'FAMILY GUY'/'THE SIMPSON'S'

In class on Thursday we watched a few YouTube videos on this show called Wife Swaps. Our professor gave a few aspects that were correlated to this show. In different episodes, it showed gender roles; men were the dominant and women had rules, but no one followed. Another aspect was the class (working, middle, upper); with the working class they seem to be looked at as not neat, clutter, dirty, lazy, and out of shape; middle class was looked at as being average in many ways (comfortable with life, happy); and the upper class was scene as being snotty, bougie, beautiful, materialistic, clean, and in shape. Genre was explained from the notes as elements that make it factual and informative:  its factual because what's being viewed is how these people are really living and we see there true attitudes towards one another. And stereotypes was examined by seeing drama, hearing racial stereotypes, and viewing stereotypical characteristics. A couple of shows that I normally watch that deals with these different aspects in life are Family Guy and The Simpson's. In both of these sitcoms, gender roles was seen as the male being the average American middle-class working man who rules the home, but still have a soft spot for obeying his wife. They really don't show how they look after there children; something like a dead-beat dad, but lives in the home with his family. The women are seen as the stay at home mom with rules and goals for her family, but at times, no one seems to follow and goes on there on path in life; even the babies. As stated before, they are the middle-class American who really don't frown upon the working-class citizens, but always want to live like the upper-class citizens because they have money, power, and respect. The type of genre used in these reality cartoon sitcoms would be informative and not factual because its more of a cartoon then real life, but gives information about life situations. Now, these shows are always showing drama among members in family, but more with outside individuals like friends, neighbors, co-workers, etc. Racial stereotyping plays a huge part in these shows because since these are cartoons, the producers may feel that they can get away with racial criticism. The characters are very stereotypical because you see a family with three kids and a dog, the husband is out of shape, the wife is in shape, the middle child (usually a girl) is always smart, the oldest child (normally a boy) is someone who not knowledgeable about things, and the baby is someone who always gets into things or makes away to get lose so the family can search for them.