The Positive Relationship Between Women And Soap Operas

Images of the “housewives” are excessively pictured on the internet. Bravotv.com has pages full of group photographs of the women in their exotic southern outfits, sparking smiles and diva personas. Pictured on the first page is a photograph from Bravotv.com, featuring the cast of The Housewives of Atlanta. It is intriguing to note that this portrait has been cropped together as one unit. In reality, however, each woman is a picture in its self that the producers of the show pushed together to appear as one photograph. Each woman is given certain characteristics to make them, in turn, an actual character on a show. Characters are needed so that the viewer’s cans stereotype each woman, thus providing a cast of characters. This provides an array of misconceptions of who these women

It is often said that the media and the arts are an accurate reflection of any given community. This is especially true in American pop-culture, where television shows depict the various stereotypes attributed to men and women and the roles they play in society. House, a highly popular medical drama that revolves around Dr. Gregory House and his diagnostic team, is a particularly good example as it represents the true state of the traditional gender roles in American culture today by, both, redefining and reinforcing them over the course of the show.

Modleski argues that soap operas are crucial in understanding women’s role in today’s culture. She claims that in viewing soap operas, the viewer can identify with each of the characters together, and is able to jump between each of the characters instantly, as she sets herself up emotionally with all of them. In the essay, Modleski states that “the family is, for many women, their only support, and soap operas offer the assurance of its immortality” (Modleski 131). The viewer that Modelski is referencing to is the mother, hence carrying out to all plot improvements and new events, although even in this state of explanation she does not, or cannot, create a particular bias or take an interest in just one of her ‘children’ over another (133). She suggests that being in this position of the ‘good mother’ popular culture can change one’s concept of self and one’s identity. In depicting opposed themes such as good

However, it can be observed and said that they have always lived up to the image of “housewife” material or as a constant collaborator of a male role, instead of being the main character. According to Elasmar, M., Hasegawa, K., & Brain, M, on their essay the portrayal of women in the US prime television, “TV has portrayed females in many ways, studies have shown that women have been underrepresented and stereotyped in TV programs.” Women have been living under that invisible stereotype that has cornered them and does not allow them to grow professionally or socially. TV has been the master-mind behind a stereotype that has left women without the chance of demanding equality or credibility on shows, a stereotype that will always be mentioned and enforce if TV shows do not start producing real-world programs based on true stories or true qualities of

Television networks are continually expanding their programming slates, and many in the past have switched to a year-round programming schedule that makes the phrase “summer return” basically absolute. On every channel, in every magazine, every darken theater, we see the way pop culture limits women’s role- girlfriends, victims, hookers, corpses, sex bombs, and “teases,” but why? Television, for most women, was the first place where they were able to visually see themselves represented. And for quite a while, they didn’t see much besides the loving wife, the dutiful daughter, gossiping girlfriends, fashion models, and the occasional maid, granny, or nanny. In Where the Girls Are: Growing Up

It is very well known to all that media is a big part of society today. It influenced how we see ourselves and the world to some extent. There are different types of media that is offered today, for example: TV, movies, radio, and newspapers. Within the different forms of media, women and men are represented in a certain way, all with different characteristics. In this essay, I will argue that there is similar gender stereotypes presented in the shows Modern Family and Every Body Loves Raymond, and how they differ from the show Full House.

On September 20, 1984 a show aired that changed the way we view gender roles on television. Television still perpetuates traditional gender stereotypes and in reflecting them TV reinforces them by presenting them as the norm (Chandler, 1). The Cosby Show, challenged the typical gender stereotyping of television, daring to go against the dominant social values of its time period. In its challenge of the dominant social view, the show redefined the portrayal of male and female roles in television. It redefined the gender role in the work place, in social expectations, and in household responsibilities. The Cosby Show supported Freidan in her view of “castigating the phony happy housewife heroine of the

Modern media has a massive audience with more than 115 million American household families owning a television (NewsWire). Everyday viewers devote time to watching programs and are intrigued by the attractive actors and the situations they encounter. Although these characters and their lives seem to be unbelievably attractive, many of the shows have stereotypical gender qualities. Regina George in Mean Girls frequently portrays qualities that are often seen as ideal ways for women to live, though a closer look reveals the limitations with these ideas.

The article “Dumb TV,” published in the University of Regina Carillon on February 8, 2014, is a critique of the ABC reality TV show The Bachelor and The Bachelorette, produced and directed by Mike Fleiss (The Bachelor - ABC, 2016). Written in an informal style, Destiny Kaus’s article provides data to support her thesis that states, “Overall, I really do think these shows are exceedingly dumb and they shouldn’t exist because the process doesn’t work.” In the article, she presents her bias by arguing that these drama-filled shows, where men and women compete for love and matrimony, are “dumb” and ultimately fail at providing everlasting love. The informality of the article creates a connection with the audience, but the excessive use of the word “dumb” distracts the reader from the actual brilliance of The Bachelor and The Bachelorette franchise. More important, this article is fundamentally flawed as it only references the simple analysis of these shows as a meaningless search for love instead of the tactical attack of capitalism by the television industry. Are The Bachelor and The Bachelorette actually “dumb” or are they a brilliant attack on people’s emotions for the benefit of a television franchise?

Popular culture has always reflected society’s ideals and notions about gender. With Western society more plugged in than ever, it has become easier for large populations of people to be exposed to (typically harmful) messages about gender expressed in television programs, movies, music, book, magazines, and social media. Two examples of television shows that have rooted themselves in American popular culture and vividly express their notion of what femininity looks like are The Swan and Virgin Brides. The Swan, which pays homage to the childhood story of The Ugly Duckling, is a show about female bodily transformations. The show’s format required that every week two ‘ugly’ women be transformed through extreme bodily makeovers into ‘beautiful’

set. It also makes it seem more realistic as it is set in a real

Using a media text as a key example, evaluate selected techniques of fictional production which contribute to a sense of realism consistent with genre or format used.

Again the limitations of this study should be mentioned. Because of the small sample size of the content analysis, it would not be recommended to generalize the findings to the entire seasons. However, this has started to point out potential gender shifts in long-lasting television series. If these shifts continue to be supported by continuous research, then further building blocks to understand the gendering effects of staple characters in our culture and

Grace, a female participant, said: “Girls in the show (the Bachelor) fight for the guy as if that is the only thing meaningful in their life.” Grace felt that in many dating shows, it seemed like women’s only purpose was to please men and men were judged on the basis of appearance or wealth. “If the man in the Bachelor dumps a women, she will look like a complete moron and failure, that’s just horrible. And for men, they are only loved by women when they are rich, or if they have a muscular body.” In a previous study, it was found that television has the ability to influence social perceptions(Rasure, 2015).The exposure to RTV reinforces the gender stereotype that men are considered dominant while women are submissive to

In her first chapter ‘Feminine Pleasures, Masculine Texts: Reading The X-Files on the DDEBRP’, Rhiannon Bury examines the interpretations of television show The X-Files and also its actors among a female-centric private forum group. As an observation of a virtual space, there is a hybridity of speech and text (Turkle 1995, Mckee and Porter 2008, Hine 2000) that gives the methodology an ethnographic approach but with a textual focus. Using discussion threads and texts posts, which are backed up with data gathered from questionnaires and e-interviews, she focuses on performances of both normative and feminist heterosexual female identities in the context of how collective meaning is negotiated and produced out of the television show. Due to