Women Need to Take Control of the Tv Remotes to Change Stereotypes

Women Need To Take Control of the TV Remotes to Change Stereotypes

Women have been struggling to be portrayed as powerful and independent since the feminist era began and they have been blaming that on the stereotypes of the male dominated executives who run the industry. In 1995, Commissioner Rachelle Chong stated that equality would be achieved when the women who work in the industry obtained decision making positions (Chong). Several years later, Lauzen expressed a similar belief that "when women have more powerful roles in the making of a movie or TV show, we know that we also get more powerful female characters on-screen, women who are more real and more multi-dimensional" (Lauzen). Women are achieving powerful positions in the television industry and yet, little has changed in the way that women are portrayed because the television industry continues to serve the needs of the young male viewers.

Shonda Rhimes, an African-American screenwriter, director and producer has broken the glass ceiling that long existed in the television industry, being the creator and executive producer of television series Grey's Anatomy (Shonda Rhimes) . Rhimes has the ability to portray powerful, independent and smart women in Gray’s Anatomy, but she has obviously sold out to the economics that drive television dramas by portraying its women doctors as either winey, spineless, selfish, or irrational, emotional, and stupid. Alexandria Stanley, a writer for the NY Times, has criticized Rhimes for continuing the stereotypes that have harmed women:

"Somehow, even in the hands of a woman, a show about female doctors finds humor and solace in their distress. Self-deprecation has been replaced with self-denigration. People complain that hip-hop stars use obscene lyrics and lewd music videos to demean women. Sometimes, so do even the most bourgeois women’s television shows."(Stanley)

At first glance, it would seem that Grays Anatomy, a TV series that features female doctors would advance the image of professional women. It is common knowledge that in order to be a resident physician the woman would have had to be incredibly smart, likely being in the top of her high school class, she had to excel in college in order to be accepted into a medical school where she would have to have completed many difficult and demanding courses. However, as bright as female resident physicians must be, Grays Anatomy portrays them as being emotionally unstable, cold, irrational and without any common sense and more absorbed in their relationships then they are in their job. The overall message from Gray’s Anatomy is if you have a medical problem and must choose between a doctor who is a man or a women, you will be better served choosing the man because he will be in better control of his emotions and his career and he will not sell them out for petty relationships.

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