Tuning in to Diversity

When Bentley undergraduates watch TV shows with a keen eye for how a camera angle may signal characters’ status, it’s a safe bet they are card-carrying members of Sitcom Nation.

The course, taught by Associate Professor of English and Media Studies Jennifer Gillan, plumbs the realms of film and television to show how depictions of the American family have changed since the 1950s. Particular focus goes to ideals regarding gender, race and class, as presented in TV shows (situation comedies and otherwise) and in movies. Literary analyses – of novels, memoirs, poems, and stories related to the salient topics – add complexity to the representation of these ideals and their impact on self-perception. The course fulfills Communication Intensive and Diversity requirements in the Bentley curriculum.  

“Our experiences of family are shaped by the media,” Gillan explains. “My mother is the child of immigrants, and these sitcoms were telling her who she wasn’t. One goal of the course is to help students see that it’s OK to have a different family formation than what’s presented in the media. It’s a relief to know that no one lives up to the ideal, even those who appear to from the outside.” 

Gillan has long been interested in literary responses to the “typical American” as depicted in sitcoms of the late 1950s. Shows such as Leave it to Beaver (1957-1963) and Father Knows Best (1954–1960) present nurturing nuclear families that are “often idealized by contemporary Americans anxious about their experiences with family conflicts and complexities,” she says. “By analyzing literary and cinematic responses to TV sitcom presentations of familial norms, we find how entrenched these ideals are in today’s society – and how untrue they are.”

An Expanded Lens

Among other topics, Sitcom Nation students study how directors wield the camera and other tools of the trade to convey messages about, say, characters’ motivations. An early assignment is writing an analysis of a show’s opening credits: the order and settings in which characters are shown.

In Father Knows Best, for example, an upper-middle-class family man stands tall in his suburban home. The wife looks up at him adoringly, while the couple’s children gaze down from a staircase. Students compare this opening sequence to that of the sitcom Roseanne (1988–1997), whose main characters sit around the table in a modestly appointed kitchen and interact as equals.

“I’ll never again watch a TV show without thinking about what is being communicated through a particular camera angle,” says Danielle (Dani) Brehm ’11, who majors in Management and Liberal Studies with a concentration in Media Arts and Society. She examined the opening credits of The West Wing (1999 -2006).

“The characters are shown, one by one, through a waving American flag with patriotic music playing,” she says. “The pattern of the images connects them to each other, hinting at the quasi-family they become through their work.”

Another student, Computer Information Systems major Omar Almadani ’12, analyzed the film Kramer vs. Kramer (1979) for a paper.

“I focused on how the director showed the audience how time passes,” he says of the two- to three-year time frame that unfolds in the two-hour movie. “For instance, long shots let viewers see the weather changing. I’ve come to see sitcoms and films as another type of literature that you can study to catch revealing details.”

Divorce and Other Demons

The course can be especially compelling for international students such as Alamandi, who grew up in Kuwait, is of Palestinian heritage, and identifies as Arab. He appreciates his newfound skills in “extracting information from a television show or a movie, using that information to relate the show to the culture of the time, and considering how these cultural norms have evolved in the U.S.”

Consider gender roles, which Almadani viewed through the lens of Leave it to Beaver and Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003), among others.

“In earlier sitcoms, the woman is usually shown in the kitchen and caring for the children; her playground is only in the home. The man’s playground is the rest of the world,” reports Alamandi, who came to the U.S. in 2008 to attend Bentley. “Today you see more diversity of gender roles. Buffy shows a single mother earning a living; it also shows a teenage girl fighting demons and winning.”

As American culture changes, so too does Sitcom Nation. Gillian keeps the syllabus attuned to current social issues such as same-sex parenting (Modern Family) and bullying (Glee).

The core aim, she says, is to expand students’ world view. “It’s so important for students to stay aware of how their experience isn’t the whole. At the same time, I hope they recognize how connected we are, even though our individual experiences are very different.”