Different Understanding of Television

      Social norms have been constructed in social media and TV for a long long time. Men and women play a significant part in social norms and how society wants them to be and appear to others. Though men and women play very different roles, both genders have been assigned ideal characteristics that make them a man or a women. This is called a stereotype. These stereotypes are assigned to a person’s nationality, sex, gender and even sexuality. People can be based off these “stereotypes” because it has been portrayed everywhere. The television show Two and a Half Men focuses on the objectification of women and the men’s behavior towards them in order to show that women are sex objects and do not seem to respected unless they are older and less attractive. Only when humans acknowledge and become mindful with the truth, then society can begin to solve the problem of stereotypes being held towards anyone.
       In “‘Camel Filters and Pheromones” (season 1, episode 12), the most important stereotypes being portrayed are the player, the seductress, the old maid and the sex object.  For example, Berta’s granddaughter asked Charlie if he could play the piano which was pretty obvious he could as she was staring at him play but she gets closer enough to the point where she starts asking for one on one lessons but he said no but she still tries to come onto him. She desired to get their attention. Prudence would be stereotyped as the seductress but also the sex object. She enters the show in almost half dressed and she has to clean and while she is cleaning she is wiping the window in the most provocative manner right in front of Alan and Charlie. Her appearance conveys a powerful erotic impact, the camera focuses on her body, mainly when she has a bikini or her other provocative clothing rather than us seeing her face of something. This is a construction of women being objects in men's eyes.  She is being watched and drooled over by Alan’s 10 year old son.  Plus, she was not the brightest person. She is not viewed for her intelligence or her cleverness or any other characteristic, only her body is what matters. Nothing else. Another example is Berta herself. Berta was a single mother but she was a housekeeper for the men of the house. She is a very outspoken, over 30 woman. She was barely put into the show, she had a little part and when they show her, the camera is not focused on her body but what she is saying and even her face. She is very well respected by the men. While the character Charlie is a very sexual, uncommitted man. For example, the reaction from Charlie of when Berta entered the room and. when Prudence entered the room. Charlie was very shocked and he had to maintain his boundaries because she was underage but if she was older, he would have taken the chance. Another example is his neighbor, Rose. She is  very much in love with him and she hopes that they will sleep together again but he all he does is reject her. Charlie uses Rose to make Prudence stop coming on to him, only using her to his advantage and benefit. He slept with her once and after that, he just messes with her emotions and uses her whenever he needs her. He does not care for these women, he just uses them.

In conclusion, this work is just one of the many examples of where you can find stereotypes within media. It can be portrayed in life as well. In my life, my dad always feels as if a man should always care for the woman. He believes that because I am a female, I do not lift heavy objects and I am to cook and clean the house when necessary. While my brother cannot help with his sister’s hair because it affects his sexuality and it is making him not masculine. He is not allowed to let females do heavy labor because it is not meant for a female. Stereotypes are within our nation and more around you then you realize. It is fair for my brother to be put on with so many expectations and pressure just at the age of 13. Honestly, being a son to a father might just be harder to be a daughter to a father. There is more of a expectation to be just like “his old man” and if he does not, there might not be an acceptance. That is what social norms, pressure from society and stereotypes have constructed for people to believe.  It is only when we pay attention it and do not further allow it is when we have end it for good.

The Simpsons

Episode 590 of The Simpsons reinforces dominant ideologies about gender roles with exaggerated portrayal of society’s gender stereotypes shown through a comedic lense. This is apparent in the actions of the female characters, in private conversations about women between male characters and in interactions between male and female characters.

The Simpsons promotes dominant ideologies about gender and gender roles through the actions of female characters. When Homer finds he is too fat to sleep comfortably in his space pod, Marge adjusts it to fit obese people. Marge figures out how to be a scientist by relating the experiment procedures to household chores. She says,

“Mom’s spend their whole lives obsessing over unlikely catastrophes. In space, that’s what you’re supposed to do”. This rhetoric propagates the stereotype of the women as the nurturer. It depicts women working in STEM fields as a laughable concept and irrational as their proper place is in the private sphere.

The Simpsons promotes dominant ideologies about gender and gender roles in private conversations about women between male characters. The men are stupid and clumsy, but ultimately, they are in control. Homer and Bart “support” the women in their lives through the same robotic support scheme despite the differences in their relationships (wife and sister). As they are alone throwing a ball in the backyard together, Bart says to Homer, “That listening to women junk you taught me really works!”, Homer responds by saying, “The trick is in the nodding”. Bart then delivers a more explicit commentary on gender roles and gender stereotypes. He says to his father, “Dad, after seeing mom and Lisa go at it, I’m glad our relationship is about physical abuse, not psychological”. While this line does outline one of society’s gender stereotypes, it presents the stereotype through a sarcastic and comedic lense framing it as something that it laughable and insignificant.

The Simpsons promotes dominant ideologies about gender and gender roles through interactions between male and female characters. During the scene on the Martian colony, the men in charge compliment Marge because she can do chores more efficiently that the robotic arm. This is an example of comedy being used to promote gender roles and gender stereotypes. It perpetuates the notion of the woman’s proper place being the private sphere. Portraying a woman as being able to do household chores more reliably and more effectively than a robot not only reinforces the dominant ideology of the woman belonging in the private sphere, it also objectifies women. Later, during the rocket launch, Homer and Bart freak out over the idea Marge and Lisa going to Mars because they don’t know how to survive on Earth without a woman to go grocery shopping, cook and wash dishes for them. This joke, while at the surface appears to present the importance of women in the lives of men and how stupid and useless men can be, the fact that the men are worried about tasks as simple as dish washing and grocery shopping demeans women and asserts that they are inferior to men.



These are examples of dominant ideologies about gender being reinforces through comedy. While The Simpsons appears at the surface to be an innocent comedic cartoon, underlying the comedy is a more sinister system of reinforcement of society’s dominant ideologies of gender and gender roles.