Representation of families in animated sitcoms Essay Example for Free

Representation of families in animated sitcoms Essay Introduction: For my research investigative, I will be comparing the representation between two popular American sitcoms Family Guy and the Simpsons. Both are animated situation comedies, using a conventional nuclear family to portray the typical American family and their lifestyle. Using media textbooks extracted from theorists such as Roland Barthes and Vladamir Propp, I will investigate how they both use the same narrative structure to create their sitcom. I will also use the internet to develop the ideas of the sitcoms and use this to define the narrative patterns between the two sitcoms. The Simpsons: The Simpsons was first created by Matt Groening and was broadcasted on the 19th December 1987. This became the first animated comedy sitcom, catering to the whole family. The characters confirm the idea of a nuclear family living a typical American lifestyle; however the family coherently faces a dilemma which is always solved at the end of the episode. The episodes are normally self-contained narratives involving equilibrium, disequilibrium and a resolution. For example, the protagonist Homer Simpson will begin the day getting ready for work and faces a dilemma at work, in most cases the whole family will attempt to solve together, rather than Homer attempting to figure out on his own. The idea of the families involvement to solve the problem reflects the opening sequence where the family sits down together to watch television. The idea of togetherness with the family effects how the audience will perceive stereotypical families on T. V. The setting also reflects how the audience sees the ideological family. Springfield is a fictional state based in America consisting of a close knit community and many other characters appear on the episodes. The family appear to look like a conventional family; however they have their individual personalities. Homer: A Safety inspector at a power plant, he expresses a careless personality and dominates a crude, ill-mannered, and lazy characteristic, always providing for his family and heavily devotes his life to them. Marge: a typical American housewife and mother, her strong moral values and patient manner are put down by her troubled children and her gawk husband. Bart: A troubled 10 year old often bullying Lisa his sister and lack of respect for the authorities and the community, Bart is one of the most prominent characters. Lisa: an 8 year old strong-headed activist who due to her intelligence sees herself as a misfit with the Simpsons family. Her personality does reflect Marge, however her liberal belief differ from Marges democratic beliefs. To sum up their family, the baby Maggie only communicates through her pacifier and the pets Santas little helper and Snowball IV reinstates their family friendly ideology and safe atmosphere. Most of the episodes are based in Springfield, the home of the family, and the opening sequence shows the camera zooming into the state of Springfield, depicting a birds eye view of the local school, the donut shop (which is significant on Homers characteristics), the town hall and the supermarket all are significant towards their regularity and familiar location. The bold yellow headline and blue sky signify the opening sequence of the sitcom. The soft yellow, blue and white colours reinforce the idea that the sitcom is family friendly also considering the baby-type font used. This can be known as a memorable hallmark. Their gag names and catchphrases have developed neologism; creating their own catchphrases which often audiences can acknowledge them from have made them common. Even though they are animated characters which can develop, the producers have chosen not to and have stayed the same, although the new technology which has developed over the past decade can transform them. They have recently updated the opening sequence, revealing more characters that appear more often in the episodes. This idea keeps the audience interested in character development and the change of characters over time. One idea that hasnt changed since the beginning of the Simpsons is the theme song which is recognised as the Simpsons theme tune all over the world. The orchestral soundtrack is lively and upbeat, which proves the entertainment aspect of the sitcom. The Simpsons had been provided to humour families during prime time, capturing audiences with its exciting linear narrative and realism in each episode. However The Simpsons had been criticized frequently for their lack of quality in the episodes and Bart Simpsons rebellious nature having an effect on boys and acting as a role model towards the younger male audience. Family Guy Family guy consists of the Griffins, a dysfunctional family set in a fictional town of Quahog, Rhode Island America. This is also a situational comedy; however the content contains satirical adult humour, amusing American culture. Its mostly recognised for its cutthroat gags on disability, sexual behaviour and cutaway scenes. The Griffin family is constantly compared to the Simpsons, consisting of similar family values and characteristics. Peter Griffin: male protagonist; an overweight safety inspector at a toy factory, recognised in America as a stereotypical blue collar worker. He is often known for his inappropriate nature, reminding the audience of an immature child. Lois Griffin: Mother and wife of the Griffin family, a typical housewife, grew up in a wealthy family, and married Peter Griffin. She teaches piano for an extra income. However she spends most of her time caring for her family. Chris Griffin: The teenage son of Peter and Lois, he appears to have taken Peters genes and deals with typical adolescent inconveniences; girls, acne and school. Meg Griffin: A self-conscious teenage girl who struggles to be accepted in not only school but also at home. She is regularly at the hind end of Peters jokes. Stewie Griffin: A one year old toddler who frequently is misguided about his sexuality. His evil nature is often taken out on his mother, who he repeatedly masters a plan to kill. His sophisticated speech and maturity juxtaposes typical toddlers description. Brian Griffin is the speaking pet dog, following an anamorphic behaviour. He has a refined speech and often corrects Peters immature behaviour. Despite the fact that Brian is a dog, he enjoys human activities and dates women regularly. Brian appears regularly in episodes, and on occasion appears in special episodes with Stewie, travelling in an epic adventure as Dog and toddler. During the episodes the storyline is always cut off on a tangent, and a new storyline is created. This may be seen as difficult for audiences to follow the plot; however it is always based on two centered narratives. The storyline also follows equilibrium, disequilibrium and a resolution, however on one episode where Stewie kills Lois the plot continued onto another episode, finally resolving the problem. Most of the episodes are set within Quahog, and some specials reside in Stewie and Brian going to a different country such as England and Germany. The opening sequence depicts the conventional family setting; Lois and Peter are placed on the piano, happily playing in unison. The other family members appear after, joining together symbolises the family values enforced in the typical idea of a conventional family. Family guy appears to share the same family values as the Simpsons, however the content and the audience is clearly different. The simpsons share family values and humour the typical American culture, however their humour is directed towards adults and children, using satirical wittiness and frequently punning on American products such as Mad TV or the actual TV production company that shows the Simpsons, Fox. Whereas family guy is shown during the late night schedule and the content uses extreme vulgar adult content, profanity, violence and nudity. In a sense, family guys title does mislead the audience into thinking that the program will be based on the same values the Simpsons produces. This is where they differ in style and content. Following my research, I have decided to challenge the conventional representation of families in sitcoms. I will create a DVD poster of a brand new situational comedy based on a family which appear to be a dysfunctional family which struggle to follow the conventional structure of a beginning scene, a dilemma then a resolution. They share the conventional ideology that families are appeared to be shown. I will use Adobe Photoshop to create my poster and Macromedia Flash to create the characters. Stereotypically, the male protagonist is portrayed as reliant on the other family members to bail him out. However in my production, I will portray the male protagonist as independent and smart and place the male characteristics on another character, for e. g. the son.

Analyzing Themes in Robert Frosts The Road Not Taken Essay -- Road No

Analyzing Themes in Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken This is a wonderful poem with many different themes and ideas. One of the biggest themes is not being afraid to take a chance. Some of the other themes include, not following the crowd, trying new things, and standing for something. This poem stated that the author "took the one (road) less traveled by, and that has made all the difference" so the author is telling the reader that we too should not be afraid to take another path. The Road Not Taken is a twenty-line poem written in iambic pentameter with the rhyme scheme ABAAB. This poem starts with the author walking through the woods. He comes to a fork in the path and is torn by which path to take...does he take the path that is traveled by everybody, or the one rarely traveled upon? He decides to take the road less traveled by. By taking this path he changes his life in some way unknown to the reader. We get the idea that the poem starts out in the fall, "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood" (5). The season fall represents the year coming to an end, and e...

Describe How Poverty, Social Class

U30 (P2) Health Psychology Describe 3 factors such as culture social class, gender, poverty and education may influence the way people respond to health and illness Poverty Imam’s house Individuals who are in poverty are more likely focused on the physiological l needs out of the hierarchy pyramid. My case study is sourced from BBC documentary, toughest place to be a bin man and is about a man called Imam Syaffi. Syaffi is 28 and lives in Indonesia with a monthly income of ? 8 by working six days a week from 6am to midnight as a rubbish collector and running extra errands for his wealthy neighbours as well as sorting and selling recycled rubbish. Imam lives in a shanty village with his wife, son and parents and their home is near to the mini landfill where Imam’s rubbish that he collects is transferred to a bigger landfill but it rarely does. Imam’s wages cover rent and small amount of food. Other luxuries are what Imam finds in the rubbish such as used shelves, mattresses and chairs.Imam’s home is a giant health hazard as the rubbish near his house causes disease and encourages mosquitoes, flies and rats to infect the village, himself and his family. However, Indonesian government don’t supply health care like in England causing Imam to risk the possibilities of catching malaria, streptobacillosis or worse. Imam’s influences on poverty make him choose to supply the physiological needs of paying rent and food than constantly supply ways to protect his and family’s health and pay expensive medical bills.Also, Imam finds it hard to provide healthcare for his family because upper classes can easily call authorities to make him unemployed if he isn’t doing his job properly if he needs to take the day off to take his wife to the hospital. However, Imam’s secret shows that he sneakily shows the upper-class that his cart is broken and unable to work by pulling out a tyre so he can take an occasional day of f for the family.Also, Imam’s dedication to provide for the family by working over 12 hours each day can make him very stressed and tired which can causes him to have poor health but he would rather work more hours if he could so he could provide more luxuries for his family. Furthermore, the food Imam can buy with his salary shows that he can only afford basic foods such as milk for the son, water, rice and rare portions of meat and vegetables so that leads to poor nutrition compared to English rubbish collector Wilbur Ramirez from the documentary who has a better life but has the same job title as Imam.Social Class Contrasting from my discussion about poverty I want to make a case study upon Wilbur Ramirez. Wilbur Ramirez job title is similar to Imam Syaffi but because his social class is higher than Imam that means that Wilbur escapes from being in serious poverty. Wilbur monthly salary is ? 1,700 and manages to live in Hammersmith, west London with his wife and three chil dren. Hammersmith is decent area for families to live in London and quoted by a local, ‘I can't think of anywhere better to be a child than one of London's inner suburbs like Hammersmith’.Wilbur’s hierarchy of needs are very different than Imam as he’ll be marked to fulfilling up to self-accusation because all the other needs are met because of his lifestyle as a working class English citizen. Wilbur’s job as bin man is less stressful due to shorter shifts than Imam and better pay which reduces risk of heart disease or tiredness. This means Wilbur is able to afford house bills as well as to provide for his family and buy extra luxuries.Therefore, I believe his opinion on health and illness would be more focused about how he looks after himself by being trained by his employer to use the uniform when touching rubbish by always wearing gloves. Also, England’s public health and NHS targets people like Wilbur to be constantly cautious about their health unlike the rest of the world like Indonesia. Therefore, Wilbur would be cautious about giving his family good nutrition and easily receive professional health care because its tax paid. Picture of Imam (left) and Wilbur (right) CultureDifferent cultures in general effects our responses to health and gives our opinion on what causes illness, how it’s treated, who should we seek for assistance? In the industrialised world in USA it sees’ disease as a form of a negative substance infecting the body that can be treated with medicine or hospital equipment to diagnose and treat the patient from the disease. However, other cultures believe that disease is caused by a paranormal activity and prayers, spiritual rituals or visiting a witch doctor would release the disease out of the body and destroyed by a higher authority.This shows that health professionals should give patient compliance due to the sensitivity of one’s culture. Studies of group of Cambodian pati ents were reassured throughout their therapy by understanding how the medicines and the body work due to lack of education. However, since 2010 the quality of health is rising in Cambodia to increase the life expectancy and making awareness towards HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases but in Ratanakiri, Cambodia is receiving the worst healthcare causing endemic case of malaria, tuberculosis, intestinal parasites, cholera, diarrhoea and measles.Also, maternal/ child mortality and severe malnutrition are issues that causes poor health and illness. Ratanakiri locals are most likely to respond to their faith which is most likely to be Buddhism to gain better health than modern health care. In Buddhism it’s believed that a person suffering from physical disease also suffers from a poor mindset therefore they have to devote their entire life to their faith and releases what poisoned their body; greed, anger and ignorance to heal the illness.However, modern health care is accessible in this province but the medical equipment and supplies are minimal and the staff are poorly trained and irregularly paid. This gives mistrust for the locals to use professional help as they’re in risk to receive the incorrect care and other hospitals are far away near the big cities. Therefore, it’s most likely that in Ratanakiri; diseases are known to be paranormal spirit filled with greed, anger and ignorance than a biological infected substance.However in more industrialised places in Cambodia they’ll believe the opposite due to better education, healthcare and scientific awareness. Ratanakiri Hospital ——————————————– [ 1 ]. http://www. youtube. com/watch? v=6EWLQw9TiCM [ 2 ]. http://www. bbc. co. uk/programmes/b01bmtfx/participants/imam-syaffi [ 3 ]. http://www. bbc. co. uk/programmes/b01bmtfx/features/contrast-binmen [ 4 ]. http://www. fodors. com/comm unity/europe/is-hammersmith-a-good-area-of-london. cfm [ 5 ]. http://www. euromedinfo. eu/how-culture-influences-health-beliefs. html/ [ 6 ].

Advantages and Disadvantages of Technology/Interpersonal...

Advantages and Disadvantages of Technology Tammy J. Little Axia Western International University Online ADJ/360: Interpersonal Communication in Criminal Justice Hiram Porter July 2, 2006 Advantages and Disadvantages of Technology With the increase of violent crimes come the advantages and disadvantages of modern technology in law enforcement. Law enforcement employs the use of stun guns and is equip with car video surveillance. We will examine some of the issues that contain some validity to arguments for the continue use of these tools within law enforcement. Stun Guns Stun guns were implemented in law enforcement in the 1980 s for the purpose of minimizing the use of firearms. There are valid arguments for both sides of†¦show more content†¦Legally speaking the use of video equipment provides an unequivocal representation of facts. Videos give clear, concise and unadulterated picture of events as they unfold. The old saying that a picture is worth a thousand words is just as valid today as well the saying was originated. When utilize in a court of law where a jury is present a video can give a second-by second detail of an event and will leave very little room for doubt on any part (either the offender or the law enforcement officer). In one case during a driving violation stop, Deputy Harvey Smitherman after originally arresting the driver of the vehicle, while waiting on the tow truck viewed the videotape and discovered that he in fact arrested the wrong person. The videotape revealed that a passenger had gotten out of the ve hicle just to toss a glass container held a paper towel stuffed over four white rock-like substances. After observing the video and realizing that he had detained the wrong offender. He immediately released the driver and proceeded to arrest the passenger and the passenger was charged with the possession of controlled substance. 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