Not so Modern Family: Top sitcoms make for sexist, inaccurate television
This commentary uses diction, detail, and syntax to make her point.
Diction Use:
- She often uses words like quirky, flawed, unrealistic, struggling, stalkers, manipulative, vindictive, ect. to further explain and exaggerate her point.
- When talking about the female roles in television, her words are pejorative connotation.
* "...all of the characters are stalkers, dimwits, cleaning ladies, vindictive ex-wives, or manipulative
mothers." All of the adjectives she uses hold some sort of cultural baggage within our society. Not
only that, but together they create an image that makes the reader think about the TV shows in a bad
way; which was her goal.
- When talking about the men in TV shows, she uses connotation in the good sense.
* "...most of them are wildly successful," not only does she describe them as successful, but adding the
wildly in front adds more than just being successful.
* "And all of the men on Big Bang Theory are brilliant physicists and engineers." Saying brilliant talks
them up more than just saying smart or simply stating their careers; for that alone implies they have to
"brilliant".
- Her use of language is paralleled to the point she is arguing. She describes men in a light fashion (which is what the shows do) and describes the women in a darker fashion. This similarity is supposed to create a emphasis so that not only so the readers see it in the commentary, but they can directly take from that and see it in the shows.
Detail:
- All of her details are something to knock-down the false-reality of TV shows. For example:
* "...Unemployment rate for women (8.3 percent) is lower than it is for men (9.3 percent)." Adding
that contradicts what she points out, and what we can see, about some television shows. She wants
to convince the reader that not only is the show hurting the image of women, it's not even close to
being right.
- She uses detail to prove the point that the TV shows are falsely giving bad roles to women and working men up. She could have included information about TV shows that do the opposite, but that would go against her argument and wouldn't prove the point she is trying to make. Instead, she lists the things that are wrong a just a few shows.
Syntax:
- A lot of syntax is used to parallel her issue.
- There are multiple places where there is an interruption in her thoughts, using a dash to show that. It is a repeated pattern that should be taken into consideration. For example:
* "Not only is this portrayal of women sexist -- it's inaccurate.
* "...networks could risk losing female viewers -- and the advertisers who target them.
- There is also interruption of thought repeated through parentheses
*"... is a struggling journalist (and Lily, the other female character, is a shopaholic nursery school
teacher).
* "The male characters on these shows are not just employed (and attractive to women), but most of
them are wildly successful."
- Both kinds of interruptions add to her trying to make a point. It moves one thought into the next and adds detail and positions them together.
- In the latter example, she uses juxtaposition. The male characters being unemployed and attractive have nothing to do with one another, but she puts them together to point out the irony in them still being successful. She is showing the flawed values and false reality in the TV show.
- There is also a repetition of sentences beginning with "and". That repetition can be used to emphasize that there are lots of additional points to be considered.
All in all, this piece was very firm in it's belief that some TV shows today are creating the wrong picture for women, and it's wrong. The author uses lots of rhetoric to create her picture and form an argument.
First of all I love the show Modern Family so it made me super excited you did an article on it! I think you did a great job on this because it's extremely thorough and you gave multiple examples for each point. I like how you gave us the facts but then you took the time to analyze them, especially when you talked about the impressions given in the article are paralleled by the impressions given in TV shows. But one thing that I disagree with is your statement that the dashes and parenthesis serve the same purpose. I believe the parenthesis are an interrupter like you said but I don't think the dashes act the same way. I believe the dashes are used to separate a thought to give it more emphasis. In the sentence "Not only is this portrayal of women sexist--it's inaccurate" I believe the author just wanted to make the fact that the portrayal of women is inaccurate have a bigger impact, hence the dash. I also believe the author might have a sarcastic or bitter undertone when showering the men with positive adjectives, because based on her opinion of how women are portrayed negatively I think she might have some anger towards the men in the acting business, and the fact that the author is a female is something to take in account as well.
ReplyDeleteThis article is very entertaining because I watch many of these shows like How I Met Your Mother and I never realized how women are always portrayed in the negative light while men are not. They way you formed the analysis of the diction, detail, and syntax is also interesting. When I did this I used an essay format, but I have seen other people in different ways too! I really liked all of your examples and how you described them though! Neha does make a good point about the dashes in the syntax portion of your analysis. I thought that the dashes just was trying to put emphasis on her point at first. I do see the point you are trying to make too and I think they are both valid answers. The details you have listed are very interesting, but maybe she only listed a couple of TV shows because they are the most popular on TV. She did include The Big Bang Theory which she pointed out was a show that did show women being successful. This is a very popular TV show that a lot of people watch! Overall I thought you did a terrific job of analyzing this text!
ReplyDeleteLike Neha said, I REALLY love your use of television! Very creative subject matter, I must say. I also like your topic in general--you analyzed the shows using a feminist lens, which is cool. Your analysis of the diction also makes a lot of sense. Looking at the connotation of words is always useful, and I think you proved your point well in that portion by listing some great examples. I'll have to say, though, your other sections are lacking. You didn't go far enough with your analysis of details; I read that section and felt sort of confused as to how it contributed to your point. The syntax analysis was also weak--you didn't really say anything besides that it proved the speaker's point. This leads to the biggest criticism: you didn't even really have a thesis. The thesis was actually in the title, which I found really confusing. Your format also made it a bit hard to read--this is meant to be practice for the AP exam, not pure DIDLS practice.
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