Shameless Sociological Analysis

Many social issues are portrayed in television shows because they are common in every society so it makes it easy to relate to the audience. One show in particular that has many social issues that are demonstrated perfectly to the audience is a Netflix original show called “Shameless.” This is a show that focuses on a single family in which the father, Frank, is a deadbeat drunk who is never reliable. The mother, Monica, abandoned the family a year or so after she had the last child, she is mentally bipolar. She shows up occasionally throughout the series, but for the most part is in some unknown place to the audience. It is the oldest daughter, Fiona, who takes care of her five younger siblings. She has been forced to take on the role

The next oldest from Fiona is Philip, who is really smart and goes on to college but lacks the finances and motivation to do well. The next child is named Ian who finds out that he is also bipolar like his mother and is also gay which comes with many struggles. Next is Debbie who gets pregnant at 15 years old and deals with the stigma of being a teen mom. Carl is the next oldest and resorts to selling drugs to make money and ends up in prison where he changes for the worst and becomes a thug. The youngest is Liam, who is just a toddler and has not yet grown enough for the audience to see how he will end up. “Shameless” shows many controversial themes throughout society but one in particular that is exemplified throughout this television show is the theme of poverty class barriers in

For them money symbolizes a better life, even though it can come with problems as well. For instance Carl turns to selling drugs in order to make money, even though he does make a good amount of money it does not do anything to his social class rank, he is still considered to be a thug. Once a family is considered poor, it can be very hard to near impossible for them to change that. There seems to be an endless cycle of poor parents having kids and they never do anything with their life, so they end up being poor as well and this cycle continues. It is important to understand these social themes because they occur in every society and it is up to the society and the individual to try and make a change. Overall, poverty class barriers show up everywhere. The Gallagher family in “Shameless” is a good example of this because they are very poor and most of the siblings end up dropping out of high school or not amounting to much within their lives. They are never truly able to get away from having this status, and it is truly sad because they represent actual families in the real world struggling with this everyday. Money is the true root of all evil, whether you have it or don’t have it there are still issues that show up in your