Stereotypes In The Show Shameless

Trait theories assume people have many traits that are continuing qualities that individuals have in different amounts. Allport’s theory suggests that there are 3 main traits: central, secondary, and cardinal. A central trait is a characteristic that controls and organizes behavior in various situations. A secondary trait can be described as a preference and is specific to certain situations. A cardinal trait is very general and pervasive. It is so pervasive that an individual is governed by it and it dictates everything a person does.

Their children, Lori, Jeannette, and Brian, want to move to New York City to have a life of their own. But, Rex and Rose Mary decide to follow them there. They are poor and homeless, living on the streets of this overwhelming city.

My fourth trait that I put for Mirabella is she was very crazy. Mirabella was very crazy at the girl’s school and to her sisters. “Mirabella would rip foamy chunks out of the church pews in stage 4 page 5th paragraph 247”. She even scratched her nails on her sister’s shins. Mirabella drew blood from both her sister legs and it hurt them. When she drew blood I think she felt sorry for her. She bit and raked her nails on her own sisters. That was very crazy of Mirabella to do to her sisters.

Jeanette Walls and her out of the ordinary family live their lives surrounded in pure craziness and poverty. Jeanette has been raised to be as independent as her age allows her. At age three she could make herself a hot dog and by the age of eighteen she had started a new life in New York away from the craziness that followed her parents throughout the kids nomadic childhood. Jeanette and her siblings Lori, Brian and Maureen live their childhoods with almost nothing. They were always wondering where their next meal would come from and where there parents had mysteriously disappeared to. Rex Walls, the father and husband was a severe alcoholic who spent most of his money on gambling or a beer from a local bar. Rose Mary Walls, the mother and wife was not better, never being to hold onto a job for long enough to get paid and support her family caused many problems for Rose Mary, Rex and most importantly… the kids. The kids all had the dream of escaping the prison their parents called home and heading to New York or California where they could feel endless happiness. The kids grow up with almost no parents, which forces them to become independent from the day they were born. In The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, Jeanette's parents teach her to only rely on herself and never get attached to something you can lose, forcing Jeanette to become strong and independent throughout her childhood.

Erica and her family live in San Antonio, Texas. The summer before Erica goes into 8th grade. This summer a lot happens to Erica and her family, which caused the family to become stressed and worried. Lisa found out she had breast cancer and that is when their whole life got turned around.

The drama focuses on seven women who live in a tenement building on a walled-off street named Brewster Place. Each in her own way struggles to overcome the hardships of poverty and the disappointments of shattered dreams.

Lori and Jeannette took the role of mother to the younger kids because of lack of mother. Eventually the kids get sick of home and one by one move out of New York City. The day, Jeannette gets there she suddenly gets a feeling of responsibility and starts looking for jobs. She gets a job in a hamburger shop that helps her and Lori move out of the women hotel they were staying

The series follows the lives of the Foster family, consisting of an interracial lesbian couple raising a blended family of biological, adopted opposite sex latino twins and two foster siblings who had been thrown around from foster homes to foster homes.

It is in these actions that the character’s traits are established. It is in this that we, the readers, get to “see” what kind of character thee people are: friendly, sad, nosey, love-struck, adventurous, etc. When we discuss characters in literature, poetry, and even film, we often describe them in terms of their character traits, descriptive adjectives that define the specific qualities of the character. The author/ poet/ director may present this directly, but often times, they show us this in action. Our job as readers/ viewers is to draw conclusions about the character’s traits (infer them). Below is a list of ways we can determine the traits of the character we are studying:

The first personality is ID. ID operates on the pleasure principle which is the idea that every impulse should be satisfied immediately, regardless of the consequences. When the ID achieves its demands, they then experience pleasure. When it is denied, they then experience unpleasure or tension. (McLeod) The best character from Lord of the Flies that fits this personality is Jack. Jack is willing to do anything for his clan of wild hooligans and that even means killing anything to protect them, for example killing the “beast” before it kills them all. Also, he is eager to make rules and punish those who break them, he makes others follow them but he doesn’t follow those same rules that he creates.(Golding ) The other two characters are nothing like Jack but they do care about the others like Jack does.

The movies start out with a semi regular family, considering it is only a mother and a son, and the son is a heroin user. Dean Schmitz a movie reviewer for Variety says that, ¡§Many of the tragedies in the world are accidents; sad blunders of luck, but some, like the four stories in this film are the results of a chain of events that started off with ¡§normal everyday folks¡¨ and ended in the worst kind of way, and in a way that was not accidental, which is maybe the saddest thing of all.¡¨ All four characters start off as normal good people, other than the fact that three of them occasionally ¡§push off¡¨ which is the term used in the movie for shooting up heroin. The movie is broken down into three seasons of the same year, summer, fall, and winter. Summer is a great time for all of them, they seem to be doing well in life and most of their dreams seem to be within reach. Fall, is just what it says, all of the characters begin to fall into, or at least begin their decent in to their drug educed slumps. Finally comes winter, it is this season that all four characters hit rock bottom. Which is graphically depicted in a final montage of disturbing and shocking clips of all of them in their personal hell.

Research also shows indicates that the Big Five has distinct biological substrates thereby linking trait perspective with the biological perspective (DeYoung, Quilty & Peterson, 2007). However this convergence of perspectives is actually productive in that all perspectives by themselves have their disadvantages as well as their advantages. If all perspectives can coincide with one another, explanations of personality will become so much easier.

There are multiple problems that are currently affecting the Gallagher family system. Frank has been an unreliable parent to the children since Fiona’s birth. Frank is currently trying to insert himself back into the family’s life; yet, the children are not fond of this change. Fiona recently became her sibling’s legal guardian. Fiona’s guardianship has lead to a change in roles within the family that her siblings are struggling to adjust to. Fiona is struggling with her role and when she should act as if a parent and when to act as a sister.

Tracking Traits is important because traits are what reveal who we are as people. We all come in different shapes, sizes, personalities, and backgrounds. If we did not have traits we would all just be robots and our lives would be worthless. My hypothesis is what types of traits do we all have make us similar or different.

When you associate words like shameless with everyday life you don’t think of it being a television show, one may think of shameless as a negative adjective used to describe a person showing a lack of shame, but it's a comedy/drama television show that really digs deep into real life scenarios and shows how a true dysfunctional family lives in the “hood” of Chicago. Shameless details how much leadership and mental stability Fiona Gallagher has to have in order to run a family of six in her early twenties.