Edward Albee 's Who 's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf

Suburban sitcoms coming out in the late 50’s early 60’s portrayed usually an average family with average problems it solves by the end of the episode, most sitcoms including “Leave It To Beaver” followed the same formula; two white parents, a mother, and father, and 2-3 children; every episode followed the same steps, there’s a problem, the problem is solved by the end of the episode, and a lesson is learned by the main character. This held up perfectly in the 50’s and 60’s society, but sitcoms needed to adapt to fit their society, as time progressed, more important issues showed up in the shows, and as the US became more diverse so did the sitcoms. Today suburban sitcoms couldn’t be more different. As society became more diverse, more sitcoms were made to cater to the new audience.

During the 1950’s the culture, trends, and demographics had a huge impact on television production.Leave it to Beaver, a popular sitcom during the 1950’s portrayed family life as it was during that time period. A period of elegance,family significance,and refinement. While watching an episode of Leave it to Beaver I quickly observed the difference

Sitcoms have existed ever since television was introduced to the family home, and continue to evolve along with television and society itself. Traditionally, sitcoms were centred around men, usually having only one or two female characters, however over time, societal changes and movements have drastically changed the way sitcoms have been presented to the public. Happy Days was produced in the 1970s; portraying the traditional 50s white American family. The ‘50s were a time recognised for being post World War II, the beginning desegregation, the rise of Rock N Roll as well as a widespread sense of stability, contentment and consensus. The

Throughout time, media has been used to reflect society. One popular method of doing so is television. Many people rely on television as a source of entertainment and history. From shows from the 1950s to now, culture and society have been shown in its truest forms. Looking back at the shows from the past gives one a good insight on how families acted in different time periods. One can analyze different shows in different decades to see how family dynamic and trends have changed over time. To get a grasp of the how the perception of families changed throughout time, I choose 5 decades and watched an episode of a popular television show at the time. I watched the 1950s show “The Honeymooners” to start off with because it shows the dynamic of a white, heterosexual, cisgender couple. I then watched “Good Times” from the 1970s to show an African American, heterosexual, cisgender couple and their family. Next, I watched the 1980s show “Growing Pains” to illustrate a white, heterosexual, cisgender family. I choose these 3 specific shows to get a baseline of three different family dynamics (White, African American, family, and couple). I then compared specifically “Good Times” to the 1990s show “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air”, and “The Honeymooners” and “Growing Pains” to the 2000s show “Modern Family”. Please note that homosexuality and non-cisgender will not

The census statistics during this period shows a distinct transition in family dynamics and the growth of blended families across the nation. The transition to a broader definition of what marriage can be is what arguably has led to societies social shift to a larger acceptance of marriage that maybe historically didn’t fit what the media portrayed as the ideal marriage; like blended families, interracial marriage, and in recent years the shift to acceptance of homosexual marriage and relationships that even in the 1960s was portrayed in cinema. The ideal shift of a “perfectly imperfect” television family that obviously have face trials and tribulations but still provides a loving home for children and a vessel for moral teachings is something that we still see today on television. Full House is arguably an outcome of the progression from The Brady Bunch era that expanded the idea of what marriage and family could be. Full house is a form of a blended family in a non-traditional way. Instead of a remarriage you have a widowed single father with three daughters and his two male best friends helping raise them. Without previous shows like The Brady Bunch paving the way for non-traditional families, shows like Full House might have never been given the avenue to tell these stories of non-traditional families that were actively living in the

Ahhh, the good ol’ days. When people hear this, they think back to a time when they remember happiness. However, people tend to only remember the happiness and not the negative aspects of that time period. When people think back to the 1940’s and the 1950’s they think that these are the greatest generations. However, looking at texts, and TV shows from this time period shows the truth. These families are conformists; a happy suburban home, a father who works, a mother who stays at home, and the three children who may disobey their parents, but learn from their mistakes. The show, Father Knows Best, and the book, Homeward Bound, by Elaine Tyler May, gives a better sense of what actually happened in these suburban homes, and what happens if you try and conform the society.

Times have changed; the nuclear family is no longer the American ideal because family needs have changed since the 1950's. This American convention of a mother and father and their two children, were a template of films and early television as a depiction of the American family life. Now seen as archaic and cliché by today’s standards, but the idea is common throughout many of the first world nations in the world. This ideal was a vast departure from the past agrarian and pre industrial families, and was modeled and structured as the ‘American dream’ father working, mother maintaining the household and children molded to be simulacra of the parents. This portrayal was not the standard; many communities throughout America had a different

As early as 1950, television families have depicted not only the way we live today, but also the way we ought to live (Tueth, 2003). Hence, television has continued to present comedies about family life that ranges from the didactic model of domestic conventionalist and gradually to non-conventionalist ways of life. By conventionalist, I mean the depiction of the “nuclear” family that consists of clear roles, responsibilities, and gentle lines of authority that flow from the wise dad and understanding mom to the obedient children (Kutalas, 2005). Examples of these types of shows between 1947 to 1990 that constructed more than 60% of family sitcoms included: The Cleavers, The Cosby Show, Father Knows Best, Family Ties, and Growing Pains

In 1964 both of these family sitcoms were introduced to us. The Munsters and Addams Family actually critiqued the suburban family as embodied in the television sitcoms of the 1950s by undermining its image. These shows portrayed the typical suburban family that included young kids and family pets, as well as a mother who held the family together. They also questioned the values and social norms of American families during the 1950s. Just like their ethnic identity, social status and extended family structure, the Munster and Addams families made us question traditional family roles. The women of the house break gender rules of the 1960s housewife by looking for employment outside the home, while the men, even though they work, they always seem to be home all the time. The shows made parts of the counterculture safe for the television audience, assuring them that being different could also be lovable. That’s why young families really enjoyed watching these shows because they realized that it was okay to be different and still be considered normal. Both sitcoms also offered comfort that the deviance, the not so perfect nature of real families was not really that strange at

Virginia Woolf's essay "Death of the Moth" gave me an in depth look into how death is inevitable and how nature “dies” just like us. Death of the Moth” thoroughly describes how she sees a month trapped in a fragment of her window and is fighting for his life. The speaker seems willing to help the moth, but then further leans to the idea that the moth is trying to escape death. Witnessing the death of the moth, she feels that this is exactly what the “circle of life” entails. Despite the feeling of loss, she comprehends that the death of the moth was bound to happen as it does with every other creature. She also fully understands that the death of the moth is just a normal part of life. The speaker lets us know that when we are fighting for

Much of life is over thought and overlooked. Society has pushed humans to care about everything in the world, rather than what is actually important. People do not stop and smell the roses anymore, instead people scroll, click, and tap away much of their lives. Fortunately, when people do stop caring about irrelevant big ideas and being caring about the little things, people begin to see things from a new light. Many authors, such as Virginia Woolf, have help remind humans to stop and appreciate the little things in life. In The Death of the Moth, Woolf explained to the readers that by stopping and taking a moment to examine life in its purest form, people will realize the vital aspects that they have missed before. Realizing vital aspects that a person may have missed before will allow people, like Woolf in her own story, to understand it is the simple things in life that make a person truly

In the 1950's the number of people living in the suburbs came to actually equal the number of people living in cities. This wave of people was due mainly to the availability of affordable housing; which allowed middle-class Americans to move to an area previously inhabited only by the wealthy. The houses and neighborhoods built in mass numbers on assembly lines came to look identical to each other. As a result of this, a model American life was created. People all around the country began to follow this model, and before they knew it a race to conform had begun. People no longer strove to be different, neither by ethnicity nor religion; they strove to be the same. David Farber, the author of The Age Of Great Dreams,

The new era of television was in full action with the introduction and production of relevancy television shows; these shows no longer hid from social problems and injustices, but rather used the world around them to create relevant and slightly more complex storylines. Shows like Chico and the Man and Mary Tyler Moore Show were examples of how television in the 1970s looked at social issues in spheres that had been previously ignored by network producers and became platforms that allowed the spread of information to the public about social, economic, and political struggles of minorities and women. Even though the 1970s demonstrated a new and different mindset when compared to the programming that had been broadcasted in the ‘50s, these progressive

Family relationships are a common theme in novels or television shows. One of the most famous and successful contemporary animated sitcoms in television is “The Simpsons” which portrays the family and its dynamics in a very satirical way. Before “ The Simpson” appeared on television, the traditional American family of the 1950s was considered as the perfect one. It was a patriarchal family where the father went to work, the mother raised the children while taking care of the household and the children behaved well and did always the right thing. Indeed, the American family of the 1950’s was considered as an efficient structure where positive values and morals, including a deep belief in God and in the Country, played an important

     Death is a difficult subject for anyone to speak of, although it is a part of everyday life. In Virginia Woolf’s “The Death of the Moth”, she writes about a moth flying about a windowpane, its world constrained by the boundaries of the wood holding the glass. The moth flew, first from one side, to the other, and then back as the rest of life continued ignorant of its movements. At first indifferent, Woolf was eventually moved to pity the moth. This story shows that life is as strange and familiar as death to us all. I believe this story was well written and will critique the symbolism, characters, and the setting.