| Essay/Speech |
| Brady Bunch vs. The Simpsons How society's values affect what we see |
| This essay/speech was performed in 2002 for my Year 11 Media class. I worked with a guy called Ross who is pretty cool and pops up in the archives from time to time. |
| Its amazing how quickly society changes. Thirty years ago, computers were rarely seen and many times larger than those of today. Along with the rapid technological development, other factors have contributed to the advancement of society. One of these is television. Television shows present a set of themes and values which, due to our high dependence and use of television, help to shape our own personal themes and values. On the contrary, themes and values also present the themes and values of society at the time. To prove this point, we have selected two television shows from different decades and examined the themes, values, attitudes and stereotypes presented in them. The two TV shows we have selected are "The Brady Bunch" from the late 60's and "The Simpsons" from the present day. A stereotype is a standardised idea or concept about a group of people. In other words, our expectations of a person based on a few aspects of their character such as their appearance, class or religion. The Bradys are almost a perfect example of a typical family. The true head of the family is the father figure, Mike. He supports the family financially and all decisions affecting the family are made by him. Also, at the end of each episode, Mike assesses the value of the conflict and discusses lessons learned from it. Carol Brady succumbs to her husband's opinion. This shows us that the family looks up to him and values his opinion above all else. Mike Brady sees his wife Carol, though he loves her, as inferior and trusts her with the relatively easy task of keeping the home environment stable, clean and peaceful with the help of Alice, the maid. He deems her unfit to handle even a comfortable environment, such as the home, by herself. Carol seems reluctant to make any decisions without consulting Mike and has seemed to accept the fact that she is expected to change her personality to please her husband. The girls (Marcia, Jan and Cindy) are identical to their mother. They are expected to take on a role similar to that of Carol Brady. Marcia is the typical "girl next door" being pretty, popular, smart and generally, perfect. Cindy, the youngest, relies on her cuteness and supposed naivety to get her out of trouble. Jan, however, is an interesting character. She is the "emotional middle daughter", too old to be cute, too young to be mature. She lives in her older sister's shadow and most of her conflicts involve her deep envy of Marcia. The boys, clones of their father with identical builds and... erm... haircuts, are moulded into their father's cast. Mike handles most of their problems personally and encourages them into macho pastimes such as football and the construction of a cubby house. |