The Sitcom Of Television By William Asher 's ' Bewitched ' And ' I Love Lucy '

A sitcom, is short for "situation comedy", it is a genre of television centered on an established set of characters. Sitcoms originated in radio, but throughout the years and the increased popularity they are now generally found on television. Ccountless sitcoms have been aired over the generations creating a multimillion dollar revenue for this genre. Broadcasters use manipulating strategies to determine the production of shows that would air on their network, without regard to the network, limiting the producer’s ability to use their own creative ideas to generate content that adheres to the commercial media’s profit driven ideology for broadcasters. Hegemony and the mass media is when the portrayed

which men are working on the job as the breadwinner for their families. Women, in

The television shows from 1950 to the present are connected in many ways. The characters showed in the 1950s television show called Leave It To Beaver all have white coloured skin and portrayed as a happy, perfect family. As the decades increased, the nuclear families turned into blended families, and the television shows started to have coloured characters. The families started to have problems and social situations. The viewer sees the conflicts inside the family begin as the years progress. For example, in the 2000's we examined a television show called Arrested Development. The show portrays the characters as if they are troubled and have problems. The children do not listen to their parents but instead have

As society has continued to evolve socially, politically and culturally, so has the persona of television. Societal transformations have shape and reshaped television throughout its history. Programs ranging from ethical series to variety shows to family sitcoms mirrored not only the audience taste of entertainment, but also the change of values within society during the increase in television use. Gender roles and a strong sense of family intimacy were among the most prominently highlighted transformations reflected in television. Women and family contribute significantly when analyzing the antiquity of the television. Television programming was designed to emphasize family togetherness through illuminating the importance of domestic household maintenance. Domestic sitcoms, such as The Donna Reed Show exhibited these liberal roles in which women were expected to subjugate to subordinate statuses and confine their

During the 1950’s the culture, trends, and demographics had a huge impact on television production.Leave it to Beaver, a popular sitcom during the 1950’s portrayed family life as it was during that time period. A period of elegance,family significance,and refinement. While watching an episode of Leave it to Beaver I quickly observed the difference

Television sitcoms of the 1950’s through the 1990’s demonstrated the values and structure of the American family by portraying stereotypes. Since television sets became mainstream and entered almost every American home, the content of American sitcoms has reflected the culture of the times. Thus, as the popular American sitcoms of the 1950’s suggest, families living in the 1950’s were very tightly grouped and did everything together with roles of males and females clearly defined. In the 1950,’s women did the housecleaning and child care and men worked, providing for the family. In the sixties, women acquired more freedom in their lives. The 1963 Equal Pay Act and the 1964 Civil Rights Act came into effect. It was the end of the baby boomer

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

Since its start, the television industry has been criticized for perpetuating myths and stereotypes about African-Americans through characterizations, story lines, and plots. The situation comedy has been the area that has seemed to draw the most criticism, analysis, and disapproval for stereotyping. From Sanford and Son and The Jefferson’s in the 1970s to The Cosby Show (1984) and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air in the 1990s, sitcoms featuring black casts and characters have always been controversial. However, their significance upon our American culture cannot be disregarded. During the 1950s and 1960s, 97% of the families were Caucasian. In the first five years of the

To start with, Richard Butsch’s piece Six Decades of Social Class in American Sitcoms explores the scattering of representations that explains class relations of modern-day capitalism. Butsch highlights that the corporate control of the nationwide television business has been manipulating the portrayals of working-class men as mainly “buffoons” on, just about, 400 prime-time television sitcoms, such as I Love Lucy, The Brady Bunch, and the Simpsons, produced over the last sixty years (Butsch, 507). Some studies have disclosed a constant pattern of underrepresentation of working-class professions, in addition to over-representing professional and management jobs, lessening the prominence of the working class (Butsch, 507-8). The “buffoon” character Butsch speaks of, has been portrayed

Sitcoms reflect the changes going on in the world to show what society is like. Sometimes it’s a show about nothing and oftentimes sitcoms actually affect the world. Sitcoms created gender role stereotypes for society and they did not always show an accurate representation of life. Early on, sitcoms were family focused and they eventually begin to shed light on different problems in society. Throughout the sitcoms The Trouble With Father, Sex and the City, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and Bewitched women transitioned from being in the traditional role to being an effective part of the workplace. Women were portrayed differently throughout these sitcoms; they portray women to be leaders, submissive, or the fool.

For this paper, I have chosen to analyze the sitcom That 70s Show. This show follows the lives of a group of teenage friends: Jackie, Donna, Hyde, Kelso, Eric, and Fez. The show addresses many social issues of the 1970s, including: Sexism, sexual attitudes, drug use, and the recession. It also highlights many of the inventions and developments of the entertainment industry, such as the remote control and Star Wars.

The 1950’s had a male dominant tone. Although wives were seen as the people who “ran the house” the husbands were going to work early in the morning and not coming home until night. A perfect example of what marriage supposedly looked like was the popular TV show “I Love Lucy” starting in 1951. Within months the show had millions of viewers becoming a

We have decided to conduct this study with the focus on three sitcoms from the 1980s which are Fresh Prince, The Bill Cosby Show, and Full house. In addition, focusing on three sitcoms for comparison in todays time, 2000s which are Full House, George Lopez and Family Matters. Each of these research samples display a variety of roles played, race, gender and change in family perception. There will be significant differences in the family structures as a function of time and race/culture of sitcoms aired in the 1980’s versus in the 2000’s. More specifically, it is expected that there will be a significant differences in the portrayals of family size, social class, locations, origin, and gender roles.

First, the late nineteen sixties was a big turning point for feminism in television. American sitcoms began to change a bit during this era. The way females were portrayed was one of these changes. Most sitcoms up to this point all women were characterized the same, which was the American homemaker better known as the housewife. The husband was in control and in charge. In the book, “Signs Of Life In The USA” the report titled “Gender Role Behaviors and Attitudes” by Aaron Devor states that “These two clusters of attributes are most commonly seen as mirror images of on another with masculinity usually characterized by dominance and aggression, and femininity by passivity and submission”(505). These are the thing that the feminism movement

Gender roles, the public image of being a particular gender that a person presents to others (gender roles, n.d.), have seen many changes through the years, especially in families. The changes can be seen in many aspects, including television shows, from the traditional family in the I Love Lucy sitcom of the 1950s to the plethora of shows about women and men who balance working and family life of the 2000s. A traditional family can be defined as “… the ‘natural reproductive unit’ of mom, pop, and the children all living under one roof… (Ball, 2002).” The 1940s, a period dominated by this type of family, were primarily a time of single-income families where the father was the ‘breadwinner’ and the mother the ‘homemaker (Hayghe, H.V., 1990).’