Wednesday, October 16, 2013
Golden Age of Tv
The Golden Age is an important period of telivision in which increased criticism occurred on many different levels. A focus was placed upon male dominated telivision as more commonly the leading character was a male. Women in the main role was very uncommon in this period. Critics chose to expose and argue that this was in fact sexism. Other reasons for the lack of women roles could be argued. Men often are portrayed in positions where power, control and, violence occurs. These characteristcs are what viewers want to see instead of business women as the article mentioned. A businesswomen is a much more common day to day think, as a violent power hungry male allows an individual to imagine and think outside of the box. Most people live the basic work day such as a businesswomen and the other role gives a look into an unknown experience. Additionally, producers and directors make TV shows that the believe the public will like. If there was a demand for roles with dominant women in this period of time, more then likely, a show would have been created. Although it may not be viewed as sexist or unfair towards women, individuals must keep in mind TV is created for the viewer and what 'they' as a whole would like.
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I agree with you on how you say many movies with violence, power, and control tend to have male characters in the spotlight. I wouldn't say that it is sexist that males ruled the main leads in the 3rd Golden Age of Television because that is just what the time period called for. I thought you had a great statement where you say viewers want to see an unknown experience and a movie with a women as the head character would give the viewer a bland and common experience. I do not believe that this is sexist but rather men had an image that was less common with more aspects that were unknown. Like you said, television is created for the viewer and based off what they find interesting, and women just were not interesting enough in the 3rd Golden Age of Television.
ReplyDeleteAlthough in retrospect it certainly is peculiar how few female lead roles there were during this time period I do not think that we can blame this on the cable companies. These were shows created by men, for men. Simply by looking at how few women screen-writers were mentioned is a clear indication of this. It is simply easier for men to write stories about power-hungry, violent men because these are emotions that the writers can relate to. Had there been more women writing for the cable companies, then I think it's safe to say we would have seen another trend.
ReplyDeleteWell said, I agree with you very much that demand from the public would have eventually brought out more women into the spotlight. It seems as though people often forget that it is us that drives the market and the produce what we demand.
ReplyDeleteI think everyone is a bit right here. It does seem to me that these supposedly high end, complex TV shows skew male in their viewership (that's something that I actually don't have numbers regarding, so I could be wrong, but anecdotal evidence suggests that to me). On the other hand, there were also a few notable exceptions to the male anti-hero model. On shows like Damages and Weeds, there were very prominent versions of the female anti-hero (and the character on Damages was supposedly based on the creator of the Sopranos, interestingly enough). Jenji Kohan, one of the most prominent female showrunners of this period, has produced two very successful shows with female leads. Orange is the New Black has become something of a sensation, so I don't know that we can simply say it is a matter of demand. Maybe it is just a matter of men gravitating toward men, as Tommy notes.
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