Fear Of Television Essay

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What Lynn Spiegel means by this is that the introduction of Television in homes brought with it a number of fears. One of these being, that people believed that their television was watching them. “The fear here was that the television camera would record men and women unawares- and have devastating affects upon their romantic lives” (Spiegel 26). This can be seen in relation to “I love Lucy” specifically the episode titled “Lucy does a TV commercial”, when Lucy is inside a fake television set to prove to Ricky that she is perfect for the part on his show. This is clearly a comment on this fear of a television as a spectator because just as Ricky is watching Lucy perform, she is also watching him from inside the television screen. There was also a fear that “television was shown to bring to women- namely competition for male attention”, (Spiegel 30) therefore Spiegel’s argument is relevant today because now TV shows are so accessible to people due to technology such as mobiles, laptops and iPads., that woman and men now have to work even harder to take the attention away from electronic devices …show more content…

This can be seen in regards to the children in the family. For example when the young boy asks the girl to play cricket, to which she replies she does not like cricket, she in turn tries to get the boy to paint with her to which he replies the same thing. It is clear that cricket is a boys sport which girls are not involved in while painting is seen as a typical girls hobby. Furthermore when we first see the mother she is offering the men a cup of tea while the men of the house are preoccupied with how to deter burglers and how to make the house as safe as possible. Therefore this is a comment on the gender roles of the time, the man of the house has the reponsibility to ensure his house and his family are safe while the women merely maintains that house by