Women in Society Through the Prism of TV Shows

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There is no doubt about the connection between telecommunication styles and the era’s general mood. Thus, films, music, painting, and poetry have always accurately reflected the deep and genuine feelings that prevailed among the public. This idea formed the basis of this study, which critically evaluates the nature of the episodes of two television shows. The first work chosen was an episode of The Donna Reed Show, a black and white television program that raised the issue of women’s emancipation rights: “Just a Housewife.” This video work is a product of 1960, and for the current study, this fact has a defining role. The other episode taken into consideration for this analysis comes 56 years after that. It is the last episode of the first season of the British TV show Fleabag, which focuses on the personal growth and experiences of a thirty-year-old Londoner. Thus, in both works, the filmmakers explore women’s role in modern society, and each gives a different answer to this question. Obviously, this answer is directly related to the historical and socio-cultural background in which the products were created.

Before proceeding with the comparative analysis and searching for the central core of each of the selected episodes, it is critically important to discuss the series’s plot briefly. For instance, The Donna Reed Show is an iconic American comedy television series whose plot is based on Donna Reed’s life story. This woman is the mother of two children and the wife of a pediatrician, and although she has no career herself, her social role is a very popular one for post-war society: she is a housewife (Edwards). A likely source of this show’s incredible success was the brave decision to cast a woman as the protagonist. Thus, each sitcom episode has little to do with the previous one and tells a separate story, which is generally typical of this genre.

At the center of the plot of the current British project, Fleabag is the story of the life of an unnamed young woman suffering from nymphomania and friend loss syndrome. Although, this show’s genre can be defined as a social comedy, Fleabag is characterized by exploring the protagonist’s deep personal experiences (Bradbeer). The individual episodes are linked by a common plot, which eventually leads the woman to a spiritual catharsis. It is not difficult to see that a crucial directorial detail is characteristic of both television works, namely the participation of a young woman as the script’s central figure.

The conceptual study of the episodes chosen for this work should begin in chronological order. Such a decision will allow to competently trace the development of social thought on the issue of feminism. Thus, the episode “Just a Housewife” tells another story from Donna Reed’s life. This time she unwittingly became a participant in an interview at the supermarket, which initiated the plot’s main conflict: can a woman not be just a housewife. The phrase “just a housewife” is derogatory and insulting to any modern person since it necessarily involves the objectification of the individual. Nevertheless, more than half a century ago, as shown in an episode of the show, other women in the supermarket proudly called themselves housewives. There was a markedly different perception of the word in Donna’s mind, who claimed that a woman could be more than just a housewife.

Similar sentiments were generally characteristic of American society in the 1960s. Male leadership, the exclusion of women from universities and academia, misogyny, and the idea of gender supremacy gradually ceased to be a national idea. Over time, the number of people who espoused these values declined rapidly, indicating social progress. An illustrative example of feminist achievement was the formation in 1960 — the year of the episode about housewife — of the Civil Rights Movement (Elliott). This association urged American society to accept equal rights for all U.S. citizens. There is no doubt that such radical ideas could inspire, which became a driving force for intensifying women’s struggles to strengthen their social role. After six years of the evolution of such revolutionary ideas, the National Organization for Women (NOW) was formed (Kretschmer 403). This organization fundamentally reconsidered many established traditions of American society, including women’s career and educational opportunities.

As if anticipating what was to come, the makers of a black and white television show produced an episode that could be seen as an attempt to reflect on society’s experience. Married Donna Reed clearly understands her role in the social structure of the time but is not ready to put up with it. To heighten the drama, the show’s writers used several important techniques that perfectly epitomized gender relations in America during this period. This includes the interviewer in the supermarket, who does not allow the women to adequately answer the question and discuss the most common stereotypes throughout the episode. To a modern viewer, a scene in which the radio host claims he is about to ask Donna a very serious question but instead asks something inarticulate about cake might seem unacceptable. It is an example of a man’s offensive prejudice against a woman that nevertheless depicts the everyday practices of the 1960s. Subsequently, the enraged woman turns to her intellectual husband, but he too, in a retort, puts the housewife in the same line as the chair, the pen, or the book.

It is fair to note that the protagonist does not surrender under social oppression but rather tries to reinforce her role. In the episode, this was expressed through her denial of domestic duties, her insensitivity to the word “housewife,” or her outweighing of authority in the second act of the supermarket interview. Ultimately, the show’s episode came to the same situation that happened in real life: an unconditional victory for women in the fight for their civil rights. Emancipated American women became a full-fledged part of society and gained rights — and more importantly, recognition — to do work on an equal footing with men.

Decades of progress eventually led to what was already shown in an episode of the British series Fleabag. Possessing the same episode length, Fleabag raises completely different issues, though the plot’s overall core remains the same: the place of women in society. It is enough to watch the first few minutes of a selected episode to realize how much public perception has changed in sixty years. In particular, the first scenes show undisguised sex, the display of naked body parts, and male and female genitalia. Thus, the modest, unremarkable, and homely woman Donna Reed turned into an uninhibited, outspoken nymphomaniac with no name. It is worth noting separately that this episode is not director Harry Bradbeer’s fantastical vision but instead reflects the brightest facets of modern society.

It may mistakenly seem that the author of this essay mocks the protagonist Fleabag’s image against the more attractive Donna Reed. This is a misjudgment since the above is only a brief description of the chosen series of British television series. Thus, the central figure from Fleabag is not a loser in comparison to Reed: she is different. Simultaneously, the British woman is troubled by similar heartstrings to those experienced by the housewife. The woman worries about her position in the society around her and wants to grow up, but the difference is that in Fleabag, the protagonist has every opportunity to do so, whereas Donna Reed had to fight for her rights.

The British TV series shows a woman from a radically different position, but it is much closer and more understandable for modern viewers than the story of the American housewife. The protagonist of Fleabag has sex with casual acquaintances, her own café, and an apartment. Although she does not live with a man and has no children, this role is perfectly acceptable in modern, developed society. Notable in this episode is the scene in which the protagonist’s stepmother gives the opening speech for her explicit sex exhibition in central London. Thus, the woman stands in front of a government building and argues that the exhibit is previously stolen from her illustrates how freedom, honor, and rights have been taken from women. As a result, the empty pedestal is the exhibit’s center, being something amazing and rare. Drawing a comparison between the two episodes, it is not difficult to assert that this pedestal is the everyday life of Donna Reed, who did not have what the women in Fleabag have.

When considering the social metamorphosis that has taken place over sixty years in television — and thus in life — it is important to emphasize the desire to protest. Nonconformist attitudes are evident in both Donna and Fleabag, but their difference is in what the women are protesting against. In an episode of the black and white television show, Donna Reed objects to stereotypes and protests against the assignment of the label “housewife” to a married woman. This is her reality in which she lives: the lack of social rights, the idea of superiority, and the need to struggle. In Fleabag, the protagonist has no such problems, and she is free to do as she wishes. Her protest has an emotional coloring, as the woman struggles with an entire society searching for her place. She protests against her unpleasant stepmother, conflicts with her friend’s husband, and insults her father, not because she needs to, but because she has an emotional crisis.

To summarize the above, it is important to say that similar social issues are being raised in television art even sixty years later. The role of women in society was explored in both the 1960 work and the 2016 series. Still, it is worth recognizing that the dynamics of social sentiment are noticeable: Donna Reed’s struggle for equal rights has changed for the search for mental balance in Fleabag. In addition, social protest is characteristic of two eras, but its subject matter has changed over time. Gained freedoms and social guarantees, the modern woman faces a much deeper mental torture concerning her relationships with society members. Thus, women’s role in society has been visibly strengthened, but now she has other problems.

Work Cited

“Donna Reed (Just a Housewife).” YouTube, uploaded by Fran Edwards, 2013. Web.

Elliott, Kim Kutz. “Second-Wave Feminism.” Khan Academy, Web.

Fleabag. Directed by Harry Bradbeer, performance by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, BBC Studios, 2016.

Kretschmer, Kelsy. “Should We Stay or Should We Go? Local and National Factionalism in the National Organization for Women.” Qualitative Sociology, vol. 40, no. 4, 2017, pp. 403-423.

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Women in Society Through the Prism of TV Shows

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