For our project, we wanted to focus our efforts on applying a more critical eye to television shows that we regularly watch and enjoy, in order to become more active viewers. We were all particularly interested in the concept of encoding and decoding, and the way messages are intended and perceived. The idea that we could be such passive viewers was slightly disturbing, so we endeavored to analyze more closely the images presented to us. We chose television as our form of media specifically because television shows can run for multiple seasons and are flexible, allowing us to choose from a large pool of episodes and storylines. Overall, we hoped to document our individual learning processes and invite input from our peers.
For these reasons, we felt that a blog was the most effective format for our project. The blog allowed us to work around each other's schedules, to track regularly our development as active viewers, and to pursue our respective tastes in television genres. We were also able to confer with each other after posting to compare opinions. The blog format was easy for readers to engage with; they could choose which episodes they were most interested in reading about and their comments sparked further discussion.
For me, Kim, I originally intended to write all of my blog posts on episodes of Modern Family. I thought this would be the simplest place to find issues pertaining to queer theory, because of the openly gay main characters on a wildly popular, primetime show. I watch a fair amount of television, though, so as I caught up on How I Met Your Mother the week we started our blog posts, I was inspired to write about the less overt gender themes on a show based around very heteronormative ideas. The next week, I did write about the gay characters on Modern Family, but specifically about a storyline that revolved heavily around gender expression and ideals of masculinity and femininity, not just a generic storyline that happened to involve gay characters. By the time I saw the “Advanced Gay” episode of Community, I had realized that I did not need to look for gender issues on popular television, I just had to be aware of them; they would definitely be there. I did not encounter any obstacles in the course of my blogging; in fact, I was surprised by how much material I had to choose from. I did not intend to find such a distinct pattern between the shows that I watched, but I found my results enlightening for myself, personally. The shows I chose to analyze are the shows that I am generally attracted to – half-hour sitcoms, usually on a major broadcasting network – and after my experiences with this blog and this class, I will always be a more conscious and active viewer.
I, Claire, decided that I would use shows that I was somewhat familiar with, ones where I had watched enough episodes that I had a grasp on the show’s structure and a general understanding of the main characters. This let me focus more on analysis while viewing episodes. A goal I had for myself was to try and reconcile a product’s flaws with the joy it brings as a form of entertainment. Therefore I purposefully chose two shows that I am a fan of, Psych and Burn Notice. I wanted to see how they held up when watched by a viewer who was looking out for more than just a good laugh. With Psych I had intended to look at representation issues but ended up focusing on a different racial group than I had intended; Psych has no Asian main characters so an episode devoted to Asian minor characters provided a chance to see how this group was represented. With Burn Notice I originally intended to look at female representation but ended up being surprised at how relevant the narrative structure was to the show. The biggest obstacle I ran into was myself because I was doing something I had never really thought of doing before, critically considering the television I was consuming. Being so new to it I constantly felt I was “reading too much” into things. As I progressed in the project I became much more confident in my abilities, however, so I feel that while it might take some effort, people can learn to become more aware of what they watch.
We feel that we achieved what we wanted to because we were able to become active viewers, who see the way queer representations in popular media are structured. In addition, we were able to understand that there are always messages encoded in these representations, but unless viewers are cognizant of them, they will fall prey to becoming passive consumers who have no part in shaping our mainstream culture. We each individually feel that we have become more active in our viewing habits, not just in terms of television but other forms of popular media. This is not to discount the pleasure and entertainment we get from popular television, but we can enjoy it while still questioning its messages and striving for a more inclusive product.
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Community 3x06, "Advanced Gay"
Today, I'll analyze an episode of Community that aired a few weeks ago, entitled “Advanced Gay.” For those unfamiliar with Community, the show revolves around a group of students enrolled at Greendale Community College, who form a study group at the beginning of the series and become good friends. The group represents both sexes, different races, different religions, different ages, and generally people going through different stages of their lives. Gender diversity, however, is notably lacking.
In this episode, Pierce, the CEO of his family's company Hawthorne Wipes, a brand of moist towelettes, finds out that the product has gained popularity with the gay community, presumably for a use related to gay sex. The impetus for this rise in the sales of Hawthorne Wipes is a new, popular club song by a drag queen named Urbana Champaign (played by Shangela, a past contestant on RuPaul's Drag Race), endorsing the moist towelettes as a necessity for the (stereotypical) gay lifestyle. (You can watch Urbana Champaign's music video here, along with the rest of Shangela's scenes.) Pierce, a known homophobe, sexist, racist, and xenophobe suddenly adopts a more accepting attitude about the gay community, solely because they are supporting his product. He throws a party introducing a new line of moist towelettes called “Pride Wipes,” targeted specifically at this new demographic.
Firstly, I'd like to discuss the title of the episode. Community names its episodes humorously to resemble the titles of college classes. Often, the humor comes from the fact that the title of the episode uses terminology much more sophisticated than the actual subject of the episode, contrasting the ridiculous situations that the group find themselves in with titles that sound like academic theories. Examples include “Epidemiology,” the title of a Halloween-themed episode about a zombie epidemic, and “Cooperative Calligraphy,” the title of an episode that revolves around a conflict over a ballpoint pen. This particular episode title, “Advanced Gay,” apparently does not need much embellishment, as “gay” is already funny enough. A term like “homosexuality” or a phrase like “gender dynamics” would sound more academic and be very much in the style of Community, but the humor here is that the simple word “gay” is already a joke. Community's use of this word propagates the idea that “gay” is a silly thing, not to be taken seriously, with no more depth than being a source of humor.
The representations of the gay men in this episode adhere to the basic stereotypes of the sissy – voices in a higher register, often with a nasal quality; dramatic gesticulations and body movements; attention to fashion and appearance, including well-coiffed hair and tight-fitting clothes, often in bold or pastel colors and patterns. One man, Jason, gives a campy wink to Pierce, which is accompanied by a subtle “ding!” sound effect. At the party Pierce throws, called the “Gay Bash!” (another example in a long line of Greendale Community College's failures to make witty titles that just end up awkward or inappropriate), club music, flashing lights, shirtless men, and rainbow decorations abound. Not only does Community reinforce stereotypes about gay men and the gay community, it capitalizes on them for humor. The show plays up these stock characters to the extreme because, as we have seen from sources like The Celluloid Closet, the sissy is always humorous and does not threaten anyone's sexuality; he makes the man feel more masculine and the woman feel more feminine.
It's important to note that there are no representations of genders other than straight men and women, and gay men in this episode. Female members of the queer community are notably absent – Chang comments that the Gay Bash is “a real sausage fest.” As a comedy show, Community included gay men only because only gay men are funny in popular culture. The mass audience finds lesbians threatening to the idea of masculine and feminine gender roles in a way that gay men are not. A feminine, read “weak,” man can be written off and treated as nothing but a good source of humor; a masculine, read “strong,” woman is threatening to the power structure that keeps women at the bottom. Quite simply, gay men are only represented here because they get a guaranteed laugh from the audience.
There are a few moments where it appears that Community challenges the stereotypes about gay men, but they are fleeting and not very strong. First: When two gay men planning the Gay Bash ask Pierce if he would prefer peanut butter or chocolate chip cookies at the party, he responds, with his newly acquired support and enthusiasm for the gay community, “Rainbow, bitches!” They smile, pause, and repeat, “We can have peanut butter or chocolate chip.” This small piece of dialogue fights the stereotypes shoved onto gay men by undercutting those generalizations with a totally generic answer, as opposed to the flamboyant answer Pierce expects. The entire exchange only lasts about eight seconds, though, and the representation of stereotypical gay men continues throughout the rest of the episode.
Next, Community presents the objections that the characters Pierce and Shirley have to the gay community as the product of an out-of-touch, older generation. Pierce, who is known for his unabashed racism and sexism, is often portrayed as the villain of the group. He is chastised for his views, but often they are ultimately tolerated because he is in his 60s and has been encoded with an outdated culture of prejudice. Shirley, a conservative, Christian mother in her 30s or 40s, asks at the beginning of the episode, “What do Hawthorne Wipes have to do with the choice to be gay?” Shirley often makes homophobic and xenophobic comments like this. Her strong sense of moral righteousness is usually made to look ridiculous and out of step with how the world has progressed. The younger members of the group often criticize Pierce and Shirley for their old-fashioned prejudices and try to bring them around to a more modern and inclusive mindset, but in the end, the two are just excused as older and of a different generation's culture of thinking.
Finally, the last example of Community's possible promotion of a less stereotypical view of homosexuality is in Jeff's support for the Gay Bash. Jeff is the patriarchal figure heading the group and it is often made overtly clear that the group will follow his actions. When Pierce's even more bigoted father attempts to cancel the Gay Bash, Jeff takes up the cause. Britta challenges Jeff's motivations, asking if he is really offering support or trying to conquer his own father issues by solving Pierce's father conflict. Jeff denies this accusation, asserting, “This isn't about fathers, this is about a long-suffering community with a constitutional right to wipe whoever and whatever they want!” As the leader of the group, Jeff standing up against homophobia would be a huge gesture that the rest of the group would imitate. In the end, however, it is revealed that Jeff actually is dealing with father issues; his motivations of supporting gay rights and breaking down stereotypes are totally negated.
This episode of Community capitalizes on traditional stock representations of gay men to the extreme, purely for humor. There are a few fleeting moments of reversal, but they quickly disappear into more reinforcement of the stereotypes or are written off. The last lines of the episode (before the tag) are spoken by Chang; as he leaves for the night with Urbana Champaign on his arm, he asks Jeff, “Hey, Winger? You going home alone? Gay!” Presumably, Chang does not know that Urbana Champaign is not biologically a woman, which implies that he has been fooled or swindled by a transgendered individual. To add more negative connotations to the queer community, the episode ends with the use of the word “gay” as a pejorative.
You can watch "Advanced Gay" here.
In this episode, Pierce, the CEO of his family's company Hawthorne Wipes, a brand of moist towelettes, finds out that the product has gained popularity with the gay community, presumably for a use related to gay sex. The impetus for this rise in the sales of Hawthorne Wipes is a new, popular club song by a drag queen named Urbana Champaign (played by Shangela, a past contestant on RuPaul's Drag Race), endorsing the moist towelettes as a necessity for the (stereotypical) gay lifestyle. (You can watch Urbana Champaign's music video here, along with the rest of Shangela's scenes.) Pierce, a known homophobe, sexist, racist, and xenophobe suddenly adopts a more accepting attitude about the gay community, solely because they are supporting his product. He throws a party introducing a new line of moist towelettes called “Pride Wipes,” targeted specifically at this new demographic.
Firstly, I'd like to discuss the title of the episode. Community names its episodes humorously to resemble the titles of college classes. Often, the humor comes from the fact that the title of the episode uses terminology much more sophisticated than the actual subject of the episode, contrasting the ridiculous situations that the group find themselves in with titles that sound like academic theories. Examples include “Epidemiology,” the title of a Halloween-themed episode about a zombie epidemic, and “Cooperative Calligraphy,” the title of an episode that revolves around a conflict over a ballpoint pen. This particular episode title, “Advanced Gay,” apparently does not need much embellishment, as “gay” is already funny enough. A term like “homosexuality” or a phrase like “gender dynamics” would sound more academic and be very much in the style of Community, but the humor here is that the simple word “gay” is already a joke. Community's use of this word propagates the idea that “gay” is a silly thing, not to be taken seriously, with no more depth than being a source of humor.
The representations of the gay men in this episode adhere to the basic stereotypes of the sissy – voices in a higher register, often with a nasal quality; dramatic gesticulations and body movements; attention to fashion and appearance, including well-coiffed hair and tight-fitting clothes, often in bold or pastel colors and patterns. One man, Jason, gives a campy wink to Pierce, which is accompanied by a subtle “ding!” sound effect. At the party Pierce throws, called the “Gay Bash!” (another example in a long line of Greendale Community College's failures to make witty titles that just end up awkward or inappropriate), club music, flashing lights, shirtless men, and rainbow decorations abound. Not only does Community reinforce stereotypes about gay men and the gay community, it capitalizes on them for humor. The show plays up these stock characters to the extreme because, as we have seen from sources like The Celluloid Closet, the sissy is always humorous and does not threaten anyone's sexuality; he makes the man feel more masculine and the woman feel more feminine.
It's important to note that there are no representations of genders other than straight men and women, and gay men in this episode. Female members of the queer community are notably absent – Chang comments that the Gay Bash is “a real sausage fest.” As a comedy show, Community included gay men only because only gay men are funny in popular culture. The mass audience finds lesbians threatening to the idea of masculine and feminine gender roles in a way that gay men are not. A feminine, read “weak,” man can be written off and treated as nothing but a good source of humor; a masculine, read “strong,” woman is threatening to the power structure that keeps women at the bottom. Quite simply, gay men are only represented here because they get a guaranteed laugh from the audience.
There are a few moments where it appears that Community challenges the stereotypes about gay men, but they are fleeting and not very strong. First: When two gay men planning the Gay Bash ask Pierce if he would prefer peanut butter or chocolate chip cookies at the party, he responds, with his newly acquired support and enthusiasm for the gay community, “Rainbow, bitches!” They smile, pause, and repeat, “We can have peanut butter or chocolate chip.” This small piece of dialogue fights the stereotypes shoved onto gay men by undercutting those generalizations with a totally generic answer, as opposed to the flamboyant answer Pierce expects. The entire exchange only lasts about eight seconds, though, and the representation of stereotypical gay men continues throughout the rest of the episode.
Next, Community presents the objections that the characters Pierce and Shirley have to the gay community as the product of an out-of-touch, older generation. Pierce, who is known for his unabashed racism and sexism, is often portrayed as the villain of the group. He is chastised for his views, but often they are ultimately tolerated because he is in his 60s and has been encoded with an outdated culture of prejudice. Shirley, a conservative, Christian mother in her 30s or 40s, asks at the beginning of the episode, “What do Hawthorne Wipes have to do with the choice to be gay?” Shirley often makes homophobic and xenophobic comments like this. Her strong sense of moral righteousness is usually made to look ridiculous and out of step with how the world has progressed. The younger members of the group often criticize Pierce and Shirley for their old-fashioned prejudices and try to bring them around to a more modern and inclusive mindset, but in the end, the two are just excused as older and of a different generation's culture of thinking.
Finally, the last example of Community's possible promotion of a less stereotypical view of homosexuality is in Jeff's support for the Gay Bash. Jeff is the patriarchal figure heading the group and it is often made overtly clear that the group will follow his actions. When Pierce's even more bigoted father attempts to cancel the Gay Bash, Jeff takes up the cause. Britta challenges Jeff's motivations, asking if he is really offering support or trying to conquer his own father issues by solving Pierce's father conflict. Jeff denies this accusation, asserting, “This isn't about fathers, this is about a long-suffering community with a constitutional right to wipe whoever and whatever they want!” As the leader of the group, Jeff standing up against homophobia would be a huge gesture that the rest of the group would imitate. In the end, however, it is revealed that Jeff actually is dealing with father issues; his motivations of supporting gay rights and breaking down stereotypes are totally negated.
This episode of Community capitalizes on traditional stock representations of gay men to the extreme, purely for humor. There are a few fleeting moments of reversal, but they quickly disappear into more reinforcement of the stereotypes or are written off. The last lines of the episode (before the tag) are spoken by Chang; as he leaves for the night with Urbana Champaign on his arm, he asks Jeff, “Hey, Winger? You going home alone? Gay!” Presumably, Chang does not know that Urbana Champaign is not biologically a woman, which implies that he has been fooled or swindled by a transgendered individual. To add more negative connotations to the queer community, the episode ends with the use of the word “gay” as a pejorative.
You can watch "Advanced Gay" here.
Desperate Housewives: Andrew Van de Kamp
Andrew Van de Kamp is a fictional character in the ABC television series Desperate Housewives and is the son of Bree Van de Kamp and the late Rex Van de Kamp. As one of the few LGBT characters on prime time television secure with his sexuality, Andrew's storylines have been well-received by gay groups. However, his early attitude towards his mother and the fact that he commits various crimes has also been the subject of much criticism. Although Andrew becomes one of the few LGBT characters who is comfortable with his sexuality, when he initially reveals that he is gay, viewers such as myself thought that he was “faking” his sexuality in order to upset his mother, Bree, who we see is a religious woman of Christian faith. Andrew’s very attitude towards his sexuality in the beginning shows over and over again that he meant for his actions to crush his mother, and I as a viewer, had doubts myself about whether he was really gay or not.
As a gay character on television, Andrew is shown to be a criminal, an unlawful citizen, as well as a troublemaker in the domestic sphere. His attitude towards his family does change in following seasons in a positive way, but even then, over season seven, they show that he has become an alcoholic because he was having trouble in his relationships, and his boyfriend eventually left him.
Andrews’ character on this popular television show brought back memories from when we watched The Celluloid Closet in class; although there was more representation of gay characters such as himself on the show, his character was shown in a negative light in the first few seasons of the show. He was shown as a young adult who purposely sought to disrupt his mother’s beliefs by announcing that he was gay. There are other gay characters and couples on Desperate Housewives whom viewers did not see as menacing or people who were seeking to disrupt peace, but at the same time, they were stereotypical representations of them as gay characters.
Andrew first appears in the "Pilot" of season one. His role in the television series is immediately shown as a rebellious teenager who hates his parents, as his first scenes show him arguing with his mother, Bree, over her desire for perfection. He is attached to his father, Rex, and is upset when Bree tries to cover up their impending divorce. Andrew repeatedly breaks the rules during Season One, infuriating Bree, who eventually humiliates him by turning up at the strip club he is visiting with his friends while grounded, Bree removes the door to his room in punishment for him smoking marijuana.
His parents' divorce results in Rex buying Andrew a car. Bree tries to get him to give it back but Andrew refuses. Later that episode, in his most serious crime, he knocked down Gabrielle’s mother in law with his car while drunk driving. Although his parents help him cover it up, Andrew doesn't feel any remorse for his crime. He continues to misbehave and Bree gets him dropped from the school swim team for smoking marijuana in an attempt to make him regret his actions.
When Bree tells Andrew that if he gets his friend Lisa pregnant, he will have to marry her. Andrew merely laughs, as he is actually developing a relationship with a boy, Justin, who confesses to Gabrielle Solis that he and Andrew have been "fooling around" for some time. Andrew later crashes Zach's pool party with Justin and some friends and creates mayhem. However, after everyone else has gone home, Susan Mayer catches them naked in the swimming pool kissing; Andrew anxiously shouts, "I'm not, I'm not gay!" Susan then walks away, shocked by what she had just seen. After, he is expelled from school for drug abuse and his continuing rudeness to Bree, Andrew is sent to a juvenile delinquent boot camp.
When his parents visit him at the camp, Andrew asks to see his father (Rex) alone; Bree thinks this is because he blames her for sending him to the camp and storms into the meeting room to tell him she did the right thing. There, Rex reveals that Andrew wanted to see him alone because he fears he is gay. Bree is horrified, and despite Rex's misgivings, insists Andrew come home with them immediately, saying Our son just told us that he might be gay. There are two hundred other boys in this camp. Now, I could explain to you what might happen if we left him here, but I'm a lady and I don't use that kind of language.Rex reminds her that he is still her son and Bree tries to comfort Andrew by telling him I would love you even if you were a murderer.
Bree then invites Reverend Sikes to dinner, who tries to convince Andrew to enroll in Christian counseling. He refuses, saying I'm not confused. I know exactly who I am.This deeply upsets Bree, who tells him he has to change or he will not be with her in heaven; Andrew is shocked and agrees to meet the reverend. In his final scene of the season, after swearing the reverend to secrecy, Andrew states that, not only that he does not believe in God and lied to his parents about being gay to get out of the camp. This confuses the reverend, who asks him whether he is heterosexual or not: Andrew replies, "Look, I love vanilla ice cream, okay? But every now and then I’m probably gonna be in the mood for chocolate."
He then says he will get revenge on Bree for rejecting him by pretending to be a model son and then doing something so awful it is "going to really destroy her."
In Season Two, Bree brings Andrew back from the camp, telling him that George (the man that she started dating) killed Rex in order to marry her; Andrew is disgusted that his father is dead because of her. As a result, Andrew invites Justin to sleep over. He confides to him his reasons for hating Bree, saying:
Last year, when she found out that I liked guys, she freaked out. She said that, if I didn't change, I'd be going straight to hell. So, since I knew that I couldn't change, it suddenly hit me that, one day, my own mother was going to stop loving me. So, I decided to stop loving her first. That way, it wouldn't hurt so bad.
He also confides his wish for his mother to slip up so that he can "take her down". Later, Bree confesses to Andrew that George didn't commit suicide; he overdosed and asked her to call an ambulance, but she sat and watched him die. Andrew now has the "slip up" that he was waiting for. When Bree sees Andrew kissing Justin outside her window, she forbids him to bring his boyfriend round again. Andrew mocks her and Bree later walks in them in bed together. Bree threatens to call the police and have Justin forcibly removed, but Andrew replies that he will tell them about what happened to George.
Along with his sister, Andrew notices Bree's increasing alcohol consumption, and uses it against her. When Bree refuses to let Andrew access his trust fund to buy a car, he calls her a "mean old drunk", and she slaps him. Andrew emotionally blackmails Justin into punching him in the same place Bree slapped him. He then hires a lawyer to file for emancipation from his mother, whom he accuses of hitting him while drunk. Andrew tries to persuade her in "There Is No Other Way" to just let him go, but she refuses saying she hasn't "set him right" yet. Andrew, after consultation with his lawyer, tells Bree in "Could I Leave You?" that he will accuse her of molesting him if he does not get his way.
Bree's father and stepmother arrive, and convince the judge to drop the case. They try to reconcile the two, but Andrew persuades them to let him live with them. Justin is heartbroken when he finds out, and when Bree asks him why, replies:
When my parents first heard I was gay, they kicked me out. They said I had "debased" the entire family and that they couldn't love me anymore until I had changed. But Andrew said that I should be ashamed of them because they were too stupid to know how great I was. That's the thing about Andrew, he does not take crap from anyone. How can you not love him?
Bree persuades Justin to supply her with gay magazines and videos, which she plants among Andrew's things for his grandparents to find; they then leave Andrew behind, and revoke his trust fund. In an attempt to make peace, Bree invites Justin to dinner. Andrew, at this point in time, has attempted to cause pain to his mother multiple times for sinister and unjust causes.
In Season Four, we do not see much of Andrew as Bree eventually decides that she could not handle him anymore and abandons him at a gas station. Later, she sees him on a television documentary on the homeless, seeks him out, and eventually he comes home. We also see him becoming increasingly protective of his mother, and see that he has forgiven her. In season Four, we see that the both of them had reconciled.
In season 5, five years later, Andrew is now the personal assistant of his mother, Bree, who, with her new cookbook, is a rising public figure similar to Martha Stewart. He has appeared to have matured and is usually seen alongside his mother wearing a suit. He apparently makes a decent living as he owns a sports car. We also see that Andrew is in a serious relationship with another man, Alex Comnis, who is a plastic surgeon. When Bree discovers that Alex was once in gay porn, she tells Andrew and is surprised to learn that Andrew already knew and did not judge Alex for his past mistakes as he himself has a "sordid past." It is then insinuated that Bree has come to accept her son's sexuality and plans on handling the wedding. When Andrew's soon-to-be mother in-law comes to town, in order to out-do her Bree decides to buy Andrew and Alex a house, which is only two houses down from her own.
Andrew can be selfish and manipulative, and regularly uses other people to get what he wants, for example, persuading his boyfriend Justin to hit him so he can claim Bree is abusing him. He has also committed a range of crimes, from being expelled from school for smoking marijuana, to running over Mamá Solis while drunk. After Bree hushed up the accident for him, he then refused to feel bad, reasoning "She's an old lady! I have my whole life ahead of me!” In Season 3, however, Andrew seems to have matured after spending eight months living on the streets.
While fans have heatedly debated his sexual orientation, Shawn Pyfrom has denied that Andrew is totally homosexual, implying he is bisexual. In "My Husband, the Pig", he refers to Austin as a "dog" and himself as a "dog-lover". Whatever Andrew is, he is one of a few LGBT teens on television secure with his sexuality. He's gay and he doesn't care.
From Andrew's hurt reaction to his mother's rejection of him, it appears that he deeply loves his mother, as his determination to hurt her in Season 2 is so he can "stop loving her first". He also loves and respects his father, and only Rex who can get him to stop tormenting Bree in Season 1, albeit briefly. Later on in Season 2, Karl, another strong male figure, has some similar success in forcing Andrew to stop harassing Bree temporarily. In Season 3, it is Orson, and not Bree, who persuades Andrew to return home and whom he continues to respect throughout the season.
Andrew is very protective of his mother, as is shown in Season 2 when he attacks George after George tries to kiss Bree against her will, and then in Season 3 where he threatens Orson under the belief that Orson may hurt Bree. By the fifth season, a more mature Andrew has inherited traits that he once ridiculed his mother for having, such as blunt sarcasm. His relationship with his mother has also changed dramatically for the better.
I think what's great about Andrew is that they developed him as a rebellious, if not sociopathic teenager, who is terrible to his mother, hits old ladies with his car, and also happens to be gay. They don't make him this typical weak gay character, and I think that's good because it's saying that even if you're gay, you can still be strong and confident. At the same time, this show once again reinforces the negative connotations of being gay, showing that he was an outcast, as his mother kicks him out, not because of his sexual orientation, but because of his own attitude with his sexual orientation.
Although Desperate Housewives show him as a developed mature man in the later seasons of the show, he is eventually shown to be a monstrous child who wanted to just cause pain to his family by telling them that he was gay. This once again shows that even now, the notion of being gay is seen as an enormous deal in families, something that could very well disrupt a family’s balance if there is no acceptance, but at the same time, for me, I despised his character because he represented his sexuality in a way that just meant for him to upset his family. I’m glad that the character developed so much over the last few seasons, and we see him being accepted by his family.
Then again, Andrew not only admits to committing adultery, as he sleeps with other men while married to Alex, but he turns to alcohol as well, leading Alex to leave him. On the show, multiple characters were guilty of adultery, but Andrew’s “sins” are more emphasized. I wonder what that once again implies for LGBT characters.
"House" 5 X 16: "The Softer Side"
The television show, House (also known as House, M.D.) is a television medical drama that debuted on the Fox network in 2004. The show's central character is Dr. Gregory House (Hugh Laurie), an unconventional medical genius who heads a team of diagnosticians at the fictional Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital.
House has been one of my favorite television shows since I started watching it last year, and after having taken LTCS 131, I started thinking back and noticing more and more gender biases and the way that they are portrayed through popular television shows such as House. In the episode that I will be discussing, a 13-year-old boy named Jackson collapses after playing in a basketball game. He is admitted to Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, mainly because of his genetic mosaicism; when he was born, it was found that half the cells in his body are male and the other half female. The parents decided to raise their child as male and lately began giving him testosterone, disguised as "vitamins". After a variety of tests, nothing is found and Jackson's condition continues to deteriorate, until eventually, he is diagnosed correctly.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSv1qgwDt3k
Throughout the episode, gender biases are noticeable in more than one form. As we have previously discussed in class, gender roles have been ingrained in our society throughout the ages, and this episode clearly shows some of them. In the episodes, Jackson's parents first of all refused to tell their son that he was born with half male and half female cells. They decided to raise him as a boy and without telling him, decided to start giving him testosterone pills. In the episode, we see Thirteen, one of the doctors on House’s team, who is also known to be bisexual, try to encourage the parents to tell their son the truth about him, because he deserved to know the conditions under which he was born. The father, agreed to disclose the facts to their son, but the mother however, decided that the time was not right, and that she wanted to protect him; telling the truth would only hurt and confuse him further.
During Jackson’s interactions with Thirteen, he mentions to her that he had wanted to take dance lessons in school, which his father was alright with, but his mother “freaked out” and refused, stating that he was to choose only between hockey and basketball. Upon eventually finding out that he was born with half male and half female cells in his body, Jackson is initially shocked and confused as to why his parents did not tell him this, and later, starts questioning the way he felt about another boy that he was friends with.
This episode clearly shows the gender biases that are so present in our media, and our society and always have been. We have discussed the boy and girl roles that children are expected to follow while growing up, and looking at the reaction the mother had to her son wanting to take dance lessons, when knowing that he was inherently born with half male and half female cells further shows how strongly these gender biases affect our thinking and our integration into the society. The episode also talks about how gender labeling is done even before we are born, and how parents are the ones who ultimately decide how we are raised.
When Jackson finds out about the condition that he was born with, he starts to question the way he is “supposed” to feel, and how he is supposed to behave. He feels the need to re-identify himself, and called himself a “freak of nature,” once again, showing that even from an early age, the gender biases and stereotypes are learned through social institutions as well as with upbringing. In the episode, although Thirteen does not freely share her experiences or feelings of being a bisexual, we see that she is the one who appeals to Jackson more than any of the other doctors, and in the beginning of the episode, House says “our new patient, part girl, part boy, all Thirteen’s dream date.” Although House is known to be a character who is comically rude, sarcastic and blatantly honest with his patients as well as his colleagues, the comment he makes shows once again how the society has the mentality of “us against them” as he automatically states that the patient would be someone Thirteen should be interested in, or group herself with. House makes remarks on Thirteen’s sexuality from the minute he finds out that she is bisexual, and these remarks did go unnoticed by me as well, as I passed them off as humor, but after taking this class, I cannot help but notice how such stereotyping is so blatantly present in our media and although it is presented in a form that shows acceptance and tolerance of the LGBT society, there are always remarks that are made to make the dominant population of viewers relate to something, or sometimes, challenge those views.
House has been one of my favorite television shows since I started watching it last year, and after having taken LTCS 131, I started thinking back and noticing more and more gender biases and the way that they are portrayed through popular television shows such as House. In the episode that I will be discussing, a 13-year-old boy named Jackson collapses after playing in a basketball game. He is admitted to Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, mainly because of his genetic mosaicism; when he was born, it was found that half the cells in his body are male and the other half female. The parents decided to raise their child as male and lately began giving him testosterone, disguised as "vitamins". After a variety of tests, nothing is found and Jackson's condition continues to deteriorate, until eventually, he is diagnosed correctly.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSv1qgwDt3k
Throughout the episode, gender biases are noticeable in more than one form. As we have previously discussed in class, gender roles have been ingrained in our society throughout the ages, and this episode clearly shows some of them. In the episodes, Jackson's parents first of all refused to tell their son that he was born with half male and half female cells. They decided to raise him as a boy and without telling him, decided to start giving him testosterone pills. In the episode, we see Thirteen, one of the doctors on House’s team, who is also known to be bisexual, try to encourage the parents to tell their son the truth about him, because he deserved to know the conditions under which he was born. The father, agreed to disclose the facts to their son, but the mother however, decided that the time was not right, and that she wanted to protect him; telling the truth would only hurt and confuse him further.
During Jackson’s interactions with Thirteen, he mentions to her that he had wanted to take dance lessons in school, which his father was alright with, but his mother “freaked out” and refused, stating that he was to choose only between hockey and basketball. Upon eventually finding out that he was born with half male and half female cells in his body, Jackson is initially shocked and confused as to why his parents did not tell him this, and later, starts questioning the way he felt about another boy that he was friends with.
This episode clearly shows the gender biases that are so present in our media, and our society and always have been. We have discussed the boy and girl roles that children are expected to follow while growing up, and looking at the reaction the mother had to her son wanting to take dance lessons, when knowing that he was inherently born with half male and half female cells further shows how strongly these gender biases affect our thinking and our integration into the society. The episode also talks about how gender labeling is done even before we are born, and how parents are the ones who ultimately decide how we are raised.
When Jackson finds out about the condition that he was born with, he starts to question the way he is “supposed” to feel, and how he is supposed to behave. He feels the need to re-identify himself, and called himself a “freak of nature,” once again, showing that even from an early age, the gender biases and stereotypes are learned through social institutions as well as with upbringing. In the episode, although Thirteen does not freely share her experiences or feelings of being a bisexual, we see that she is the one who appeals to Jackson more than any of the other doctors, and in the beginning of the episode, House says “our new patient, part girl, part boy, all Thirteen’s dream date.” Although House is known to be a character who is comically rude, sarcastic and blatantly honest with his patients as well as his colleagues, the comment he makes shows once again how the society has the mentality of “us against them” as he automatically states that the patient would be someone Thirteen should be interested in, or group herself with. House makes remarks on Thirteen’s sexuality from the minute he finds out that she is bisexual, and these remarks did go unnoticed by me as well, as I passed them off as humor, but after taking this class, I cannot help but notice how such stereotyping is so blatantly present in our media and although it is presented in a form that shows acceptance and tolerance of the LGBT society, there are always remarks that are made to make the dominant population of viewers relate to something, or sometimes, challenge those views.
Friday, November 11, 2011
Burn Notice 3x15, “Good Intentions” Indeed
Today I am looking at gender representation and narrative structure in the show Burn Notice. On the surface Burn Notice defies many traditional television shows in that it has a female main character, Fiona Glenanne, in addition to its two other main characters who are both male. However, this show, like the majority popular culture in America, exists within the dominant narrative structure where men are the agents that drive the story. We can see this by examining the fifteenth episode of the third season.
The premise of Burn Notice is that Michael Weston, a spy, finds himself not only out of a job but also cut off from all his resources because he has been “burned,” made to look so bad that he has become untouchable. Therefore, the main plot is him attempting to uncover who was behind the burn notice and why. Michael’s ultimate goal is to reverse it, but until then he is stranded in Miami with only Fiona, Sam, and his mother to help. In the meantime he takes on small “jobs” in which he utilizes his entire prowess as a spy to help his otherwise helpless “clients.”
Fiona possesses a strong character that comes complete with multiple skills sets that enable her to take care of herself. She is a step away from that superficial token girl whose purpose is to embody femininity while emphasizing male masculinity. She has her own character, backstory, and life and these are largely separate from those of the main male characters. Fiona’s role in the show typically involves her carrying out favors and tasks vital to make the jobs Michael takes succeed. Therefore she is a critical and powerful part of his life and also a representation of a woman with agency.
At the same time that it makes advances in terms of gender representation, Burn Notice ultimately fails to depart from what has become the traditional narrative structure where the story and action are still primarily lead and controlled by males. This can be witnessed through Michael’s narrations and the presence of the male gaze. Both are indicative of the certain type of narrative structure that exists above all for male pleasure.
In every episode Michael gives a periodic, explanatory voiceover for the actions undertaken by the characters. He takes on the role of an instructor who talks to the audience as if they were students in a Spying 101 course, providing them with the knowledge a spy would have of certain events and actions. Michael typically narrates over his own actions, but it is important to note that he also narrates over scenes in which he is not present in person. Instead his presence is denoted through his voice. This places him in the position of an overseeing, omnipresent god for Michael has the knowledge of what Fiona, Sam, and he do and why they do it. He is the one that makes it clear to the audience what is going on; without his input it is assumed the viewers would be unable to understand. The picture would be incomplete without the context and knowledge he has to offer. His voice is also a constructive element, placing the story’s events into his perspective and presenting it as the truth. The audience is guided to understand the events through Michael’s own construction of them. While the audience retains the agency to renegotiate or resist what they are told by Michael, the fact still remains that his positioning renders him dominant over all the other characters, even himself. It even gives him dominance over the audience members, who are presumed to not know what he is teaching to them. He therefore indirectly takes ownership and control of the actions that are described. Fiona might carry out an actions but his narration makes that action Michael’s own.
In this episode there is an instance in which Michael’s narration serves to undercut the image of an empowered woman. Fiona proves that women are capable of handling a leadership position because she is in charge of this week’s job and handles it just as well as Michael does in other episodes. She also proves competent and resourceful when it comes protecting herself. For example, Fiona remains calm when her cover is in danger of being blown. While she is relying on two men, Sam and Michael, to get her out of the situation by faking a passport page, she also takes her own initiative in case their actions fail. But we could not know that she was taking such initiative without Michael’s narration. Fiona offers to refill the bad guys’ drinks while Michael and Sam are working on keeping her cover from being ruined. In offering to refill their drinks, she gains possession of a bottle of alcohol. Michael explains that: “There’s no saying ‘I’m sorry’ in the field. So if it feels like a gamble’s about to come up short, put on a smile and try to get your hands on a weapon without anyone noticing.” Fiona has a bottle and can use it as a weapon if the situation necessitates it. Michael is critical to understanding that Fiona has the skills to save her own life. It is not her action alone that convinces the audience of her competency; it is Michael’s narration, and therefore Michael himself who is responsible. In this instance we need the man to understand that Fiona is empowered. We are not able to tell in this situation that she is competent without the man’s input, without his knowledge.
Another component of the traditional narrative structure is that of the male gaze. One can thus take the presence of this gaze as evidence of such a narrative structure. In Burn Notice the male gaze manifests seemingly objectively for it usually is not carried out by any character and is instead found in the shots of women’s bodies that are intermixed among shots of scenery. These montages are used as transitions between scenes in every episode of the show and while not all of them have these images of women in them, the majority of them do. In this way women are objectified and placed in the same category as “scenery.” They literally become scenery for the viewer. In addition, the gaze is often used to guide the camera to the main characters. The shot generally starts following the path of a walking woman, dressed to show off her body, and moves with her until it reaches the main character. This shot does not always show all of her body, keeping her faceless and nameless. An example of this type of gaze is witnessed in “Good Intentions,” where Sam and Fiona are meeting a man for information on a potential job. The scene starts following a walking woman stops when it reaches the main characters and the man. This man then proceeds to gaze at that woman and others who walk by. In this way women are cinematic tools for the camera.
To be fair, the show is set in Miami, where the sun shines brightly. One can expect to see women clad in bikini’s when in that climate. What is not explained by the climate is why the camera lens blatantly focuses upon women’s bodies and uses them either as scenery or as tools for introducing parts of the story.
While Burn Notice makes an important change by having Fiona as a main character, its inability to tell a story outside the existing narrative structure means this show also carries messages inimical to gender equality. Reinforcing the lessened agency of a female in comparison to a male and the image of a woman as a pleasure object undercut more genuine representations of women. It is important to recognize what kind of structure a show exists within in order to be able to resist its messages and realize what kind of influence it can have on passive viewers. A viewer must be able to realize that negative images of women are being propagated by traditional narrative structures in order to hold any hope of ever challenging these representations of women.
The premise of Burn Notice is that Michael Weston, a spy, finds himself not only out of a job but also cut off from all his resources because he has been “burned,” made to look so bad that he has become untouchable. Therefore, the main plot is him attempting to uncover who was behind the burn notice and why. Michael’s ultimate goal is to reverse it, but until then he is stranded in Miami with only Fiona, Sam, and his mother to help. In the meantime he takes on small “jobs” in which he utilizes his entire prowess as a spy to help his otherwise helpless “clients.”
Fiona possesses a strong character that comes complete with multiple skills sets that enable her to take care of herself. She is a step away from that superficial token girl whose purpose is to embody femininity while emphasizing male masculinity. She has her own character, backstory, and life and these are largely separate from those of the main male characters. Fiona’s role in the show typically involves her carrying out favors and tasks vital to make the jobs Michael takes succeed. Therefore she is a critical and powerful part of his life and also a representation of a woman with agency.
At the same time that it makes advances in terms of gender representation, Burn Notice ultimately fails to depart from what has become the traditional narrative structure where the story and action are still primarily lead and controlled by males. This can be witnessed through Michael’s narrations and the presence of the male gaze. Both are indicative of the certain type of narrative structure that exists above all for male pleasure.
In every episode Michael gives a periodic, explanatory voiceover for the actions undertaken by the characters. He takes on the role of an instructor who talks to the audience as if they were students in a Spying 101 course, providing them with the knowledge a spy would have of certain events and actions. Michael typically narrates over his own actions, but it is important to note that he also narrates over scenes in which he is not present in person. Instead his presence is denoted through his voice. This places him in the position of an overseeing, omnipresent god for Michael has the knowledge of what Fiona, Sam, and he do and why they do it. He is the one that makes it clear to the audience what is going on; without his input it is assumed the viewers would be unable to understand. The picture would be incomplete without the context and knowledge he has to offer. His voice is also a constructive element, placing the story’s events into his perspective and presenting it as the truth. The audience is guided to understand the events through Michael’s own construction of them. While the audience retains the agency to renegotiate or resist what they are told by Michael, the fact still remains that his positioning renders him dominant over all the other characters, even himself. It even gives him dominance over the audience members, who are presumed to not know what he is teaching to them. He therefore indirectly takes ownership and control of the actions that are described. Fiona might carry out an actions but his narration makes that action Michael’s own.
In this episode there is an instance in which Michael’s narration serves to undercut the image of an empowered woman. Fiona proves that women are capable of handling a leadership position because she is in charge of this week’s job and handles it just as well as Michael does in other episodes. She also proves competent and resourceful when it comes protecting herself. For example, Fiona remains calm when her cover is in danger of being blown. While she is relying on two men, Sam and Michael, to get her out of the situation by faking a passport page, she also takes her own initiative in case their actions fail. But we could not know that she was taking such initiative without Michael’s narration. Fiona offers to refill the bad guys’ drinks while Michael and Sam are working on keeping her cover from being ruined. In offering to refill their drinks, she gains possession of a bottle of alcohol. Michael explains that: “There’s no saying ‘I’m sorry’ in the field. So if it feels like a gamble’s about to come up short, put on a smile and try to get your hands on a weapon without anyone noticing.” Fiona has a bottle and can use it as a weapon if the situation necessitates it. Michael is critical to understanding that Fiona has the skills to save her own life. It is not her action alone that convinces the audience of her competency; it is Michael’s narration, and therefore Michael himself who is responsible. In this instance we need the man to understand that Fiona is empowered. We are not able to tell in this situation that she is competent without the man’s input, without his knowledge.
Another component of the traditional narrative structure is that of the male gaze. One can thus take the presence of this gaze as evidence of such a narrative structure. In Burn Notice the male gaze manifests seemingly objectively for it usually is not carried out by any character and is instead found in the shots of women’s bodies that are intermixed among shots of scenery. These montages are used as transitions between scenes in every episode of the show and while not all of them have these images of women in them, the majority of them do. In this way women are objectified and placed in the same category as “scenery.” They literally become scenery for the viewer. In addition, the gaze is often used to guide the camera to the main characters. The shot generally starts following the path of a walking woman, dressed to show off her body, and moves with her until it reaches the main character. This shot does not always show all of her body, keeping her faceless and nameless. An example of this type of gaze is witnessed in “Good Intentions,” where Sam and Fiona are meeting a man for information on a potential job. The scene starts following a walking woman stops when it reaches the main characters and the man. This man then proceeds to gaze at that woman and others who walk by. In this way women are cinematic tools for the camera.
To be fair, the show is set in Miami, where the sun shines brightly. One can expect to see women clad in bikini’s when in that climate. What is not explained by the climate is why the camera lens blatantly focuses upon women’s bodies and uses them either as scenery or as tools for introducing parts of the story.
While Burn Notice makes an important change by having Fiona as a main character, its inability to tell a story outside the existing narrative structure means this show also carries messages inimical to gender equality. Reinforcing the lessened agency of a female in comparison to a male and the image of a woman as a pleasure object undercut more genuine representations of women. It is important to recognize what kind of structure a show exists within in order to be able to resist its messages and realize what kind of influence it can have on passive viewers. A viewer must be able to realize that negative images of women are being propagated by traditional narrative structures in order to hold any hope of ever challenging these representations of women.
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Modern Family 3x07, "Treehouse"
This blog post will focus on the representations of different types of masculinity in last week's episode of Modern Family, “Treehouse.” For all of its strides in representing queer characters in a positive light, Modern Family still adheres to many of the conventional binaries of masculine/feminine and straight/gay. I find Modern Family an interesting subject, because of its representation of “nontraditional” relationships alongside the traditional nuclear family, and because all are presented as equally quirky. Modern Family has been received with popular and critical acclaim since its premiere in 2009; each adult member of the regular cast has been nominated for an Emmy Award, the first win going to Eric Stonestreet, a straight man, for his portrayal of Cameron Tucker, a gay character. For those unfamiliar with Modern Family, the sitcom centers around three branches of the Pritchett family: Jay, the patriarch of the family, and his much younger Colombian wife Gloria represent a May-December relationship; Claire, who is Jay's daughter, and her husband Phil represent the traditional, suburban nuclear family, along with their three children; Mitchell, who is Jay's son, and his partner Cameron represent a “nontraditional” gay family, along with their adopted daughter Lily.
I apply the term “nontraditional” to Mitchell and Cameron lightly, because the only nontraditional thing about them is the fact that they are represented; their sexuality is not unusual, merely the fact that they are visible on mainstream television. In all other regards, Mitchell and Cameron are unmarked: they are financially comfortable white men, who live in a suburban area. All of the aspects of their lifestyle – their nicely decorated home, their high taste in food, their put-together wardrobes – are the well-respected markers of gay men. As far as the portrayals of masculinity, Mitchell, as a lawyer, is the breadwinner of the household; Cameron gave up a career as a music teacher to raise their child. Cameron is more “flamboyant” than Mitchell, in terms of fashion, speech, and mannerisms. These aspects of their relationship uphold the masculine/feminine binary; the only way a gay couple could be well-received by a wide audience is if they only deviate from traditional gender roles and heteronormativity in one way.
In this particular episode, the A storyline revolves around Mitchell's challenge to Cameron to pass as a straight man and get a woman's phone number in a bar. Cameron asserts, “I could totally pick up any woman in here...I for sure could be a womanizer,” to which Mitchell retorts, “Or you could be someone who just stepped out of a machine called 'The Womanizer.'” Cameron immediately connects being a straight man with being a womanizer, as if the opposite of a gay man is hypermasculinity; Mitchell's response immediately correlates homosexuality with overt femininity. When Cameron approaches a woman as a straight man, he deepens his voice and changes his body language, so that all of his movements are led by his broadened shoulders. He sheds any physical markers that are associated with homosexuality and overcompensates with hypermasculine ones.
Cameron does succeed in getting a woman's phone number, but feels guilty and meets up with her later to confess; she is confused as to why he reveals that he is gay when she knew all along. Katie matter-of-factly states how obvious it is that he is gay, from “The way you talk and walk and dress, and your theatrical hand gestures.” If there even is such a thing as multiple masculinities or any masculinity other than the ideal in the world of Modern Family, the difference between them and the ideal is obvious and unequivocal. Male femininity and/or homosexuality are signaled by a certain manner of comportment distinct from that of straight, traditionally masculine men.
When Cameron asks Katie why she would offer her number to a man she knew to be gay, she responds, again matter-of-factly, “Oh, because I want a gay friend. Someone I can dish with, can give me guy advice, I can shop with.” Cameron reels back, appalled at the heavy stock she puts in such caricatures of gay men, saying, “Those are totally offensive stereotypes!” He is offended by the cartoonish stock character traits that have been assigned to all gay men wholesale, and for a moment the audience empathizes with him. Within the next second, however, she continues, “We could go see Julia Roberts movies together,” at which Cameron perks up and excitedly shares, “I know and she's as nice as she seems onscreen!” Their conversation picks up, “Shut up, really?! Is she?” “She is, yeah.” Just as seen in the How I Met Your Mother episode I analyzed in my last post, the producers of Modern Family put forward an idea that challenges traditional conventions of gender and sexuality, only to retreat immediately. As quickly as Cameron expresses offense at Katie's belief in farcical stereotypes about gay men, he falls into those exact stereotypes, with the gossipy tone of a teenage girl. The producers offer a progressive piece of dialogue that attempts to break down binaries, but immediately rescind it by forcing this gay character back into the only acceptable classifiers to a mainstream audience – easily excitable, attracted to products generally aimed at women, etc.
Given its mass appeal and popularity, I think it is safe to assume that part of the reason why Modern Family is so well-received is because it portrays an accurate yet humorous model of the real world – including how stereotypes about masculinity function. We know that these binaries between masculine/feminine and straight/gay exist in our world, along with people who defy them. There is a huge discrepancy in the representation of such people in popular media. I am a fan of Modern Family and I understand the need to attract and keep a wide audience. I also understand that small steps in the direction of progression are better than none. Perhaps soon enough, though, with all the small steps that have been taken by shows like Modern Family, Grey's Anatomy, and Glee by representing queer characters in the first place, the wide audience will be ready for dialogue that breaks down binaries and does not retreat immediately. I urge popular media to continue its slow progression in portraying multiple masculinities/femininities, but without feeling the need to qualify.
You can watch "Treehouse" here.
I apply the term “nontraditional” to Mitchell and Cameron lightly, because the only nontraditional thing about them is the fact that they are represented; their sexuality is not unusual, merely the fact that they are visible on mainstream television. In all other regards, Mitchell and Cameron are unmarked: they are financially comfortable white men, who live in a suburban area. All of the aspects of their lifestyle – their nicely decorated home, their high taste in food, their put-together wardrobes – are the well-respected markers of gay men. As far as the portrayals of masculinity, Mitchell, as a lawyer, is the breadwinner of the household; Cameron gave up a career as a music teacher to raise their child. Cameron is more “flamboyant” than Mitchell, in terms of fashion, speech, and mannerisms. These aspects of their relationship uphold the masculine/feminine binary; the only way a gay couple could be well-received by a wide audience is if they only deviate from traditional gender roles and heteronormativity in one way.
In this particular episode, the A storyline revolves around Mitchell's challenge to Cameron to pass as a straight man and get a woman's phone number in a bar. Cameron asserts, “I could totally pick up any woman in here...I for sure could be a womanizer,” to which Mitchell retorts, “Or you could be someone who just stepped out of a machine called 'The Womanizer.'” Cameron immediately connects being a straight man with being a womanizer, as if the opposite of a gay man is hypermasculinity; Mitchell's response immediately correlates homosexuality with overt femininity. When Cameron approaches a woman as a straight man, he deepens his voice and changes his body language, so that all of his movements are led by his broadened shoulders. He sheds any physical markers that are associated with homosexuality and overcompensates with hypermasculine ones.
Cameron does succeed in getting a woman's phone number, but feels guilty and meets up with her later to confess; she is confused as to why he reveals that he is gay when she knew all along. Katie matter-of-factly states how obvious it is that he is gay, from “The way you talk and walk and dress, and your theatrical hand gestures.” If there even is such a thing as multiple masculinities or any masculinity other than the ideal in the world of Modern Family, the difference between them and the ideal is obvious and unequivocal. Male femininity and/or homosexuality are signaled by a certain manner of comportment distinct from that of straight, traditionally masculine men.
When Cameron asks Katie why she would offer her number to a man she knew to be gay, she responds, again matter-of-factly, “Oh, because I want a gay friend. Someone I can dish with, can give me guy advice, I can shop with.” Cameron reels back, appalled at the heavy stock she puts in such caricatures of gay men, saying, “Those are totally offensive stereotypes!” He is offended by the cartoonish stock character traits that have been assigned to all gay men wholesale, and for a moment the audience empathizes with him. Within the next second, however, she continues, “We could go see Julia Roberts movies together,” at which Cameron perks up and excitedly shares, “I know and she's as nice as she seems onscreen!” Their conversation picks up, “Shut up, really?! Is she?” “She is, yeah.” Just as seen in the How I Met Your Mother episode I analyzed in my last post, the producers of Modern Family put forward an idea that challenges traditional conventions of gender and sexuality, only to retreat immediately. As quickly as Cameron expresses offense at Katie's belief in farcical stereotypes about gay men, he falls into those exact stereotypes, with the gossipy tone of a teenage girl. The producers offer a progressive piece of dialogue that attempts to break down binaries, but immediately rescind it by forcing this gay character back into the only acceptable classifiers to a mainstream audience – easily excitable, attracted to products generally aimed at women, etc.
Given its mass appeal and popularity, I think it is safe to assume that part of the reason why Modern Family is so well-received is because it portrays an accurate yet humorous model of the real world – including how stereotypes about masculinity function. We know that these binaries between masculine/feminine and straight/gay exist in our world, along with people who defy them. There is a huge discrepancy in the representation of such people in popular media. I am a fan of Modern Family and I understand the need to attract and keep a wide audience. I also understand that small steps in the direction of progression are better than none. Perhaps soon enough, though, with all the small steps that have been taken by shows like Modern Family, Grey's Anatomy, and Glee by representing queer characters in the first place, the wide audience will be ready for dialogue that breaks down binaries and does not retreat immediately. I urge popular media to continue its slow progression in portraying multiple masculinities/femininities, but without feeling the need to qualify.
You can watch "Treehouse" here.
Monday, October 31, 2011
How I Met Your Mother 7x06, "Mystery vs. History"
By Kimberly Nguyen
This week, I will analyze an episode of How I Met Your Mother called “Mystery vs. History,” the sixth episode of the seventh (current) season. How I Met Your Mother (HIMYM) is one of my favorite shows on television right now, so I almost don't want to find problems with it, but after this episode aired a couple weeks ago, my immediate reaction was disagreement with the dominant message put out by the show on two different issues related to gender. The first is the obsession with labeling and identifying people's genders, especially with soon-to-be-born babies; this is expressed through Marshall and Lily's desire to remain oblivious to their future baby's sex, and the conflict that arises from that decision. The second is Ted's fear that the woman he is dating might be transgendered, which is treated as a passing joke and is actually a joke that has come up at least twice earlier in the series.
We have previously discussed in class the need to identify children as either boy or girl, and assigning them everything from appropriate toys to colors according to their gender. In this episode of HIMYM, Marshall and Lily abstain from learning the sex of their unborn child, Lily stating, “We just don't want to burden our little angel with all kinds of gender-specific expectations. Boys can do ballet, girls can play football.” I was pleasantly surprised by the stance they took, especially since HIMYM is a sitcom meant for mass appeal and I found this to be a small but clever way to make a comment about gender assignment. This is shattered throughout the rest of the episode, however, beginning with the very next line. Marshall quips – with what I thought was a rather unnecessary joke – “Hell, the Green Bay Packers have been proving that for years.” The obvious joke here is that the Green Bay Packers are girls because, in Marshall's opinion, they do not play well. The writers of the show introduced a few lines of dialogue challenging the structure of gender role assignment encoded in us from birth, but felt that they had to immediately follow that dialogue with a comment reinforcing the structure as it is. It is as if they tiptoe forward and pull back sharply, so as not to alarm viewers and upset the status quo.
In the same conversation, Robin offers her two cents on the matter, saying, “Define gender roles early. All the other girls got a pretty dress and a cake when they turned fourteen...” The scene then cuts to a flashback of her fourteenth birthday, in which her father literally pushes a terrified and resistant Robin out of a helicopter to parachute down into a forest for a three-day survival challenge. To understand this joke, viewers must be familiar with Robin's relationship with her father, who wished so badly that he had a son that he ignored the fact that Robin was a girl and treated her like a boy, causing her great emotional stress. This extreme situation is obviously used for comedy, but is also a way of distancing the show and its producers even further from the brief support it expressed earlier for defying gender roles. This sequence shows that reversing gender roles can be ridiculous, as Robin's father is portrayed as sadly in denial that he did not bear a son, and traumatic to children, as Robin continues to carry scars from her relationship with her father because of this gender-bending.
Later in the episode, Barney plays a ridiculous slide show for Marshall and Lily, in an effort to convince them to learn the sex of their baby. Barney tells them that a baby of an unnamed sex will only receive generic gifts at the baby shower, while a clearly defined boy or girl can look forward to better gifts. This could be received as a message translatable to later in life: if your gender is not well-defined in adulthood, you will not claim all the good things you are entitled to, be they social relationships or material objects. The first picture in Barney's slide show is of a baby boy dressed in a baseball uniform, and the second is of a baby girl dressed in a princess gown, which Barney describes with a high, cartoonish voice. The gender binary is clearly drawn between blue and pink, sports and fashion, robust and gentle. The third picture in the slide show is of a baby dressed in a brown burlap sack. As ominous music plays, Barney warns, “But if you don't know the gender, little Fran is sure to be the pariah of the playground in this hermaphroditic burlap sack.” This firmly labels gender ambiguity and lack of gender definition as detrimental; people who are androgynous or who go against gender expectations are portrayed as undesirable, not just to the characters of the show but to the world.
The second gender-related issue in this episode is one which I have noted across seasons of HIMYM, and that is a negative attitude toward transgendered individuals. In this episode, Ted goes out with a woman named Janet, who he has just met. When his friends do some internet research on Janet, they uncover a huge secret, which Ted declines hearing before he gets to know her. The type of wild scenarios that he imagines her secret to be are a source of humor and a trademark of HIMYM. First, he imagines that Janet is actually a prostitute and is led out of the restaurant by two police officers; the entire restaurant bursts into laughter at Ted for being fooled into thinking she was actually interested in him. In the second scenario, Ted is in the men's restroom when Janet swaggers in, speaking with a deep voice, and pulls up her dress to stand at the urinal; when Ted objects, she says, “I'm a dude.” Ted gasps in horror.
This is not the only example of a queer-negative attitude I have noted on HIMYM. In season 2 episode 9, “Slap Bet,” Ted imagines that the big secret his then-girlfriend Robin could be keeping from him is that she “used to be a dude,” which she reveals in front of everyone at their wedding. In season 3 episode 8, “Spoiler Alert,” Ted imagines what huge flaw his then-girlfriend Kathy could have revealed to his friends at dinner while he was away from the table: could she have lied about an affair with a high school teacher and put him in jail for fun? Could she volunteer at a pound just for the rush of killing puppies? Could she have once had a penis?
The trend here is a man's fear that a woman he is seeing could secretly be a man or have once been a man. HIMYM has only provided images of transgendered characters that are hypothetical and closeted; the show has gone further by propagating the idea that being transgendered is something that people will not accept and will run away in fear from. In “Spoiler Alert,” being a post-op transgendered person is portrayed as on the same level as sociopathic behavior. I found this distinctly queer-negative attitude disturbing the first time it appeared, and have been surprised every time it has been repeated. It is not any kind of in-joke that bears repeating for effect, but it is used continually. Perhaps the humor comes from the idea of a man being fooled by very feminine looking male-bodied women. Perhaps it is a statement on heteronormativity, reinforced by the relationships of most of the main characters and by the hypermasculine rake qualities of Barney Stinson. For whatever reason, HIMYM has made it clear by its repetition of this joke that it will continue to cast transgendered people as the butt of the joke or HIMYM is simply not thinking of its implications about gender.
You can watch "Mystery vs. History" here.
I also found an interesting article about a Toronto couple that has decided to raise their newborn baby as "genderless." The response from readers has been largely negative.
This week, I will analyze an episode of How I Met Your Mother called “Mystery vs. History,” the sixth episode of the seventh (current) season. How I Met Your Mother (HIMYM) is one of my favorite shows on television right now, so I almost don't want to find problems with it, but after this episode aired a couple weeks ago, my immediate reaction was disagreement with the dominant message put out by the show on two different issues related to gender. The first is the obsession with labeling and identifying people's genders, especially with soon-to-be-born babies; this is expressed through Marshall and Lily's desire to remain oblivious to their future baby's sex, and the conflict that arises from that decision. The second is Ted's fear that the woman he is dating might be transgendered, which is treated as a passing joke and is actually a joke that has come up at least twice earlier in the series.
We have previously discussed in class the need to identify children as either boy or girl, and assigning them everything from appropriate toys to colors according to their gender. In this episode of HIMYM, Marshall and Lily abstain from learning the sex of their unborn child, Lily stating, “We just don't want to burden our little angel with all kinds of gender-specific expectations. Boys can do ballet, girls can play football.” I was pleasantly surprised by the stance they took, especially since HIMYM is a sitcom meant for mass appeal and I found this to be a small but clever way to make a comment about gender assignment. This is shattered throughout the rest of the episode, however, beginning with the very next line. Marshall quips – with what I thought was a rather unnecessary joke – “Hell, the Green Bay Packers have been proving that for years.” The obvious joke here is that the Green Bay Packers are girls because, in Marshall's opinion, they do not play well. The writers of the show introduced a few lines of dialogue challenging the structure of gender role assignment encoded in us from birth, but felt that they had to immediately follow that dialogue with a comment reinforcing the structure as it is. It is as if they tiptoe forward and pull back sharply, so as not to alarm viewers and upset the status quo.
In the same conversation, Robin offers her two cents on the matter, saying, “Define gender roles early. All the other girls got a pretty dress and a cake when they turned fourteen...” The scene then cuts to a flashback of her fourteenth birthday, in which her father literally pushes a terrified and resistant Robin out of a helicopter to parachute down into a forest for a three-day survival challenge. To understand this joke, viewers must be familiar with Robin's relationship with her father, who wished so badly that he had a son that he ignored the fact that Robin was a girl and treated her like a boy, causing her great emotional stress. This extreme situation is obviously used for comedy, but is also a way of distancing the show and its producers even further from the brief support it expressed earlier for defying gender roles. This sequence shows that reversing gender roles can be ridiculous, as Robin's father is portrayed as sadly in denial that he did not bear a son, and traumatic to children, as Robin continues to carry scars from her relationship with her father because of this gender-bending.
Later in the episode, Barney plays a ridiculous slide show for Marshall and Lily, in an effort to convince them to learn the sex of their baby. Barney tells them that a baby of an unnamed sex will only receive generic gifts at the baby shower, while a clearly defined boy or girl can look forward to better gifts. This could be received as a message translatable to later in life: if your gender is not well-defined in adulthood, you will not claim all the good things you are entitled to, be they social relationships or material objects. The first picture in Barney's slide show is of a baby boy dressed in a baseball uniform, and the second is of a baby girl dressed in a princess gown, which Barney describes with a high, cartoonish voice. The gender binary is clearly drawn between blue and pink, sports and fashion, robust and gentle. The third picture in the slide show is of a baby dressed in a brown burlap sack. As ominous music plays, Barney warns, “But if you don't know the gender, little Fran is sure to be the pariah of the playground in this hermaphroditic burlap sack.” This firmly labels gender ambiguity and lack of gender definition as detrimental; people who are androgynous or who go against gender expectations are portrayed as undesirable, not just to the characters of the show but to the world.
The second gender-related issue in this episode is one which I have noted across seasons of HIMYM, and that is a negative attitude toward transgendered individuals. In this episode, Ted goes out with a woman named Janet, who he has just met. When his friends do some internet research on Janet, they uncover a huge secret, which Ted declines hearing before he gets to know her. The type of wild scenarios that he imagines her secret to be are a source of humor and a trademark of HIMYM. First, he imagines that Janet is actually a prostitute and is led out of the restaurant by two police officers; the entire restaurant bursts into laughter at Ted for being fooled into thinking she was actually interested in him. In the second scenario, Ted is in the men's restroom when Janet swaggers in, speaking with a deep voice, and pulls up her dress to stand at the urinal; when Ted objects, she says, “I'm a dude.” Ted gasps in horror.
This is not the only example of a queer-negative attitude I have noted on HIMYM. In season 2 episode 9, “Slap Bet,” Ted imagines that the big secret his then-girlfriend Robin could be keeping from him is that she “used to be a dude,” which she reveals in front of everyone at their wedding. In season 3 episode 8, “Spoiler Alert,” Ted imagines what huge flaw his then-girlfriend Kathy could have revealed to his friends at dinner while he was away from the table: could she have lied about an affair with a high school teacher and put him in jail for fun? Could she volunteer at a pound just for the rush of killing puppies? Could she have once had a penis?
The trend here is a man's fear that a woman he is seeing could secretly be a man or have once been a man. HIMYM has only provided images of transgendered characters that are hypothetical and closeted; the show has gone further by propagating the idea that being transgendered is something that people will not accept and will run away in fear from. In “Spoiler Alert,” being a post-op transgendered person is portrayed as on the same level as sociopathic behavior. I found this distinctly queer-negative attitude disturbing the first time it appeared, and have been surprised every time it has been repeated. It is not any kind of in-joke that bears repeating for effect, but it is used continually. Perhaps the humor comes from the idea of a man being fooled by very feminine looking male-bodied women. Perhaps it is a statement on heteronormativity, reinforced by the relationships of most of the main characters and by the hypermasculine rake qualities of Barney Stinson. For whatever reason, HIMYM has made it clear by its repetition of this joke that it will continue to cast transgendered people as the butt of the joke or HIMYM is simply not thinking of its implications about gender.
You can watch "Mystery vs. History" here.
I also found an interesting article about a Toronto couple that has decided to raise their newborn baby as "genderless." The response from readers has been largely negative.
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Psych 5x1, “Romeo and Juliet and Juliet”
By Claire Hamilton
From examining the manner in which Asians are represented in the television show Psych I argue it both subverts and reinforces stereotypes about Asians. There are two main ways in which erroneous ideas about race are subverted: through the characters’ interactions with the Asian character Ken and through the main character’s behavior during the episode. The main character’s words can also be said to reinforce the status quo because he is never shown to derive any real consequence for expressing such ideas.
For those who are unfamiliar with it, Psych is a show about Shawn Spencer, a fake psychic who uses his abilities to solve cases for the Santa Barbara Police Department. He is joined on each case by his best friend Burton Guster, or as he is commonly called on the show, Gus. In the episode entitled “Romeo and Juliet and Juliet,” Shawn and Gus work on a case in which Arthur Chang’s daughter, Becky, has been kidnapped. They later discover that two Chinese gangs, the Golden Triad and the Dragon Triad, are involved and that Mr. Chang is actually the head of the Golden Triad. As it turns out, far from being kidnapped, Becky fell in love with the son of the rival gang’s leader and ran off to hide with him. Matters are complicated in that the other son of the Dragon Triad is attempting to use the situation to ensure that a violent conflict will arise. It should also be noted that the entire episode is essentially a parody of the marital arts film genre: for instance it exaggerates all the fight scenes.
This video contains all of Ken’s appearances in the episode, most of which involve Shawn and Gus consulting with him for advice on their case. Contrary to their expectations, Ken turns out to be rather ill-equipped to give it despite being an Asian-American character presumably of Chinese descent (his ethnicity is never explicitly mentioned in the episode). These scenes are very important because of their effect on the audience.
From analyzing Shawn and Gus’s interactions with Ken, one can interpret that the primary intent of these scenes is to evoke the audience’s laughter. (Psych is a comedy, after all.) The producers and writers encode these scenes so that they will most likely be decoded as comedic. In order for this effect to be realized the racial stereotypes provided by Shawn and Gus have to be recognized by the viewer as irrational to such an extent that holding even one of them would make a person look exceedingly stupid. It is the fact that the character will come off as stupidly silly that makes people laugh and a corollary effect is that the stereotype is discredited in the viewers’ eyes. An example of this process can be found in one of Ken’s scenes where Shawn and Gus are giving a laundry list of what they need Ken to explain for them. Gus asks Ken “to explain the end of Crouching Dragon, Hidden Tiger to [them].” The expectation that Ken, their ex-secretary, knows all about Chinese mafias and Hong Kong counterfeiting operations is an unrealistic notion on its own. Additionally expecting Ken to explain a martial arts film glaringly emphasizes a lack of touch with reality. This and other instances in which Ken is badgered for information act to challenge the stereotype in which a person takes it for granted that any Asian will have expert knowledge of their culture, disregarding the possibility that he or she could be second or third generation and therefore very removed from it. A common way in which this stereotype manifests is in the presumption that a member of some ethnicity as a matter of course will know one of its languages. Ken also subverts this version of the stereotype.
Moreover, Psych brings racial stereotypes into conflict with an alternate representation of Asian identity. This alternate image of Asians is encoded into Ken’s character and is antithetical to the image of the stereotypical Asian. For the audience he is representation of an Asian who actively resists these stereotypes, directly confirming for the audience that such notions are not only racist but also offensive to him. He is visibly upset by them and rejects them in his interactions with Shawn and Gus. Another character who encodes a resistant identity is that of the martial arts instructor who Shaun ends up taking a class from.
As can be seen in this clip, Shawn’s stereotypical grouping of all Asian marital arts into the narrow box of “karate” is venomously rejected by the instructor. However, in the next scene Shawn is witnessed referring to it as “karate” once more, implying that he has not really paid the character’s protestation any consideration. This brings us to the less beneficial effect that Psych can have for its viewers.
Shawn Spencer’s remarks, which espouse stereotypical notions about Asians, witnessed throughout this episode are as problematic as they are “funny.” As noted in the aforementioned example, while various characters in this episode call Shawn, and therefore these stereotypes, out he never suffers any ill effects for behaving in that way (other than their ire). Furthermore, he does not seem to take what they say to heart, disregarding the worth of their objections and persisting in his offensive behavior. He still gets his way even though he has adopted this flippant and insensitive persona. This could be taken an implication that there are no consequences for acting in such a manner, but then again racism is in general much more subtle in modern times. As such one could assume that the public would appropriately censure someone for their blatant racism should it arise in reality. Yet there is a distinct lack of exploration of the consequences of acting in this manner, something I think rather undercuts the shows’ mockery of racist ideas.
From examining the manner in which Asians are represented in the television show Psych I argue it both subverts and reinforces stereotypes about Asians. There are two main ways in which erroneous ideas about race are subverted: through the characters’ interactions with the Asian character Ken and through the main character’s behavior during the episode. The main character’s words can also be said to reinforce the status quo because he is never shown to derive any real consequence for expressing such ideas.
For those who are unfamiliar with it, Psych is a show about Shawn Spencer, a fake psychic who uses his abilities to solve cases for the Santa Barbara Police Department. He is joined on each case by his best friend Burton Guster, or as he is commonly called on the show, Gus. In the episode entitled “Romeo and Juliet and Juliet,” Shawn and Gus work on a case in which Arthur Chang’s daughter, Becky, has been kidnapped. They later discover that two Chinese gangs, the Golden Triad and the Dragon Triad, are involved and that Mr. Chang is actually the head of the Golden Triad. As it turns out, far from being kidnapped, Becky fell in love with the son of the rival gang’s leader and ran off to hide with him. Matters are complicated in that the other son of the Dragon Triad is attempting to use the situation to ensure that a violent conflict will arise. It should also be noted that the entire episode is essentially a parody of the marital arts film genre: for instance it exaggerates all the fight scenes.
This video contains all of Ken’s appearances in the episode, most of which involve Shawn and Gus consulting with him for advice on their case. Contrary to their expectations, Ken turns out to be rather ill-equipped to give it despite being an Asian-American character presumably of Chinese descent (his ethnicity is never explicitly mentioned in the episode). These scenes are very important because of their effect on the audience.
From analyzing Shawn and Gus’s interactions with Ken, one can interpret that the primary intent of these scenes is to evoke the audience’s laughter. (Psych is a comedy, after all.) The producers and writers encode these scenes so that they will most likely be decoded as comedic. In order for this effect to be realized the racial stereotypes provided by Shawn and Gus have to be recognized by the viewer as irrational to such an extent that holding even one of them would make a person look exceedingly stupid. It is the fact that the character will come off as stupidly silly that makes people laugh and a corollary effect is that the stereotype is discredited in the viewers’ eyes. An example of this process can be found in one of Ken’s scenes where Shawn and Gus are giving a laundry list of what they need Ken to explain for them. Gus asks Ken “to explain the end of Crouching Dragon, Hidden Tiger to [them].” The expectation that Ken, their ex-secretary, knows all about Chinese mafias and Hong Kong counterfeiting operations is an unrealistic notion on its own. Additionally expecting Ken to explain a martial arts film glaringly emphasizes a lack of touch with reality. This and other instances in which Ken is badgered for information act to challenge the stereotype in which a person takes it for granted that any Asian will have expert knowledge of their culture, disregarding the possibility that he or she could be second or third generation and therefore very removed from it. A common way in which this stereotype manifests is in the presumption that a member of some ethnicity as a matter of course will know one of its languages. Ken also subverts this version of the stereotype.
Moreover, Psych brings racial stereotypes into conflict with an alternate representation of Asian identity. This alternate image of Asians is encoded into Ken’s character and is antithetical to the image of the stereotypical Asian. For the audience he is representation of an Asian who actively resists these stereotypes, directly confirming for the audience that such notions are not only racist but also offensive to him. He is visibly upset by them and rejects them in his interactions with Shawn and Gus. Another character who encodes a resistant identity is that of the martial arts instructor who Shaun ends up taking a class from.
As can be seen in this clip, Shawn’s stereotypical grouping of all Asian marital arts into the narrow box of “karate” is venomously rejected by the instructor. However, in the next scene Shawn is witnessed referring to it as “karate” once more, implying that he has not really paid the character’s protestation any consideration. This brings us to the less beneficial effect that Psych can have for its viewers.
Shawn Spencer’s remarks, which espouse stereotypical notions about Asians, witnessed throughout this episode are as problematic as they are “funny.” As noted in the aforementioned example, while various characters in this episode call Shawn, and therefore these stereotypes, out he never suffers any ill effects for behaving in that way (other than their ire). Furthermore, he does not seem to take what they say to heart, disregarding the worth of their objections and persisting in his offensive behavior. He still gets his way even though he has adopted this flippant and insensitive persona. This could be taken an implication that there are no consequences for acting in such a manner, but then again racism is in general much more subtle in modern times. As such one could assume that the public would appropriately censure someone for their blatant racism should it arise in reality. Yet there is a distinct lack of exploration of the consequences of acting in this manner, something I think rather undercuts the shows’ mockery of racist ideas.
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