Title: Messages From TV Land: The Influence of Media on Our Thinking About Gender
How do gender roles portrayed on television in the 1940s influence our perception of ourselves and each other today and how it has been shaped by society?
I am working on the topic of television of the 1940s because I want to find out how gender roles are influenced by television to help my reader better understand how our perceptions of ourselves and each other is shaped by society.
This seems like a fun topic. I personally love watching old sitcoms. I noticed that the gender roles are always the same. The father works while the mother stays home to take care of the children and home. Women didn't really have productive roles. I think women got a lot less credit than deserved. Can't wait to read your paper.
ReplyDeleteI think the 40s is a great time period to examine because television was still very much a novelty for viewers, and there was a lot of change occurring in gender roles. Great topic!
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ReplyDeleteAn interesting topic to be sure. I wonder does television exemplify gender roles, does it emphasize them, make them more apparent than in every day life? I love Lucy is a show you mentioned in class, I watched this show in my childhood with my grandmother, a relative I am most close to... In some ways I believe Lucy challenged the rule of women in society, she moved beyond her station, at the time. I think it would be interesting to look at how television is used to break normative boundaries, to help society evolve by challenging norms.
ReplyDeleteI like this a lot. I wonder if certain genres of shows in the 40's had certain gendered beliefs influenced by the time and region. In what ways were female actors emulated by viewers? Did they want to look or act like these budding stars and was what was on tv challenging these attitudes?
ReplyDeleteI like your time period because it was right when TV was becoming such a powerful medium and the broadcast corporations were kinda defining it as they went.
ReplyDeleteI remember you talking about I Love Lucy which is a great example of tv empowering and oppressing femininity depending on the viewers interpretation, but I don't remember what other shows were on and how they treated women.
Maybe give a brief overview of how the woman changed through the course of television i,e. I love Lucy- Mary Tyler Moore- Sex in the City. But then emphasize that 1940's was the pivotal moment where it all happened
I think that this topic is one that should be thought about more. Even though people today act much different than the characters in television shows of the 40's, we still got a lot of our set in stone ways of thinking and living from them. I really like this topic and know you will do great!
ReplyDeleteGreat topic. It will be very interesting to hear how gender roles have changed due to television since the 1940s. I would also keep in mind different races and ethnicities.For example, African American television was very different in th 1940's then white television therefore their gener roles probably differed a bit as well.
ReplyDeleteI know you've been talking about I Love Lucy in class, but in my mind I keep coming back to Shirley Temple. She was the sweet, pretty, polite girl who wasn't supposed to get dirty.
ReplyDeleteMaybe you could look into how the younger people viewed these shows and how it affected their role in society.
This topic has been studied for years so you should be able to find great and interesting research for it. These ideas of gender always intrigue me since they are so naturalized and change every so often. I think a good stance to take for this particular paper would be to almost form a timeline for the kind of shows that have been on for each decade or so and the behaviors and concepts of gender that followed. This would bring you to the formation of gender that we think of today.
ReplyDeleteNicely grounded topic! I am a TV junkie, although I do not know much about television in the 1940s. It would be interesting to look at the roles and expectations of female roles in the 1940s compared to now.
ReplyDeleteGreat topic and great time period! I truly believe that our perception of gender stems from these tv shows. We now subconsciously maintain these view points without realizing we are doing it. You could also compare tv shows from the 1940s to tv shows in present day.
ReplyDeleteI took GWST310 last year and found things like this extremely interesting because I had no idea that television could essentially brainwash us into thinking certain ideals for gender roles. Were you going to focus your gender roles on one specific part of culture? I'm not sure if it would be too broad to do otherwise, but I am sure that you will end up doing a great job!
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