Topic > Critical Essay on Gender and Media - 1290

Family Guy is a television show about the Griffin family and their daily lives. The main characters are Peter Griffin, Lois Griffin, Meg Griffin, Chris Griffin, Stewie Griffin and their dog Brian Griffin. My medium is the Family Guy TV episode I Am Peter, Hear Me Roar. The episode begins with the Griffin family watching a beer commercial featuring two women getting dirty on each other insinuating that Pawtucket beer will make you sexy girls. That message in itself reflects women in a negative way because the commercial in the show reflects them as objects. This also demonstrates through this commercial how the media sees women as objects to be sexualized. This medium is aimed at women in general who experience sexual harassment in the workplace. In the episode the women are sexually harassed by Peter with the joke he told was “why do women have two boobs? So you have something to look at when they talk to you.” The women in this episode are depicted as idiots and are against sexual harassment. It is implied that men are all ignorant and do not understand when sexual harassment occurs against women. This also implies that some women are simply shocked that sexual harassment continues to occur throughout the workforce. The cultural expectations in this episode are seen when Peter's boss shows Mrs. Iron Box the staff training video on how to treat women in the workplace in the 1950s. .Another cultural expectation present in this episode is that men are more sensitive towards women and show more respect towards them. The video shows that women are meant to work at an office desk and can't really do a man's job like being the responsible head of the company... middle of paper... in intellect. It's implied in the show that blondes are stupid and this show reinforces that stereotype because throughout the show Penny doesn't feel as smart when she tries to talk to Leonard or Sheldon. Through these five mediums I have found a multitude of problems that are a part of the culture we live in. First of all, the media has an internal image of control over women and we don't even know it because everywhere we look we are bombarded with new information about what we should be thinking every day. Things like beauty, sexualization, and overly emotional women have all played a role in these mediums that I explained before. Gender roles represent what is expected of us and how we behave based on gender. Gender roles are a common thing seen in all types of media and Penny's example of the Big Bang Theory and how it is considered a stereotype