Watch one of the three 1980s television episodes linked below and write 400 words on the representations of class within Roseanne, LA Law, or COPS. This post will count as two blog posts.
LA LAW, s.1, ep.1
Roseanne, s.1, ep. 1
COPS, pilot (please watch all of the parts on youtube)
Even in the pilot episode of Roseanne the class level of the family is already evident and integrated into the show. From their home, to their manor of speaking, and their appearance, everything seems to reinforce the idea that this is a blue-collar family. The most obvious portrayal of class comes when Roseanne goes to visit Darlene’s history teacher, Ms. Crane. During their entire interaction, it is clear that there is sharp divide between Roseanne’s lower class life, and Ms. Crane’s highly educated, upper class life. When Roseanne enters the classroom, Ms. Crane remarks that Roseanne is fifteen minutes late and suggests that they reschedule the meeting, Ms. Crane does not want to be late to her squash game, she is quick to correct Roseanne after she incorrectly calls the game tennis. Roseanne instantly rejects the idea, it was difficult enough for Roseanne to make it to this meeting, and it will not be any easier for her any other time during the week. In order to make it to the meeting, Roseanne had to fight with her boss, Mr. Booker, about leaving early from work and then to do so she had to lose money from her paycheck. Ms. Crane seems to have hobbies and other activities outside of her work life, she has plenty of leisure time, on the other hand, Roseanne barely has a moment to herself the entire episode. During the meeting, Ms. Crane tells Roseanne that she is worried about Darlene and wants to make sure that Darlene’s behavioral issues are not stemming from a problem at home. To explain how she is feeling, Ms. Crane uses “big words” that suggest she is highly educated. Roseanne does not understand what Ms. Crane is trying to say, reinforcing the divide between well-educated upper class, and poorly educated lower class. When Ms. Crane asks Roseanne about her relationship with her daughter, Roseanne simply replies that it is “typical” and that she has a great deal on her plate and cannot devote as much time as she might like with her daughter. Ms. Crane seems offended by this, and is appalled that Roseanne is unable and unwilling to try and spend more time to her daughter. Needless to say, the meeting does not end on a positive note. Besides their differing opinions, there is sharp contrast in the appearances of Roseanne and Ms. Crane. In the scene, Roseanne wears a large blue sweatshirt and jeans, while Ms. Crane wears a red skirt and a nice white blouse. The class difference of blue collar versus white collar is evident just in the color of their clothes. Another contrast in the appearance of the two women is the size difference. Roseanne is considered overweight, while Ms. Crane is typical television skinny. Being overweight tends to be associated with lower social class, laziness, and a lack of caring, while being skinny is generally linked to being high class, hard working, and intelligent. The two women are on opposite sides of the class spectrum. The class differences between Roseanne and Ms. Crane get reinforced through their attitudes towards leisure time, education level and appearance.
Based on Feuer’s definition of the “yuppie”—a group he details as “suffering no guilt over their gentrified condos and gleaming kitchens”—and our viewing of thirtysomething, Roseanne represents the opposite end of the social spectrum. Roseanne is show that offers no apologies for the family life and class it portrays, but it also makes a clear comment on that life by humorizing it. This episode opens with an early morning routine, with Roseanne making lunches, the kids nagging or getting in the way, and a fairly comical exchange with Dan and Roseanne about getting the sink fixed. The family’s rapport is dysfunctional, but funny; it also comes across as very normal. The Connor’s are a working-class family and at almost every opportunity the audience is reminded of that. Becky is seen taking cans from the pantry for a food drive when Roseanne says the food drive should be helping them. Work and getting paid is a forefront in the episode: when Darlene’s teacher requests a meeting, Roseanne’s first though is that she’ll lose an hour’s pay; Dan is in search of job but is not actively pursuing it; Roseanne works at a factory; and Jackie and the other factory workers envision a better, richer life where they can have anything they want. This idolization towards a high-class lifestyle draws parallels between the family and characters we find in thirtysomething to the family we see in Roseanne. Michael, Hope, and baby Janie live in a nice home, but it is not as nice as they want—or not as nice as they think it should be. They enlist a carpenter to fix it up, whereas Dan has to fix the clogged sink himself; they can’t afford to hire someone. The types of parenting are also portrayed very differently. Hope stays home with Janie to care for her—they don’t need two incomes. Roseanne and Dan both have to work and their parenting could almost be seen as a pain. They care for their kids, but it is shown through joking and teasing. Feuer describes something called “yuppie guilt” and how Michael feels guilty because he can afford things; he can afford to fix his house or rent a sound stage, but ultimately feels bad because of it. With Roseanne—even though it’s a sitcom and thirtysomething is a drama—this idea of guilt is never acknowledged. The rich life—something Michael and Hope often whine about—is a privilege within Roseanne’s world.
Roseanne depicts the life of a 1980s blue collar, working class family. There are no illusions that they are living the traditional white picket fence American dream. Roseanne and Dan both work low income jobs, and they are supporting three kids. They make several references to the fact that money is tight, with Becky only being allowed to take two cans for the food drive (as well as Roseanne’s suggestion that they stop by the house), Roseanne having to take a paycheck cut for leaving early to visit Darlene’s teacher, and Dan not being able to fix the sink because he is trying to get a guy to bring some work his way. In terms of the way wealth is presented, Thirtysomething portrays the “rich life” as something to be strived for. Michael initially insists they cannot have a housewarming party until the rooms are completely finished and in order so as to come off to their friends and family as having a successful life. Roseanne, on the other hand, does not really do that. Roseanne and Dan do discuss their future retirement plans, and there are some sarcastic remarks about having a new car and a perfect family, but generally speaking the characters seem generally content with their lives the way they are. In fact, the only one who seems at all embarrassed by their financial situation is Becky, who insists her mother take back the broken backpack because she does not want to be seen with it. Roseanne and Dan do not appear to be ashamed of their financial position in any way, often cracking jokes about various aspects of it. As wealth, or a lack there of is a prominent theme in this episode, it makes sense to note the jobs that Dan and Roseanne hold. Roseanne work on the line in a factory, and Dan works in construction. While her job appears to be a fairly regular “9 to 5” schedule, he takes jobs as they come to him. Due to the fact that they both work, part of the conflict in the episode is the fact that nothing ever gets done around the house because they are both busy all the time. Roseanne is far from a typical television housewife, and she is not afraid to speak up when she thinks her husband takes the work she does do for granted. In a sense, they come across as a “dysfunctional family.”
Roseanne was meant to be a reflection of the lower-middle class working American family, and the way the family is presented reflects that. Even from the opening credits it’s clear that the family is not well off; they’re all squashed around the small circular table in the kitchen, laughing and eating and generally enjoying themselves, surrounded by consumer products that aren’t the best quality but certainly aren’t the worst either. Through the first minute of the show, it’s already sending the message to the viewers that the family might not have the highest socio-economic standing, but they’re still happy and moreover they have what they need. This message is further emphasized throughout the episode. For example Roseanne has to leave work an hour early so that she can meet with Darlene’s teacher and she mentions how she’s going to lose an hour’s worth of pay (later she only gets a half hour off) because of it; Roseanne was upset that she wouldn’t be paid for the time that she had to miss but it also wasn’t a cause for concern. Roseanne having to leave early didn’t mean that they wouldn’t be able to afford to pay the mortgage or buy groceries, it means that the family wouldn’t have as much money as they normally would expect; it was an inconvenience rather than a true issue, enough that when she finds that the time she missed was coming out of her pay she sarcastically responds “Well there goes the porche”. The money she loses for that hour’s work won’t ruin her life it’s just unfortunate. This is more realistic to how people in their economic standing actually lived in the United States making the Barr family more relatable. They are made even more relatable by the family dynamic presented in the show. Most sitcoms before this time featured nice looking families with well behaved children that didn’t do things like talk back or hit each other or talk on the phone during meals, and while this is a nice image of family life, it is ultimately an unrealistic one. Roseanne and Dan’s children are depicted as being actual children (who hit their siblings on the head with their English books and don’t brush their teeth before going to school) rather than being these adorable, perfect, witty little angels that don’t really reflect the way average American children behaved. Furthermore, the relationship between Roseanne and Dan is more realistic and relatable than other TV couples. Roseanne and Dan are not always fighting and at each other’s throats, but they’re also not the picture of domestic bliss; they clearly love each other, but that doesn’t prevent them from butting heads or getting annoyed with each other occasionally, as it shouldn’t. Roseanne and Dan both work to support their family which naturally causes some tension between them; it doesn’t mean their relationship is over or even in trouble, it means that they’ve been together 15 years. By depicting a family that looks like an average American family (rather than looking like an ideal American family) Roseanne is making the statement that most families don’t need to be rich (or perfect) to be happy and in doing so helping a great number of lower-middle class families connect with the show.
P.S. Doing this assignment in a study carrel in the Hatcher Library did not, in any way, stop me from screaming “is that George Clooney?!?!” when he came on the screen. So precious.
The television show Roseanne marked a return to the working class sitcom, which television had been leaving behind almost since its inception. While many of the early sitcoms dealt with working class families, television soon switched its focus, as America changed its focus as well. Sitcoms began to show nuclear families living in the suburbs with well-paying jobs. Roseanne returns to the working class family with a bang. Both the mother and father work blue-collar, laborers jobs. Roseanne works a full time job in a plastics factory while her husband works as a freelance construction worker, meaning that he is constantly hunting for work. They have three children, more than most nuclear families. There is a big deal made about Roseanne needing to leave her job an hour early for the parent teacher conference since she will have to lose an hour’s pay. They live at a level where they cannot really afford to lose any money. They work hard for everything they have, and they don’t have much. Many of the arguments stem from the need for money and for both parents to be fully employed. But it’s not just arguments. Jokes and conversations not intended to be funny or dramatic also revolve around their financial situation. Roseanne argues with her boss to get the hour off, and afterwards the women all laugh at their boss and his sports analogies. The boss is portrayed as out of touch, white collar. He works in an office off the factory floor, and he is the only character who dresses for a business day. He is the butt of the jokes because of his status above everyone else on the show. Other jokes are made about the family’s financial situation throughout the episode. When the eldest daughter is taking cans for the food drive for the poor, Roseanne tells her that they should “drive food over to [their] house”, taking a crack at their class being one step above poverty. There are also markers of their class in the background. Roseanne asks her husband to keep a coupon in the paper for her, and all the women at the factory are shown cutting coupons together on their break. Roseanne’s family also buys bulk items – the can of creamed corn is huge, commonly referred to as “economy size”. The backpack given to the older daughter is simple, and rips one day after it was purchased, obviously a cheap bag. Roseanne marked a return to the working class sitcoms in the 1980s as American television began to branch out its representations, trying to get more viewers and segment the audience as networks began competing with cable shows for audiences.
Roseanne is a sitcom that presents a working class family with a strong female lead. In this sitcom it is not the father bringing home the bacon as it typically was portrayed in earlier sitcoms of working class in the 50s and 60s. In the opening scene we see a family sitting around the table, there is nothing really special about their house or appearances. The kitchen is cluttered with things and the furniture does not particularly all match which suggests that the mother of the family is not a typical housewife taking care of cleaning and cooking. The family is dressed in sweatshirts, jeans, flannel shirts, and other very simple things. Nothing about this family suggests they are more than average. They are even concerned with giving away canned food to the poor as they think they need it just as much. It is brought up multiple times in the episode that she will be losing an hours worth of pay to be able to do everything she needs to do for her family. They make it clear that money is an issue and a constant theme in a woking class family. Roseanne has a job at a factory to help provide for her family and then goes to meet with her daughters teacher and returns her other daughters backpack all while the father is hanging out with friends and drinking beer. Roseanne often makes comments about how much work she does for the family and that she has to teach her husband to be a good man. Her work is often unappreciated by the family as well. Her daughter asked for a new backpack and after a busy day Roseanne gets her one and instead of a thank you she complains about the color being blue. It is clear that in Roseanne things do not come easy for her family but she works hard to make their life a little bit better. It seems that all Roseanne does as a character is nag and whine, but towards the end of the episode you learn that she is a strong female character that people in the 1980s could latch on to because there were few shows that portrayed such a hard working woman and mother, it was always one or the other. The show portrays the day in the life of Roseanne as the other characters days are just described to her later on. This forefront of a working mother in the 1980s is TV progressing as the times were progressing and more women were getting educated and more mothers were working.
The representations of class within Roseanne are very apparent throughout the entire episode. This sitcom differs greatly from the working class sitcoms from the 40s and 50s. During this early period even though the families were portrayed as being poor they somehow got the consumer products that they wanted by doing something extra. In Roseanne, some of the jokes are about the things that they don't have such as the porches that is mentioned when she is at work or about how they can't afford a plumber to fix the sink which has been not working at least three times during the week. Within Roseanne they never really obtain or consume as much as these early shows did. Because many jokes are about the lack of money they have and about the lack of things, this is a clear indication that they are in fact working class.
One thing that I noticed from the beginning is that Roseanne and her husband are both bigger people. This is linked to lower class because it would be hard for them to afford good quality nutritious food that someone with a higher class could afford. That and that some scenes are shown sitting around a table eating food. Roseanne complains that she has no time during the day that she puts in 8 hours at work and another 8 hours at home. This implies that she has no room for leisure activates such as tennis, as her daughters teacher, or any time to go work out. Hence, why she is a bigger woman.
Another indication that they are working class is that many of the jokes are at each other, and they are a little more rude and offending. Roseanne has no problem calling out her husband for his stupid remarks. For example, in the morning he has if there is coffee in which Roseanne responds by asking has there ever been a morning for the past 15 years of their marriage where there has not been coffee, in which he responds No. This reminds me of in Amos 'n' Andy how Kingfish and Andy are always trying to out trick the other person which in turn makes them look dumb. This show was also portrayed as lower, working class people.
When Roseanne goes to her meeting with the teacher about her daughter, the teacher has to 'dumb' down her speech and explain everything that she is not getting. This implies that the teacher is in the working middle class where she can afford some more leisure time and looks like she is in a lot more shape that Roseanne.
COPS is a show that portrayed class in a profoundly negative light. In the many episodes of COPS that I have watched, the criminal is almost always poor. Race, Gender, and Sexual Orientation aside, the poor are always the criminals. They usually live in awful homes, speak poorly, and have no ability to reason normally. They position the poor as animals who can't be civilized. They show the criminals as stupid or amoral, and usually both. The cops themselves are glorified, exemplars of virtue and reason. The cops are doing what needs to be done, and dealing with what are portrayed as “the problem” with society. A COPS criminal is marked by two features, run down home and awful speech patterns. If they're white, the criminals are white trash who slur their words and beat their wives. If they're black, they look like thugs and shout the N word all the time. They always “get what’s coming to them” and the show always sides with the COPS, never allowing the criminals to be sympathetic. A lot of the families on COPS are broken homes, but the COPS are never there to help. They tear children away from undeserving people, usually for making one mistake (drugs, usually). Theft is often a crime the criminals are caught in, but usually drugs are involved. If drug usage isn’t the crime directly, then the criminal is usually shown to be a user. Usually in an episode, we see a criminal taken down by the cops while trying to escape. This shows the people that order exists, and no matter what “the poor” might try, order will catch up with them. It’s a comforting message that seeks to nullify more radical elements that might pop up in the middle class. This portrayal shows the poor as something to be feared and dissociated with, not to ally with. In a time where economic policy is hurting the poor of all races, COPS helps the middle class viewers side with the rich rather than the poor. It helps secure the middle class’s faith on the drug war and the policies happening around them. COPS is a reassurance to the middle class. It reassures them that they’ve made the correct choice in life, that removing themselves physically and mentally from the poor is a wise choice. It shows how despicable the lower class can be, and congratulates them for not being poor.
Roseanne presents a very different picture of class when compared shows we've seen previously (from the 50's and 60's). In older shows, class divide between lower and middle class was made exceedingly apparent with such things as drastically different familial makeups (lower class families were immigrants, living together in large extended families, vs. the "traditional" nuclear family for the middle class) and differing levels of consumerism (a desire for consumerism in the lower class vs. an example of consumerism in the middle class).
This line is blurred, however, in Roseanne. The family seems at times lower (income) class and at times middle class. Outwardly, they are quite the traditional middle class family...a home in the suburbs, a strong nuclear family, and a wife who is a caretaker and homemaker for her family. The show, however, plays with the conventions of early television quite a bit, flipping them on their heads in three key ways: muddling of gender roles, introducing the concern of income (an issue originally reserved as an issue for the non-nuclear families), and presenting "trouble in paradise".
Gender roles are mashed up in Roseanne, presenting a picture of "lower middle class" (for lack of a better term) that is not quite in line with the 50s and 60s ideal. Though Roseanne does most of the housework that was (and to an extent still is) considered "women's work", she was not always happy about it, quick to point out the unfairness of the situation. This is expanded upon by the fact that Roseanne works in a factory, earning money for her family just as her husband does. A picture is painted of a family doing everything they can to get by...the perfect nuclear family ideal has failed them, in a sense.
Income is briefly covered as a concern when the trouble of Roseanne's husband failing to find work is addressed. Though it is not the primary focus, at least of this episode, it is certainly alluded to. Such problems were not shown in earlier TV, at least among families who had achieved the nuclear family "dream"...they were perfect consumers who had the money to buy the goods their shows advertised.
The concept of "trouble in paradise" is also presented. In part through the previous two discussed situations, but also in the general day-to-day relationships among Roseannes family. It is all played for comedy and made light of, but suffice it to say the children are not perfect and family life is not presented as perfect in every regard. One scene that stands out is one in which Roseanne, sarcastically fed up with her children, says "this is why some animals eat their young". Though it is played for comedy, the show doesn't shy away from depicting the reality of imperfect/annoying children.
As a whole, Roseanne is a show that reaffirms the positive aspects of family life, but it is unique in its depiction of class (specifically, lower middle class) when compared to older TV in that it doesn't shy away from playing up the bad and the struggles of a life that is far from easy.
The class representations in the 1980s sitcom Roseanne are very different from those seen in 1950s television. In the episode “Life and Stuff” we are introduced to Roseanne and her family. As the lead character and obvious head of the household, Roseanne is a wife and mother of two daughters and a son. Roseanne’s family is working class, living in a very modest and messy home. Throughout the entire episode, the family is depicted as sloppier, bigger, and much lower class than working class families in 1950s sitcoms. Roseanne and her husband are very sarcastic toward one another, often joking about how they wish they weren’t married to each other. Roseanne is depicted as the one who brings home all the bacon in her family, while her husband is temporarily out of work and would rather go enjoy the day with his friends than help Roseanne with the house chores. However, after Roseanne returns home from an eight-hour workday and finds the sink still broken and threatens to fix it herself, her husband Dan exclaims, “fixing the sink is the husband’s job, and I’m the husband.” This scene demonstrated how in 1980s working class home life it is still traditional for the man to complete such masculine activities. Roseanne’s family is also depicted as lower class because her children seem disobedient as well. Her middle child Darlene gets in trouble at school for barking in class. In addition, Darlene is a very tomboyish girl who participates in baseball and enjoys the demolition derby. Both activities for a young girl are seen as lower class. Roseanne, and employee at Wellman Plastics, is incredibly sarcastic. She is often represented as coping for the unfortunate things in her life with such sarcasm. When Roseanne and her coworkers discuss the men in their lives, it is apparent that they all have very low expectations of men. Roseanne mentions that she has to do everything else besides fixing the sink because she always has to do everything. Additionally, Roseanne and her husband are both larger people. This could be representing how those in the working class can’t afford to buy healthier meals or don’t have as much time to exercise as those in higher classes. Overall, this 1980s sitcom greatly differs family sitcoms from the 1950s. I think Roseanne is more true to actual American working class culture during that period than the 1950s sitcoms were to the working and middle classes.
When Cops first aired in 1989, its producers had envisioned a series that would document the domestic lives of police officers, as well as the gritty reality of their work. However, throughout the subsequent seasons, the series dropped its focus on the domestic sphere and focused heavily on crime busts and the action therein. And this action existed and continues to exist primarily within low income and impoverished neighborhoods, which thereby created/creates a hugely controversial image of the poor. The series’s focus on criminal activity in low income areas implicitly suggests that the poor are responsible for more crime than wealthier classes. In the pilot of Cops, the vast majority of the crimes take place in poor neighborhoods; one cop, while arresting a white teenager participating in a drug deal, explicitly states that a “white kid” had no business in a neighborhood like that. In other segments, cops raid crack houses, search prostitutes, and bust drug dealers, all generally foregrounded against a ubiquitous backdrop of dilapidated buildings and run-down streets. And, incidentally, a lot of these streets and buildings are populated by minorities - African Americans and Latinos, primarily. This episode in particular emphatically points toward the huge difference between upper and lower classes, both in terms of race distribution and of crime distribution. And this difference works heavily against the reputation of the lower class. One of the program’s executive producers defended the series’s heavy-handed treatment of these neighborhoods, arguing that “white-collar” crimes did not have televisual appeal (Wikipedia). He argued that lower class crimes are more aesthetically appealing, as they require forced, physical intervention by the police. But this social aspect of Cops remains highly controversial, as the show establishes the lower classes as highly concentrated in/responsible for the majority of an area’s crime. This series, with its distinct fly-on-the-wall style, marks one of the first mainstream reality television programs. The handheld camera follows the cops in pursuit, into the middle of crime at hand. In doing so, it establishes a sense of cinema vérité, and thereby works to legitimize the “reality” represented within the program. This style of filmmaking therefore encourages viewer acceptance of the program’s not-so-subtle social assertions. The pilot’s focus on crime within lower class neighborhoods is characteristic of the entire series to follow, and skews viewer perception of the lower class, averting attention from “upper-ring” and “white-collar” crimes.
Class in Roseanne was represented in three ways. There was the dynamic of husband and wife, where Roseanna is still in the family position of a 1950’s era wife who takes care of the home and the kids. But at the same time she was living in a time where it was common and necessary for a working class woman to work as well as the husband. The second came when Roseanne’s sister talks about another one of her seminars to her money. Showing this conversation and interaction shows people that want to move upwards out of their socio economic status. This is similar to one of Roseanne’s daughters who is worried about superficial things so she can appear cool to her friends at school.
The final display came when George Clooney’s character the factory owner talks with Roseanne when she tries to leave work early in order to pick up her kids. Clooney’s character is the manager or owner of the factory who is in a higher position of authority and can’t relate to Roseanne’s problems because they aren’t one’s he himself has. This shows how the class variation works with in the workplace. There can be multiple levels under one building that have to work with each other in order to be successful.
I think Roseanne was definitely a good way to portray the working class in the 80’s. For the most part, when television focused on white families, they lived in unrealistic wealthy homes with a plethora of money. Specifically, Rosanne can be contrasted greatly with 1950’s television, especially when it came to white families and the husband and wife dynamic that was seen as the norm in the 50’s. The struggle of making ends meet was never much of a problem. In Roseanne, the first 3 minutes of the show automatically sets up the context for their socioeconomic status. The daughter’s backpack breaks, the sink is broken (they have to fix it themselves), and Roseanne needs to clip coupons for sales. In fact, all the women working at Roseanne’s job clip coupons together, showing they are all in the same situation. Roseanne is not hiding the fact in any way that they are a working class family. The reasoning behind why I think Roseanne is a good way to portray the working class is because it isn’t ashamed of showing the imperfection of the family. Roseanne constantly talks about how she is the one that does all of the work compared to her husband (he is currently out of work). In this sense, Roseanne is the breadwinner in the family, completely opposite of the “norm” in 50’s television. Although they are a working class family, Roseanne still shows that this kind of lifestyle can still bring happiness. Roseanne and her husband bicker, but it is playful and funny, and shows that they have a strong relationship. The same goes for her children, she jokes around with them and although they sometimes get into trouble and don’t listen, she still has a strong relationship with them. Although these relationships are not viewed in the ways that they have been shown in past television shows, that doesn’t mean that they are any less strong. In terms of historical context, I think Roseanne was a good way to show the gap between the rich and the poor. Although for the most part the 80’s were a prosperous time as a result in the rise of the stock market, there were still a number of families that were struggling. Roseanne was a good way to target these families, but at the same time the sarcasm and humor found in the show helped to make the target audience bigger.
Even in the pilot episode of Roseanne the class level of the family is already evident and integrated into the show. From their home, to their manor of speaking, and their appearance, everything seems to reinforce the idea that this is a blue-collar family. The most obvious portrayal of class comes when Roseanne goes to visit Darlene’s history teacher, Ms. Crane. During their entire interaction, it is clear that there is sharp divide between Roseanne’s lower class life, and Ms. Crane’s highly educated, upper class life. When Roseanne enters the classroom, Ms. Crane remarks that Roseanne is fifteen minutes late and suggests that they reschedule the meeting, Ms. Crane does not want to be late to her squash game, she is quick to correct Roseanne after she incorrectly calls the game tennis. Roseanne instantly rejects the idea, it was difficult enough for Roseanne to make it to this meeting, and it will not be any easier for her any other time during the week. In order to make it to the meeting, Roseanne had to fight with her boss, Mr. Booker, about leaving early from work and then to do so she had to lose money from her paycheck. Ms. Crane seems to have hobbies and other activities outside of her work life, she has plenty of leisure time, on the other hand, Roseanne barely has a moment to herself the entire episode. During the meeting, Ms. Crane tells Roseanne that she is worried about Darlene and wants to make sure that Darlene’s behavioral issues are not stemming from a problem at home. To explain how she is feeling, Ms. Crane uses “big words” that suggest she is highly educated. Roseanne does not understand what Ms. Crane is trying to say, reinforcing the divide between well-educated upper class, and poorly educated lower class. When Ms. Crane asks Roseanne about her relationship with her daughter, Roseanne simply replies that it is “typical” and that she has a great deal on her plate and cannot devote as much time as she might like with her daughter. Ms. Crane seems offended by this, and is appalled that Roseanne is unable and unwilling to try and spend more time to her daughter. Needless to say, the meeting does not end on a positive note. Besides their differing opinions, there is sharp contrast in the appearances of Roseanne and Ms. Crane. In the scene, Roseanne wears a large blue sweatshirt and jeans, while Ms. Crane wears a red skirt and a nice white blouse. The class difference of blue collar versus white collar is evident just in the color of their clothes. Another contrast in the appearance of the two women is the size difference. Roseanne is considered overweight, while Ms. Crane is typical television skinny. Being overweight tends to be associated with lower social class, laziness, and a lack of caring, while being skinny is generally linked to being high class, hard working, and intelligent. The two women are on opposite sides of the class spectrum. The class differences between Roseanne and Ms. Crane get reinforced through their attitudes towards leisure time, education level and appearance.
ReplyDeleteBased on Feuer’s definition of the “yuppie”—a group he details as “suffering no guilt over their gentrified condos and gleaming kitchens”—and our viewing of thirtysomething, Roseanne represents the opposite end of the social spectrum. Roseanne is show that offers no apologies for the family life and class it portrays, but it also makes a clear comment on that life by humorizing it. This episode opens with an early morning routine, with Roseanne making lunches, the kids nagging or getting in the way, and a fairly comical exchange with Dan and Roseanne about getting the sink fixed. The family’s rapport is dysfunctional, but funny; it also comes across as very normal.
ReplyDeleteThe Connor’s are a working-class family and at almost every opportunity the audience is reminded of that. Becky is seen taking cans from the pantry for a food drive when Roseanne says the food drive should be helping them. Work and getting paid is a forefront in the episode: when Darlene’s teacher requests a meeting, Roseanne’s first though is that she’ll lose an hour’s pay; Dan is in search of job but is not actively pursuing it; Roseanne works at a factory; and Jackie and the other factory workers envision a better, richer life where they can have anything they want. This idolization towards a high-class lifestyle draws parallels between the family and characters we find in thirtysomething to the family we see in Roseanne.
Michael, Hope, and baby Janie live in a nice home, but it is not as nice as they want—or not as nice as they think it should be. They enlist a carpenter to fix it up, whereas Dan has to fix the clogged sink himself; they can’t afford to hire someone. The types of parenting are also portrayed very differently. Hope stays home with Janie to care for her—they don’t need two incomes. Roseanne and Dan both have to work and their parenting could almost be seen as a pain. They care for their kids, but it is shown through joking and teasing.
Feuer describes something called “yuppie guilt” and how Michael feels guilty because he can afford things; he can afford to fix his house or rent a sound stage, but ultimately feels bad because of it. With Roseanne—even though it’s a sitcom and thirtysomething is a drama—this idea of guilt is never acknowledged. The rich life—something Michael and Hope often whine about—is a privilege within Roseanne’s world.
Roseanne depicts the life of a 1980s blue collar, working class family. There are no illusions that they are living the traditional white picket fence American dream. Roseanne and Dan both work low income jobs, and they are supporting three kids. They make several references to the fact that money is tight, with Becky only being allowed to take two cans for the food drive (as well as Roseanne’s suggestion that they stop by the house), Roseanne having to take a paycheck cut for leaving early to visit Darlene’s teacher, and Dan not being able to fix the sink because he is trying to get a guy to bring some work his way. In terms of the way wealth is presented, Thirtysomething portrays the “rich life” as something to be strived for. Michael initially insists they cannot have a housewarming party until the rooms are completely finished and in order so as to come off to their friends and family as having a successful life. Roseanne, on the other hand, does not really do that. Roseanne and Dan do discuss their future retirement plans, and there are some sarcastic remarks about having a new car and a perfect family, but generally speaking the characters seem generally content with their lives the way they are. In fact, the only one who seems at all embarrassed by their financial situation is Becky, who insists her mother take back the broken backpack because she does not want to be seen with it. Roseanne and Dan do not appear to be ashamed of their financial position in any way, often cracking jokes about various aspects of it. As wealth, or a lack there of is a prominent theme in this episode, it makes sense to note the jobs that Dan and Roseanne hold. Roseanne work on the line in a factory, and Dan works in construction. While her job appears to be a fairly regular “9 to 5” schedule, he takes jobs as they come to him. Due to the fact that they both work, part of the conflict in the episode is the fact that nothing ever gets done around the house because they are both busy all the time. Roseanne is far from a typical television housewife, and she is not afraid to speak up when she thinks her husband takes the work she does do for granted. In a sense, they come across as a “dysfunctional family.”
ReplyDeleteRoseanne was meant to be a reflection of the lower-middle class working American family, and the way the family is presented reflects that. Even from the opening credits it’s clear that the family is not well off; they’re all squashed around the small circular table in the kitchen, laughing and eating and generally enjoying themselves, surrounded by consumer products that aren’t the best quality but certainly aren’t the worst either. Through the first minute of the show, it’s already sending the message to the viewers that the family might not have the highest socio-economic standing, but they’re still happy and moreover they have what they need. This message is further emphasized throughout the episode. For example Roseanne has to leave work an hour early so that she can meet with Darlene’s teacher and she mentions how she’s going to lose an hour’s worth of pay (later she only gets a half hour off) because of it; Roseanne was upset that she wouldn’t be paid for the time that she had to miss but it also wasn’t a cause for concern. Roseanne having to leave early didn’t mean that they wouldn’t be able to afford to pay the mortgage or buy groceries, it means that the family wouldn’t have as much money as they normally would expect; it was an inconvenience rather than a true issue, enough that when she finds that the time she missed was coming out of her pay she sarcastically responds “Well there goes the porche”. The money she loses for that hour’s work won’t ruin her life it’s just unfortunate. This is more realistic to how people in their economic standing actually lived in the United States making the Barr family more relatable. They are made even more relatable by the family dynamic presented in the show. Most sitcoms before this time featured nice looking families with well behaved children that didn’t do things like talk back or hit each other or talk on the phone during meals, and while this is a nice image of family life, it is ultimately an unrealistic one. Roseanne and Dan’s children are depicted as being actual children (who hit their siblings on the head with their English books and don’t brush their teeth before going to school) rather than being these adorable, perfect, witty little angels that don’t really reflect the way average American children behaved. Furthermore, the relationship between Roseanne and Dan is more realistic and relatable than other TV couples. Roseanne and Dan are not always fighting and at each other’s throats, but they’re also not the picture of domestic bliss; they clearly love each other, but that doesn’t prevent them from butting heads or getting annoyed with each other occasionally, as it shouldn’t. Roseanne and Dan both work to support their family which naturally causes some tension between them; it doesn’t mean their relationship is over or even in trouble, it means that they’ve been together 15 years. By depicting a family that looks like an average American family (rather than looking like an ideal American family) Roseanne is making the statement that most families don’t need to be rich (or perfect) to be happy and in doing so helping a great number of lower-middle class families connect with the show.
ReplyDeleteP.S. Doing this assignment in a study carrel in the Hatcher Library did not, in any way, stop me from screaming “is that George Clooney?!?!” when he came on the screen. So precious.
Note: I accidentally called them the Barr family, they're the Conner family. My bad.
DeleteThe television show Roseanne marked a return to the working class sitcom, which television had been leaving behind almost since its inception. While many of the early sitcoms dealt with working class families, television soon switched its focus, as America changed its focus as well. Sitcoms began to show nuclear families living in the suburbs with well-paying jobs. Roseanne returns to the working class family with a bang. Both the mother and father work blue-collar, laborers jobs. Roseanne works a full time job in a plastics factory while her husband works as a freelance construction worker, meaning that he is constantly hunting for work. They have three children, more than most nuclear families.
ReplyDeleteThere is a big deal made about Roseanne needing to leave her job an hour early for the parent teacher conference since she will have to lose an hour’s pay. They live at a level where they cannot really afford to lose any money. They work hard for everything they have, and they don’t have much. Many of the arguments stem from the need for money and for both parents to be fully employed. But it’s not just arguments. Jokes and conversations not intended to be funny or dramatic also revolve around their financial situation.
Roseanne argues with her boss to get the hour off, and afterwards the women all laugh at their boss and his sports analogies. The boss is portrayed as out of touch, white collar. He works in an office off the factory floor, and he is the only character who dresses for a business day. He is the butt of the jokes because of his status above everyone else on the show.
Other jokes are made about the family’s financial situation throughout the episode. When the eldest daughter is taking cans for the food drive for the poor, Roseanne tells her that they should “drive food over to [their] house”, taking a crack at their class being one step above poverty.
There are also markers of their class in the background. Roseanne asks her husband to keep a coupon in the paper for her, and all the women at the factory are shown cutting coupons together on their break. Roseanne’s family also buys bulk items – the can of creamed corn is huge, commonly referred to as “economy size”. The backpack given to the older daughter is simple, and rips one day after it was purchased, obviously a cheap bag.
Roseanne marked a return to the working class sitcoms in the 1980s as American television began to branch out its representations, trying to get more viewers and segment the audience as networks began competing with cable shows for audiences.
Roseanne is a sitcom that presents a working class family with a strong female lead. In this sitcom it is not the father bringing home the bacon as it typically was portrayed in earlier sitcoms of working class in the 50s and 60s. In the opening scene we see a family sitting around the table, there is nothing really special about their house or appearances. The kitchen is cluttered with things and the furniture does not particularly all match which suggests that the mother of the family is not a typical housewife taking care of cleaning and cooking. The family is dressed in sweatshirts, jeans, flannel shirts, and other very simple things. Nothing about this family suggests they are more than average. They are even concerned with giving away canned food to the poor as they think they need it just as much. It is brought up multiple times in the episode that she will be losing an hours worth of pay to be able to do everything she needs to do for her family. They make it clear that money is an issue and a constant theme in a woking class family.
ReplyDeleteRoseanne has a job at a factory to help provide for her family and then goes to meet with her daughters teacher and returns her other daughters backpack all while the father is hanging out with friends and drinking beer. Roseanne often makes comments about how much work she does for the family and that she has to teach her husband to be a good man. Her work is often unappreciated by the family as well. Her daughter asked for a new backpack and after a busy day Roseanne gets her one and instead of a thank you she complains about the color being blue. It is clear that in Roseanne things do not come easy for her family but she works hard to make their life a little bit better.
It seems that all Roseanne does as a character is nag and whine, but towards the end of the episode you learn that she is a strong female character that people in the 1980s could latch on to because there were few shows that portrayed such a hard working woman and mother, it was always one or the other. The show portrays the day in the life of Roseanne as the other characters days are just described to her later on. This forefront of a working mother in the 1980s is TV progressing as the times were progressing and more women were getting educated and more mothers were working.
The representations of class within Roseanne are very apparent throughout the entire episode. This sitcom differs greatly from the working class sitcoms from the 40s and 50s. During this early period even though the families were portrayed as being poor they somehow got the consumer products that they wanted by doing something extra. In Roseanne, some of the jokes are about the things that they don't have such as the porches that is mentioned when she is at work or about how they can't afford a plumber to fix the sink which has been not working at least three times during the week. Within Roseanne they never really obtain or consume as much as these early shows did. Because many jokes are about the lack of money they have and about the lack of things, this is a clear indication that they are in fact working class.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that I noticed from the beginning is that Roseanne and her husband are both bigger people. This is linked to lower class because it would be hard for them to afford good quality nutritious food that someone with a higher class could afford. That and that some scenes are shown sitting around a table eating food. Roseanne complains that she has no time during the day that she puts in 8 hours at work and another 8 hours at home. This implies that she has no room for leisure activates such as tennis, as her daughters teacher, or any time to go work out. Hence, why she is a bigger woman.
Another indication that they are working class is that many of the jokes are at each other, and they are a little more rude and offending. Roseanne has no problem calling out her husband for his stupid remarks. For example, in the morning he has if there is coffee in which Roseanne responds by asking has there ever been a morning for the past 15 years of their marriage where there has not been coffee, in which he responds No. This reminds me of in Amos 'n' Andy how Kingfish and Andy are always trying to out trick the other person which in turn makes them look dumb. This show was also portrayed as lower, working class people.
When Roseanne goes to her meeting with the teacher about her daughter, the teacher has to 'dumb' down her speech and explain everything that she is not getting. This implies that the teacher is in the working middle class where she can afford some more leisure time and looks like she is in a lot more shape that Roseanne.
COPS is a show that portrayed class in a profoundly negative light. In the many episodes of COPS that I have watched, the criminal is almost always poor. Race, Gender, and Sexual Orientation aside, the poor are always the criminals. They usually live in awful homes, speak poorly, and have no ability to reason normally. They position the poor as animals who can't be civilized. They show the criminals as stupid or amoral, and usually both. The cops themselves are glorified, exemplars of virtue and reason. The cops are doing what needs to be done, and dealing with what are portrayed as “the problem” with society.
ReplyDeleteA COPS criminal is marked by two features, run down home and awful speech patterns. If they're white, the criminals are white trash who slur their words and beat their wives. If they're black, they look like thugs and shout the N word all the time. They always “get what’s coming to them” and the show always sides with the COPS, never allowing the criminals to be sympathetic. A lot of the families on COPS are broken homes, but the COPS are never there to help. They tear children away from undeserving people, usually for making one mistake (drugs, usually). Theft is often a crime the criminals are caught in, but usually drugs are involved. If drug usage isn’t the crime directly, then the criminal is usually shown to be a user.
Usually in an episode, we see a criminal taken down by the cops while trying to escape. This shows the people that order exists, and no matter what “the poor” might try, order will catch up with them. It’s a comforting message that seeks to nullify more radical elements that might pop up in the middle class.
This portrayal shows the poor as something to be feared and dissociated with, not to ally with. In a time where economic policy is hurting the poor of all races, COPS helps the middle class viewers side with the rich rather than the poor. It helps secure the middle class’s faith on the drug war and the policies happening around them. COPS is a reassurance to the middle class. It reassures them that they’ve made the correct choice in life, that removing themselves physically and mentally from the poor is a wise choice. It shows how despicable the lower class can be, and congratulates them for not being poor.
Roseanne presents a very different picture of class when compared shows we've seen previously (from the 50's and 60's). In older shows, class divide between lower and middle class was made exceedingly apparent with such things as drastically different familial makeups (lower class families were immigrants, living together in large extended families, vs. the "traditional" nuclear family for the middle class) and differing levels of consumerism (a desire for consumerism in the lower class vs. an example of consumerism in the middle class).
ReplyDeleteThis line is blurred, however, in Roseanne. The family seems at times lower (income) class and at times middle class. Outwardly, they are quite the traditional middle class family...a home in the suburbs, a strong nuclear family, and a wife who is a caretaker and homemaker for her family. The show, however, plays with the conventions of early television quite a bit, flipping them on their heads in three key ways: muddling of gender roles, introducing the concern of income (an issue originally reserved as an issue for the non-nuclear families), and presenting "trouble in paradise".
Gender roles are mashed up in Roseanne, presenting a picture of "lower middle class" (for lack of a better term) that is not quite in line with the 50s and 60s ideal. Though Roseanne does most of the housework that was (and to an extent still is) considered "women's work", she was not always happy about it, quick to point out the unfairness of the situation. This is expanded upon by the fact that Roseanne works in a factory, earning money for her family just as her husband does. A picture is painted of a family doing everything they can to get by...the perfect nuclear family ideal has failed them, in a sense.
Income is briefly covered as a concern when the trouble of Roseanne's husband failing to find work is addressed. Though it is not the primary focus, at least of this episode, it is certainly alluded to. Such problems were not shown in earlier TV, at least among families who had achieved the nuclear family "dream"...they were perfect consumers who had the money to buy the goods their shows advertised.
The concept of "trouble in paradise" is also presented. In part through the previous two discussed situations, but also in the general day-to-day relationships among Roseannes family. It is all played for comedy and made light of, but suffice it to say the children are not perfect and family life is not presented as perfect in every regard. One scene that stands out is one in which Roseanne, sarcastically fed up with her children, says "this is why some animals eat their young". Though it is played for comedy, the show doesn't shy away from depicting the reality of imperfect/annoying children.
As a whole, Roseanne is a show that reaffirms the positive aspects of family life, but it is unique in its depiction of class (specifically, lower middle class) when compared to older TV in that it doesn't shy away from playing up the bad and the struggles of a life that is far from easy.
The class representations in the 1980s sitcom Roseanne are very different from those seen in 1950s television. In the episode “Life and Stuff” we are introduced to Roseanne and her family. As the lead character and obvious head of the household, Roseanne is a wife and mother of two daughters and a son. Roseanne’s family is working class, living in a very modest and messy home. Throughout the entire episode, the family is depicted as sloppier, bigger, and much lower class than working class families in 1950s sitcoms. Roseanne and her husband are very sarcastic toward one another, often joking about how they wish they weren’t married to each other. Roseanne is depicted as the one who brings home all the bacon in her family, while her husband is temporarily out of work and would rather go enjoy the day with his friends than help Roseanne with the house chores. However, after Roseanne returns home from an eight-hour workday and finds the sink still broken and threatens to fix it herself, her husband Dan exclaims, “fixing the sink is the husband’s job, and I’m the husband.” This scene demonstrated how in 1980s working class home life it is still traditional for the man to complete such masculine activities.
ReplyDeleteRoseanne’s family is also depicted as lower class because her children seem disobedient as well. Her middle child Darlene gets in trouble at school for barking in class. In addition, Darlene is a very tomboyish girl who participates in baseball and enjoys the demolition derby. Both activities for a young girl are seen as lower class.
Roseanne, and employee at Wellman Plastics, is incredibly sarcastic. She is often represented as coping for the unfortunate things in her life with such sarcasm. When Roseanne and her coworkers discuss the men in their lives, it is apparent that they all have very low expectations of men. Roseanne mentions that she has to do everything else besides fixing the sink because she always has to do everything.
Additionally, Roseanne and her husband are both larger people. This could be representing how those in the working class can’t afford to buy healthier meals or don’t have as much time to exercise as those in higher classes.
Overall, this 1980s sitcom greatly differs family sitcoms from the 1950s. I think Roseanne is more true to actual American working class culture during that period than the 1950s sitcoms were to the working and middle classes.
When Cops first aired in 1989, its producers had envisioned a series that would document the domestic lives of police officers, as well as the gritty reality of their work. However, throughout the subsequent seasons, the series dropped its focus on the domestic sphere and focused heavily on crime busts and the action therein. And this action existed and continues to exist primarily within low income and impoverished neighborhoods, which thereby created/creates a hugely controversial image of the poor. The series’s focus on criminal activity in low income areas implicitly suggests that the poor are responsible for more crime than wealthier classes. In the pilot of Cops, the vast majority of the crimes take place in poor neighborhoods; one cop, while arresting a white teenager participating in a drug deal, explicitly states that a “white kid” had no business in a neighborhood like that. In other segments, cops raid crack houses, search prostitutes, and bust drug dealers, all generally foregrounded against a ubiquitous backdrop of dilapidated buildings and run-down streets. And, incidentally, a lot of these streets and buildings are populated by minorities - African Americans and Latinos, primarily. This episode in particular emphatically points toward the huge difference between upper and lower classes, both in terms of race distribution and of crime distribution. And this difference works heavily against the reputation of the lower class. One of the program’s executive producers defended the series’s heavy-handed treatment of these neighborhoods, arguing that “white-collar” crimes did not have televisual appeal (Wikipedia). He argued that lower class crimes are more aesthetically appealing, as they require forced, physical intervention by the police. But this social aspect of Cops remains highly controversial, as the show establishes the lower classes as highly concentrated in/responsible for the majority of an area’s crime.
ReplyDeleteThis series, with its distinct fly-on-the-wall style, marks one of the first mainstream reality television programs. The handheld camera follows the cops in pursuit, into the middle of crime at hand. In doing so, it establishes a sense of cinema vérité, and thereby works to legitimize the “reality” represented within the program. This style of filmmaking therefore encourages viewer acceptance of the program’s not-so-subtle social assertions. The pilot’s focus on crime within lower class neighborhoods is characteristic of the entire series to follow, and skews viewer perception of the lower class, averting attention from “upper-ring” and “white-collar” crimes.
Class in Roseanne was represented in three ways. There was the dynamic of husband and wife, where Roseanna is still in the family position of a 1950’s era wife who takes care of the home and the kids. But at the same time she was living in a time where it was common and necessary for a working class woman to work as well as the husband. The second came when Roseanne’s sister talks about another one of her seminars to her money. Showing this conversation and interaction shows people that want to move upwards out of their socio economic status. This is similar to one of Roseanne’s daughters who is worried about superficial things so she can appear cool to her friends at school.
ReplyDeleteThe final display came when George Clooney’s character the factory owner talks with Roseanne when she tries to leave work early in order to pick up her kids. Clooney’s character is the manager or owner of the factory who is in a higher position of authority and can’t relate to Roseanne’s problems because they aren’t one’s he himself has. This shows how the class variation works with in the workplace. There can be multiple levels under one building that have to work with each other in order to be successful.
I think Roseanne was definitely a good way to portray the working class in the 80’s. For the most part, when television focused on white families, they lived in unrealistic wealthy homes with a plethora of money. Specifically, Rosanne can be contrasted greatly with 1950’s television, especially when it came to white families and the husband and wife dynamic that was seen as the norm in the 50’s. The struggle of making ends meet was never much of a problem. In Roseanne, the first 3 minutes of the show automatically sets up the context for their socioeconomic status. The daughter’s backpack breaks, the sink is broken (they have to fix it themselves), and Roseanne needs to clip coupons for sales. In fact, all the women working at Roseanne’s job clip coupons together, showing they are all in the same situation. Roseanne is not hiding the fact in any way that they are a working class family.
ReplyDeleteThe reasoning behind why I think Roseanne is a good way to portray the working class is because it isn’t ashamed of showing the imperfection of the family. Roseanne constantly talks about how she is the one that does all of the work compared to her husband (he is currently out of work). In this sense, Roseanne is the breadwinner in the family, completely opposite of the “norm” in 50’s television. Although they are a working class family, Roseanne still shows that this kind of lifestyle can still bring happiness. Roseanne and her husband bicker, but it is playful and funny, and shows that they have a strong relationship. The same goes for her children, she jokes around with them and although they sometimes get into trouble and don’t listen, she still has a strong relationship with them. Although these relationships are not viewed in the ways that they have been shown in past television shows, that doesn’t mean that they are any less strong.
In terms of historical context, I think Roseanne was a good way to show the gap between the rich and the poor. Although for the most part the 80’s were a prosperous time as a result in the rise of the stock market, there were still a number of families that were struggling. Roseanne was a good way to target these families, but at the same time the sarcasm and humor found in the show helped to make the target audience bigger.