Since its origins, television has always provided stories for audiences to both enjoy and learn from. From news broadcasts to the Discovery Channel, television attempts to display the real world’s stories as much as fictional ones, sometimes narrating real experiences through imaginary characters and storylines. However, this commonly means that these stories are depicted through antagonizing or ignorant means, mainly for the specific stories certain demographics want to watch to increase revenue. Conversely, this meant placing female characters in conventional roles for women such as caretakers or dedicated housewives would not change until society allowed women to explore different hobbies and careers. Television may showcase societal issues, …show more content…
When an episode of the famed television series explored Lucy sharing her passions of getting a job in entertainment like her husband, it provided viewers with the inevitable conclusion of Ricky and his tough nature softening for Lucy’s charisma. However, audiences today view Ricky’s behaviour as not just dismissive, but abusive. When Lucy initially mentions her desires of performing with Ricky on stage, he immediately rejects the idea by reasoning that she is too overweight, and her only talents are being a wife and mother (Kaaronen, 2024, p.17). Comparably, Mad Men, a show set during I Love Lucy’s time, provided audiences with a decade worth of episodes. Contrarily, this decade saw society birth a fourth wave of feminism, which interfered with the stories Mad Men was producing weekly. The main praise for the show is its dedication and accurate representation of the title era’s cut-throat advertising business, as well as unfortunately, the extreme subordination of women. In fact, similarly to the real lives of women living in the Mad Men era, the series’ female characters had little to no storylines of their own, as they commonly served as the male character’s …show more content…
The franchise’s New York spinoff featured Betheny Frankel, a fan favourite who capitalized on her fame to release a line of cocktails she named Skinnygirl. This proved to be only the beginning of her career as an entrepreneur, as the third highest retailing whiskey company in the United States, Jim Beam bought her company. While this proves that women and housewives can achieve success outside of the private sphere, Frankel has since become the target of critiques that claim herself and her brand as underserving of such accomplishments because it was built off of the owner’s own reputation (Nayar, 2015, p.10). However, Nayar (2015, p.5) insists that such negative responses are rooted from the stereotype reality television has received since the peak of its popularity in the two-thousands, stating that it has accentuated issues normally associated with women and placed them into a commercial viewpoint. Ferrucci et al. (2014) affirm, dominant female voices and stories are not prominent in media because audiences prefer female characters to be passive, overemotional, and reliant on men to fulfill all their needs. Frankel’s popularity, originating from a popular reality program centered on traditional and archetypal traits and roles for a woman to possess, aids the argument that Skinnygirl should not be considered earnest, as factors of
Esch, Madeleine. Shufeldt. Renovating Television, Remodeling Gender: Home Improvement Television and Gendered Domesticities, 1990-2005. n.p. ProQuest, UMI Dissertations Publishing, 2009.
Making Them Feel Like a Natural Woman: Constructing Gender Performances on The Maury Povich Show
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.
The average America watches more than 150 hours of television every month, or about five hours each day (“Americans,” 2009). Of the 25 top-rated shows for the week of February 8-14, 2010, six were sitcoms, averaging 5.84 million live viewers each (Seidman, 2010), to say nothing for the millions more who watched later on the Internet or their Digital Video Recorders. The modern sitcom is an undeniable force in America, and its influence extends beyond giving viewers new jokes to repeat at the water cooler the next day: whether Americans realize it or not, the media continues to socialize them, even as adults. It may appear at first glance that sitcoms are a relatively benign force in entertainment. However, the modern sitcom is more than just a compilation of one-liners and running gags. It is an agent of gender socialization, reinforcing age-old stereotypes and sending concrete messages about how, and who, to be. While in reality, people of both sexes have myriad personality traits that do not fall neatly along gender lines, the sitcom spurns this diversity in favor of representing the same characters again and again: sex-crazed, domestically incompetent single men enjoying their lives as wild bachelors, and neurotic, lonely, and insecure single women pining desperately to settle down with Prince Charming and have babies. Sitcoms reinforce our ideas about what it is “normal” to be, and perhaps more importantly feed us inaccurate ideas about the opposite sex: that women are marriage-crazed, high-maintenance, and obsessed with the ticking of their biological clocks, while men are hapless sex addicts whose motives can’t be trusted. The way that singles are portrayed in sitcoms is harmful to viewers’ understanding of themselves...
The dynamic of gender roles within 1960s society is the most prominent issue within Mad Men. The show does not shy away from the conformity of the time. Behind the pristine hair and perfectly stylised clothes - the men are in control and the women are ultimately suppressed of any power.
“’Jersey Shore’ Season 5 averaged 5.8 million viewers, including one million ages 12-17” (McKay). These one million teenagers who are viewing “Jersey Shore” and other reality television shows fill their minds with the idea that they cannot have a nice time without the consumption of alcohol (McKay). Sexual immorality, violence, and intoxication consume the cast of this reality television show, and unfortunately, most of society. Not only that, but also the general lifestyle of the girls is to compete with each other through materialistic possessions such as clothes, money, or even men (McKay). Another reality show that is affecting viewers, women especially, is “Are You Hot,” in which competitors submit to a panel of judges for appearance rating (Becker). Shows such as this reduce self-confidence in women, making them believe they should be taller, skinnier, tanner, or really anything other than what they already have. “’[The show] emphasizes that how you look is more important than who you are or what you do. It really narrows the worth of the individual,’ Flanery says” (Becker). The more important things about an individual are q...
It is often said that the media and the arts are an accurate reflection of any given community. This is especially true in American pop-culture, where television shows depict the various stereotypes attributed to men and women and the roles they play in society. House, a highly popular medical drama that revolves around Dr. Gregory House and his diagnostic team, is a particularly good example as it represents the true state of the traditional gender roles in American culture today by, both, redefining and reinforcing them over the course of the show.
In the society we live in, we are all looking for acceptance, whether we like to admit it or not. We turn to the media to see what other people are doing. The media plays a large role on the way we, a society as a whole, are influenced and think about responsibilities and roles of genders. As young children, we are still not sure of who we are and how we should act about certain topics. In order to ‘find ourselves,’ as young children, we look at things that are available to us. The television is found in every home and thus makes it one of the easiest ways for children to be influenced. This is not to say that the adult female population is not influenced as well. Adult females are seeking more information on how they should be as a person in order to be accepted in society as an acceptable woman.
While Mad Men may seem to be just another sexist show dominated by chauvinist men and submissive women, it is, in fact, a time piece. The creator for the series, Matthew Weiner, was recreating a show of historical facts through his fictional characters. Matthew Weiner shows the life for women of the ‘60s as they struggle with their identities in a sexist society. He does this through the lives of Betty Draper, Joan Holloway, and Peggy Olson.
The “Bad girls club” has gained much success in rating, because of the negative aspects shown in women. Every Tuesday millions of watcher tune in to watch these women make a fool of their self, partying and getting intoxicated until losing control or black out. A woman who is a part of this show consider their self as a “bad”. The Bad Girls Club shows the stereotypes women deal with currently. Fight for no reason, making everything a competition, bring one another down and giving each other labels. For example: if two of the girls didn’t get along , they would try to get rid of them by fight each other, throw all their stuff out onto the street and putting their bed in the pool. Meanwhile, many reality shows continue the traditional race and gender based stereotypes. The “Bad girls club” is a product of this misleading format that supports profit-making and negative stereotypes under the appearance of reality television. If people use stereotypes to understand an issue, the decision they make in their life may have negative consequences for the group being stereotyped, whether people intend it or not. In this way, portrayals in the media might help perpetuate discrimination and negativity (Gorham
The media, through its many outlets, has a lasting effect on the values and social structure evident in modern day society. Television, in particular, has the ability to influence the social structure of society with its subjective content. As Dwight E. Brooks and Lisa P. Hébert write in their article, “GENDER, RACE, AND MEDIA REPRESENTATION”, the basis of our accepted social identities is heavily controlled by the media we consume. One of the social identities that is heavily influenced is gender: Brooks and Hébert conclude, “While sex differences are rooted in biology, how we come to understand and perform gender is based on culture” (Brooks, Hébert 297). With gender being shaped so profusely by our culture, it is important to be aware of how social identities, such as gender, are being constructed in the media.
Reality television has been around since 1948. Over the past decade, reality TV has seen a dramatic rise in popularity. Today, you can turn on the television and there is a chance that a reality TV show will be on. Reality television is a big part of American’s lives today. There are reality shows starting from relationships, drama, entertainment, to cooking, fitness, sports, and many more. According to a recent study by the Girl Scouts Institute, “Forty-seven percent of girls and young women say they are regular viewers, with thirty percent saying they sometimes watch it." It also reports, “eighty-six percent believe these shows often put girls against each other to make the shows more exciting, and seventy percent say they make people think it is ok to treat each other badly.” Reality television has affected society greatly by encouraging violent behavior, it elevates imprudent personalities, and depicting women of their values.
Another major factor that influences millions of impressionable females and males is television. Not only does the television teach each sex how to act, it also shows how one sex should expect the other sex to act. In the current television broadcasting, stereotypical behavior goes from programming for the very small to adult audiences. In this broadcasting range, females are portrayed as motherly, passive and innocent, sex objects, or they are overlooked completely or seen as unimportant entities. Stereotyping women is not only rampant in the adult world; it also flourishes in the kiddie universe as well.
Becker, Anne “Reality Helps: TV Turns to Life-Changing Shows.” Broadcasting and Cable 135.23 (2005): 20. Proquest. Web.24. 24 Nov. 2013.