Caio Pumputis – English 1102: Television and Feminism

Author: Caio Pumputis

Final thoughts

On November 13, 2018

As a free choice of theme for my final blog post, I decided to talk about what makes a TV Show good and popular.

Different subjects are discussed in different TV shows, but how can this differences achieve the same goal and the same popularity? Besides popularity and views, I believe that TV shows are trying to ‘criticize’ society and show us a different way of thinking. I would say that gender equality is one of the main subject that has been used often to make people reflect about the society we live in.

Stereotypes related to gender equality represent a conflicted but at the same time interesting subject to watch, episodes are trying to get in our heads and make us think more about equality and how it affects our society.

Ever since the 1980s and 1990s when women took a huge spot on television, this activity has been growing since then and more often we see women representing top positions in TV shows. All this different approaches make TV shows more interesting and people actually get into it.

When I watch a TV show and for no reason I start talking with someone about what happened or why this person was doing that, I realized that I am already criticizing the point of the author and at the same time I am reflecting and comparing the character based on our society.

Besides that, when TV shows invert roles based on our society, people get more ‘addicted’ and they have more thoughts to talk to each other. That is the way that authors criticize society, they switch a predefined role and intentionally make us reflect about it.

The audience on the other hand, gets to think and reflect about this unfamiliar situation involuntarily and keeps watching just to see how the story is going to end up like.

Do we have a pattern to follow?

By Caio Pumputis

On November 6, 2018

In Review Topic 5

The show “No tomorrow” is well-balanced in relation with gender representation. We have almost the same number of men and women representing different roles through the show, although women represent the majority of the main cast.

The company in which the story happens is lead by a women. Deirdre is the CEO of the company and one of the main characters of the show. Besides that, more women take important roles through the story. Working at the same company in which Deirdre is the CEO, other women represent important roles through the episodes. Besides the important functions that women represent in this company, the TV show revolves around Evie. She was about to get married, but decided to live a crazy adventure with an unknow man. The facts evolving her attitudes and the way that each episode is going to end up are based on her decisions of what to do about her live.

TV shows always try to please their audience. Thinking about it, I was wondering if the roles were switched, what would have happen? If Evie was the crazy guy and the guy was the one that left his wife to live an adventure with an unknow girl. Would society judge the guy the same way as the girl would if the roles were to be switched?The audience would be different, and different comments would come up. Trying to end with the portrayed gender representation, I think that TV shows should start approaching this matter differently. They should show the opposite of our society, they should end with genders portrayed, they should end with defined roles that you have to take. We should be free to represent whatever we want and not be predefined by our society. Looking up to achieve this result, TV shows can be an excellent way to enforce this idea.

Living Life

By Caio Pumputis

On October 16, 2018

In Review Topic 4

In the episode that I will talk about, Xavier, the crazy guy who thinks that the world is going to end soon, got a job at the same company that Evie works at. She is the girl that left her “almost husband” to live an ‘adventure’ with Xavier. They wanted to do things that they always wanted to do before the world ends. Most of the workers at this company were dissatisfied with their job and did not enjoy their careers and what they had to do every day. They always complete the same mundane task every day, and with each passing day they become less and less content with their lives. When Xavier got this job, just to make she happy, he changed the way that things worked, making the work easier and way more fun. He convinced all the workers that life is too short to get into a rut. After convincing workers to do their roles in the way that they like without affecting the production of the company, the profit and production rise and company started make more money. However, even with the increase in profit, they got stopped by the director for being out of the pattern and formal way of work.

Considering all the episodes and analyzing them, I think that the message that this TV show is trying to show us is, if we do what we like and if we do what makes us happy, we will have way more fun and we will live life more ‘easily.’ Everything in our lives can be taken as learning and it is up to us to make this decision. We have priorities in our life and have to choose what make us happier. Xavier does not like to work, but he is happy living his decision. Choose what makes you happy and live life the best way you can. “Don’t worry about a thing, cause every little thing going to be all right.”

‘No tomorrow”, the unpredictable TV Show

By Caio Pumputis

On September 25, 2018

In Review Topic 3

For today’s post I will be writing about cinematography. ‘No Tomorrow’ is my TV Show choice. The TV Show is composed of one season with thirteen episodes. The main scenes of each episode happen at the same place. They change a little bit when Xavier Holliday (the ‘crazy’ guy who says that the end of the world is coming) tries to do his crazy list with Evie Covington (woman who left her “almost” husband to ‘live’ with Xavier and also help him to do his crazy list). Considering all 13 episodes, the show’s shots are short, there is no long scenes in which people talk with each other without interruptions. Conversations are also short and when a debate comes up, there are a lot of breaks showing people’s faces. There is also no dramatic change from one episode to another. The places that the shots are taken are always the same besides the exception that I mentioned earlier. In my point of view, it makes it easier to understand the continuity of the TV show. You can have a sense of where people are and automatically associate them with their respective names. I my opinion, short shots like this are better than long and boring shots. I have not seen any TV shows with long and annoying shots on Netflix.

I do not like to watch TV show at all because some of them are really long and I am always busy. However, ‘No Tomorrow’ has just one season with thirteen episodes. It encourage me to watch and pay attention to every single detail. Besides this positive point in my opinion, the TV show is also unpredictable, I never know what is going to happen which makes me feel interested, and it makes me want to keep binge watching without interruptions. In addiction to these facts, the first ‘page picture’ caught my attention because Xavier looks happy but Evie looks worried about something. The sky with some clouds on the background makes me think that they are ‘going crazy’ when they’re trying to do their list before the world ends.

The different ‘roles’ of men and women on Television

By Caio Pumputis

On September 20, 2018

In Annotated Bibliography

Source 1: Zemach, Tamar and Akiba A. Cohen. “Perception of Gender Equality on Television and in Social Reality.” Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, vol. 30, no. 4, Fall86, pp. 427-444. EBSCOhost,

prx.library.gatech.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=31721977&site=ehost-live.

‘Perception of Gender Equality on Television and in Social Reality.’ ‘This study examined the differential perceptions of men and women as they appear on television as an example of symbolic reality and the way they are perceived in social reality.’ The article talks about a few researches that claim the same fact: The Television is behind the real society. This is because television tends to be more traditional (men with more independence and power than women) because the big mass that watches television feels more represented by this format of ‘roles’ that each gender has. This should be changed, and as the research assumes, if we change the way that we represent our roles on television, the faster we are going to assimilate equality in the real world. But, as Television are always behind the real society, men are still being shown occupying more ‘respectful’ jobs than women do.

This article will be useful as we are going to talk about how society also makes a difference when we are talking about differences in representation roles on Television. The TV is based on concepts that we are living in.

Source 2: Sink, Alexander and Dana Mastro. “Depictions of Gender on Primetime Television: A Quantitative Content Analysis.” Mass Communication & Society, vol. 20, no. 1, Jan/Feb2017, pp. 3-22. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/15205436.2016.1212243.

http://prx.library.gatech.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=120555345&site=ehost-live

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15205436.2016.1212243?scroll=top&needAccess=true

‘Depictions of Gender on Primetime Television: A Quantitative Content Analysis.’ It analyzes the different representation of men and women on Primetime Television. A study looked through 89 different programs and 1,254 characters were identified. This study showed how genders are seen and depicted to society on Primetime television. This also explains that women did not hit the ‘golden age’ because we have changed a lot compared to past decades, men are shown as the more dominant gender in society than women still.

A lot of resources were used to analyze the difference on Primetime television. This article is worth reading because it is useful, entertaining, and easy to read. Even with all these changes in gender representation that we have been through, we still have a ‘discrimination’ against women representing higher roles in society on tv programs. Due to this rejection, women are still be seeing as inferior compared with men.

Source 3: FURNHAM, ADRIAN and STEPHANIE PALTZER. “The Portrayal of Men and Women in Television Advertisements: An Updated Review of 30 Studies Published since 2000.” Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, vol. 51, no. 3, June 2010, pp. 216-236. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1111/j.1467-9450.2009.00772.x

http://prx.library.gatech.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=50385747&site=ehost-live

‘The portrayal of men and women in television advertisements: An updated review of 30 studies published since 2000.’ This article studied the sex roles stereotype in television commercials, from reviewed 30 papers over 20 countries around the world. Besides the different representations related with age, ethnic, and gender, the main focus of this article is to show how men and women are portrayed differently on television advertisements. It is due to a change in our real society. Advertisements that were effective a few years ago are not good enough for our today’s society. The article also showed some studies proving that sex representation and ‘aggressive’ humor do not work as most people think.

This article is great because we can analyze how this stereotype have been changed from past years until now. It also says that some advertisements are pre-defined for men or predefined for women because they tend to be the consumers of certain products.

Source 4: Kircher, J. C. (2007). Another look at gender roles in prime -time television (Order No. 3289592). Available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses A&I; ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Full Text. (304818535). Retrieved from

http://prx.library.gatech.edu/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.prx.library.gatech.edu/docview/304818535?accountid=11107

‘Another look at gender roles in prime -time television.’ This article is an ‘update’ of ‘Depictions of Gender on Primetime Television: A Quantitative Content Analysis.’ Both articles talk about how men and women are represented, how they are portrayed and how people see this pre-defined roles for each gender on Primetime Television. In this specific article 2,968 scenes and 24,994 interactions of male and female characters in the scenes were implied. This studied also affirms that role on Primetime Television have not changed much. Men still represent the traditional and more powerful position in comparison with women. Beside men have been doing more socio-emotional behaviors, they are still doing more task-oriented and directive behaviors. ‘Thus, men continue to be presented in primarily traditional male gender roles.’

Showing how our Primetime television still divided and defined by the traditional society, this article will be interesting to debate. Men changing for ‘women’s’ roles and still being represented as more powerful than women through the years can be a good topic to be discussed.

Source 5: Price, C. J., & Wulff, S. S. (2005). Does sex make a difference? job satisfaction of television network news correspondents. Women’s Studies in Communication, 28(2), 207-234. Retrieved from

http://prx.library.gatech.edu/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.prx.library.gatech.edu/docview/198297768?accountid=11107

‘Does Sex Make a Difference? Job Satisfaction of Television Network News Correspondents.’ This article shows the difference of women satisfactory, women salary, and how women are being welcome on Television Network compared with men. The study reveal that: ‘women are significantly younger, and have fewer years of service at one network and total years in network news than do men.’ Besides we still have men predominance in the Television network, studies affirm that it has been changed. ‘In 2002, all stations in the top 25 markets had women on their news staffs. Women made up 39% of the news workforce, including 26% of news directors, 33% of assistant news directors, 50% of executive producers, 64% of news producers, 57% of news anchors and 58% of news reporters (Papper & Gerhard, 2002).’

This study can be easily used for us. The different age of entry and the difference permanency in a television company are numbers that can be debated. It is also an interesting article because claims that women are more unsatisfied than men about their work environment.

Source 6: Corfield, J. (2017). Network vs. netflix: A comparative content analysis of demographics across prime-time television and netflix original programming (Order No. 10259826). Available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses A&I; ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Full Text. (1927181818). Retrieved from

http://prx.library.gatech.edu/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.prx.library.gatech.edu/docview/1927181818?accountid=11107

‘Network vs. Netflix: A Comparative Content Analysis of Demographics Across Prime-Time Television and Netflix Original Programming.’ This article talks about women and men roles on Television and Netflix. It also talks about black, homosexual people.

This article is really interesting for our research because it has a lot of numbers claiming the huge and indiscriminate difference between sex and race. One more thing that make this article attractive was that it also mention Netflix researches (as our class talk a lot about TV shows, I thought this one would be interesting). The number of characters who held power on Primetime TV and Netflix are way unequal: ‘Of the total number of characters who held power in prime-time television, only 26.6% were female; almost three times fewer than the 73.4% of male characters. The Netflix platform yielded an even greater number of male characters that held power with 79.6%, however, only 20.4% of characters with power were female.’

Knowing Corinne Brinkerhoff

By Caio Pumputis

On September 11, 2018

In Review Topic 1, Review Topic 3, Review Topic 4

As I wrote in my Intro blog, I ended up choosing ‘No Tomorrow’ because it was my sister’s advice. Since my sister has great taste, I am enjoying it so much that I cannot wait to see what is going to happen at the end of the last episode. My first impression was not that good but it has a twist and it has been better than I thought that It was going to be. The writer of ‘No Tomorrow’ is a woman called Corinne Brinkerhoff. She began working in television in 2004 and became a writer in 2006. In 2007 she became a story editor and further on, she became executivestory editor. Before ‘No Tomorrow’ , she had previously written some other TV shows, such as ‘Boston Legal’ from 2006 to 2008, ‘The Good Wife’ from 2009 to 2012, her most recently ‘No Tomorrow,’ that is based on the 2012 Brazilian series “How to enjoy the End of the World,’ among others. In between these TV shows, her second one (The Good Wife) was nominated for the Writers Guild of America Award for the New Series in 2010.

Talking a little bit more about why this TV show stands out to me, I can say that every episode is a surprise. When I think that I know what is going to happen, the writer gives us something unexpected and completely new. I am excited to see what is going to happen at the end.

Besides all of these unexpected directions that the TV show takes, she chose to add some pauses in the middle of each episode. These pauses are a completely blackout and it happens during an interesting scene when you get excited to see what is happening. It makes you curious about the way that the scene is going to take and make you watch more and more episodes.

I am Not From Here

By Caio Pumputis

On September 4, 2018

In Intro Post

Hi all! My name is Caio Pumputis, it is my second year at Tech and I am pursuing business as my major. I am from Brazil and I want to graduate as soon as possible so I can go back home get a job and spend more time with my family.

Since I am not from the US, I had to take three English classes before ENGL-1102. I really liked all of them. They were really helpful for my growing as a student at Tech. After these classes I can say that I learned a lot with them and, I am excited to learn even more with ENGL-1102. Considering all five modes of communication, I can say that I am not bad at reading or writing. The real problem is when I have to present something or talk formally. It happens because I am not from here, and my vocabulary still needs to be improved. However, taking this course, I want to improve my oral skill and also my desire to read.

I am not a TV fanatic and I have not spent a long time watching Netflix. When I start watching some TV shows, I always get bored and I stop watching them. The last Netflix show that I watched was “The Shooter.” Right after I started, I found the film about the show and I stopped watching the show because the film is shorter and straighter. Everything that I wanted.

Me telling people how classes are vs how they actually are

As I am not a big fan of TV shows, I ended up choosing “No Tomorrow”, following my sister’s advice. It is a comedy show in which a guy and a girl believe that the world is going to end soon. Believing this, they created a list of things to do before it happens. They wanted to enjoy life to the fullest. I am excited to get on it, and I am sure that I will like it, since my sister recommended it to me.

English 1102: Television and Feminism

Dr. Casey Alane Wilson • Georgia Institute of Technology

Author: Caio Pumputis

Final thoughts

Do we have a pattern to follow?

Living Life

‘No tomorrow”, the unpredictable TV Show

The different ‘roles’ of men and women on Television

Knowing Corinne Brinkerhoff

Talking a little bit more about why this TV show stands out to me, I can say that every episode is a surprise. When I think that I know what is going to happen, the writer gives us something unexpected and completely new. I am excited to see what is going to happen at the end.

I am Not From Here

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