The important part of making TV shows is to address the right, target audience, promote and adapt it to its ethnicity and most importantly gender. As a straight white female in my twenties I could be a target audience for a number of TV shows and films from pretty little liars to Jane the virgin. Most Tv shows think that putting an attractive looking man will interest female viewers. Now sometimes they are right but other times I would rather have a strong character in the show that shows power than someone who is on the show to look pretty, in today’s media female characters are now being brought up as a powerful influencer.
For example Amy Farrah Fowler from the show big bang theory so Dr. Amy Farrah Fowler was introduced at the end of the third season as a romantic interest for Sheldon Cooper. The joke was that she was the female version of him, most prominently sharing his dislike of physical intimacy. Despite being cold and frumpy, she clearly had been successful in her field. I valued knowledge and education that Amy had and it was a newer character modelled compared to the usual “damsel in distress” that women have been portrayed like in the media.
Another example is Bernadette who is in the same show. Bernadette was a grad student who was waitressing at the Cheesecake Factory and we are seen that she was only in the show of a “girlfriend pact” between the boys. Howard’s status as a Jet Propulsion Lab engineer and astronaut gave him the professional power in their relationship, exaggerated by how Bernadette is very petite and speaks in a little-girlish tone. But then, Bernadette got her doctorate and a well-paying job at a pharmaceutical company, and everything changed. Bernadette then got out of her way to prove that she’s not dumb just because she’s small and feminine. Seeing female scientists who act traditionally feminine as possessing less gravitas is not just a dude problem on the show.
Fiske (1992) explains that fandoms that are typically associated with cultural forms show the dominant value system denigrates – pop music, romance novels, comics and Hollywood mass-appeal stars. It is associated with the cultural tastes of subordinated formations of the people, especially with those disempowered by any combination of gender, age, class and race.
Fiske, J. (1992) ‘The Cultural Economy of Fandom’. In Lewis, L. A. (Ed.) The Adoring Audience. London, Routledge, pp30-49
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