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Thesis For Gender Roles On Tv
Representation of women in television
Female gender roles in television
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More handpicked essays just for you.
Thesis For Gender Roles On Tv
Representation of women in television
Female gender roles in television
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Every once in awhile, shows such as Leave It to Beaver or Father Knows Best come up while surfing the tv guide. While these are two examples of remarkably popular television shows of the mid 1900’s, they also portray the gender normalities of the time period. Gender roles were simply and precisely defined. Men went to work and made the money, while the women stayed home to take care of the house and kids. However, as humanity enters the sixteenth year of the twenty first century, this precision begins to blur.
Bewitched “dispels the notion of the husband as all knowing and always right than to promote the image of the wife as fully equal and autonomous” (Keng, 3). The show is “about the growing power of women in both home and society at large in the 1960s. It’s a show about how men weren’t sure how to deal with that” (Keng 4). Keng also mentioned that Samantha can be seen as an oppressed housewife, but since she chooses to stop using her powers her ability to make that decision/choice is “the very essence of feminism” (4). The show has an “underlying message that the passive housewife in reality possesses an undeniable power, though society insists on concealing both that power and her right to harness it” (Keng 4).
Hegemonic Discourse in the Dick Van Dyke Show, The depiction of the character Sally Rogers in the Dick Van Dyke Show is as a flawed, unattractive, undesirable professional woman. This is a classic archetype of structures and character development. The representation of this central character is an example of the hegemonic approach to television that characterized the 1960's as this show and others of its era were used as a subtle tool of control and marginalization of women. The Dick Van Dyke Show displays a dominant pattern of gender social relations as women were presented in a manner that was only validated if they were married and confined to the home.
Greys Anatomy is an ABC weekly drama television series based on the experiences of doctors and nurses who treat patients at Seattle Grace Mercy West Hospital. While portraying the healthcare profession, Meredith Grey has stayed a very popular character over the different seasons due to concentrating on her characters life and love instead of revolving around medical life. Grey’s Anatomy is an extremely popular America Medical Drama about the lives of interns and surgeons who work in a teaching hospital called Seattle Grace Mercy West.
Television situational comedies have the ability to represent different values or concerns of their audience, these values often change every decade or so to reflect and highlight the changes that the audience is experiencing within society, at the time of production. Between the years of 1950 and 2010, the representation of gender roles and family structure has been addressed and featured in various sitcoms, such as “Father Knows Best” and “Modern Family”, through the use of narrative conventions, symbolic, audio and technical codes. These representations have transformed over time to reflect the changes in social, political, and historical contexts. The 1950’s sitcom “Father Knows Best” traditionally represents the values of gender roles and family structure in a 1950’society, with the father, held high as the breadwinner of the family and the mother as the sole homemaker.
The past decade has not seen any notable family sitcoms that has surpassed such leaps of social justice as some had in the 1950’s or 1970’s. While that may be disappointing to some, this is also a great feat for all television audiences. So many issues that were once considered, “taboos,” now, can be the premise of the sitcom altogether. Even the little things like interracial couples, married partners in the same bed, and even mentioning a pregnant woman is considered normal. Yes, the family sitcom is still no direct comparison to the modern family arrangement, but it is as close as were going to get for
The show also did not challenge gender roles. In the episode, job switching, both Lucy and Ricky decided to switch roles to prove each other they can handle each other’s job role. By the end of the episode, Lucy could not handle a job at a factory and Ricky could not handle house chores. This once again did not challenge the common belief that a women’s responsibility is to run the household while the men runs the business. Although Lucy was not the perfect 50’s housewives, the show was a success because of its uniqueness in character and physical
Commonly, males provided for their family while women took care of the home. Gender roles were necessary for survival in primitive times because of the volatile, Darwinian environment. However, as the world developed, gender roles were still engrained in society and patriarchy was solidified. Thus, husbands have become dominant at home and in the workforce and earning income became a fixed job of men (Farrelly 4). Likewise, Jackie Elliot is shown destroying his dead wife’s piano for firewood is symbolic of traditional gender roles.
Gender roles are prevalent in American culture. Yet, the gender roles have adapted through the social changes because gender roles are socially constructed. Previously, gender roles used to be distinct and defined, for example, women have babies and men go to war (Policing Gender). The primary income provider of the family has shifted, in various households, to the women, while the man stays at home with the children. In a study done by the Pew Research Center, in 1960s eleven percent of women were the primary monetary provider of the family.
First, there’s Monica. She is the type of person most people would call a “neat freak”. She’s a compulsive cleaner and is the typical house-wife type of character. Throughout the show she works her way up in the culinary business. As an old-fashioned stereotype, women are commonly associated with staying home cooking, cleaning, and taking care of the kids.
There are many traditional gender roles that are a part of American society. For example, boys are supposed to like color blue and girls are supposed to like the color pink. Illustration of this gender role can easily be seen when new parents through baby showers and decorated their child's nursery, often incorporating one of the two color. Likewise, little boys are supposed to play with trunks and fake guns and little girls with Barbies and baby dolls. In addition, men are seen as the "breadwinners" or person who financially provides for the family while women are seen as the homemaking, taking care of the children and all house duties.
Eliza Penn Gender roles in the mid-1900s held a prominent place in society because they defined an individual’s behavior and outlook. In A Streetcar Named Desire, by Tennessee Williams, two of the protagonists, Stanley and Blanche, strongly represent and embody the extremes of masculinity and femininity. Stanley exemplifies the strong and aggressive male in the 1900s, while Blanche represents the frail and superficial woman. When these two types of characters are placed in close proximity to one another, the results can be devastating. Tennessee Williams wrote this play in order to demonstrate what happens when Blanche, a feminine woman, and Stanley, a masculine man, are brought into conflict; when these extremes clash, it can result in violence and the shattering of an individual’s defense system.
For example, in the traditional white american Dunphy family, there is Phil, his wife Claire, and their three children Alex, Haley and Luke. Phil is shown as the breadwinner of the household while Claire stays at home and cares for her house and children. This portrayal enhances the gender role that society and television has deemed upon women for centuries. This fabricated role is that women are inferior to men. However, there are instances when this gender role is reversed and Phil has to conform to Claire's wishes.
Gender roles in the past decades When watching The Simpsons family interact, their family depict what a ‘nuclear family’ look like with the father being the breadwinner and the mother staying at home doing the cooking and looking after the kids. It sends a message of what a ‘traditional’ family look/ed like in the past. “Gender roles are the product of the interactions between individuals and their environments, and they give individuals cues about what sort of behaviour is believed to be appropriate
Despite the creator’s of Modern Family effort to portray a progressive view of American families, the show still accentuates outdated female stereotypes and gender roles; reinforcing gender characteristics, patriarchy and hegemonic masculinity. In contrast to its title, Modern Family promotes traditional gender roles and stereotypes of women, which result in the portrayal of an inaccurate image of the female, and weakens the stance of women in today’s U.S. society. Gender stereotypes are prevalent throughout the Modern Family; the women are all portrayed as wives and mothers, promoting a continued male dominant family ideology. Claire and Gloria are throughout the show acting on our society’s “assumptions about women’s ‘appropriate’ roles” (Dow 19).