Before I discuss “New Girl” and the show’s relationship to gender, I want to clarify my own definition of gender. I’m still confused a little on our accepted definition so for the purposes of my blog, I’m using the WHO.org’s definition which is that, “"Gender" refers to the socially constructed roles, behaviours, activities, and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for men and women.” The website also claims that masculine is the term that refers to the “socially constructed roles” of men and feminine refers the “socially constructed roles” of women.
I believe “New Girl”, starring Zooey Deschanel, is more traditional because the gender roles are pretty typical. The female to male ratio differs from show to show, however, there are four main characters; Jess (the one female) and her three new (male) roommates. The male characters all have the stereotypical male traits while Jess is depicted with stereotypical female traits. The series starts off with Jess telling a story about how she found her boyfriend cheating on her. After four minutes followed by the catchy theme song, the flashback disappears and comes back to present time where Jess is sitting with her soon to be roommates. She then asks, “I’m sorry what was the question again?” to which one roomie responds, “Do you have any pets?” Jess is showing her stereotypical femininity because socially constructed behavior suggests that women are emotional and share their feelings. The scene shows that Jess is incapable of answering the question because she wants to talk about her breakup (clearly an emotional, irrelevant conversation). I’ve seen movies where husbands want to stay out at bars because their wives are at home. The husbands claim that if they went home, they’d have to talk with their wives and share their feelings. I’m not saying that this is an accurate portrayal of men or women but I think that this example illustrates my point that society gives women these “talk about your feelings” traits and so to be feminine is to be emotional and open. When one of Jess’s roommates mopes around after getting dumped, the other roommates tease him about and tell him to get over it. The show uses his emotional trait to get “easy” laughs out of viewers but his emotional state is never taken seriously.
Additionally, after Jess has begged for her boyfriend to take her back, she lays on the couch, watching Woody Allen films and sobbing. Only with the help of her three manly roommates is she able to get over him and build up enough courage to go get her property out of her ex’s house. When she pulls up to the house and goes to get her stuff, her ex tells her and her roommate has to go in for her and beat up the guy. The show portrays women again as emotionally weak, pathetic, and easily forgiving because Jess is so torn up about this breakup she can’t even move and she begs for her ex to take her back (she is easily forgiving). More importantly, she needs a man to save her. The male characters are aggressive (they beat up her ex) and hero’s saving the damsel in distress. The show gives Jess feminine characteristics and the roommates male characteristics.
Jess is a school teacher while her roommates’ jobs consist of a basketball player, a bartender, and some office job. These occupations reinforce the more modern gender roles in society. Jess is caring for children while the male plays sports, drinks, and works in an office.
“New Girl” illustrates that men and women struggle living together because there are differences in living styles; for example some men (or women) may leave the toilet seat up. The producers focus on these differences because of course, when one sex does something wrong, the other sex tends to interfere and this interaction tends to create laughs. The gender themes are overt because if women and men were society’s definition of feminine and masculine, then no wonder it is impossible to live together. The media portrays men and women as being on the extreme opposite ends of the scale. I know some people say that opposite’s attract, but I’m pretty sure this is not the same sort of thing. If a woman is on one extreme side and the man is on the other then it is hard to find similarities between the two. Instead of creating relationships with the opposite sex, “New Girl” illustrates that men and women should just interact with one another because the extreme opposite ends make it hard to find any common ground between the two sexes. The differences make for good TV but in reality, men and women aren’t so opposite or extremely masculine or feminine. There is a common ground between men and women that producers tend to forget (at least in this show).
No comments:
Post a Comment