch and Modern Family. The lifestyle, social aspects, and economics situations of the Bradys and the Pritchett-Dunphys are similar in their attempts to portray the lives of families of their time, but differ drastically in the types of families they represent. The characters in Modern
The father figure is now shown more as a responsible, loving, and moral person with more realistic faults. Color now seems, through evolution, to be taken out of the equation for the African-American television families.
As gender roles were enhanced, the nuclear family was birthed. This ideal family, mainly portrayed in popular culture, had a working father, homemaking mother, and children. Television shows depicting this type of household, Leave it to Beaver, and I Love Lucy, were not representative of the reality of America. Not all of Americans were white, and not all women were happy living as housewives (Boyer 101). Although most did not fit the mold
In the article Paul Groski tells about a high school teacher struggling to connect with her low-income students. The teacher Janet loves her kids but assumes they are just lazy. By assuming this she is agreeing that poor kids have a certain culture about them. Many others also think the same, that poor people have a certain culture to them. The fact is that students living in poverty do not have the same benefits as a wealthier family. Facts show that most kids in low-income houses have at least one parent who is employed and works full time year round. Having jobs that do not pay as much makes it hard to support a family working part time. That is why a wealthier family works fewer hours than the average poor family. Many teacher’s like Janet also believe the parents of the less wealthy kids are uninvolved are unmotivated to help their kids. Poor Parent’s want their kids to succeed just as a much as a richer Childs parents do. Many poor parents’ work night time jobs and cannot afford to pay for public transportation. This probably explains why Janet does not see many parents at the...
Different Strokes, which was first televised November 3, 1978, was one of the better, most influential shows of that time. This show was a perfect example of how minorities were portrayed to be unable to support themselves. The African American family characterized in this show was a single mother family, leading to the belief that most African American children were without a father in their lives. In agreement with the stereotypes of the time, their income was also low because the mother was a housekeeper. The audience may presume that she had no other skills than housekeeping which leads to the negative belief that African Americans have no job skills. In addition to these family problems and income issues, the children spoke slang and were even referred to as ghetto.
Whether it’s through its overly upbeat and positive conflict resolving themes or inclusivity of customary morals and values, each show has seen its fair share of critique in terms of it’s realism to society.
explains that the economic gap between high and low income families is affecting their children as
The two families were just some of those that really cared although all had different stand points and views they stuck to their beliefs and ended with more love for each other in the end than they ever started with. In the white family there was the conservative ex-marine father who loved his children dearly but wanted them to be well behaved and often was hard on them. The mother was more liberal housewife who stood up for her and her children’s opinions to her husband. The oldest son Brian was a football star in high school and later goes on to join the marines and fight in Vietnam. The middle child Michael was very liberal active anti war student who marched with the blacks in the Birmingham. The youngest Katie was a young 16 year old who loved to party and have a good time. The black family was a family of good hearts and lots of hope.
Lareau’s main argument in the text is that when children grow up in certain environments, parents are more likely to use specific methods of child rearing that may be different from other families in different social classes. In the text, Lareau describes how she went into the home of the McAllisters and the Williams, two black families leading completely different lives. Ms. McAllister lives in a low income apartment complex where she takes care of her two children as well as other nieces and nephews. Ms. McAllister never married the father of her two children and she relies on public assistance for income. She considers herself to be a woman highly capable of caring for all the children yet she still struggles to deal with the stress of everyday financial issues. The Williams on the other hand live in a wealthier neighborhood and only have one child. Mr. W...
Often times in our life, we may come across a lifestyle of a character from a fictional book, movie or tv show, that is different than our owns. It could be a life that we would dream to have or a life that we could not possibly imagine having. Focusing on the childhood aspects of a lifestyle, my young self would often compare my childhood to the protagonist in one my favorite cartoons (“Fairly Odd Parents”) Timmy Turner. Timmy’s childhood was a lifestyle that enthralled me from how similar yet different it was from my own.
Teens tend to connect better to shows that relate to them or something they know like high school. One plot that stuck out to me was the school shooting; a student was bullied to the point he brought a gun to school and took his own life instead of others. Growing up in a time where bullying is everywhere and dealing with a similar issue made me think what could students do different to to change someones life to make things better for them. As a teenager students don't think of the consequences their actions could have on another person.
When it comes to family roles, some people have only a few and some may have a slew. I, for instance, only have two roles. These roles came to me when I was about fifteen years old, when I was just starting high school. I would consider me as the youth leader and motivator in my family. These roles allow me to interact with my family to a great extent and more importantly pay attention to my elder relatives when they have something to say. By generating a youth leader and motivator role, it makes me eager to assimilate the family history the elders in my family give me.