Dissertation Proposal

Ruby Rogers

STUDENT NUMBER: 1302027

WORD COUNT: 2,431

SUBMITTED TO: SIMON WELSFORD/HELEN CURSTON

TELEVISION PRODUCTION

DATE: 27/04/15

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CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………………PAGE 3

CHAPTER 1…………………………………………………………………..…PAGE 3-6

CHAPTER 2……………..………………………………………………………PAGE 6-9

CHAPTER 3……………………………………………………………………PAGE 9-11

CONCLUSION……………………………………………………………………PAGE 11

BIBLIOGRAPHY……………………………………………………………….PAGE 12

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How television sitcoms have responded to the representation of women throughout the 1950’s to 2000’s

Introduction:

This dissertation will discuss the women’s role in 1950’s sitcoms such as ‘’I Love

Lucy’’, ‘’Leave It To Beaver’’ and ‘’Father Knows Best’’. It will look at how

women’s place in the workforce was dismissed and ignored, and how sitcoms

responded to these problems and inequality.

Chapter one will discuss the history and culture of women in the 50’s and how

the ‘ideal housewife’ was portrayed in 50’s sitcoms. It will also look at how social

conditioning was used and mirrored through sitcoms.

Chapter two will focus on the Women’s Rights Liberation Movement and look at

the Cultivation Theory throughout ‘The Mary Tyler Moore Show’.

Finally, Chapter three will be a case study of the stereotypical 50’s sitcom ‘’I Love

Lucy’’ and compare it to the 2011 sitcom, ‘’Two Broke Girls’’ and look at how the

representation of women has changed and developed over the years.

The aim of this dissertation is to show how the power and strength of women

coming together to fight for what they are rightful for, can eventually happen,

and show how in the 50’s women wouldn’t of ever thought they could be

successful and powerful, whilst also looking at how sitcoms have responded to

the changes.

Chapter 1:

Within chapter one, how women are perceived through the 1950’s will be

discussed and how sitcoms amplified and mimicked the idea that women were

only good for one thing – becoming housewives. Also, the Hypodermic Needle

theory will be discussed and look at how it has encouraged views of the audience

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to think one-dimensionally and become absorbed in how sitcoms portray

women. Political and racial views will also be discussed and look at how they

was mirrored in television to influence society.

Post world war one was known as the ‘baby boom’ - women began marrying men

and generally stopped working. The age to marry and have children dramatically

dropped and there had become a promoted ‘ideal life’ of having a suburban

family and for the women to be stay at home wives and raise their children.

Social conditioning is known as the sociological way to essentially ‘train’ people

to act a certain way to fit in with groups in society. Schools and workforces

would use social conditioning to teach and influence children to act a certain way

– usually to believe that when they grow up, they will have to become a

housewife and treat their husband as a prince.

This quote from a home economics book from 1950s America is a good example

of social conditioning.

“Have dinner ready, prepare yourself, prepare the children, minimize all noise, be

happy to see him, listen to him, make the evening his” – 1954 Home Economics

High School Text Book

Learning to be the ideal housewives is what children where taught during the

1950’s, and even though a lot has changed throughout the eras - children are still

brought up to look after toy babies and even learn how to change and feed them.

Women and men’s gender roles have been highly stereotyped and controversial

from the early 1900’s. Women were put under immense pressure to be the ideal

housewives and in the 1950’s woman was even more eager and influenced into

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marrying in their early 20’s and given responsibilities to only cook, clean and

raise their children.

Social conditioning was also mirrored in television shows such as ‘’Leave It To

Beaver’’. In one episode the son is asking why the mother always does the

cooking, and the father replies with, ‘’ 'You know they say a women’s place is in

the home, and I suppose, as long as she's in the home she may as well be in the

kitchen.'' This shows that even at home the children are being taught that ‘a

women’s place is in the kitchen’, creating a negative thought to children

watching.

'’In a world in which the woman's place is in the kitchen or at the beauty parlour, the woman is not a socially relevant being'' – (Spangler, 2003:04)

Himmelstein belittles woman’s roles and suggests that women in the kitchen

aren’t important and when they aren’t doing their jobs, they aren’t needed. An

example of this is in the 1957 sitcom ‘’Leave It To Beaver’’. The mother, June is a

prime example of a ‘perfect’ housewife. When June isn’t working, we never see

her doing anything outside of the house that feels important or get involved in

activities. Sitcoms often encourage the viewers to be drawn into the belief that if

they are not a perfect housewife, their role in the world is irrelevant – as

Himmelstein said.

For years, it has been accepted and known that the media can have an

increasingly large influence on viewer’s opinions, and it is believed that the

media uses television and adverts to ‘inject’ ideas into the viewer’s minds; this is

known as The Hypodermic Needle theory.

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''Certain values, ideas and attitudes are injected into the individual...resulting in particular behaviour'' (Fourie, 2001:294)

The 1950’s sitcom ‘’I Love Lucy’’ was one of the first to use real life situations and

exaggerate them for entertainment. As the show focused mainly on post war

suburban perfect families, women would strive to be like Lucy… funny, always

up to mischief and the ideal housewife – apart from her mishaps with her

husband. However, as women were always housewives in these shows, the

hypodermic needle effect also highly reinforced male’s attitudes and stereotypes

that women should only be housewives, and didn’t encourage them to peruse a

career path in the American Workforce.

Chapter 2:

Chapter 2 will look at how the Women’s Rights Liberation Movement breaks

down the barriers of women’s rights and allows them to feel fulfilled doing what

they want. It will also discuss how sitcoms addressed the movement and if they

represented women differently. Finally, it will look at the Cultivation Theory and

how consumers become desensitised to real life situations and how it affects

their view on sexist sitcoms.

The Women’s Rights Movement was taking place during the early 1960’s,

however sitcoms chose to ignore the fact women’s rights were becoming more

spoken about. This meant women would still be under the influence of the ideal

housewives and believe that they had to act a certain way to please their

husbands, as the thought of divorce in the 50’s was extremely looked down on.

'One of the biggest challenges... is the need to respond to social change... 'The new woman'' (Dow, 1996:21)

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An example of a sitcom that was taking notice of the movement was the 1970’s

sitcom ‘The Mary Tyler Moore Show’’. It had modernised the image of a family in

the 60’s and represented families in a more realistic manner. Race, equality and

ethnicity existed and genders had much more equal opportunity. The show

quickly became popular, allowing women to tune in to see the life they could

have and see the opportunities they could fulfil, opposed to being told they aren’t

qualified or good enough. Although women pushed their rights and times had

appeared to have change in some television, the job opportunities was still

extremely limited and woman’s pay was 60% less than men’s.

‘’Most young women, at least in the middle class, expected to have access to the same careers and to receive the same compensation as men’’ (Isserman, 2012:295)

Women would go on strikes on many broadcast shows about equal pay, whilst

other sitcoms also continued to perpetuate the idealistic view of the 1950’s

housewives and chose to ignore and dismiss the idea that women could do more

in the American workforce.

''We sought to show someone...being in a world where women's rights were being talked about and it was having an impact'' (Tulloch, 2002:103)

The main character Mary had showed dramatic social change in the show, as she

was extremely independent, living on her own and supporting herself with her

own work. Mary was a never before married 30 year old women who has less

than an ideal life, but doesn’t have to depend on a man and stay at home being a

housewife. Unlike women in 50’s sitcoms that were ditsy and always rushing

around their husbands, Mary had more respect from the public and encouraged

women envision work outside of the household and worry less about marrying

in their early 20’s. The show dealt with real life rights such as Mary pleading for

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equal pay and mentioning in a job interview that the questions about her idea on

marriage was irrelevant to the job she was applying for. Although women and

men in the show in the workplace still wasn’t completely equal, the women had

real hopes, dreams and ambitions compared to previous sitcoms in which they

would ‘hope’ to become the ideal housewives.

'Those who spend more time watching television are more likely to perceive the real world in ways that reflect the messages of the television world' (Shanahan,

1999:04)

The Cultivation theory believes that audience are so absorbed in the media that

they become desensitised to things on television. It also believes that the

audience are passive, couch potatoes that often believe everything they get told

and don’t have opinions for themselves. In the 1960’s sitcom ‘’Leave It To

Beaver’’, the mother, June is discussing with her son how women’s roles in the

workplace is expanding – she says, ‘’today, girls can be doctors and lawyers

too...their just as ambitious as boys are'’. A statement like this is very

controversial to say back in the 50’s, however passive and active audiences may

believe what she’s saying and become encouraged to go and get qualifications to

become more successful.

‘’Who knows what women can be when they are finally free to become themselves?’’ (Friedan, 1977:373)

Betty Friedan makes a very interesting point here, in the 50’s women didn’t have

much to show for themselves and didn’t have a chance to try out new jobs as

they wasn’t qualified. So how do people automatically assume women are

worthless and can’t bring money in, if they aren’t free to do what they want?

Friedan said this in 1977, and now through to 2015, we have seen successful

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businesswomen and even a female priminister – proving that women can

achieve the highest success.

Chapter 3:

Chapter 3 will approach two sitcoms from the 1950’s and the 2000’s and look at

how the woman’s lives in the 50’s have dramatically changed through to modern

day. Sitcoms in television from the 1950’s reinforced and glorified stereotypes of

women’s roles, suggesting they had almost no opportunities outside of the home

– and definitely not in the workplace.

The 1951 black and white sitcom, ‘’I Love Lucy’’ commonly misrepresented a

stereotypical portrait of a 50’s household. I Love Lucy was one of the first

sitcoms to have a woman as a lead role, however that didn’t stop the show from

constantly mimicking and portraying woman as liars and ditsy characters – it

had been accused several times for reinforcing patriarchal normalities and be

increasingly degrading to women. Although the actress Lucille Ball was a huge

success and icon in the 50’s in Hollywood, on screen she was an extremely

submissive character – reinforcing the ideology that women needed men to

bring the money in whilst they did all the cleaning and cooking at home. ‘’Job

Switching’’ was an episode that portrayed to the audience that if women tried to

pursue a career, they would be unsuccessful and fail.

'’The 'little woman', a mere housewife, incapable of understanding things in the

'man's world'. – (Hardy, 1950:340)

Lucy was often portrayed as incapable of understanding simple questions and

shown to be ‘dumb’ and very child like. An example of this is when Lucy and her

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husband Ricky decided to swap roles for a week to prove they could both do each

other’s jobs. Lucy is at the job office and when asked what she can do, she

constantly sits asking ‘what jobs do you have open’, suggesting that she actually

has no skills or qualifications. This could provoke viewers to become fearful that

if they try finding a job too, they would fail. Lucy lies about her skills to find

herself a job in a candy-making factory, and messes it up, as she can’t keep up

and ends up eating all the chocolate. Ricky and Lucy agree to go back to what

they both know which reinforces the idea that women shouldn’t try to pursue a

career in the workplace.

Looking at the 2011 sitcom, 2 Broke Girls, it’s clear that the representations of

women have developed. Max and Caroline are waitress’ trying to earn cash to

open their own business – something that would never be seen in a 50’s sitcom.

The main character, Max is an independent young woman who is quite sarcastic

and quick witted. Max doesn’t follow the ‘sweet and innocent’ stereotype that

was portrayed in the 50’s, nor is she seen as stupid. However, there is still a

slight stereotype in the show as the blonde character, Caroline is often portrayed

as stupid and silly. Not only is the stereotype of women being ‘ditsy’

reintroduced; they often have Max making racial jokes with her co-worker,

which could encourage people to not take rights seriously, therefore not taking

women’s rights seriously.

''The third wave operates from the assumption that identity is multifaceted and

layered'' (Dicker, 2003:10)

Instead of seeing just one type of women in the television show, we see a diverse

amount. Women are portrayed of having real dreams and ambitions – for

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example Max and Caroline are saving up to run their own cupcake business.

Showing that not all women are the same and want to achieve the same goals to

become housewives creates a new ideology for viewers and encourages them to

reach out to new opportunities.

Conclusion:

The conclusion will discuss how the media has such an impact on society, that

even if women have equal rights, television needs to change to represent women

before people begin to act on equality. It will also discuss how the affects of

women’s rights has developed to todays society and what else needs to change

for television to stop going back to mimicking women’s rights. The final

dissertation conclusion will discuss how even in modern day television, there are

still negative stereotypes and representations of women - which affects how

women in the real world are treated. Moreover, the Women’s Liberation

movement will be discussed and look at how it has influenced the representation

of women now, and how television has gradually began to represent women

more respectfully.

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Bibliography:

Dow, Bonnie (2001) Prime Time Feminism: Television, Media Culture and the

Women’s Movement.

Dicker Cooke, Rory (2003) Catching a Wave: Reclaiming Feminism for the 21st

Century.

Fourie, Pieter (2001) Media Studies: Institutions, Theories, and Issues.

Friedan, Betty (1977) The Feminine Mystique.

Isserman, Maurice (2012) America Divided: The Civil War of the 1960s.

Shanahan, James (1999) Television and its Viewers: Cultivation Theory and

Research.

Sheila, Hardy (1950) A 1950s Housewife.

Spangler, Lynn (2003) Television Women From Lucy to Friends: Fifty Years of

Sitcoms and Feminism.

Tulloch, John (2002) Television Drama: Agency, Audience and Myth.

In my final dissertation, I am going to be reading more books such as:

Evans, Judith (1995 ) Feminist Theory Today: An Introduction to Second-Wave

Feminism

Humm, Maggie (1995) Practicing Feminist Criticism: An Introduction

Meyerowitz, Joanne (1994) Not June Cleaver: Women and Gender in Postwar

America, 1945 – 1960 (Critical Perspectives on the Past Series)

Meyers, Marian (2008) Women in Popular Culture: Representation and Meaning.

Osborn, Tracy (2012) How Women Represent Women: Political Parties, Gender

and Representation in the State Legislatures

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