TV Family Values : Gender, Domestic Labor, and 1980s Sitcoms / Alice Leppert.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Leppert, Alice, Author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Situation comedies (Television programs)--United States.

Situation comedies (Television programs).

Television broadcasting--Social aspects--United States.

Television broadcasting.

United States--Social conditions--1980-2020.

United States.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (vii, 179 pages) : illustrations

Place of Publication:

New Brunswick, NJ : Rutgers University Press, [2019]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

During the 1980s, U.S. television experienced a reinvigoration of the family sitcom genre. In TV Family Values, Alice Leppert focuses on the impact the decade's television shows had on middle class family structure. These sitcoms sought to appeal to upwardly mobile "career women" and were often structured around non-nuclear families and the reorganization of housework. Drawing on Foucauldian and feminist theories, Leppert examines the nature of sitcoms such as Full House, Family Ties, Growing Pains, The Cosby Show, and Who's the Boss? against the backdrop of a time period generally remembered as socially conservative and obsessed with traditional family values.

Contents:

Frontmatter

CONTENTS

Introduction

1. Selling Ms. Consumer

2. "I Can't Help Feeling Maternal-I'm a Father!": Domesticated Dads and Career Women

3. Solving the Day-Care Crisis, One Episode at a Time: Family Sitcoms and Privatized Childcare in the 1980s

4. "You Could Call Me the Maid-but I Wouldn't": Lessons in Masculine Domestic Labor

5. Disrupting the Fantasy: Reagan Era Realities and Feminist Pedagogies

Conclusion

Acknowledgments

Notes

Index

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 151-171) and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 06. Apr 2020)

ISBN:

0-8135-9271-2

OCLC:

1120690440