Television Today Versus the 1950s

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Recommended: History of television sitcoms

How many people today watch family sitcoms to imitate or compare values with their own? Probably not as many as there were in the 1950s. In Stephanie Coontz's "What We Really Miss about the 1950s", she discusses why people feel more nostalgic towards growing up in the 1950s, and how she disagrees that 1950s wasn't the decade that we really should like or remember best. Apart from economic stability, family values played an important part then. Through television sitcoms, such as "Leave it to Beaver", "Father knows Best", families watched them to make sure they were living correctly. It was like guidance and somewhat reassurance. However, values of families have changed, and this is shown on sitcoms today. We watch sitcoms today for entertainment, and sometimes we can relate to them because the setting is realistic. In the modern sitcom, "Gilmore Girls" characters and plot are used to demonstrate family values such as gender roles, children roles, economic status, morals, ethics and general organization of a family that differ from the values shown in the 1950s sitcoms.

In the 1950s sitcoms, men and women had very distinct roles which differ in today's changing society. Back then, men usually worked to support the family, women would marry and raised children. As shown in sitcoms, "gender roles became much more predictable, orderly and settled in the 1950s" (Coontz 36). It was ideal to families that men worked and women stayed home. However, gender roles have changed today. Women have better rights to work now; many are no longer staying home. From "Gilmore Girls" Lorelei, owns an inn to support herself and her daughter, Rory. She is an independent and highly respected woman in the show. This shows that women and child...

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...ilities, family organization is not something taken in consideration due to our own status in economic, class and race.

The differences in family values are shown in modern sitcoms. "Gilmore Girls" is a sitcom that demonstrates values of gender and children roles that are significantly different to those in 1950s. From Lorelei and Rory, they show that family organization is not always the father working, mother looking after children. Through the plot of each episode, financial, racial, other general problems such as Rory's school and relationship are actually shown and realistically too. Every family is different, different race and classes have different families. Today, we do not watch shows to copy their ways of living and we do often share the same values. Therefore this shows significant changes in family values from the 1950s sitcoms to today's sitcoms.

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