Television Maintaining Class Division in Society

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Television Portrayal of women
Television portrayal of men
Television representation of the Working Class
Whiteness and television favoring the White
Television portrayal of Ethnic and Visible Minorities
Television portrayals of Gays and Lesbians
Conclusion
References

Introduction

We are split and divided in our neighborhood, religions, and schools of thought. We are distinguished by income, ethnic groups, origins, tribes, traditions, backgrounds, and nationality. When personal contact lacks, communication and more importantly an information gap prevails about groups that do not hold the aforementioned attributes as we do. The foremost difference first lies in the genders, then among the male and female comes the sub-difference of the elite class and working class, or the white privilege in contrast to the non-white. And the classes keep on going from ethnic minorities who feel ignored and disregarded in a certain society, to gays and lesbians who often seem to be hidden or appear as disguised.

This space is filled with what we absorb and come to know from home, and also from what we study at our schools. But the most influential and indeed a typical mine of information or misinformation, and stereotypes is the mass media that convey and communicate to the public, various ideas, implications, and stories that constitute the invisible patterns and ‘truths’ about the groups, castes, genres, and classes in which the humans are divided. (Holtzman, n.p.) Television is said to be the most influential source of depicting these classes. It can either provide a means for independent thoughts and assessments by viewers that would possibly lead them to take apart the seeds of bias or be taken apart by them.

The paper identifies the role of television in creating and maintaining class differences among society. The negative portrayal or the underrepresentation of certain groups affects them as being overlooked and unnoticed, but however, has been greatly considered by analysts and journalists.

In class divisions, the paper starts with identifying the core difference between genders – the male and female – which out of the two is focused more and which one is underrepresented, how television covers their issues from domestic lines to the much wider professional world, from their respective involvements in the political fields to their appearances in commercials. The context also focuses on the physical appearances of the two, how are they looked at, whose views out of the two are more valued and considered, and what is the stereotypical representation of the two.

The paper then moves on to the underlying issue, that of the working class, and how are they played down on television. This has been covered with respect to the working class both men and women. The paper highlights the exaggerated importance in the television coverage of the middle or elite class in contrast with the understated status of the working class, how the sense of rigid class separation and difference prevails in the minds of the middle and affluent class who degrade them with a total unsympathetic attitude towards them. For this, mainly television and other media are responsible and we will see that in the paper as to how.

Moreover, whiteness and white privilege in television are highly prevalent, henceforth the paper focus then shifts to the class difference between the white and the non-white, which covers all, male and female white along with male and female non-white. We shall define what is whiteness and white privilege, how it is dealt with in television, specifically how it is emphasized and supported by it, and how the white dominate not only on television but in the entire media.

Next class that the paper covers is that of the ethnic and visible minorities. We have focused on the existence of multiculturalism in Canada and have compared it to the opportunities of roles provided to these racial divisions in Canada as well as in the U.S. It will be seen how such overrepresentation of the majority nationals and underrepresentation of the minorities affect the young minds.

The paper progresses with another important, yet highly suppressed class, which is of gays and lesbians. The television maintains a clear class difference here, by either hiding the actual realities of the life experienced by this class when portraying them on-screen or else not portraying this class at all. The television officials usually withdraw from representing gays and lesbians because of their fearful concern of estranging or causing displeasure to the advertisers, sponsors, and viewers.

Finally, the conclusion wraps up the fact the television does contribute to maintaining class divisions in the society, some unjustly when it comes to women, the working class, or the visible minorities including the non-whites, and some due to certain obligations and limitations when it comes to covering the class of gays and lesbians.

Television Portrayal of women

There have been certain stereotypes in which women are represented. There is a super mom, a hot and dangerous girl, the sex appealing, sometimes the malicious, and other times the climber obsessed with advancement. No matter what the role may be, women and girls are represented on the television of films by and large as white, very much thin, and set up with full make-up, even if it is in children’s cartoon programs where they have slain a monster or a gang of criminals, or in case of television fiction dramas where they have reprimanded some legion.

With the female stereotypes that keep on growing or doing well in the television or film media, we have seen certain improvements that have been carried out in the representation of women, and how their presence and influence have grown on screen. If we talk about class divisions, women are mostly depicted as pieces of awe from the upper class.

There are, however, been certain attempts also that have shown women as from the struggling, the working class; the destitute, the distressed; the victim of a man’s lust and power; or pressed down under the society in the man-dominating world. These examples, indeed, are mostly observed in old time’s classics, as now the role of women in society generally has improved. Plus, this better depiction of women in the television media has seasoned the minds of weak women in real to rise up to an upgraded level. Let us put light on how television covers women and their issues, the coverage that girls get, and the economics of gender stereotyping.

Including the aforementioned stereotypical portrayal of women, sadly they also continue to be represented inadequately in news coverage or generally in television, even the professional women and the athletes that are quite remarkable figures, if considered that way, are underrepresented.

If considering the women professionals, it has been seen that for the past couple of decades, women’s entry into the professional world has increased, however, the television coverage continues to depend on men as professionals or the ones in authority in business, economics, and political fields. In news, women are more probable to be highlighted as victims of accidents, natural disasters, or in-house violence, rather than in accounts about their extraordinary capabilities and competence in the professional world.

In a similar way, women participating in politics are also put on the back burner. Rather than portraying the woman as politically active and dynamically assuming her position over issues under her authority, she is more focused on relation to her domestic, even personal life. Her personal habits, her private belongings, her sexual relationships are more enthusiastically covered. A political analyst, Denis Moniere revealed a similar model. He analyzed a number of newscasts at different television networks and noted that women are depicted mainly in the scaffold of ‘average citizens’ and hardly as skillful professionals, while the stories about political or economic success are revolved around men.

In fact, this has now become a worldwide phenomenon. An Association of Women Journalists, in 2000, covered 70 countries’ television and specifically news coverage regarding women and their issues. The report showed a mere 18 percent of stories quoting women, and only 10 percent of news coverage featuring women issues or their stories.

The same is the case with News talk shows, for example in the Sunday morning news shows, the White House Project reports about two particular shows like Meet the Press and Face the Nation and states that only 9 percent of the guests appearing on these shows are women, and by being so they only manage to speak 10 percent of the total time of the show. Marie Wilson, a Project president, alerts that the need for women’s representation will have intense outcomes on whether women are recognized as adept leaders or not.

The fact that beauty comes before brains have also been quite prevalent among women. An example is that of Greta Van Susteren, who was a host of a well-respected news show on CNN. In 2002, she shifted to Fox, not only after getting a make-over but also after altering her face under surgery in order to look younger and beautiful. It was noted that this woman, Van Susteren, before the surgery, had evermore been a shining example for other women to carry hopes and progress forward. She was a very smart lady, indeed the best analyst on TV. But her surgery pointed towards the long-standing argument over the fact that the way a woman looks is considerably more important than what she actually has to say.

Television portrayal of men

The reviewers of media and similarly the feminists, for quite some time now, have been analyzing the function of television in setting up and adding force to the stereotypical portrayal of women and femininity. However, just lately they have spread out their research to take into account how television creates, notifies, and adds force to the predominant beliefs and concepts about men and masculinity. Let us put some light on the television representation of men and masculinity, the common stereotypes of men depicted by television, the stereotypical advertisement, and the male authority in television news coverage.

In the growing years of a boy, his family, friends, teachers, sports coach, and community leaders help him in understanding what it really means to be a man. Programs on television and the way they show masculinity also take part in strengthening ideas about what it requires to be a ‘real’ man in today’s society. In the majority of the television representations, male characters are given worth and attention for their strength of will, self-discipline and the ability to supervise others, a dominating threatening behavior, grave anger, violence, self-sufficiency in everything (especially finance), prestige, and physical appeal.

A report was released in California, named Boys to Men: Media Messages About Masculinity which goes over the fact that not just television but the whole media representation of men inclines to highlight men’s social supremacy. The report states various other characteristics of media portrayal, including their depiction as heterosexual, or their association mostly in the professional line rather tied with domestic or personal issues. Children Now, an organization in California that studies the influence of media on children and youth deduced that such assertive and influential trends of men being portrayed in the media emphasize and brace social attitudes that connect masculinity to power, authority, and supremacy.

In Tough Guise: Violence, Media and the Crisis in Masculinity, it has been reasoned that media is very much responsible for providing a significant outlook on social attitudes. Not only television but the whole media represent men as socially dominant, physically strong, and violent, and the very attributes are widely accepted as well. This underlines how men and boys should conduct themselves in society, how they should deal with others, plus how they should regard women and children.

Children Now conducted research regarding masculinity and sports media and ascertained that majority of advertisements targeted to male viewers are likely to broadcast during sports programming. Women are hardly shown in these commercials, and when they are, their typical portrayal is in stereotypical ways. Steve Craig, the author, and University of North Texas professor, in his study of gender in advertising, points out that women are likely to be portrayed as ‘rewards’ for men who go for the right goods and services. He illustrates that such advertisements are “narratives of playful escapades away from home and family.” He says that such commercials actually run at the intensity of fantasy, presenting men and women as idealized figures.

Susan Bordo, author and an intellectual from the University of Kentucky has also studied gender in advertising and says that men are generally shown as strong, muscular, influential, and robust. Their toughness overshadows the space in the ads, while as far as women are concerned, slenderizing, and attaining an idyllic feminine perfect example is highly focused on. Some critics observe another fact that very similar to women and their bodies as objectified as sexual items, a practice going on for decades, now men are objectified in the same explicit way.

Television creates class differences in males in such a way that the middle-aged, proficient and competent, and white are the ones shown as authoritative. On talk shows, television news, and another commentary, these men are the ones dominating. It is very typical that in commercials together with the aforementioned, male voices are heard. These voices are represented as the voices of specialists and analysis have shown that such specialists usually stand for conventional point of views, preferring and esteeming the interests of strong individuals, dominant social groups and foundations. Class bias is very much shown, for the fact that the views, capabilities, and skills of women, the working classes, non-whites, members of ethnic and visible minorities, or gays and lesbians are under-represented in television.

Even, under the category of men, non-white men or the working class are sidelined. Barbara Ehrenreich, in her article “The Silenced Majority” is of the view that working-class men are often portrayed as dumb, faltering, and behind the times. Men from the minority community are also demoted. It has been argued that white male dominance in television makes sexism, racial discrimination, and class privilege last in society. It is also perceived that this kind of coverage symbolizes white masculinity as the social and cultural standard.

Television representation of the Working Class

Focusing over the core of the paper, the major class difference between both male and female affluent and both male and female proletariats. The mainstream television programs often bias their depictions of economic classes in the direction of white upper and middle classes, along with all their sources of pride. On the other hand, the point of view and interests of working-class men and women are highly underrepresented.

Entertainment programs on television often highlight the stereotypes of the affluent white male and the working-class buffoon. These, and other similar programs, are usually inclined to overstate richness. The working wives shown in various television series are usually middle-class women chasing careers. Portrayals of working-class men and women, who are struggling through their lives, which happen a lot in real life, are in fact for some reason rarely highlighted on television. And when they are shown, they are characterized as juvenile, reckless, imprudent, and in great need of the direction of the ‘betters.’ (Butsch, pp. 575-585)

We got the chance to see a popular sitcom, known as The Royle Family, which revolves around the lives of a working-class Manchester family, named the Royles. The series that ran between 1998 and 2000 is known to be incredible for its realistic representation of the family life led by the working class. The show is an amusing, witty, and touching satire on working-class family life. As the way of the depiction of this class, which has just been mentioned, this sitcom is a perfect example of this.

It shows almost all its main characters to be lazy and carefree, for example, Jim Royle, who is the Father in the family, is shown as an overweight, unemployed, lethargic, care-free, and ill-mannered kind of guy, who is worried about family expenses and time and again gets angry over money matters. Similarly, Jim’s wife, Barbara Royle, is a domestic menial; a hard-working lady indeed has been shown as an average typical mother. Even the central character of Denise Royle, the daughter of Jim and Barbara, has been shown as a fussy, gluttonous, and lethargic character that does nothing, but either go to the pub or just sits around at home watching television.

As had been depicted by this sitcom, such an underrepresentation of working-class men and women, or the stereotypical portrayal of white working classes as dumb, incoherent, and outmoded, serves to suppress the matters and viewpoints of the working class. This results in a lack of awareness by the general people or youth in particular, who should actually be conscious of the struggling life.

News and other informational programs on television also articulate prejudice against working-class interests. The City University of New York led a survey and through that discovered that since the last couple of years of PBS prime-time programming, only around 27 hours attended or tackled with the matters or living standards of the working classes, in contrast with the 253 hours that concentrated on the upper classes. Similarly, the Institute for Alternative Journalism, and Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), have come up to state that union activities, workers’ associations, and labor strikes obtain either negative or no coverage in the television mainstream news.

The laborious and exhausting lives led by the working class do divide their tendency to perform manual work, as compared to the upper or middle class which performs more mental work. Similarly, the distinction also appears in terms of skills that the working class possesses, as being practical in contrast with the intellectual and rational. Likewise their nature of being simple and decent, as opposed to being sophisticated or artificial, clearly portrays the division that exists between the two levels of classes. (Strinati & Wagg, pp. 119-120)

Whiteness and television favoring the White

“White people create the dominant images of the world, and don’t quite see that they thus construct the world in their image”, says Richard Dyer.

Studies and analysis have concentrated on how television stereotyping of conventionally sidelined groups like women, non-white, working-class men and women, ethnic and visible minorities, aboriginal people, and gays and lesbians have negatively affected them. Some are even thought to be emotionally disturbed by the fact of being ignored in society even by being a part of it.

But increasingly, intellectuals and researchers are focusing on how stereotyping favors, rather than privileges certain groups. Whiteness and white privilege in television are highly prevalent. Let us define what is whiteness and white privilege, how it is dealt with in television, specifically how it is emphasized and supported by it, and how the white dominate not only on television but in the entire media.

Racial identity is not only ascertained by biology. But in fact, the prevailing social norms and patterns, and expectations and beliefs actually shape our concept of race. These social norms are in reality based on events from history or the existing practices. In certain societies, for instance, in North American, being white is observed as a typical norm. However, whiteness is not considered a race. Therefore scholars have started to study whiteness and to express it in terms of social influence.

The analysis focuses on the ‘white privilege’, i.e. the difference of dominance between whites and non-whites, and the gains that white people assume inevitably and routinely. The white privilege grants the white to cherish the benefit of being able to learn history relating to one’s own race at school, to watch television with their own ethnic group being so widely portrayed, to being psychologically assured that job rejections are not on the basis of their ethnic group or race.

In the majority of television programs or news, the decision-makers are mostly white. Not just television, but in fact, the whole mass media ownership and control is mainly concerted by the white males. Furthermore, white journalists and white analysts lead and overshadow the mainstream media. Even behind the television screen, the creative positions of writers and directors are mostly white people, in case of on-screen, again, it is the white serving as actors with great esteem. These are the factors that promote the popularity and pervasiveness of whiteness on television and in other media and help in adding force to the white privilege as a social norm.

Most television serials, commercials, and other content also emphasize white privilege by highlighting white characters and concentrating on the interests and experiences of white people. The featuring of non-white characters is usually saved for supporting roles.

The supervisory body of media, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), surveyed and analyzed the composition of guests on Nightline broadcasted on the ABC channel, that around 80 percent were professionals, the very skilled lot, almost 90 percent were the gender male, and as for the white, about 92 percent comprised of them. This highly and very clearly differentiates among the classes being discussed so far. Similarly, aired on the PBS channel, the Mac Neil/Lehrer News Hour showed 67 percent of the guests as existing or retired government officials, 87 percent as males, while 90 percent as white.

Other surveys, either conducted by analysts or proper supervisory bodies showed similar results of the majority of males, and particularly white males, being interviewed or portrayed in news, talk shows, and other programs. The class that highly gets benefitted, as we have seen so far, is the upper-class white men.

Television portrayal of Ethnic and Visible Minorities

Another class, among the underrepresented ones, comes into the picture is the ethnic and visible minorities’ class. In the television channels in America, this class is inadequately portrayed, and the representations, if any, are stereotypical and disparaging. Particularly in Canada which is a multicultural country, the scene is quite problematic, as, within the total population, about 15 percent are immigrants, whereas 25 to 50 percent are visible minorities that live in larger urban regions. Even then the television and overall media have not been able to give sufficient coverage to them. The question arises as to why!

Let us analyze how television programs, be it entertainment or talk shows, and news give coverage to these ethnic and visible minorities in the U.S. as well as in Canada. We shall then study the various aspects of ethnic and racial stereotyping.

In a poll conducted in Canada as to whether multiculturalism should be preserved and enhanced in the country, about 82 percent of the nationals answered in affirmative. When millions of minorities and ethnic groups are so visible in the streets of America and Canada, when they fill in shopping malls, offices, and hospitals, it is a regrettable fact indeed that they are so invisible on the television screens.

In the paper so far, as we have seen the dominating class in television has been the white and young males. It has been ascertained on account of statistics by the American Screen Actors of Guild (SAG), that those fellows of ethnic and visible minorities are very much underrepresented through the entire scale of entertainment media. After a lot of pressure on the television industry to increase the portrayal of minorities groups and racial diversities, which indeed constitute a significant part of the population, in their recent report, SAG stated that the industry jobs, both on-screen and off-screen, for African Americans and other ethnic groups have been increased by 10 percent.

But on the other hand, some have argued that even if minorities have been given chances to appear on screen, they have either been given the supporting roles, not really shown as professionals or skilled, badly tied up in domestic situations, or not being depicted as strong or heroic in contrast to the portrayal of white who are the clear majority in the nation.

Therefore it may be appreciated that television has been given opportunities to minorities to appear on screen, nonetheless, it still maintains the class division by letting the way of representation of minorities get under fire. It could be said that the producers and writers are mainly responsible for this; as for the producers being at discomfort, may have an issue of coping up with the challenging state of current affairs, while for the writers, it may be the issue of writing about stuff they don’t know or understand.

This issue has two-fold effects on both the majority class and the minority one living in the same society. It especially affects children and teenagers who characterize themselves as they watch it on television. The study conducted by Children Now, A Different World: Children’s Perceptions of Race and Class in Media highlights the fact that children, due to the programs they watch on television, in fact, due to the programs shown on television, highly associate the white characters as rich, very well educated, authoritative, strong, and heroic. In contrast to this, they perceive the minority characters as robbers or those breaking traffic signals, who don’t have a lot of money, are the strugglers in the professional world, are dumb and sluggish, or are simply the villain. This is highly probable to disturb the minds of minority children, who may grow up with a falsely depicted identity and may in reality turn into what had been shown to them when they were children.

Television portrayals of Gays and Lesbians

Larry Gross and George Gerbner, both media educators, contend that the television and the rest of the media contribute to the ‘symbolic annihilation of gays and lesbians by damagingly and undesirably stereotyping them. They do this by either handing them over the characters under the perimeter of entertainment media, where they are either playing colorful, flashy or outrageous roles or in other cases some threatening psychopaths. It is also a fact that this class of people is either portrayed unrealistically or is not portrayed at all.

The media educators contend that the commercial area under the television industry is composed in such a way that it has to restrict the opportunity for portraying this class of people, for the fact that many times channels and programs’ producer’s drawback from representing gays and lesbians for the fearful concern of estranging or causing displeasure to the advertisers, sponsors, and viewers. Let us now concentrate on how gays and lesbians are represented on television.

In recent years the depiction of gays and lesbians in television has been enhanced. Shows such as Queer Eye for the Straight Guy or Will & Grace have been very popular and have encouraged other programs and networks to show gay characters, provided that the shows gain high ratings make significant revenues for advertisers. The very motivation of turnover basically points towards the fact that networks have to be very careful in presenting gay and lesbian characters.

For instance, Will and Grace, although openly highlights two gay male individuals, however, it limits its portrayal as far as the gay relationships are concerned, and hardly shows any romantic situations between the two gay characters, who are actually friends, and not lovers for that matter. In fact, both gay men have their primary relationship with female characters who are heterosexuals.

Quite a developing trend this has become in reality, which the television shows, like the one, just mentioned, and even in some Hollywood films now, which have started representing gay men coupling with straight women. This at least lets the television networks include this class in their shows, even if it, in many ways sidelines and suppresses the actual experiences of gays and lesbians.

Therefore, the television has been quite careful in maintaining this class division. The mainstream television shows have quite a lot maintained their representation of gay and lesbian lives and experiences as clean as possible. However, there had been unconventionally radical, contentious, and critically commended serials about gays and lesbians broadcasted on television. Queer as Folk, a serial that had been aired on Britain’s Channel 4, portrayed the lives, passions, and experiences of three gay men who lived in Manchester. Although there had been a number of criticisms associated with this ministerial, including its subject matter being inappropriate, or its portrayal of gay men as highly sexed, even then it managed to attain high ratings by both the gay community, as well as the media press.

The class representation of gays as portrayed in Queer as Folk makes it evident for the television industry officials that any type of portrayal of the gays and lesbians class can be aired on television shows, as long as no one is offended, may gain them remarkable gains and popularity. However, the investors and advertisers are still very prudent in associating themselves with such unconventional radical programming. When criticism rises to an utmost level, it becomes difficult for the television industry to attempt to depict gays and lesbians the way they depict straight characters. Thus class difference has to be, and is, certainly maintained here.

Conclusion

Wrapping up, it can be certainly asserted that television highly contributes to maintaining class divisions in society. The portrayal is many a time underrepresented as we have seen in the case of women, the working class, or the visible minorities including the non-whites, and thus the need for the frequent depiction of their issues to create awareness over certain issues among these classes. While on the other hand it has been noticed that due to certain obligations and limitations, the class of gays and lesbians, is given careful coverage, due to the sensitivity of their class in the existing society.

By and large, television, on the whole, does weigh in keeping class differences in society.

References

Butsch, Richard (2003). Ralph, Fred, Archie and Homer: Why Television Keeps Re-creating the White Male Working Class Buffoon, SAGE publications, Book Review.

Holtzman, Linda (2004), Mining the Invisible, Vol. 48, No. 1, 108-118, SAGE publications. Web.

Holtzman Linda (2000), Media Messages: What Film, Television and Popular Music Teach Us About Race, Class, Gender and Sexual Orientation, M.E. Sharpe.

Strinati, Dominic & Wagg, Stephen (1992) Come on Down? Popular Media Culture in Post-War Britain, London: Routledge.301.1411.COM, pp. 119-120.

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