Socialization plays in important part in the passing on of culture from generation to generation. It is defined as the lifelong process of social interaction through which we acquire a self-identity and the skills needed for survival. The agents of socialization provide the necessary social interactions to teach culture to individuals in a society. The four primary agents of socialization include parents, education, peers, and media. The most pervasive one, media, has a major role in teaching messages about the norms in culture. The purpose of this project was to observe the subtle messages that a TV series, like The Simpsons, send about gender, class, disability/ability, and age. In the episode, Dancin ' Homer, we observe the subtle messages …show more content…
Within the beginning of the episode, there are some subtle hints of ageism present. For example, there is a scene in which one of the older players attempts to throw a pitch only, but creates a weak throw. This prompts some of the characters to deem these players as "washed up", suggesting that they are not as good as they were when they were younger. Later on in the episode, it is mentioned that Homer has a chance to be a mascot for a major league team of a nearby city. He is initially concerned as he states that there is already a mascot for that team. The owner informs him that that mascot is getting too old for this position and a newer and better mascot must take his place. …show more content…
The episode begins with the introduction of the new computer coding teacher in the school, who is female. Immediately, the boys in the class dismiss her abilities to competently teach coding. She ultimately decides to belittle the coding abilities of the males of the class. However, when she notices Lisa as the sole female in the room she immediately gives her special attention. When Lisa ultimately decides to create a world-changing app, her teacher gives her utmost support by helping her create the app with the help of an almost all-female coding group. Here her teacher ultimately tells her the lesson of that the ability of a woman achieving any kind of success in a male-dominated field stems from the fact that she must be at least twice as good has a man would be, even if it means having to step on them in order to progress. Lisa makes the decision to go with her teachers ' idea, but it creates conflict when she ultimately decides to terminate the app. Her teacher begs her not to in order to show the world that girl coders can do extraordinary things and questions whether or not she 's tough enough to stand out. Lisa states that she is being tough, but in her own way and ultimately sticks to her own
Dines, Gail, and Jean McMahon Humez. Gender, Race, and Class in Media: A Text-reader. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1995. Print.
The Stickiness Factor says that the messenger matters, but so does the quality of that message. It needs, what Gladwell calls, “stickiness.” Gladwell explains how two children’s television shows started a social epidemic by using factors of “stickiness.” Sesame Street and Blue’s Clues used different m...
Move over Jetson there is a new beloved animated family in town, the Simpsons. The Simpson’s originally aired on December 17th, 1989 and has yet to make us stop laughing. The Simpson’s follow a not so typical American family from the fictional town of Springfield. The episode follow the satirical lives of Homer (Dad), Marge (mom), Bart (brother), Lisa (sister), and Maggie (little sister). Though this is a satirical TV show many episodes provide excellent points and example of material covered in a sociology class. The episode “Marge not be Proud” gives multiple examples of deviant behavior and this essay will discuss two of them.
The Disney Channel show The Proud Family and ABC’S show George Lopez are examples that are common between the ages of 10-15. This paper will describe and analyze the stereotypes and gender roles
For this assignment I watched the show The Simpsons, which comes on the Fox network on Sunday nights at eight. The show is about an animated nuclear family and their everyday lives. The Simpsons targets the middle class families that live in the suburbs of America. The show mainly appeals to families that composed of parents who work at blue-collar jobs and have children, between the ages of 10-18. You can tell this from the commercials, how The Simpsons life style is portrayed and the jokes contained in the show.
The definition of what consitutes a “family“ has definatly changed over time. Usually, what constitutes making up a family is relative to a specific culture, but as always, there are exceptions to the rule. Ever since the golden age of television had sprung upon American culture, it has tried to mimic the "ideal" American family through it's programming. Even as early as the 1950's, television producers made
“In the late 1960s, a television producer named Joan Ganz Cooney set out to start an epidemic. Her targets were three-, four-, and five-year-olds. Her agent of infection was television, and the “virus” she wanted to spread was literacy” (Gladwell 89). The Tipping Point is a book on the study of epidemics- including mental epidemics and trends. Sesame Street, still one of the most iconic shows to date, is an epidemic; the splurge of knowledge that appeared in children after it began to air is undeniable. The show started production in New York in 1968. Shows for children such as Sesame Street support children in school and throughout life by teaching them memorable lessons from helpful muppets. Nevertheless, how and
Watching an episode of The Simpsons relates back to the humor used in Rabelais. Gragantua and the character Bart share somewhat the same similarities when it comes to humor they are brave, entertaining, curious and humorous characters. Both authors bring a sense to of humor to their audience by including degradation, exaggeration and a sense of humor. This contemporary cultural of The Simpsons is more upto date and humorous due to the generation we live in and a lot of the humor brought within the show is based off of degradation from other entertainment such as movies, TV shows, books and celebrities, whereas Rabelais is based off more modern day humor and degradation that when readers read the story of “How Gargantua’s wonderful understanding
This essay discusses censorship and the way in which social media and consumer products affect and model an appropriate societal ‘literacy’ or view in particular regards to gender and race, to young children. A summary of the stereotypes displayed in several videos viewed on YouTube, as well as student’s own identified stereotypes, both in regards to race and gender, are displayed below (Alexander, 2011; BrokenXLoner, 2012; Lac, 2013; Walt Disney Pictures, 1998, 1994, 1992, 1967, 1955, 1953, 1941):
In their pieces on the Smurfette principle, Pollitt and Ellis both discuss the idea that gender representations have intense effects on the children who absorb certain types of popular entertainment. Although we are hesitant to accept it, we are all influenced by the media in a very powerful way. Whether it be through TV shows, billboards, movies or the news. One thing that we commonly wonder about is if the adult female population is as influenced by the stereotyped gender roles present on TV or are we shaped at a young age and carry that perspective with us throughout our lives. This Smurfette principle has been around for almost two decades. It was introduced by Katha Pollitt and is unfortunately still present in our current 21st century.
One of the greatest exports of American culture is American media. American media is one of the most widely distributed and consumed cultural forms from the United States. This means that not only do Americans consume large quantities of their own media, but many other countries in the world consume American media, too. People in other countries will not interpret or understand the media in precisely the same ways that Americans will and do, nonetheless, many aspects of American culture and American reality are communicated to numerous viewers as part of the content in the media. The media is an important tool in the discussion of race, class, and gender in America. It takes a savvy viewer to discriminate between and understand what media accurately represents reality, what media does not, or which aspects of experience are fictionalized, and which elements ...
Rice (1990) found that parental mediation had a great impact on the message a child will take from a tv show. After observing children watch ‘sesame street’, he found that those watching it with a parent and later discussing the pro social message in the show were influenced more.
Given the existence of modern technology, individuals are immersed in the mass media now more than ever before. Media, especially television, is a source of entertain for adults, adolescents, and also young children. According to research, children reportedly spend approximately 2.5 hours a day watching television (Larson, 2001). However, there has been increasing awareness of the potentially problematic implicit messages that may be communicating to children through media consumption (Smolak & Murnen, 2001; Freeman, 2007; Levine & Murnen, 2009). Disney, one of the most successful establishments in the film industry with a target audience consisting mainly of children, should not exception to this scrutiny. Though a majority of its movies are
Homer Jay Simpson, the patriarch of the Simpson household on the Fox series “The Simpsons” is a childish, lazy man, whose hobbies include eating donuts, drinking Duff Beer, watching television, and sleeping. A victim of the “Simpsons gene” which allows for only Simpson women to possess the trait of intelligence, Homer is unfortunately as “dumb as a chimp” according to his father, Abe Simpson. However, it is mainly through the analysis of his simplistic thoughts and nature, that one can gain a real perspective on Homer’s complex personality.
The media, through its many outlets, has a lasting effect on the values and social structure evident in modern day society. Television, in particular, has the ability to influence the social structure of society with its subjective content. As Dwight E. Brooks and Lisa P. Hébert write in their article, “GENDER, RACE, AND MEDIA REPRESENTATION”, the basis of our accepted social identities is heavily controlled by the media we consume. One of the social identities that is heavily influenced is gender: Brooks and Hébert conclude, “While sex differences are rooted in biology, how we come to understand and perform gender is based on culture” (Brooks, Hébert 297). With gender being shaped so profusely by our culture, it is important to be aware of how social identities, such as gender, are being constructed in the media.