Roseanne and The Kiss
This past winter break, myself and one of my best friends were driving
down one of the main roads in our home town of Elmira, New York. I happened to
look up at a billboard that was on the side of the road, and saw a sign that
read something like: “Be safe, be smart, be protected.” I thought to myself
(immediately) “well, that's a big improvement from a few years ago when condom
ads weren't even allowed on television.” Then I noticed, it had the gay symbols
of the upside down pink triangle, and the symbols of two men and two women
together. My first thought was “why is this necessary” then I mentioned that
to my friend. He didn't notice, but we both kind of laughed and agreed that why
does it have to be gay people that need to protect themselves? We (straight
people) are just as much at risk--what was the point? The point is, that it has
become mainstream and accepted to be gay in this society now, so they can do
that. Only three years ago, however, it was a bit different.
“Roseanne” helped to set a trend in society that has made it more
acceptable to be gay in the media. From the billboard I saw, to Roseanne's now
(in)famous kiss with another woman. Roseanne has contributed to this trend
immensely with her television sitcom.
To begin with, the series Roseanne has had gay characters on it for a
long time. Roseanne's boss Leon was gay, and after “the kiss” his role on the
show became more outspoken as he got married to his lover in the season after
Roseanne kissed another woman.
In the 1994, Roseanne had a homosexual encounter with another woman
played by Mariel Hemingway in a gay bar. The episode was entitled “Don't ask,
Don't tell” seemingly making light of Bill Clinton's policy of gays in the
military. The plot of this episode is, that Roseanne goes into a gay bar with
her bisexual friend Nancy, played by outspoken bisexual actress Sandra Bernhard.
Roseanne dances with Nancy's new girlfriend Sharon (Hemmingway). The
situation is uncomfortable to Roseanne's sister Jackie who also went with them,
but Roseanne has a great time. After dancing with Sharon, the two sit down to
chat, one thing leads to another and Roseanne makes a joke which is
misinterpreted by Sharon, and she kisses Roseanne. The rest of the episode
deals with Roseanne's discomfort with the kiss.
The episode was finally aired, but it went through a lot of trouble to
do so.
The word sitcom is short for Situation Comedy. A good sitcom story idea places the star (or supporting character) into a situation in need of a resolution, which will cause the character to respond in unexpected, exaggerated, and hugely sidesplitting ways (Rannow, pg. 13). A comedy now days are different from how they were in the 1960's and 1970's though. Today directors use sexual content and foul language to make people laugh and do not usually have a purpose or point to get across to the audience with each show. In earlier comedy, such as The Brady Bunch, Director Jack Arnold tried have a lesson learned in each episode while still maintaining a sense of humor, minus the foul language and sexual content. Although the show is not extremely funny to most people it is still a classic show that deserves to be remembered.
First titled Life and Stuff, Roseanne aired its first season in 1988 and its last season in 1997. The show starred Roseanne Barr as Roseanne Conner and John Goodman as Dan Conner. The couple lived in Lanford, Illinois with their three children Becky, Darlene, and D.J. They are a blue-collar, working-class family with both parents working outside of the home. They struggled just to pay the bills and put food on the table, sometimes each working two jobs. It portrayed real life issues such as pre-marital sex and pregnancy, financial struggles, sexuality, infidelity, death, drugs, and much more. In the first of its nine seasons, Roseanne (Barr) works at Wellman Plastics, along with her sister Jackie (Laurie Metcalf) and friend Crystal (Natalie West). Dan (Goodman) works as a self-employed drywall contractor for his company, Four Aces Construction. Roseanne's parents, Beverly (Estelle Parsons) and Al Harris (John Randolph), drive their two daughters crazy. Teenage Becky (Lecy Goranson) begins dating her first boyfriend Chip (Jared Rushton. Darlene (Sara Gilbert) wonders if she can still play baseball after having her first period. This season also deals with the issue of death, a terrifying tornado, Dan and his father’s relationship struggles, and Roseanne and her friends quitting their job. In season two, Jackie decides to become a police officer and begins a serious relationship with Gary (Brain Kerwin). Roseanne runs through a plethora of jobs, with shampoo woman at the beauty parlor being most influential. Roseanne also deals with issues of attractiveness when Dan's poker buddy Arnie (Tom Arnold) passionately kisses her. She is slightly disappointed when he does the same to Jackie. Crystal and Dan’s father begin a romance. Becky h...
The average America watches more than 150 hours of television every month, or about five hours each day (“Americans,” 2009). Of the 25 top-rated shows for the week of February 8-14, 2010, six were sitcoms, averaging 5.84 million live viewers each (Seidman, 2010), to say nothing for the millions more who watched later on the Internet or their Digital Video Recorders. The modern sitcom is an undeniable force in America, and its influence extends beyond giving viewers new jokes to repeat at the water cooler the next day: whether Americans realize it or not, the media continues to socialize them, even as adults. It may appear at first glance that sitcoms are a relatively benign force in entertainment. However, the modern sitcom is more than just a compilation of one-liners and running gags. It is an agent of gender socialization, reinforcing age-old stereotypes and sending concrete messages about how, and who, to be. While in reality, people of both sexes have myriad personality traits that do not fall neatly along gender lines, the sitcom spurns this diversity in favor of representing the same characters again and again: sex-crazed, domestically incompetent single men enjoying their lives as wild bachelors, and neurotic, lonely, and insecure single women pining desperately to settle down with Prince Charming and have babies. Sitcoms reinforce our ideas about what it is “normal” to be, and perhaps more importantly feed us inaccurate ideas about the opposite sex: that women are marriage-crazed, high-maintenance, and obsessed with the ticking of their biological clocks, while men are hapless sex addicts whose motives can’t be trusted. The way that singles are portrayed in sitcoms is harmful to viewers’ understanding of themselves...
The triangle symbolizes hope. Jonas finds himself frustrated frequently in this film. The symbolism is very much present when Jonas kisses Fiona inside of the triangle waterfall structure and again when he is over the edge and finds the rocks shaped like a triangle. In the first instance Jonas is frustrated with the people in the community do to the fact that they are so blind to what is actually going on but once he is in the triangle, he finds peace and hope when he realizes Fiona listened to him and has feelings for him. The audience doesn’t realize that this symbolic until they put both instances together. The second example, the triangle brings him hope when he sees the triangle of rocks because he is one step closer to freeing the memories. Although this symbol is subtle, it is very significant to the
For a large part of the history of TV sitcoms women have been portrayed as mothers or as having to fulfill the woman's role in the private sphere. Family based sitcoms were one of the forms of sitcom that keep women in these roles, but what is interesting is that even in other forms of sitcoms women do not truly escape these roles. Sitcoms, like Sex and the City and Murphy Brown showcase women whom have seemingly escaped these roles, by showing liberated women, but that does not mean that both do not fall into the gender role showcased in family sitcoms. It draws the similarities between ensemble sitcoms and family sitcoms when it comes down to the role of women. The starring women in both Sex and the City and Murphy Brown, and even the Mary
...ause he was not open about his sexuality.(www6) The same thing happened with Ellen DeGeneres. She was famous and she came out of the closet. She was the first gay leading character in a series. Her ratings were high even though having a gay leading character was unusual. As people were overexposed to it her ratings dropped and her show ended.(www4)
I grew up in a very 'non-visibly gay' part of the country: The Midwest. Worse even- I hail from a staunch evangelical family. Before now, my parents had never known anyone openly gay. This completely rendered my formative exposure to a minimum. I also grew up without cable, which does indeed retard my adulthood pulp conversations. My ideas of homosexuality were predominately characterized by Ernie and Bert on Sesame Street and Jack Tripper from Three's Company, whose character only pretended to be gay to get cheap rent. There was also a neighbor boy on Too Close For Comfort, whom was just assumed to be gay, but was never outed.
The Gay Rights Movement has brought the idea and acceptance of homosexuals in American Culture a very long way in the last thirty years or so. However, those who accept homosexuality or those who encourage it are still the minority in comparison, and so, there is a long way to go still before homosexuality is considered completely normal and gays are treated just like everyone else. The great uprising of people has already come and gone, and now the movement is in the maintenance stage, where it does not get much media attention anymore. That could be the best way to go for the Movement though, as their goal all along has been to blend in and be treated like everyone else. How better to do that than to not draw attention to one's self.
Cowell. His mother was unmarried when she had him. Eleanor later brought Ted to her
Throughout history, efforts towards gay rights journeyed on an uphill battle and were not majorly successful until recent years. Starting with the Cold War period in the 50’s, there was a growth in homosexual couples in the urban subculture where they were investigated and harassed by the police. During the 60’s, however, the march towards gay equality took a left turn and there was an increase in gay rights activism. Some goals of the activists were to decriminalize homosexual acts, receive equal treatment under the law, and for people to be educated by unbiased facts about homosexuality. Their efforts prevailed and the activists achieved the following: the right to publish gay magazines, victory of discrimination of employment cases, constraints on police harassment, opening of dialogue in scientific and religious communities, media visibility, organizational impulse, and denunciation of how gays are a mistreated minority. Although they achieved so many things,
... he had indeed been cheating on her. This fact only came out when he called her after the divorce asking for the house to start a new family. This revelation is not a proud day for men, fictional character or not.
There are three main characters in this short story called “The Kiss”. Brantain, Nathalie, and Harvy are the names of the characters that take us on a short journey to show us a glimmer of their lives together and the significance of their brief interactions. Brantain is a young man who is unsure about himself and by consequence stirs little interest. In the process of courting Nathalie he learns that her attentions have already been drawn by another gentleman by the name of Harvy. Brantain sits a distance away from Nathalie and leaves little impression in the room. Except by Brantain's sheer presence, there is no other indication that anyone else is in the room besides the lovely Nathalie. Leading, thusly, to the entrance of Harvy and his swift and direct contact with Nathalie taken form of a kiss. An obvious familiar and welcomed gesture under a normal circumstance. The responses by each character is quite different from one another and gives additional insight to their personalities. Brantain's instinct is to flee the conflict immediately. His flight response lends to a weaker personality and one who is not confident to take charge of situation. Harvy's bemused state and lack of genuine remorse shows a mischievous side. Although sorry that Nathalie is upset, he is otherwise unapologetic of his actions. He shows a solid, strong personality tempered with a true remorse for upsetting Nathalie. Nathalie's reaction was of panic and dismay. Much like a spoiled child's reaction when caught doing something wrong. There was not a twinge of guilt or feeling bad for deceiving Brantain. She went into a mode of self preservation. She is finally able to confront Brantain and offer him a reasonable enough explanation for the ...
The third symbol is the most important symbol of all and that is the ugly yellow wallpaper the narrator has to spend her time staring at and in the end g...
When one hears the words “LGBT” and “Homosexuality” it often conjures up a mental picture of people fighting for their rights, which were unjustly taken away or even the social emergence of gay culture in the world in the1980s and the discovery of AIDS. However, many people do not know that the history of LGBT people stretches as far back in humanity’s history, and continues in this day and age. Nevertheless, the LGBT community today faces much discrimination and adversity. Many think the problem lies within society itself, and often enough that may be the case. Society holds preconceptions and prejudice of the LGBT community, though not always due to actual hatred of the LGBT community, but rather through lack of knowledge and poor media portrayal.