Gender roles in Sitcoms Essay

Gender is the crucial fixings in constitutionization in the majority of situation comedys. Up until the impact of womens lib in the 1970s, in the UK at least, it is clear that some of the successful sitcoms scram leading antheral characters (Hancock, Steptoe, Dads Army, Till Death Do Us Part, Porridge etc.). Women were more likely to feature in ensemble casts The bait Trade, Are You Being Served? This was also a function of the employment opportunities for women. Since the 1970s, women in leading roles dumbfound been more common ( that the most successful comedies have tended to be based on couples rather than case-by-case women). (Roy Stafford, TV Sitcoms and Gender, ONLINE) ground on television analysis it is very simple to notice what it fashion to be a mother, from the televisions perspective to be a mother means to cook when your keep up is hungry, to clean the house when necessary, to quest care of the children etc. To be a father means to clip and to come home ex pecting a cooked meal for whenever you are hungry, to make the convoluted decisions and to be the dominate figure in the household. Television is saying a lot ab step forward the roles of male and female couples. In what concerns the female types in sitcoms, Roy Stafford suggested a specific classification, across comedy and drama since the 1950s Matron/ on the job(p) Battleaxes Sexy assistant Business matriarch Woman in a Mans World The Vamp (1980s) Woman in tycoon Women who fight other women Woman who watches her biological clockFor my paper I chose to talk about three different sitcoms, namely Bewitched (1964 1972), The nurse (19931999) and Cougar Town (2009).Bewitched (19641972)A young-looking witch named Samantha meets and marries a somebody named Darrin Stephens. While Samantha pledges to forsake her powers and fabricate a typical suburban housemarried muliebrity, her magical family disapproves of the mixed marri age and frequently interferes in the couples lives. Episodes much begin with Darrin becoming the victim of a spell, the effect of which wreak carnage with mortals such as his boss, clients, parents, and neighbors. By the epilogue, however, Darrin and Samantha most a lot embrace, having overcome the shifty elements that failed to separate them.The witches, most having names ending with the soft -a sound, and their male counterparts, know as warlocks, are very long-lived while Samantha appears to be in her twenties, many possibilitys suggest she is actually hundreds of years old. To keep their society secret, witches forfend showing their powers in front of mortals other than Darrin. Nevertheless, the perplexing inexplicable effects of their spells and Samanthas attempts to hide their supernatural origin from mortals drive the plot of most episodes. Witches and warlocks usually use physical gestures along with their magical spells, and some cartridge clips utter incantations.Most notably, Samantha often twitches her nose to pe rform a spell. Modest however effective special visual effects are accompanied by music to highlight the magic. (Wikipedia, Bewitched, ONLINE) Bewitched is one of the many examples were the father goes out to work and the mother stick bys at home, cleaning, cooking, taking care of the children. Samantha attempts to take a crap or leave her witch world behind because she is now hook up with to Darrin, a mere mortal, for whom she would do anything. She is a home-loving wife who does everything to patronize her husband by promising to leave her magical powers at the threshold in order to try to live a normal sustenance as a housewife.The Nanny (19931999)Jewish-American Fran beauteous, fresh out of her job as a bridal consultant in her fiances shop, offset appears on the door step of Broadway producer Maxwell Sheffield (Charles Shaughnessy) peddling cosmetics, and pronto stumbles upon the opportunity to become the nanny for his three children. Soon Fran, with her off-beat nurt uring and no-nonsense honesty, touches the total family as she gives the prim-and-proper Maxwell and his children a dose of Queens logic, helping them to become a healthy, happy family, a family that she later fully joins when she becomes engaged and indeed married to Maxwell.She then adds to this family of five when she and Maxwell have fraternal twins. new(prenominal) characters include sardonic butler Niles (Daniel Davis), and Maxwells socialite business participator C.C. Babcock (Lauren Lane), who views Fran with jealousy and skepticism. (Wikipedia, The Nanny, ONLINE) The Nanny is no longer the type of sitcom where the wife stays at home and just her husband goes to work. Compared with Bewitched, this sitcom is more new and more different in what concerns the gender roles. Fran Fine is no longer just a home-loving wife who does everything to bet on her husband, but she exposes her point of view and most often she dose so as everyone to do as she wants to. She has a strong er character and is more case-by-case comparing with Samantha.Cougar Town (2009)Jules Cobb a recently divorced single mother exploring the truths about geological go out and aging. Jules spent most of her 20s and 30s married to Bobby and fosterage a son, Travis. She tried to relive her 20s and make up for lost time by dating younger men, but has since come to terms with the limitations of her age and has had relationships with men her age. She resides in a small town in Florida and is a realistic estate agent who is successful in business. Because she has been out of the dating world for a while, Jules discovers it is difficult to find love again.10A close-up of her number one woods license in a season 2 episode reveals her full first name to be Julia and her birth date to be November 15, 1968 (age 43). (Wikipedia, Cougar Town, ONLINE) Cougar Town is a modern sitcom with modern elements, modern characters and modern women. The home-loving wife, the devoted mother to the famil y, the wife that does everything for her husband and for supporting him, the wife that just stays home and takes care of the children, cleans the house, cooks, is no longer the type of the female character used in this sitcom. Here, Jules is a modern woman that decides to find some excitement in her dating life. She is divorced and is more concerned with her looks than her family. Jules is working, is going out with her friend, dates younger boys, wants to have a perfect body so she can hide her real ageso, she is a modern woman with modern desires.Television is a powerful influence in determining the roles of men and women in society. youngish people are especially influencd by its portrayal of gender roles. end-to-end the history of television, the role of the housewife and mother has changed from a subservient woman to the more controlling, powerful, and dominant female portrayed in todays culture. In early television, the 1950s and 1960s, the housewife or mother was everlasti ngly seen as submissive towards the more assertive father or husband. In Common Culture, Harry Waters explains in his article, Life According to TV, that males often got a deviation of roles, and females were usually playing the part of a mother, wife, or girlfriend. (Waters 167) As time progressed, that role was changed to a more authoritative and lordly woman who controlled a somewhat of a bumbling idiot of a husband. (Example Essays, Roles Of Women In Television, ONLINE)There are no limits to what the genders can do. Now long time you find most women out in all of the workplaces which were once deemed male oriented. And you find men staying home and raising families, doing the job that once alone women did. The idea of feminity has evolved over time just as womens roles in the media have. Women on television in the past had very few roles but the main one was to be the wonderful mother of the wholesome family program. In todays society women are not expect to stay home and li ve off their husbands, women are not even expected to get married or to have children if they so choose. Womens roles on television have changed from the housewife to the working woman. Yet the womans role is still usually a support of the leading character who happens to be a male.