Introduction
Sitcoms are a platform for the construction and negotiation of cultural discourses. They represent people’s conception of what certain roles should be or not be. These platforms can thus allow one to understand how society perceives certain social structures like gender and class. Women’s place in this genre of entertainment is one of the dimensions that are represented in comedies.
How women are represented in sitcoms
Olson and Douglas (1997) affirm that to a certain extent, women’s role in sitcoms has changed over time. Their quantitative study found that most of the respondents approved of comedies that portrayed greater equality and similarity between the genders and less dominance. Modern families are perceived as more equal than families in previous decades. Therefore, it makes sense that they would look for such qualities in sitcoms.
Indeed Senzani (2010) echoes these sentiments by stating that comedies have always mirrored the values of their time. Even in situations where comedies challenge certain stereotypes on gender or class, they often do so in a restricted fashion. As such, they do not alter people’s overall perceptions of social constructs.
Limits still exist on the attributes that one can assign to women in sitcoms. Society still ascribes to the notion of the ‘proper’ women who are not aggressive or dominating. Olson and Douglas (1997) found that most of the subjects in their analysis ranked the comedy ‘Roseanne’ negatively because its protagonist exhibited unfeminine behavior.
One would expect that since Roseanne represented the last decade of the period under analysis, she would be more accepted by the subjects in the research. The 90s were a time when single-parent families were recognized as typical in comedy series.
Additionally, the subjects appeared to have no problem with working women. However, when Roseanne was introduced into the study, most people felt that they could not relate to her. According to Senzani (2010), this reaction is not at all surprising. The producer of the show, who also happened to be the protagonist of the show, wanted to challenge dominant gender constructions.
Roseanne is unfeminine because of her behavior as well as her body image. The character challenges society’s notion of beauty since she is fat and wears no makeup. The producer’s intention was to parody gender constructs and not women, per se. Therefore, it is no wonder that most viewers received the comedy poorly. However, Roseanne still had a large fan base. Her sitcom dominated entertainment magazines for one full decade.
It is likely that perhaps the subjects in the Olson and Douglas (1997) study did not like the show because their demographic was not the primary audience for the comedy. Most of the participants in the study were university students. Tertiary-educated viewers are less likely to relate to a sitcom about the working class than persons in the same social structure.
In line with the above argument, one might assert that women’s role in comedies contains class discourses. Senzani (2010) explains that humor serves to reflect conflicts in society by displaying stereotypes about class and gender as well as reinforcing solidarity among groups. In the 1950s, Olson and Douglas (1997) report that men were largely unchallenged in sitcoms. They were the figures of authority, and their wives often sought their approval. However, these actors belonged to the working class, and they played along with societal expectations of gender.
In sitcoms, the working class represented what the American dream had promised and but could not deliver. These individuals were frustrated by their bosses as well as society in general. Therefore, they found solidarity among one another. Women, in particular, teased each other and did other things that allowed them to cope with those stresses. Roseanne was a typical depiction of the working class woman’s conflict (Senzani, 2010).
This individual despised women in the middle and upper classes because they were a product of patriarchal society. In instances where class and gender are addressed in sitcoms, one of the constructs must be abandoned for the other. Most often, the gender agenda will be sacrificed for the sake of class solidarity.
The mid,due-class woman is seen as a betrayer of the feminist cause. She plays along with constructs that cause all women to be dominated by men.
Depictions of women in sitcoms have economic or consumerist connotations too. As mentioned earlier, the 1950s were a time when working-class women were dominant in sitcoms. Network producers felt that such portrayals were necessary to cause their primary, target audience to purchase television sets. At the time, television sets had just started proliferating into the masses.
These capitalists realized that it was essential to portray women in a way that would relate to key consumers but still preserve the gender status quo. Therefore, sitcoms in that era romanticized working-class women. Those characters were loving, supportive and wise; however, their wisdom was only relevant in the home as it could not be applied outside the domestic setting (Senzani, 2010).
One can deduce that television network owners wanted to serve their interests by portraying women in this light. Likewise, Roseanne came at a time when the Cosby show has dominated ABC’s airwaves for a long time. Since the Cosby show was a middle-class family, then its target audience also belonged to the group. ABC has suffered a decline in membership owing to such an inclination.
Therefore, the network owners felt that they needed something that would challenge the middle-class stereotype. They have seen a rival station – Fox – do relatively well with such a genre, so they felt that they should give it a try. In essence, Roseanne served the consumerist interests of media owners as she would allow them to increase their fan base under the pretext of feminine discourse.
Several sitcoms challenge female stereotypes by depicting unusually witty, wise, aggressive or strong women. They even depict men as slow and silly. Olson and Douglas (1997) cite 1970s sitcoms, which contained many buffoon-like representations of fathers, whose children and wives were wiser then they were. However, their families always loved them back regardless of their foolish behavior.
Furthermore, chauvinist conduct was rewarded through humor and conflict resolution at the end of the sitcom. Even the progressive comedies like Roseanne still expressed feminine resistance in the confines of marriage. Therefore, one can assert that the depiction of women in sitcoms may have become more progressive over time, but it is still contained (Senzani, 1997).
Conclusion
Comedies have become more progressive in their portrayal of women as many of them now depict single, wise and strong women. However, stereotypes on behavior and physical attributes still exist. Loud and fat women are regarded as improper. Class discourses are also dominant in women’s roles. Working class women often liaise with one another for solidarity.
Conversely, the middle-class woman is seen as an agent of patriarchal hegemony. Consumerist interests also explain the choices of female actors in sitcoms. Network owners often choose characters that relate to a target audience but preserve the status quo.
References
Olson, B. & Douglas, W. (1997). The family on television: Evaluation of gender roles in situation comedy. Sex Roles, 36(5), 409-429.
Senzani, A. (2010). Class and gender as a laughing matter? The case of Roseanne. Humour, 23(2), 229-253