Television and Culture
Prof. Conaway
22 April 2012
Television and the Cultural Ideal of Fatherhood.
Since the birth of television, the cultural role of the father has evolved and adapted through several decades of family sitcoms. This cultural representation of fatherhood has also probably in some way played an influence upon men and boys as a proper example to emulate through popular images through the medium of television. Television, through its popularity and pervasiveness has provided examples of what could be construed as models of what could be considered as appropriate behavior for males to display in their roles of fathers and what other members of the family could interpret as an ideal of fatherhood and masculinity. Does television, in its attempt to entertain, actually devalue and undermine the father as cultural role model in society?
Culture defines what is proper behavior for a citizen of it’s society. According to Blankenhorn (1995), “men, more than women, are culture made” (17). In the 1960’s shows like Leave It To Beaver and The Andy Griffith Show present us with a positive cultural role model of fatherhood and masculine ideal. According to Watson (2008), “in TV households throughout the 1960’s good manners were essential” where “children asked to be excused before leaving the dinner table and adults never engaged in shouting matches or argued in mean-spirited ways” (190). “Perhaps for most viewers” Watson (2008) states this presentation of the father “was an unrealistic picture of family dynamics, but it offered a model of respectful and loving communication” (190). Nevertheless these fathers presented within these shows provided an example of the male who was able to maintain control of himself within his surroundings, who served as a dependable role model for his children, and was able to interact in his environment in ways that were culturally and socially appropriate.
Television, through its pervasiveness and power to influence, can affect what millions of people come to understand as the cultural ideal of fatherhood. According to Vande Berg, Wenner, & Gronbeck (2004), a culture is a “social group’s system of meanings” and these meanings are “socially derived understandings” concerning “persons, places, things, ideas, routines, rituals, and strategic behavior (social action)” (393). These “socially derived understandings” come into our homes through the television, and are assigned meanings in the viewer’s mind. According to Pehlke, Hennon, Radina, & Kuvalanka (2009), “television sitcoms have widespread acclaim” and “television families seem to affect the way in which people think about marriage and the family as both married and divorced individuals have cited the use of such portrayals as guides for their own behavior” (para. 12). Pehlke et al. (2009) goes on to say that “television viewing has the potential to influence people’s understanding of the diverse ways in which fathers carry out their roles in families” and this “may have a powerful impact on how the father role is enacted and evaluated in daily family life” (para. 14). Television, through its pervasiveness, has the power to present certain images and ideals which can become the embodiment of popular culture beliefs.
Males learn how to communicate by watching how other males successfully communicate with others, and communication is an integral part of any culture. According to Vande Berg et al. (2004), “individuals generally are taught from infancy on to conform their understandings and their behaviors to social standards for meanings when communicating with others” (39). When a person watches television there is a myriad of images of ways in which people are communicated to, and whether these images are socially appropriate or not, whether it is dysfunctional or functional behavior, nevertheless these images, in some form or other, becomes assimilated into the mind of the viewer. Much of what is communicated on television sitcoms is considered humor, and if this humor is on television then it can be presumed by the viewer to be socially appropriate forms of self-expression. Some viewers may make the distinction that humor is the culturally highest form of self-expression, and that anything done in the pursuit of this humor may be a rewarded by one’s culture. In many of our modern television sitcoms “the initiator of the joke typically enjoys the greater amount of power and status” (Scharrer, 2001, para. 6). According to Chory-Assad (2004), “verbal aggression has become more common than physical aggression in all television genres, but particularly in sitcoms” (para. 5). This aggressive style of communication can become a popular avenue of communication through it’s televised use and transmission, influencing how males, as well as females, communicate amongst themselves, and with others.
Behavior that is modeled without negative consequences can become institutionalized as acceptable behavior. In the television sitcoms of the 1950’s, such popular shows like Father Knows Best, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, and even I Love Lucy, presented the father figure as the rational head of the household who never lost control, and always had words of wisdom for his wife and children. These early examples of “fictional families” modeled “contemporary family life” and “acted as important socializing agents” by offering “implicit lessons about appropriate family life” (Pehlke et al., 2009, para. 16). “These television families”, according to Pehlke et al. (2009), seem to “affect the way in which people think about marriage and the family,” by presenting a rational, masculine idea of fathers (para. 21). Society accepts or condones what it allows as acceptable behavior in its social roles. With the introduction of such characters as Archie Bunker on the show All in the Family, “caustic comments made by lead characters were presented not as rudeness but as the hallmark of a clever and feisty personality, the more acrid the insult, the more it was rewarded with laughter and applause” (Watson 190). Perhaps television encourages behavior which is less about believing in equality among people and ideals within the social environment, and more about developing the capacities of ones cleverness and feistiness of one’s personality.
The image of the male that is embodied on the television influences the level of respect conferred to the father by the rest of the family. “People used to come up to me when I was on other programs to tell me they liked the show”, says Ed O’Neill, the actor that spent 11 seasons jamming his hands down his pants as Al Bundy on Married…With Children, but now plays Jay Pritchett, Modern Family’s cranky but loving grandpa” (Svetkey, 2009, para. 2). The image of a bitter and disgruntled Al Bundy is a popular image that had been televised as a popular show, and exists in some form in syndication, although it offers a negative image of the father, despite what seems to be social approval conferred to actor Ed O’Neill for his popular role. According to Scharrer (2001), “domestic comedies featuring working class families (The Honeymooners, All in the Family, Roseanne) present the father figure as more foolish than comedies featuring middle or upper class families (Leave It to Behavior, Father Knows Best, The Cosby Show)” and the father on sitcoms is often presented as a “buffoon whose stupidity is a frequent source of laughter” (para. 18). The images that come into our homes via the television presents the image of the father that we come to know and expect, and what value we attach to those images may be influenced by our repeated viewing of television embodiments of fatherhood.
Television is a popular and necessary part of our daily lives, feeding us both our entertainment and information concerning our society and culture. Television has the power to transmit ideas and meanings concerning our various social roles, and what can be construed as socially appropriate, or inappropriate behavior for the various social roles that we find within our culture. If in the genre of television sitcoms for instance, feature the same variation of character: the foolish, bumbling caricature of fatherhood in the attempt to entertain society, then some amount of the population may take this model as a valid and permitted model to follow and emulate as a social representation in one’s environment. But if society presents characters only for the sake of entertainment, and entertainment is embodied in dysfunctional characters, then society devalues the portion of itself that it permits the projection of characters who lack social value to embody a role that would be more valuable in educating and enlightening a society, rather than only for the transient product of entertainment. Social roles and institutions are only effective as society values them, and if the embodiment of these social roles are only used in pursuing how obscene and vulgar the archetype of the father on television can be, then that social role can only be devalued, and perhaps made the new standard, not only on television, but in society as well.
Works Cited:
Blankenhorn, D. (1995). Fatherless America: Confronting Our Most Urgent Social Problem. New York, NY: BasicBooks.
Chory-Assad, Rebecca. “Verbal Aggression in the Media”. North American Journal of Psychology (2004). Vol 6, No. 3. pp. 415-422. Academic Search Complete. HTML.
Pehlke II, Timothy A., Hennon, Charles B., Radina, M. Elise., Kuvalanka, Katherine A. “Does Father Still Know Best? An Inductive Thematic Analysis of Popular TV Sitcoms.” Fathering 7. 2. (2009): 114-139. PDF. Academic Search Complete
Scharrer, Erica. “From Wise to Foolish: The Portrayals of the Sitcom Father, 1950’s – 1990’s”. Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media. Winter 2001. pp. 23-40. Academic Search Complete. PDF.
Svetkey, Benjamin. “Modern Love”. Entertainment Weekly. (2009) Issue 1074.
Academic Search Complete. 10490434.
Vande Berg, Leah R., Wenner, Lawrence A., Gronbeck, Bruce E. Critical Approaches to Television. 2nd ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. 2004. Print.
Watson, Mary Ann. Defining Visions: Television and the American Experience in the 20th Century. 2nd ed. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub., 2008. Print.
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