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Gender Stereotypes In Pop Culture

Decent Essays

American pop culture has taken the globe by storm due to how influential Western media is, which can have many positive, yet extremely negative outcomes. Especially during the 90’s when homophobia, toxic masculinity, and strict gender roles were so common that it was commonly discussed and joked about it shows many people grew up loving, such as Friends. Being set in the 90s, “Friends” takes place in Manhattan whilst telling the story of six white, straight, cisgender, friends who are tackling whatever life has to offer. From the get-go, it is quite apparent that inclusion and respect for one another’s differences will be a rare sighting as the seasons would continue. There is a possibility that if this show were to have been aired in this …show more content…

One clear example is when one male character, Ross, is not comfortable with the fact that his toddler son is playing with a doll, even though his child has yet to understand the concept of gender. He is extremely disturbed by that discovering and immediately confronts the mother of his son as to why “his boy has a Barbie”. Another example of how strict “Friends” treated gender stereotypes is when Rachel decided to hire a male nanny, but that did not sit well with Ross simply due to the fact that the nanny was not exactly “traditional”. Ross questions the nanny on his sexuality simply because he could not grasp the concept of a man doing what he would consider a “woman’s …show more content…

As stated in the beginning many of the characters are white, straight, and cisgender, which immediately raises a few questionable eyebrows as to adequate representation of the average life of people in Manhattan. People of color are practically nonexistent and when they are present in a season they barely have any speaking roles. There is one transgender character, who unsurprisingly faces ignorance and discrimination, even though she is Chandler’s parent. Fat shaming is also a part of the problematic cocktail that this show is made of. Monica is constantly mocked for being overweight in high school by her own friends, which in effect may also cause many viewers, some who are in high school or lower grades, to feel extremely inadequate for their still-developing bodies. This can be tied in with “The Body Politic” by Abra Fortune Chernik, which discusses her internal and external struggle with finding comfort and satisfaction with her own body. It gives an inside view as to how destructive anorexia and bulimia can be after internalizing how society perceives thinness as ideal and “healthy”. By hearing these constant remarks about your body through media and even the people around you, one can imagine how many young viewers in the 90s were internalizing hatred for the body at such rapid rates and in the extremes, may even turn to eating disorders to

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