English 1102: Television and Feminism

Dr. Casey Alane Wilson • Georgia Institute of Technology

Tag: 1102tvfem (Page 1 of 7)

Fresh off the Meaning of TV

For my final post, I figured I’d review what I thought the show was trying to tell us overall. I began my blog talking about the themes of the show, and progressed to talk about the role of gender in the show. Because I did these heavy- hitting topics towards the beginning of my blog, I feel that it could be useful to revisit now that I’ve seen more and been able to have a clearer idea of how these review topics have influenced the overall meaning of the show.

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look back at it

The show revolved around central abstracts like feminism, gender roles, family dynamics, and immigration.  The show was first aired in primetime in the slot directly following Modern Family, a telling fact which I missed in earlier reviews. This shows the audience that they were targeting as set up by the viewers of Modern Family and can indicate the style the show follows. Both shows are a little sarcastic, comedic, family-friendly sitcoms with adult twists here and there to keep it interesting for the adult viewers. They are overall family friendly but make a point to revolve around key social issues like homosexual marriage, mixed families, immigration, women’s roles, and more. This pattern holds their target audience and is extended through the show’s presence on the online streaming network Hulu. The show wants to have its audience but make its point too.

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yes, you can be both fully Asian and fully American

Fresh off the Boat normalizes and brings down to earth characters which challenge the norm. The main female lead is very much in control of her family and leads her husband in many ways, being a strong-willed yet feminine and sweet character. The father is an Asian-American immigrant who is pursuing the American Dream. These characters border on satirizing the norms of American culture and bring to light the ‘melting pot’ aspect of American culture in a positive and endearing way. This results in not only a huge following but also a meaningful one which reflects that these ideas will have an effect on mainstream culture with its audience.

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A sense of empathy

Sense 8 is written by Lana and Lilly Wachowski. They are both trans women, formally known as the Wachowski brothers. They were the writers of The Matrix (1999) an iconic movie. After discovering this the show Sense8 now makes a lot of sense. They are both elaborate, reality questioning works of science fictions.

 

Particularly, Sense8’s writing is very unique- unlike anything I have seen before. This is a serious science fiction drama. Unlike many TV shows, including those of science fiction, there is no comedic relief. Everything every character says is deliberate and includes a specific meaning or message. This deliberate style is used intentionally to captivate the viewer. This is not the show to put on in the background while you are eating dinner or doing homework. You have to pay attention. You want to pay attention.

 

Not only is the deliberacy of the timing- when dialogue is used- captivating, but the diction picked out is used so beautifully to convey the deeper elements of human emotion that people often have trouble describing for themselves.

 

We all struggle to understand our emotions. The premise of this show is to make ourselves question our understanding of ourselves and the relationships within our lives. By having the eight main character be connected by something so much stronger than normal human connection. Something so strong that they can feel what each other is feeling emotionally allows for the greater exploration of human empathy.

 

The writing as seen through the dialogue of this show can demonstrate how this message is portrayed. After Lito has gotten his world rocked by the end of his relationship with Hernando, now his ex-boyfriend, he sits in the Diego Rivera Museum contemplating love and his fear of coming out. Lito describes his first kiss with Hernando to Nomi as a ‘religious experience’, but he is still afraid that he will ‘lose everything’ he has worked for in his career by coming out. Even though it is clear that he has already lost so much from losing Hernando. Nomi helps him evaluate his life by describing that at some point she learned that there is ‘a huge difference between what we work for and what we live for’.

 

This dialogue between Lito and Nomi helps everyone contemplate their priorities in life and where the love in their life stems from. For every viewer the reaction to this scene is different, but I felt grateful for the people in my life and reminded that school is not the end all be all.

“The Wachowskis.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 25 Nov. 2018, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wachowskis

The Battle Between Evil and Lesser Evil

After having watched the finale of Jessica Jones, it feels like all the scattered pieces of thematic conflict have come together, and a coherent message emerged. In fact, it’s explicitly brought up by the nurse as she talks to Jessica about her superpowered friend. And in this conversation, we get a better explanation of why Jessica can’t be anyone’s hero: she doesn’t know if what she’s doing is right or wrong. We’ve seen her struggle with guilt all season long as Kilgrave kills innocent people around them as a way to threaten her to act a certain way. The recurrence of this makes her feel like she leaves a trail of death behind her, making her question if killing Kilgrave is worth all the innocent people that may die because of it. This hesitation suggests to the audience that the line between good and bad is not always so clear-cut, and I think this is the main theme of the show. Sometimes, doing the right thing means putting a lot of people in danger.

In the conversation with the nurse, Jessica asks her, “How is he so sure he’s the good guy?”, referring to the nurse’s friend. In that moment, we get to see the question she’s been asking herself all this time, is she even the good guy? With all that blood seemingly on her hands, it’s understandable why she has moments of self-doubt. In fact, in the final battle, she must first pass through a crowd of people ordered to kill each other, to then defeat him by putting the person she cares about most in danger. This is what made Kilgrave so powerful: he could control Jessica by manipulating her guilt. As long as she felt guilty, he was untouchable. So, in a very un-glorious fashion, she must ignore the innocent lives in danger to finally kill Kilgrave. No wonder she doesn’t feel like a hero, even after terminating such a monster. As season 1 rolls to a close and Jessica deletes the messages of people asking for her help, we see that even after everything, she doesn’t see herself as the good guy everyone else does.

Above: Here, Jessica must hand over the most important person to her, her adoptive sister Trish, in order to kill Kilgrave.

Cinematic Crash

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Image of the plane crash from Scandal S1E

Good evening, people. I am signing on just one more time. In my last blog post, I plan to revisit cinematic elements in the Scandal show, but in episode 5, “Crash and Burn”. The cinematographers capitalize on portions of the show where characters face tragedy and crises. Specifically, the cinematographic tactics used when Olivia and her team see the plane crash site and when they listen to the black box recording of the crash.

This episode begins with the disappearance of Pope and Associates’ client, Amanda Tanner. The team goes into a frenzy and cameras switch quickly between their faces as they scramble around. The show then suddenly cuts to Quinn and Harrison stumbling down a hillside to discover the horror of a deadly plane crash. The cameras flash horrific images of burned plane pieces, smoking fabrics, scattered clothes, and even dismembered body parts. Then, it pans back to the shocked faces of Quinn and Harrison. Dramatic music plays in the background and there is a grim filter on the lens as it blinks between these somber pictures. I believe Rhimes and her directors wanted Scandal viewers to feel the gravity of the situation just as Quinn and Harrison were experiencing. Olivia and her client, the husband of the plane’s pilot, visit the site later, and the somber mood is amplified by the client’s explanation that the red flags symbolized parts of passengers bodies. The cameras then proceed to pan around the crash site to demonstrate the hundreds of red flags scattered throughout the smothering plane pieces and all along the ground.

However, I think the most cinematographically intense scene occurs when Olivia and her team must listen to the black box recording of the crash. The pilots start out just conversing between each other in a friendly manner and the camera remains zoomed out at a long distance from the team while they listen. But, as the action picks up and the crewmembers become increasingly stressed, the camera starts focusing in closely on the facial expressions of Olivia’s team. Eventually, the camera starts cutting faster and faster between their horrified faces as the recording on the box intensifies. Finally, after all this action has built up, the camera stops on Olivia’s face, which fills the entire frame, at the exact moment that the plane crashes and the audio cuts out. Thus, viewers are left with her intense look filling the screen and it is completely silent. This very dramatic sequence of cinematographic elements increases the heart rate and suspense of viewers as they watch and listen carefully to this scene, just as the team’s heart rate and suspense rose when they listened to the black box recording.

Therefore, I believe in this episode of Scandal,  the cinematographers desire to use their filmographic art to connect the viewers to the emotions and experiences of Olivia and her team.

Beige is the New Orange is the New Black

Saved the best for last. For this final blog post, I’m going to be writing about the cinematography of Orange is the New Black, focusing on the seventh episode of Season 1, ”Blood Donut.”

The color scheme of the show has the most visual definition, or lack thereof, of any of the other aspects of visual design in the show. The show features very little orange or black, in fact, the most prominent color present is beige. Beige is not only the color of the prisoners’ uniforms, but it also saturates the walls and floors of Litchfield. Even the grass within the prison fences is slightly dead rendering it brown, and the trees surrounding the prison are winterized. Even outside, muted earth tones remain the dominant color scheme. In the outside world, colors are far more pronounced and are clearly brighter. Earth tones seemingly remain the primary color scheme, dark brown and beige being replaced with cream and yellow, but there are flashes of bright colors that break this monotony. These are absent in the prison. Lighting contributes to this visual difference between the two places: in the prison lighting is almost constantly white fluorescent, which is colder, and natural light is almost always absent. Outside of prison, lighting is either warm natural daylight or warm, dim, and yellow incandescent lighting.

So much beige

Another visual choice that greatly impacts the show is its shot selection. The show uses a lot of close up shots, framing the faces of its characters. This is effective as Orange is the New Black is, at its core, a show that focuses on all of its characters, their stories, and their experiences, with their being in prison serving as merely a plot device. Even during dialogue, characters are often framed individually while speaking, letting the audience focus more on what they’re saying. Another aspect of shot selection the show uses well is intermittent long takes. These are used not to increase dramatic effect as they normally are, but to highlight the monotony of prison life by lingering on more mundane moments.

Orange is the New Black is a show that revolves around its excellent visual design and character development. It may miss the target in terms of short term plot as a result of looking long term, but sticking with the show makes the viewers appreciate its core tenets. Using this, the show makes important points about the prison system and the lives of women, while remaining entertaining.

“‘Orange Is the New Black’ Blood Donut.” IMDb, IMDb.com, www.imdb.com/title/tt2595996/mediaindex?ref_=tt_mv_close.

A Sense of Culture

One of the highlights of Sense 8 is its ability to capture the complexities of many different cultures.  In particular is focus on the toxic masculinity of machismo culture. Machismo culture is a way of behaving that coincides with the traditional ideas about men being very strong, aggressive and emotionless. This is a part of many cultures but strongly evident in the show by Lito’s story. Lito is a gay mexican actor who has been hiding in the closet his entire career. The Machismo culture very evident in Latin American and South American Countries has forced him to play the role of a straight man in his everyday life.

 

Lito’s character believes that his entire career will be destroyed if anyone ever finds out his secret. This is evident in the scene where Dani’s ex-lover breaks into Lito’s apartment, steals Dani’s phone, and attempts to blackmail Lito with pornographic photos of Lito and Hernando (Lito’s Boyfriend). In an attempt to right her wrongs, Dani goes to her ex-lover and arranges to marry him in order to save Lito’s career. Lito lets his friend return into an abusive relationship so as to save his career. The Mexican machismo culture has forced Lito to make arguably toxic decisions.

 

Furthermore, Dani’s ex-lover, Joaquin, is a more traditional example of machismo culture. He admittedly tries to become the overly aggressive and controlling man his father was. Demonstrating how the culture passes down this toxic masculinity through generations. Joaquin even tried to rationalize his use of physical abuse towards Dani by saying ‘this is Mexico’ as if the normalization of domestic abuse makes it morally okay.

 

Toxic masculinity is evident everywhere in this show and is even plot driving.

 

Lito’s decision to let Dani exile herself for his career was a driving factor for Hernando to break up with Lito. This leaves the question…Will Lito come out?? And IF so what are the effects???

Sierra Villarreal

New Girl, Old Family Ties

The episode “San Diego” in New Girl’s sixth season deals with a lot of family relations and how they shape character.

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Schmidt telling Winston about his first name

The episode begins with Schmidt upset because he can not name his charity after his nickname, “Schmidt,” which also happens to be his last name. He must start using the first name that his parents gave him, “Winston”. This is an relevant dilemma because it represents him leaving his family ties and naming something after himself. It is a transition into him becoming an individual- he reveals his true identity at the same time he creates something for himself. However, it creates a conflict because his best friend’s name is also Winston. At the end, friendship and normalcy prevails, and Schmidt goes back to being called “Schmidt”. However, the main deciding factor is that his wife, Cece, feels weird calling him “Winston,” and that is what is most important to him- the new family he will create with her.

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Schmidt realizes what matters most

Jess has also entered an interesting family situation when she moves back in with her father for a few days to avoid seeing Nick. She somewhat sinks back into to her childhood role- she is bickering with her father, not listening, and saying she doesn’t want ice cream. However, by the end of the episode, Jess and her father stop bickering because they form a new mature adult family relationship. Jess helps her father get out of his lonely single life by getting him a date, and he does the same for her. He still fills his father role, though, by asking Nick a question to test his character before he gives his approval.

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Jess’ dad- full of good advice

Winston is also facing a new family dilemma. Ally has found his father, who isn’t in his life. She has his phone number and encourages Winston to call him. Initially, he does not, but with time and bravery, he finds the courage to call his father in attempt to form a new family relationship. He tells his father about his upcoming marriage, so Winston is, in fact, getting two new family members.

 

All Great Things Must Come to an End

ABC’s The Middle aired its last episode on May 22nd of this year.  However, according to recent news, ABC will pilot a spin off of The Middle featuring Sue Heck as the main character.  This post will dive further into the depiction of Sue Heck on the original show and how this portrayal relates to the typical teenage girl.

News of the spin off appeared just recently.

 

Sue Heck contrasts with much of the show.  She is incredibly enthusiastic and cheery despite the bland environment surrounding her.  Unfortunately for Sue, she is also very awkward goes largely unnoticed with everything she does.  Much of her storyline consists of her struggles trying to fit in and find any talent through persistent rejection of clubs and activities.  She’s not concerned with, or aware of, what’s cool among her peers.  Often Sue gets very set on her goals and aspirations but goes to the wrong places for success and acceptance.

If there’s any message reminding us that it’s okay to fail, it surely lies within Sue’s story.  It seems as though Sue will never figure out life during her teenage adventures.  She still has her whole life ahead of her, though, and nothing will stop her from trying something and learning from it.  Although the number of failures may be a little bit of a stretch, Sue’s condition isn’t uncommon.  It’s unfair to act as if most teenagers don’t face challenges learning who they are and how life works.  The Middle really nails the parenting situation too, as it’s not easy to be the parents of kids that age.  The important thing to note is that Sue, like most kids her age, has her whole life ahead of her with every option to choose who she wants to be.

Sue always seemed to be on an emotional roller coaster but still somehow kept an upbeat personality.

I am looking forward to learning more of this new Sue Heck spinoff.  Many of today’s popular TV shows fail to capture a teenage girl’s life quite like The Middle does.  The new show will present Sue at an older age.  We know there will be struggles in her future life…how could the show go on without classic Sue screwups?  However, I am excited to see how ABC will illustrate the working life and adult successes of a grown-up Sue Heck, one who never really had life mastered as a teenager.

All great things must come to an end, but the legacy lives on.  Just as Sue will continue the legacy for The Middle, my experiences from this project will carry with me through life.  I’ve truly enjoyed analyzing the various aspects of The Middle.  Although I doubt I will write future blog posts, the way in which I evaluate shows is forever changed from this assignment.

Crazy Ex Girlfriend and the Jewish Problem

When I started watching Crazy Ex Girlfriend, I was extremely excited to see Rebecca Bunch’s character, not only because of the way the show was lauded for portraying her mental illness, and her hilarious musical numbers, but also because of the simple fact that she was Jewish. I was excited to see a single Jewish woman at the helm of a show, and I assumed her Judaism would be a real part of her character, not just played for laughs. I was expecting another Mrs. Maisel, who fabulously combined the humor of Jewish life with actual insights as to what it means to be a Jew. I thought that with Rachel Bloom writing and portraying the character, who once wrote a whole Chanukah album entitled “Suck it, Christmas!!” that Judaism would be an integral part of Rebecca. But unfortunately, I was wrong.

Rebecca’s Judaism is exactly the kind of Judaism I see in sitcom characters everywhere: Full of family stereotypes, only relevant as a joke, and, don’t you worry, she still celebrates Christmas. Her Judaism really only comes out when she’s dealing with her obsessive and controlling mother (read: Jewish Mother stereotype to a T), waging a legal battle against her New York nemesis (read: Jewish American Princess stereotypes), or talking about all the bagels she eats (which, to be fair, bagels are pretty great). Other than that, Judaism has absolutely no meaning in Rebecca’s life. She observes no holidays, takes part in a “California Christmas” with seasonal cheer, and has no connection to a Jewish community beyond her mother. In a word, it’s disappointing. 

Rebecca isn’t even an accurate depiction of most Jewish millennials. While many don’t attend synagogue on the regular, or ever, there is still a strong sense of community that drives young Jewish adults together and causes them to seek each other’s company. I know many Jews who were brought up with no religion, and yet strongly identify as Jewish and regularly attend non religious Jewish events. What makes Rebecca’s character truly sad to me is that she’s not accurate- she’s palatable.

When I say palatable, I mean specifically to Gentile audiences that have no idea of Judaism beyond Chanukah, the Holocaust, and a few odd jokes and stereotypes. Rebecca makes no jokes about being Jewish that run any danger of being incomprehensible to Gentiles. Her ethno-religious background is simply a font of jokes, as significant as any other small quirk.

I don’t know why, but it seems that Jewish writers, the ones that rightfully should be creating a diversity of Jewish characters, can only seem to write us in generalities calculated to appeal to anyone but us. 

“Do you mean to tell me you’re trading 8 nights of presents for just one? What the hell is wrong with you??”

Friends: To Change Them or not to Change Them?

     Over all of my past blog posts, I’ve mentioned the way in which a given element of New Girl, whether it be cinematography, writing, or thematic explorations, change the way in which the main characters of the show are developed. For this last post, I’d like to dive deeper into how Jess, the focus of the show, is portrayed and how her relationship with the other characters is vital in bridging the gap between the absurd hi-jinks in which they find themselves and the grounded, relatable reality of their friendships.

     In the episode “Control” (S1E16), Jess compromises the very structure of the friends’ dynamics when she attempts to, and successfully convinces, Schmidt to stop his borderline germaphobe habits just so he stops nagging her over the cleanliness of the loft. However, by bringing Schmidt’s personality into question, Jess throw both the apartment itself and her friend group into disarray, and she has to spend the rest of the episode undoing her mistake.

 

Schmidt trades in his business casuals for a drug rug. What has Jess done…

 

     Beyond just creating an entertaining plot, this episode demonstrates the significance each characters’ personality has on the functionality of the show. By directly questioning a core trait of Schmidt’s personality, “Control” acts as a nod to the way in which writers craft a character to fill a particular niche in the show: though pretentious and arrogant, Schmidt’s cleanliness and housekeeping rules balance out the much looser habits and general dispositions of Winston and Nick while also grounding the optimism and spontaneity of Jess. The show works because each character fills a particular archetype, and the interaction between these archetypes contributes to the appeal of the show. Thus, when Jess tries to change the personality of her friend, she is also affecting the very fabric of her friend group and the fundamental appeal each character has to the show’s viewers.

     While there are many facets to New Girl that can be analyzed to explain how the show functions, it is ultimately the relationships between the unique and carefully planned characters which lends a special charm to the series.

 

Netflix. “New Girl S1:E16 ‘Control’.” Online Video Clip. Netflix. Netflix, 2018. Web.                

13 Nov. 2018.

GA Tackling Gender Biased Representation In Medicine

After doing more than just “watching” Grey’s Anatomy, and actually understanding what composes and makes this show such a success, I decided to do a blog post based on how has has gender representation made this long-time running show an accomplishment.

In first instance some may say Grey’s Anatomy female power caught a lot of people’s attention, and some other may say it is the drama related to the female to male relationships that actually make it interesting. However, for me, is the fact that Grey’s Anatomy has managed to tackle down medicine’s gender biased day to day image what has inspired the audience to continue watching and to make a difference when fighting for women rights and equality.

To support the statement presented in the previous paragraph, there are several elements of the show that we could analyze in order to understand how Grey’s Anatomy tumbles down gender biased representation in the area of the medicine. First of all, female characters are the principal “hard-core” workers of the show. Going from the chief of surgery to the head of each speciality, and even to the interns that just arrived, there’s always a majority of female characters that stand out to be better doctors than many of the men who end up giving up or feeling nervous next to their co-workers (just as it happened with Alex at the very beginning of the show where he felt intimidated by Meredith and her innate ability). Additionally, the show also treats sexism in medicine as a principal theme that tends to be ignored in most real-life cases. In one of the last episodes that have been released, Miranda Bailey (the chief of surgery) gets a heart attack. Through this event, she is taken to the hospital where she has to address the fact that “cleaning the house”, “taking care of the children”, or “wasting too much time doing chores”, weren’t stress factors  (that could’ve caused her sickness) present in her life, as she actually worked the hardest she could. This is very important as this image has come to be the reflection of many women’s life in the contemporary world.

No caption needed. Dr. Bailey breaking gender stereotypes to its fullest

In conclusion, if there is a way to make a show successful nowadays, breaking gender representation biased image in professional roles is definitely the way to go. Grey’s Anatomy (and Shonda Rhyme’s shows in general) have managed to show this for over 10 years of emotional and wonderful seasons that have created a special bond between women who aspire to thrive in life and do more than what everyone simply tends to believe they “should do”.

Has Piper Changed?

From the first episode of Orange is the New Black to the last season one episode of Orange is the New Black “Fool Me Once”, it is observable that Piper has changed mentally and demeanor-wise throughout this first season. I mainly explored the episode “Fool Me Once”, and noted various personalities that Piper tackles on and her responses to everyday prison events. The most notable difference is her change in tone and voice. In this episode, Piper speaks with a monotone and plain tone and has no emotion when she speaks. Compared to the first episode, Piper had constant emotion when speaking, and was not afraid to let out what she was feeling. As a result of the beatdown of prison life has her emotions toned down, making her seem depressed and more suppressed as a human being. Her reaction to new events in the prison has her bottling up her emotions more and more and having outbursts of anger at times in the episode. An example is seen when Alex confronted Piper about Piper ignoring her and one time in the kitchen when they were alone, Piper pushes Alex multiple times, screams in her face, and unleashes her anger when a few moments before that, she was simply lumber and ignorant of Alex’s actions.

In the first few episodes, after being scared deeply by the prison life, Piper hid in a corner and rarely wanted to socialize with anyone because of the fear of doing something or someone wrong. However, as she started to acclimate throughout the episodes and stepped out of her limits, Piper was not afraid to step up to take leadership roles and confront any inmates, as after going through so much trauma daily, there became virtually nothing that would faze her anymore. In a way, although Piper became stronger as a person and more will-powered. However, it is questionable regarding the amount of PTSD Piper will suffer when she gets out of prison, as it seems like with her personality shifting, her presence seems to decrease with each additional trauma.

Piper Chapman, the main character of the show.

We Can All Relate to The Bold Type

It is hard to believe that a show centered around the lives of three women would be so popular, but as The Bold Type gets ready to air its third season, we can all see that people must really love it! I started watching the show when it first came on television, much earlier than the start of these blog posts. I loved the show before, and I love it now! Just like every other viewer, I was drawn in by the drama and stayed for the storyline. I felt as though I could relate to each of the characters, even when the problems were issues that I had never faced personally, the show made it where I could sympathize, and with a fictional character nonetheless. I think that is the mastery behind the intrigue of The Bold Type. The writers tell a story and present an issue that maybe not every person has faced, but that is portrayed in a scope that allows the audience to draw similarities.

For instance, in the first season, Sutton is faced with a difficult decision of having to choose between her love life and her work and in the end, she chooses her work. The work environment she is in judges her capabilities on who she is dating rather than her actual talent. She should not have to pick between the two, but she has to in order to keep the respect of the people around her.

There are probably not that many people who watch the show that have a story exactly like Sutton’s, but there are a lot of women who are constantly fighting to gain the respect of others simply because they are female. It is a sad truth that though society has come far, there is still judgment and that may never go away completely. Yet, shows like The Bold Type allows women to relate and to know they are not the only ones and people come back to that kind of show. We are all different, but we all deserve the knowledge that life is challenging for all of us and though those challenges are not the same we can still find support, whether in friends, family, or in tv shows like The Bold Type.

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Sutton from The Bold Type

Careers in Jessica Jones

This is my final blog post for this class. At first, I didn’t know what to write about, but then I remembered the topic of my info graphic project, the portrayal of career women on television. So today I will be doing just that, analyzing the careers of women on Jessica Jones and comparing them to men.

The main character, Jessica, is a private investigator as her main job. She investigates and finds information that her clients want, and she is pretty good at it. Trish Walker, Jessica’s best friend, is a famous celebrity who was on many TV shows as a child and now has a talk show. Hogarth is a very good lawyer and owns an establishment that wins almost every case. Hogarth’s ex works in the medical field as a doctor. Already, Jessica Jones looks to be doing great things for feminism and television. Not only do they have female leads, but they help further the movement by taking women out of their original representation and moving them more equal to men.

The men on Jessica Jones have very standard jobs. We have Malcolm, an ex druggy who lives in a rundown apartment next to Jessica. There is Luke Cage, who owns a small bar in the city. Kilgrave is the main villain who can control people with his voice. Will Simpson is a cop with a military background. The men on this show have typical jobs with nothing too out of the ordinary.

Jessica Jones Cast

Looking at the careers of both men and women on Jessica Jones, women seem to have better and higher paying careers than men. Typically on TV shows, women rarely have high paying jobs or work in important fields, but Jessica Jones is littered with them. This helps show how much Jessica Jones is doing for feminism. They are furthering women on television and making them more accurate with real life. This is very important. In the past, a women was lucky to even have a job on television, much less be working in a STEM field. Jessica Jones shows how far TV has come, and how much more there is to come for television.

How Jess matches up to other Female Leads

While watching New Girl, I have thought heavily about other shows that have prevalent female leads. These shows include The Mindy Project, How to Get Away with Murder, Gossip Girl etc. This made me delve deeper into how different Jess is from the usual female lead. Usual female leads are characterized as very dominant and powerful characters in relation to the other characters in the show. But in this show, Jess is a female character who has a lot of personalities but is not an overwhelming and overly powerful character in comparison to the heavy male presence that this show has.

Jess being weird per usual

For example, when comparing Jess to a character like Annalease Keating, even though these two shoes are from different genres, Jess is much more light. But also, there is evidence that the type of character that the New Girl writers created for Jess is not as original as it seems. This is in reference to characters such as Mindy from the Mindy project. Mindy is characterized as someone who is quirky and weird in the best way. Her humor is the best part of her. Jess is somewhat the same way as the people grow to love her and appreciate her for who she is. Besides this, Jess is a unique character. She is very comfortable being weird and awkward, which is something that is usually looked down on for women. New Girl tries to fight against the stereotypes of women where Jess is completely different from Cece, who is the typical pretty girl we would see in television. As the characters grow to love Jess, especially paying attention to the men in the show, we can see that Jess is beautiful in her own way and in her own personality along with her quirks. This is what I love most about watching this show.

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