Television Commons^™

Gender, Age, Class And Racial Stereotypes, And Power Relations In Television Ads: 2011-13 Vs 2021-22, Thomas D. Clark, Julie Stewart

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

This article demonstrates how faculty and DEI experts can use resources included in this paper to highlight how a range of stereotypes are created and reinforced in television ads, and it identifies several topics for future analysis. To understand how depictions of gender, class, age, and race intersect in 8 television ads featuring the relationship between the race of individuals depicted in romantic and platonic relationships this article examines 4 pairs of commercials from 2011-2013 and 2021-2022. Drawing on concepts of intercategorical complexity, it describes product, setting, characters and relationships to help gain a deeper understanding of how various stereotypes …

Making The Case For Teaching Character Change In Complex Tv: The Closer And Major Crimes, Emily C. Hoffman

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

Jason Mittel’s 2015 book Complex TV: The Poetics of Contemporary Television Storytelling offers enough material to sustain a semester-long undergraduate course. Because of its approachability and students’ interest in discussing characters, his chapter devoted to viewers’ parasocial relationships and characters’ potential for change is among the most teachable. However, teaching complex television that relies on intensely serialized story elements can make choosing televisual texts for study and discussion challenging. Therefore, series that skew episodic yet still incorporate serial elements, like police procedurals, can prove to be a practical alternative for classroom study. This article describes how using the interrelated …

A Gendered Perspective On Policing Violence In Happy Valley And Fargo, T. Allen Culpepper

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

Portrayal of a police officer determined to fight crime and execute justice in a harsh, isolated environment has become a television and film subgenre, often featuring women facing gender-related challenges. The issues raised in Sally Wainwright’s British television series Happy Valley, can be made more accessible, particularly to American undergraduate students, via its commonalities with the Coen brothers film Fargo. In both, a tough but compassionate policewoman pursues the more sociopathic of a pair of criminals involved in a botched kidnapping attempt instigated by an inept businessman, taking on the case for personal and professional honor, and as …

“If You Want To Be The Man, You’Ve Got To Beat The Man”: Masculinity And The Rise Of Professional Wrestling In The 1990s, Marc A. Ouellette

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

This paper traces the relationship between the shifting representations of masculinity in professional wrestling programs of the 1990s and the contemporaneous shifts in conceptions of masculinity, examining the ways each of these shifts impacted the other. Most important among these was a growing sense that the biggest enemy in wrestling and in day-to-day life is one’s boss. Moreover, the corporate corruption theme continues to underscore the WWE's on-screen and off-screen coverage, well into the second decade of the twenty-first century. Thus, the paper provides a template for considering a widely consumed popular cultural form in ways that challenge the determinism …

Gender And Nostalgia In Period Drama: The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel And Mad Men, Deidre Pribram

Communications: Faculty Publications

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (2017-2023) and Mad Men (2007-2015) share a common genre, location, and era.  Both are period dramas, set in New York City, as the waning 1950s transition into the 1960s.  Additionally, both television serials address changing cultural conditions, especially surrounding gender.  Yet, when analyzed through the prism of nostalgia, the two programs deviate in significant ways.  This essay uses Grainge’s (2000) distinction between nostalgia as mood and nostalgia as aesthetic style, applying it to the two television serials.  It also incorporates concepts of nostalgia as critique (Cook, 2005), as well as imagined nostalgia as the longing “for …

There Goes My Antihero: How Wendy Byrde Broke Bad, Melissa Vosen Callens

Heroism Science

Despite the increase of male antiheroes in popular culture, the number of female antiheroes is sparse, particularly when female characters are romantically involved with male antiheroes. There are several reasons for this disparity, partially which can be explained by affective disposition theory. First, female characters are rarely given agency and adequate backstories. Second, in order for female characters to be antiheroes, they typically must challenge gender role stereotypes, especially as they pertain to motherhood. Finally, they are often treated poorly by other characters in the series. All of these reasons have a profound effect on how audiences perceive female characters …

Disparities In Sports Media Representation, Madison Handwerger

Media and Communication Studies Presentations

My research focuses on the differences of representation of genders in sports media. Being a collegiate female athlete myself, this topic really hits home for me, and is a big passion of mine. The primary text of my project is the ESPN television talk show, First Take. The show in itself reinforces a gender ideology with the way it is formatted, having two male analysts and a female host, however the host is not allowed to speak and share her opinions on the topic or issue at hand. That job is left for the male co-analysts. Before beginning my research, …

Effects Of Television Content On Children’S Development Of Traditional Gender Role Schemata: A Literature Review, Molly Shilo

Proceedings of the New York State Communication Association

Despite the progress television has made since its creation, the medium unfortunately still portrays subtle, and not so subtle, gender stereotypes, especially in children’s television shows. Content analyses have documented the pervasive stereotypes set forth on TV that not only portray strict behaviors for both males and females, but that also often depict the female behaviors and characters as inferior (Calvert, 1999). In a wave of advocacy and regulation, parents, teachers, and children have demanded shows that better promote inclusivity and appropriate, family-friendly values. The Children’s Television Act of 1990 required broadcasters to provide educational children’s programming that would teach …

“I’M Real I Thought I Told Ya”: Developing Critical Media Literacy Through U.S. Latinx Digital Media Representations, Solange T. Castellar

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis explores how audiences engage with U.S. Latinx media representations through the practice of critical media literacy. I interrogate how media consumers construct critical media literacy through interacting with U.S. Latinx figures on digital media platforms, particularly on the social-media app, Twitter, and the user-generated video content platform, YouTube. Throughout this thesis, I argue that users on these platforms who engage with U.S. Latinx pop culture figures, like Jennifer Lopez and Belcalis Almanzar (Cardi B), read, digest, and comprehend a variety of multimedia images, texts, or videos, and that this engagement becomes an accessible form of critical media literacy, …

The Cultivation Theory And Reality Television: An Old Theory With A Modern Twist, Jeffrey Weiss

Capstone Showcase

George Gerbner, a Hungarian-born professor of communication, founded the cultivation theory, one of the most popular and regarded theories in the communications world. Developed in the mid 20th century, the theory focus on the long-term effects of television on people. Longer exposure to signs, images and people on television cultivates their perception of reality in the real world. The television became a household staple during this time. Families often spent time together watching programming together, however, it played out different effects for each person. Television's constant visual and auditory stimulation on a person made it easier to cultivate certain messages, …

How Actresses Jessica Chastain, Octavia Spencer And Reese Witherspoon Are Fighting Pay Disparity One Project At A Time, Abbey M. White

Capstones

While working on Steven Spielberg's 2005 miniseries "Into the West," Indigenous-Latina actress Tonantzin Carmelo achieved pay parity with her white male co-stars thanks to a contract clause called "favored nations. Now 15 years later, and in the height of Hollywood's gender parity movement, Hollywood actresses are strategically using the very same clause to chip away at the pay gap. This 7000-word narrative feature explains the historical use of this clause, identifies how actresses are leveraging its power to achieve pay parity on their projects and answers why it's not a one-size-fits-all fix for Hollywood pay inequity.

http://abbeymwhite.com/capstone/how-actresses-like-jennifer-aniston-jessica-chastain-and-lupita-nyongo-are-fighting-pay-disparity-one-project-at-a-time/

The Commodified Body And Post/In Human Subjectivities In Frears’S Dirty Pretty Things And Romanek’S Never Let Me Go, Rocio Carrasco

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Following new materialist analysis, this article takes the body as the central locus of analysis, and relates it to broader questions such as ethics, ideology, power and/or technologies. Specifically, it revolves around the idea of embodied subjectivity as articulated by scholars Rosi Braidotti, Sherryl Vint or Cary Wolfe, whereby body and subjectivity are indissolubly and interestingly connected. Stephen Frears’s Dirty Pretty Things (2002) and Mark Romanek’s Never Let Me Go (2010) exploit the idea of the commodified body, understood here as a vulnerable body, a disposable commodity at the service of powerful and/or wealthy people. Victims of the cruelties inflicted …

The Gender Wage Gap In The Film Industry: A Review Of Literature, Christine Pires

Senior Theses

The gender wage gap is defined as the difference between the amounts of money paid to women and men, often for doing the same work (Cambridge, 2017). The gender wage gap is a reoccurring financial issue in all aspects of the business world. Most all career paths have had a wage gap between men and women. Having equal pay for equal work should be a thing of the past. However, women today are still fighting to close the wage gap and work equally in all fields. The film industry is one of the largest entertainment industries in America and still, …

Speech Equality: A Gendered Analysis Of Children’S Television Shows, Rikki N. Bergen

Anthropology Presentations

Childhood is an exciting time and kids are just learning who they are and who they are expected to be. The role television plays in their understanding of gender, racial, cultural, economic and social identity cannot be denied and it is therefore important for scholars to examine the types of ideas that are being presented. The gendered attitudes portrayed both explicitly and implicitly in children’s television shows can have a negative effect on childhood development and a child’s perceptions of self and the world around them.

"If You Want To Be The Man, You've Got To Beat The Man": Masculinity And The Rise Of Professional Wrestling In The 1990'S, Marc Ouellette

English Faculty Publications

This paper traces the relationship between the shifting representations of masculinity in professional wrestling programs of the 1990s and the contemporaneous shifts in conceptions of masculinity, examining the ways each of these shifts impacted the other. Most important among these was a growing sense that the biggest enemy in wrestling and in day-to-day life is one’s boss. Moreover, the corporate corruption theme continues to underscore the WWE’s on-screen and off-screen coverage, well into the second decade of the twenty-first century. Thus, the paper provides a template for considering a widely consumed popular cultural form in ways that challenge the determinism …

Politics Of Feminist Revision In Di Prima's Loba, Polina Mackay

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Politics of Feminist Revision in di Prima's Loba" Polina Mackay explores Diane di Prima's two-volume epic Loba (1998) and, through a comparison of di Prima to the work of Adrienne Rich, argues that Loba practices a politics of feminist revision. Further, Mackay examines the ways in which di Prima starts to move away from the recovery project of female voices in patriarchal culture, associated with late twentieth-century Feminism, towards a women's literature which need not be defined entirely through its resistance to patriarchal narratives of gender in men's literature. Here it focuses on di Prima's revisionist …

Losing It: The Construction And Stigmatization Of Obesity On Reality Television In The United States, Alisa Roost

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Representing Us All? Race, Gender, And Sexuality In Orange Is The New Black, Michael Robert Chavez

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Orange Is the New Black is a Netflix television series that began in 2013. The series focuses on the lives of inmates in a fictional women's prison. Television series about prison have focused primarily on men in prison. This thesis will expand upon previous research on representation of minorities in television using a feminist media analysis to examine the first season of the series. I will explore how race, gender, and sexuality are represented within the series. I examine the representations of four characters during the first season. I chose these four characters because they represented different racial groups, sexualities, …

Gender Identity Construction Through Talk About Video Games, Sara M. Cole

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Gender Identity Construction through Talk about Video Games" Sara Cole discusses the construction of gender identity in terms of experiences of digital media and interactive play. Digital literacy expresses, shares, and reaffirms gendered self-identification through experiences of video game play with narratives that either confirm or deny stereotypical biases. In-depth interviews were used to explore the effects of play practices on conceptions of masculinity and personal identity in males who grew up in the 1980s by focusing on a linguistic analysis of the pragmatics of their shared thoughts on play, fantasy, use of digital media, and violence. …

How Toni Morrison's Facebook Page Re(Con)Figures Race And Gender, Beatriz Revelles-Benavente

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "How Toni Morrison's Facebook Page Re(con)figures Race and Gender" Beatriz Revelles-Benavente explores Morrison's Facebook page and comments on it. In 2010, Morrison opened a Facebook page where she received a large amount of comments and created debates and Revelles-Benavente analyses how these comments navigate questions of race and gender. Based on theoretical considerations about issues of race and gender in cyberculture and applied to the narratives posted on Morrison's Facebook page, Revelles-Benavente argues that the problematics of race and gender are relational and the question needs to be centered on the object of study as the relation …

Is First, They Killed My Father A Cambodian Testimonio?, John Maddox

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Is First, They Killed My Father a Cambodian testimonio" John T. Maddox discusses aspects of the testimonial. Dialoguing with leading Latin Americanists, Maddox argues that Cambodian writer Loung Ung's First, They Killed My Father (2000) challenges this uniqueness and opens studies on the testimonio to new possibilities for intellectual reflection and political activism. In Maddox's view, the continued use of the term testimonio would serve as a reference to this long-standing tradition of writing and thinking about political violence in Latin America. After a discussion of the debate of the definition and function of testimonio and …

Mediated Bodies: The Construction Of A Wife, Mother, And The Female Body In Television Sitcoms: Roseanne, Saniya Lee Ghanoui

Proceedings of the New York State Communication Association

After first examining several theoretical concepts related to the construction of gender on television and the way in which women are characterized, this paper examines the television show Roseanne to explore the way it changed the representation of a feminist on television. No longer did women have to be childless and career-minded to be equal to men or in some cases better than men, as the character Roseanne Conner reveals on the show. Rather, women were able to articulate their feminist outlooks through their opinions, expressions, and actions. I break the show into four distinct notions of gendered representations: socioeconomic …

As The World Turns...Gay, Not Queer: Privileging Heteronormalized Representations Of Sexuality In American Soap Operas From 1977 - Present, Brett Edward King

Cultural Studies Capstone Papers

This project argues that American daytime soap operas, since the1970s, have adopted prevailing discursive ideas of queerness, re-articulated them, and introduced new discursive understandings of queerness into popular culture. Most often, these re-articulated representations reflect a heteronormalized model,owing to myriad historically-situated discourses related to human sexuality (e.g.,mental health, AIDS, and gender identity). This point is made through a broad examination of these shifting discourses, coupled with a direct analysis of salient queer characters and storylines that appeared concurrently within daytime serials. Building on Feminist and Media theory, this project includes Queer theory to frame a comprehensive historical-discursive understanding of queerness …

The Effect Of Gender Role And Males' Attitudes Toward Receiving Mental Health Therapy, Christina H. Thomas

Graduate Theses

The purpose of this research study was to build upon previous research pertaining to gender role and young adult male attitudes towards receiving mental health therapy. An additional purpose of the study was to explore the relationship between media exposure and attitude toward mental health therapy. The first hypothesis was that there would be a positive correlation between gender role scores and attitudes with the BEM Sex- Role Inventory (BSRI) and with scores on attitudes with the Attitudes Towards Seeking Professional Psychological Help Scale (ATSPPHS) in young adult males. The second hypothesis was that young adult males who watched a …