Tuesday, October 15, 2013
TV
Personally, I feel as though the reason TV excelled with the show about the Gangster versus the female executive was purely won because TV is meant to be more surreal and exciting for the average person. The average person excels to change things and do things in a legal way, like the business executive was portrayed in the article to do. People don't want to watch the struggle of a female executive fighting to succeed and do well- I see the point about it being contoured to showing the struggle of women in the workplace but wouldn't something more covert and less inspiring be more interesting? A female executive would be inspiring and would seem more reasonable in the turn of the century to have a higher position. What isn't seen as normal in the late 90s would be someone involved in criminal enterprises, a gangster. A life filled with excitement, violence, money, control, and the constant struggle of avoiding the law. All of these things make something exciting and surreal to the average person at home after a hard days work at their current job. It's the kind of show that when its done correctly, can be for both genders as well. This kind of show I think would appeal to the mass of audiences and be extremely appealing, more so than a female executive doing an everyday job, especially if that job resembles someones boss. Why would people want to go back to work? Why not just watch something you as the viewer have never experienced before and never will experience. Something that will be exciting, interesting, and new in someones life.
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I agree with you that people are interested in excitement and action packed TV shows. The feminist movement would have nit have been successful with a show because they appeal to mostly women. It maybe could have helped the movement, but I don't believe it would have had as much success as the male run shows.
ReplyDeleteThere's nothing better than going back to your room after a day of classes and sitting down and watching a little "White Collar" to blow off steam. I completely agree though that TV shows need to be different and surreal for them to retain their appeal.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you. Who honestly wants to watch a show that resembles their everyday lives? We seek comedy, action, and excitement that can lack in the lives we lead day to day. Watching television is a nice little break and allows to put ourselves in the shoes of others.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to be that TV viewers want something that does not resemble their lives and something that allows them to think of a foreign idea. TV helps some step away from their everyday life and in the end shows portraying men in the main role is what is in demand.
ReplyDeleteAren't we jumping to conclusions based on some suspect generalizations here? It certainly seems to me that the anti-hero character is popular because of the violence and its tendency to take us out of the ordinary. But of course, Damages, actually based in part on the creator of the Sopranos, and so very much rooted in an actual job, is specifically about a female executive, and yet it still uses this anti-hero model. So we shouldn't fall into the stereotype of just thinking that because a show involves a female main character, it would be "ordinary" or "domestic." The question instead is why wasn't there equal representation within the situation of the anti-hero mythos? And why haven't equally "unusual" plot models--the types of shows that Orange is the New Black represents--featuring women found their way into prominence?
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