Television essay Essays

Television essay Essays Television essay Essay Television essay Essay Television has a big Influence on how everybody perceives themselves. We can relate to what we see In TV such as romance, career and family. One In particular however contradicts their name Modern Family, which comes on BBC channel. Modern Family portrays an example of the mythical norm of a traditional family, gender stereotyping and how gender affects social ranking. Characters from Modern Family challenge the patriarchal society while other are still subordinated to it. Modern Family debuted on September 2009. It centers around three different families, Jay and his children Mitchell and Claire. Jay is married to Gloria who is from Columbia and are raising two children together. His son Mitchell who is in a gay relationship with his partner Cameron, adopting a Vietnamese baby. Jays daughter Claire is a house wife who provides structure to the home, whereas Phil her husband provides for the household. The social hierarchy ranking system is based on how society assigns a group whether the person Is privileged or oppressed based on the differences. The book Womens Voices defines privilege as advantages people have by virtue of their status or position In society (61 Based on the characters roles all the husbands are reviled because they are white and males. All of the wives have some privileges because of their husbands making them upper class, but are also somewhat oppressed since they are women. Mitchell and Cameron fall under the male privileges but are oppressed because they are gay. Homosexuality and female gender have always been groups easily discriminated by society. Likewise to the hierarchy privileges of each character, sexism still goes unnoticed by most viewers. Gender stereotypes are presented throughout the Modern Family series. The women on the show are seen as unintelligent and emotional. One example of gender stereotype Is found In the episode A Hard Jays Night Phil Is helping Gloria sell an old apartment she lived In before she met Jay, while waiting for a client they decide to visit an old hair salon Gloria used to work In and volunteer to help. Gloria states that she had forgotten how exhausting It was working at a hair salon, since she Is now a house wife. She confesses to Phil that she feel afraid of selling the old apartment because she used to provide for herself and now it was Jay providing for her. By being young, attractive and in some cases of Hispanic origin, Gloria displays he characteristic of a gold digger. A gold digger is a person getting involved romantically with someone wealthy. Being that Jay is a wealthy person with a big house and a business his own. Gloria usually speaks about suffering poverty while growing up, and has easily adapted to living an upper class life style. Another example of gender stereotype is Phil Dungy who is considered as the head of the household because he Is the man of the house, while Claire stays at home and cares for the kids. 80 percent of single-parent households are headed by women, but on sitcoms, half of them are headed by men (Highlighting et al. . These types of stereo types reinforce patriarchy by defining the wives roles primarily as the frankly caregiver and the husbands as the providers. In addition to the sexism found in all Cameron. Mitchell tends to be more of the provider of the household whereas Cameron has a caregiver role who helps maintain the home. Cameron displays feminine traits, which influence him in to appear as the women of the family. This stereotype effects heterosexual males and females. Bernard Whitley points out in his essay that, Evidence that this belief system is tied to heterosexuals perceptions of Sabine and gay men comes from demonstrations that men who are described as having feminine characteristics are Judged likely to be gay whereas women described as having masculine characteristics are Judged likely to be lesbians (692). The show not only misleads family structure but also encourages traditional gender roles and stereotype of women. In conclusion, Modern Family is Just like any other television show made up to entertain us. Yet it also gives us an idea on how people are defined by their gender or sexual orientation. Modern Family is not the only show that entities to oppress subordinate groups of people. However, it helps to influence the colonization that molds the viewers perception and morals to continue the oppression of these subordinate groups.