Gender Roles in Family TV Shows Term Paper

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Gender Roles in Everybody Loves Raymond

Even with the fact that society as a whole has experienced significant progress during recent years, it seems difficult for the media to stop using stereotypes when relating to particular groups. Philip Rosenthal's television sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond is a perfect example concerning gender roles and how the media tends to use them with the purpose of shaping particular characters. In spite of its humor, the show reinforces a series of gender roles and appears to send the message that it is only natural for men to take on particular attitudes and for women to behave in a certain way.

From the very first scenes of the Pilot episode one is likely to observe that the show presents a typical family. Ray, the main character, arrives home after seeing a sports event while his wife is staying at home with the couple's children. The show immediately presents the contrast between these two characters by emphasizing Ray's fascination with the fact that he got his hat signed by a famous player while Debra is agitated because one of the children spat on her shirt.

The Pilot proceeds to show Debra as a woman who is unhesitant about taking some time for herself and Ray as a dad who sees nothing wrong with staying at home with his kids. However, it rapidly becomes obvious that Ray is unable to do the job as he goes with a friend of his at a pizza place while his children stay with Ray's parents and brother.

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The show generally shows a typical American home and a family that acts in accordance with most American values. Gender roles are largely promoted throughout the show, but it is interesting to observe how Ray is not as masculine as he would appear to be. He is immature and needs help from his mom and wife in order to be able to take important decisions. This shows that producers were not necessarily interested in promoting gender roles, as they actually emphasized Ray's failure to take on his role as the man of the house.

To a certain degree, one might be inclined to believe that Ray's character was actually created with the purpose of having people acknowledge that society has reached a point when gender roles are not as strong as they once….....

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