Stereotypes Of Men and Older Woman In The Media

In a TV series called "Community" there is a main character named "Abed" who is a young man who is stereo-typically socially awkward. This is first presented in season 1 episode 1 when he continuously talks about irrelevant topics. However the young male stereotype is that all men are strong, do all the work, do sport, messy and spend to much time on the computer. This character doesn't follow any of these stereotypes expect "to much time on the computer" this emphasises that in this TV series men are not typically and deliberately stereotyped. In another TV series called "Big Bang Theory" young males are the majority of the cast, and all of them are stereotypical: awkward, intelligent and do all the work. Unlike the young female named "Penny" who was presented in the first couple of episodes, she was the complete opposite to the men.  

In the TV soap opera called "coronation street" older woman are stereotypical mothers and house wifes who look after their children, do chores and make dinner. Unlike the other men on the show who "important" task. Also in the show, the middle aged female character "Michelle Connor" is a woman who desperately desires a child but in the TV she loses a child at birth. This raises a stereotype that all women should be mothers. The TV series, Brothers & Sisters, broadcast from 2006 to 2011 by ABC (USA) and a year later by Channel 4 (UK) with quite high audience rates, starts when the patriarchal figure, William Walker, dies of a heart attack and two female figures around their sixties come centre stage: his wife, Nora Walker, and his long-term lover, Holly Harper. Once the patriarchal figure disappears, the female characters regain visibility by entering the labor market and starting relationships with other men. In that sense, both protagonists experience aging as a time in which they are increasingly freed from social and family constraints. However, their roles as nurturers keep on bringing them back to the domestic space in which they are safe from being involved in uncomfortable and unsuitable situations. Drawing on previous studies on the representation of the older woman in fictional media, this article intends to discern to what extent stereotypes related to the older woman are challenged through the two main protagonists of a contemporary TV series.