Final Project: Girlfriends: A Simultaneous Disruption and Enforcement of Hegemony
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5h6Y_Vjs6c&list=PL4D89F9C31422AD19
The concept of Hegemony is the dominance power of a group of people over another group. The television show called Girlfriends was a sitcom in the late 90’s early 2000’s that had a hard time escaping these hegemonic powers and conformed to the stereotypical “norms” of our society. The television show Girlfriends follows the lives of four African American women, watching them juggle their occupations, relationships, and everyday lives as there woven within one another. At first you would have high hopes that this show actually had the potential to overcome the hegemonic powers, but once again the media perpetuates the same old stereotypes.
As I am going to be showing how Girlfriends reinforces hegemony, Alex will be showing how Girlfriends disrupts hegemony. The three main points we will be arguing are the shows character portrayals, the displays of beauty and consumerism, and the family unit created by the woman’s friendship. Once finished with reading my post, head over to Alex’s page to read on the counterpoint that disrupts hegemony!
Character Portrayal:
Watching the first episode of this series, the show portrays the stereotype of the “ignorant black women.” Through the women’s verbal and physical actions Maya says to Joan, “Joan you know that we are the only black women in this room, we can’t be yelling all up threw here!” Within the first minute of the show it is pointed out that the hegemonic power is being enforced. Although it portrays them as successful woman working in a business atmosphere, this distracts us from the inequalities women are still facing. Agreeing with Susan Douglas’ article called Enlightened Sexism, she says, “How do we square the persistence of female inequality with all those images of female power we have seen in the media… Since the early 1990s, much of the media have come to over represent women as having made it…”
Beauty and Consumerism:
Furthermore, the hegemonic powers are enforced by the ideal standard of beauty and consumerism. All of the four women are good looking, tall, skinny, and light skinned. To top it off, they are living in the most appearance-obsessed place, Los Angeles and lastly they make it clear that they are all heterosexual. In Jean Killbourne’s The More you Subtract, the More you Add article, she expresses that “Girls of all ages get the message that they must be flawlessly beautiful and, above all these days, they must be thin.” Not only is the message of beauty being enforced, the message of materialism is also portrayed by one of the characters in this episode. In the Enlightened Sexism article, Douglas says, “Buying stuff-the right stuff, a lot of stuff-emerged as the dominant way to empower ourselves.” In the episode Tony is shown as a very materialistic woman focusing on a man’s money to empower herself. For example, when Lynn asks Tony who Charles is, (her new boyfriend) Tony replies with, “Charles with the stock options”… then Lynn asks her if Charles has a last name and Tony responds with “I don’t know, Charles has a Porsche!” Tony so focused on materialistic products and money enforces the hegemonic messages our society deals with on a daily basis revolving around consumerism.
Family Unit:
Although the show portrays four close-knit friends whose lives revolve around one another, there are two points that enforces hegemony. The first point is how there is competition amongst the women. The competition between the characters disrupts their family unit they contain. For example, the girls get into arguments and hide things from one another just because of a man multiple times. Having this lead into my second point, the women are constantly revolving and making their conversations about men. To make it clear, if they’re not talking about a man, they’re going to end up talking about a man. Their friendships are not revolving around their successes or one another; it always goes back to a male’s presence. In the article Ways of Seeing, John Berger explains how men are portrayed in our society. “A man’s presence is striking…A man’s presence suggests what he is capable of doing to you or for you.” Enforcing the patriarchal dominance of a man, the hegemonic messages become portrayed even when the show is supposed to be about four friends that are all women. The women enforce the hegemonic ideals because they are still focused on the “need” of a man in their lives disregarding the positive things they already have!
Throughout the three main ideas, we now know that our society is still having a hard time escaping the hegemonic powers. Continuously conforming to the stereotypical “norms” such as inequalities women face, the perception of beauty and the dominance of men, nothing will or has changed much in our society. Actually enjoying this show while it was still being aired, maybe it was for the best that the show got cancelled; therefore the reinforcements of hegemony would not be viewed anymore by society.
GO CHECK OUT ALEX’S POST!!
