women on TV
My friend, Casey, laments that women characters on TV are "not allowed to be bright and indepedent, and capable of having other people in [their lives]." It's a very well written post examining the season finales of Gilmore Girls and Grey's Anatomy. Check it out here.
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posted by jch at
9:32 AM
7 Comments:
The fallacy:
Television imitates life.
We forget that televisions melo-dramas (soap opera+comedy) are entertainment, mixed with just enough reality and truth to not be sci-fi. They were never meant to be role models for us! Reality TV is found on the History and Discovery channels.
As for the ending of Grey's Yang and Burke, if you know the characters, it ended the way it should. While your friend, Joe, was disappointed that there was no Cinderella ending, I was very satisfied. Sad, but relieved.
However, the Izzie-George-Callie, and Meredith-McDreamy sagas are different issues... They need a re-write.
These are the stories that keep people watching. They have all these cliff hangers and twists that we just have to see what comes next...
That is why it is entertainment. Once The Grey's Anatomy show had a woman come in about 8 months pregnant. During her visit they discovered that the unborn child had CDH. They mentioned the birth defect briefly and said, "it is a small surgery and the baby will be fine".
A CDH message board that I belong to spent days talking about this mention. They were so upset that the show minimized CDH. Obviuosly it bothered them because they know all too well how horrible it can become. Some people even wanted to write letters to the producers of the show and complain.
I was not one of those people, only because I considered the show "for entertainment purposes only". I also believed that it would not have been a great forum to use to educate people on CDH.
They just want to keep us watching. Would we continue to watch if everyone's lives turned out just the way we wanted it to?
P.S. I still loved your first post, it was very well written.
One of the reasons I gave up TV was they made Father's look like idiots. So be nice.
Every time there is a cool TV show with a great female lead and lots of awards it gets canceled. TV, like so many other things, caters to men. That's one of the reasons that I gave up on it.
Wow. This might be the first time something I've said has elicited so many comments.
As I said in the blog, I don't watch these shows for hope that if good things can happen for the characters on these shows, they will happen for me. I was bothered by the events of both of these shows for the simple fact that none of these women is allowed to be bright and strong and of consequence in their professions, without having to relinquish the joys of a loving relationship.
Despite what we may say about these characters not being role models and these shows not being reality, I believe it is important to give young women something to look up to. Many children grow up today with no role models other than those seen on television. They are never shown a person of their race or gender who is capable and successful in their professional life without being handicapped in their personal life. So I do believe that the writers/directors/producers of these shows have some responsibility to do this, and that at least one character who can do this.
I believe it is important to give young women something to look up to.
Indeed. But don't look to television to provide that. It really isn't their job. It would be nice, a kind of "public service", but it isn't their job. Their job is to make money.
i'm not usually this diplomatic, but i sort of agree with everyone here. you certainly have to treat television as entertainment, and cannot expect it to reflect real life.
that said, the best kind of entertainment is one that holds a mirror up, speaks a truth to us, and reflects our reality even in distorting it.
finally, i agree with happytheman's complaint as well as your friends'. one of my soapboxes about television characters are when they become one-dimensional stereotypes. whether it's the independent woman who really just longs for a good man to "complete her" or the befuddled father and emasculated husband who can only function if his demanding and sarcastic wife guides him like a small child, i'm tuning out.
i think this was the initial idea behind reality television. think back the "the real world" season one, when the people weren't stereotypes and had to get actual jobs. it was viewed as boring. only as the people increasingly developed into characitures did the show take off.
sadly, people have started defining reality by charicature. when i was in high school, the worst thing you could do was to try and categorize someone. if you called someone a "prep" or "jock" or "nerd" it was to demean them or limit them. nowadays i run into high school kids who will tell you "i'm a goth" as if that completely sums up their reality.
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