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I Love Lucy, That Girl, And Changing Gender Norms On And Off Screen, Emilia Anne De Leo

Honors Papers

Women on television of the 1950’s and 1960’s have a contested place in American television history. The common belief that women in postwar TV adhered to and promoted strict sexist stereotypes is pervasive, but there has been some debate as to how accurate this generalization is. This paper examines the roles women played on television through a close analysis of two shows, I Love Lucy (1951-7) and That Girl (1966-71). These two shows demonstrate women’s general places during the decades in which they aired, with Lucy Ricardo representing the housewife of the 1950’s and Ann Marie representing the increasingly popular …