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Gender Stereotypes In The Middle

Decent Essays

The Middle, is a sitcom about the Heck family. The show focuses on a family of five and their tight finances, overscheduling, communication issues, and balancing work, and family time. The episode’s setting was spring break. After making some extra money, Mike surprises his family with a spring break vacation at Mammoth Cave. His wife, Frankie gets another family to join the. While Mike visits all of the attractions on his own, Nancy and discuss their children’s lives. Axl makes Brick help him pick up women and Sue reveals her summer plans of moving away.

Frankie kind of fits into the female gender role. She dres¬ses in pink, she’s emotional, and short. When they split the cars into boys and girls, the men’s car is silent while the women’s car is full of chatter, conforming to the cliché of women talking a lot. Frankie discusses parenting with Nancy and they talk about each other’s kids, conforming to the serotype of raising kids is a women’s job. Frankie represents the stereotypical women in a family.

Hank fits well into the male gender role. He is tall, wears flannels, doesn’t show emotion, and he is always serious. Hank’s money is what allowed the family to go on a vacation, …show more content…

It proves “Men on television are…powerful” when Hank commands his family (Witt). In addition, “Women are portrayed as spending much of their time…talking” and “The women in these media are also more likely to be seen doing activities best described as stereo-typically female” (Signorelli). Most of the episode consisted of the women talking. While it conforms a lot, it also defies stenotypes. The Women on the show are average size, not “thin” (Signorelli). When talking, Frankie and hank don’t dominate each going against the stereotype of “…men are usually more dominant.” (Witt). Most of the female characters also wear little to no makeup defying women’s emphasis being “…on attractiveness and desirability”

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