Kevin Kiser
Dr. Smithson (Professor)
Com 376
12/04/2017
Gender Communication: Does Prime-time television affect men?
For this research project, I will be studying the effects of prime-time television and their portrayal of men. Especially how of masculine figures on television. At the conclusion of this project, it is my hope help both the reader and myself understand the way that prime-time television portrays men and how it affects the party watching.
My hope is to understand why they present male characters the way that they do, is there a specific reason or is just depending on the writer’s belief, for the reasons why they portray men in this way.
Ninety-nine percent of American households contain at least one television or streaming media. However, most have more than one device as this is how our society communicate breaking news, news and different norms for the country. (Vivian) Because of advances in technology we are able to get television on the go via our cell phones, TiVo’s, and online (Vivian)ing services that allow us to watch television on the go.
Because television is so readily available, it’s changing the way we interact with others. Where one would talk to others to fill time in between classes on a college campus, now students are turning to their devices to fill the time. This is making it easier to fall into a state of mirrored reality, where even when they are not watching the television they still have the feeling of being stuck feeling like they are living in the universe that was created by the television. This mirrored reality is very similar to what we currently face, there are just some aspects that should be changed.
There are a few terms used in the paper, that I feel I must define. The first term I want to define is gender bending, according to Merriam- Webster gender-bending is the act of dressing and or behaving like a member of the opposite sex.
The next thing I would like to define is the genders that will be used in this project. To keep the information for the report and research consistent, I feel that I must also define the genders, a male according to (Dictionary.com) “is a person bearing an X and Y chromosome pair in the cell nuclei and normally having a penis, scrotum, and testicles, and developing hair on the face at adolescence; a boy or man."
Whereas, Dictionary.com defines a woman as a person bearing two X chromosomes in the cell nuclei and normally having a vagina, a uterus, and ovaries, and developing at puberty a relatively rounded body and enlarged breasts, and retaining a beardless face; a girl or woman.
The next term is masculinity, according to Huff Post (Vann), is a socially constructed concept that people selectively used to describe what a man should be and how he should act. From the research from the Huff Post article and others, I have concluded that men should be macho, brave, strong and never show emotion. By doing any one of those things they are essentially relinquishing their masculinity, but is this definition and research standard or is it becoming obsolete?
There are a lot of differing opinions on when the prime-time television is, after reviewing my sources I settled with a small excerpt from Agenda-Setting and Priming in Prime-Time Television (Holbrook and Hill). Holbrook and Hill state that Primetime television is Monday-Friday from 9 pm until 11 pm., and that there are very few factors that play into when persons tune in. The only one worth noting by them was that those over 40 tended to tune in at the tail end to catch the evening news, which starts at 9 or 10 pm depending on their location.
Another factor was that it was primarily limited to the following networks FOX, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, and Warner Bros. (which is now styled) The CW. This was interesting to me because I would have thought that any station had prime-time television, but I was wrong. The only time that this doesn’t apply is when there is a major sporting event on the screen when men will usually tune into those programs to view those games.
“Because prime-time television is such a lucrative business, there tend to be a lot of political statements made through their programming.” (Gerding and Signorelli) Gerding goes on to state that one day the producer can say that a male character is homosexual because they are in touch with their emotions a prefer quality time overdoing things. Then the very next day they are giving the same attributes to the sensitive straight guy who is a captain of the football team. They are able to bend the traits of the characters to be whom they are. My question is does this bending of the characters personality affect the way we see ourselves?
As I continued to dig into my research I came across an entry in our book, called the “Real Man” and the “scripted man” where it talks about how “much of reality televisions “REAL” moments are scripted, rehearsed, shot and reshot, while still being highly edited to create specific effect.” (Ivy).
Because reality television is set up to portray something, in particular, I thought it was interesting to bring up some of the names of them to show the comparison. In regard to women’s reality shows, we have television shows like; Desperate Housewives, yes to the Dress and Real Housewives of… Whereas, the Men have cops, bounty hunter, and Deadliest catch to represent their community. (Ivy)
I found the information shared about the different types of reality shows and their names were interesting because the women’s shows titles alluded to a domestic feminine approach to them, whereas the men’s TV shows have a more masculine tone to them, portraying things that are commonly associated with manhood. In either case, it presents an argument similar to my own that the titles invoke sense of masculinity or feminity, depending on the television show and what they want to portray. However, this doesn’t always ring true, for example television shows like the America’s Next Top Chef, which seems pretty equally balanced with men and women, even though the title does, have a more masculine connotation it doesn’t mean that some characters are not feminine or that the show is more geared towards men instead of women, but regardless it is an androgynous show.
Another very interesting piece from a communication journal was a bit of research by Marvin Moore, whom surveyed the family’s portrayal on Prime-Time television and found that 94 percent of families in the television show were white and that about two-thirds were traditional profiles of a marriage. In my research, I realized that the percentage has hardly changed since its publishing in 1992, and that if we look at the family portrayals of men we see that the man is the head of the household. As head of the house hold he is responsible for leading the women, ensuring the education of the children and maintaining the household by providing income and stability to it. (Moore)
A popular show talked about was a twentieth century, prime-time reality show called Snoop Doggy’s Father Hood where he was portrayed as a man, who had many possessions but they didn’t focus on his aspirations or how he got there they portrayed him, whereas, Simmons another black man who made it in the music industry tries to combat this by showing black men as fathers. Although we see such a small number of “black” family’s we are beginning to see more and more portrayals of all types of family, especially the men which is exposing more family dynamics, but the question is are the portrayals of the men in these dynamics still accurate. (Smith)
The portrayal of fathers on prime-time television sets a very hard expectation to live up to, they seem to always be a macho-man who does something wrong, that ends up being right. She goes on to use an example from a television show where the father tells his daughter that a particular boy is no good for her. She rebels and thinks that her father’s meddling too much and he uses his gruff and macho persona to convince her, afterwards he shows sensitivity and all is well again. (Signorielli)
This expectation that men have to flex their masculinity to make women listen to them is unrealistic, by doing so, whether to your family or another woman is considered inappropriate in the real world. Even when men are portrayed as sensitive fathers they occasionally have to show their gruff side to remind the viewer that they are a man, and because of this masculinity they are in charge.
While researching a piece by Michael Stoica, I found something interesting that he said about the portrayal of men in television; he said, “They found persistent differences in level of employment depicted with men portrayed as having higher status jobs, being involved in outdoors activities, possessing credibility from the role of product authority, and performing the role of voiceover even in commercials for products targeted toward women.” This information was very interesting to me because I always thought there was equal representation on television.
After reading the information presented in Stoica’s piece I felt compelled to conduct mini-content analysis on every television show that I watched. In one particular show, called “This Is Us” out of the six main cast members, three are men who have stable well-paying jobs, while the women to have jobs, they seem to have more issues in regard to emotions, eating disorders and so forth. The women seemed less stable, while the men seemed to be the ones who kept it all together, later in the show these roles change, but only slightly and not enough to really change or skew the results.
During prime-time television, there are vast numbers of characters that can be portrayed at any given time, it should come as no surprise that around 67% of characters portrayed are men. (Stoica) This number is quite staggering because most of these men are portrayed as masculine men who qualify a specific criterion for what makes a man.
Information was abundant in regard to gender bending and prime-time television. In an article by Beyond, he brings up a valid point that the networks are trying to make men into something that they are not. They will take the physical shell of a man (the body) and put a female personality inside, to portray a man who is feminine. The problem is they usually do this and then say that he is a homosexual or a bisexual. By doing this they make those who may relate with this character feel diminished.
Instead they should be portraying the person without the labels, and allowing the viewer to attach a label as they see necessary. By doing this they allow the viewer to assign the label, thus allowing them to set the standards for themselves versus feeling because they identify with a particular character they are that character in real life.
Furthermore, sometimes when they represent a male character they make a super masculine guy who is an over representation of the gender, a character that is designed to be attractive to the ladies that watch the show. By doing so, they make it impossible for a commoner to feel adequate with the way they look.
As our society becomes more inclusive of people in the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and transgender communities are portrayed, it is making it easier for the television stations to portray men in a better light, however, I don’t think they have because not it has allowed them to expand their attack and they have created more norms that can further confuse those whom are most likely already confused.
An example used by Stoica was the superman affect, Clark Kent is a sensitive nerd who doesn’t really capture the attention of anyone, he is invisible to the world because he is necessarily an attractive being, he possesses none of the qualities that one would classify as masculine. However, drop the loose-fitting clothing, straighten his hair and take off his glasses, he is this masculine adonis, that women swoon over, kids want to be and men want to be. He is the perfect example of what masculinity on prime-time television.
When Clark is being portrayed he is gender bent by the writers to be sensitive to the people that surround him, he doesn’t take the masculine approach of being their savior instead he is sensitive and deemed weak by the masses, however, he is someone who tries to help others by giving advice, which can seem a little feminine.
Bringing all the research together, I have concluded that the portrayal of men on television is inaccurate to the men of everyday life. Although, many men are masculine, I feel it is very unusual for anyone to be able to live up to the standard of being this level of masculinity, because of this unobtainable feeling it may be hard for some men to feel adequate in their everyday roles. They may begin to look to other means to fulfil their hope to be more macho and masculine.
For example, a man who feels that he no longer has control of his family may turn to extremes to regain control of them by domination, manipulation or sadly enough abuse as stated by (Holbrook and Hill).
This macho persona that is portrayed may also lead the viewer to feel insecure about themselves, once that seed of doubt creeps in it can become very easy to feel the need to change. An example of this was in Stoica’s article where he talks about the boy who was overly sensitive. Due to his high-level sensitivity, he was seen as week and inferior to the boy who was more macho and because of this the more sensitive boy is seen as weak in comparison and, usually falls prey or second seat to the boy that is considered more masculine. Eventually, this will lead to the more sensitive boy, doing things to over compensate for his sensitivity, when it is actually okay to be sensitive.
In closing, it is my opinion based on the research I have done, that the portrayal of men on television does skew the way we see ourselves. The televisions gender bending, gender portrayal and overall presentation of men causes us to be more critical of ourselves. If prime time television portrayed a more accurate vision of what and who men are, I feel that they may be able to live more healthy lives.
According to the research I feel that men are affected by the way television, portrays them because this is what society expects from us. Once this was realized it was easy to begin seeing the effects on others so that we can begin to learn from it and grow from it. Someday I hope to write for a network, where genders are portrayed the way they are instead of being unobtainable for men and women alike.