Who is Suzan Walters?
Suzan Walters is a graduate student in the sociology department at Stony Brook University, and is a colleague of Michael Kimmel. She received the 2015 Outstanding Student Paper Award in the ASA section, Disability and Society. A committed researcher of gender studies, Walters provided a plethora of information that will further inform my research and findings for this assignment. Although she is not an avid viewer of sitcoms such as It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, she provided scholarly insight into the worlds of both masculinity and femininity in television.
Suzan Walters is a graduate student in the sociology department at Stony Brook University, and is a colleague of Michael Kimmel. She received the 2015 Outstanding Student Paper Award in the ASA section, Disability and Society. A committed researcher of gender studies, Walters provided a plethora of information that will further inform my research and findings for this assignment. Although she is not an avid viewer of sitcoms such as It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, she provided scholarly insight into the worlds of both masculinity and femininity in television.
What would you say are the main male gender stereotypes in television today?
Well it would depend on what you’re looking at, um, if you’re talking about sitcoms, I, I would say there’s this kind of “buffoon” who is being portrayed, but overall, I would say in television, you see a lot of gender played out, and Michael Kimmel has written a lot about this, about how masculinity is being defined in relation to femininity, and how you hear this in what they say, and you can see it in the body language depicted on television, when men try to assert their masculinity by negating the female, or the other. So, calling each other “pussies” or “bitches” and any kind of derogatory term, and also in terms of the hierarchy of sexuality, for masculinity, the normative would be the heterosexuals, and they again assert their masculinity by negating homosexuality as well.
Would you say that those two, generally interact with each other? Femininity and masculinity? In the way that negating one informs the other?
Absolutely. So, femininity and masculinity can never really be looked at separately. The two are defined in relation to each other.
Do you believe that these stereotypes have changed over time?
Yes, they have changed over time. We still see the main norm as the heterosexual male who can make money and provide money for his family, but we have also seen through organizing for gender equality, and also the LGBT movement, certain behaviors are not acceptable. And you do see that change in television as well. I’m thinking of the Honeymooners (...) where the main lead male was very, he was the provider, and the wife kind of ran around, kind of opposed to what we see now, in say, Modern Family, where we see a gay couple on television. However, that gay couple is being depicted in a very normative way: one acting more feminine, one acting more masculine. Not really what reality would be. We see a marriage between an older white man and a Latino woman, and she is very sexualized, as we see with different representations of race. We see her having a very strong accent, telling the viewer that she is an “other”. My point is, we still see these representations, but they’re done in a different way, and we are also seeing different constructions of the family, but the underlying tone is still prioritizing a certain type.
What do you think the most prominent male stereotype is shown on television today?
I would say probably what we would consider a middle-class, white male. And if those people don’t look like that, then they might act like that. And we’ve seen that the middle class is decreasing, and these images are not necessarily images of reality.
So do you believe that male stereotypes vary from genre to genre in the media. So what example would you give of a prominent masculine identity in television?
So if we looked at Modern Family, we’re seeing what I described, the middle class white male, and they do deal with ideas of masculinity in a very funny way, and masculinity can be questioned with displays of femininity, and while that can change by genre, like in African American shows, which I haven’t watched extensively, so there might be different types of jokes, but overall, that theme, I would say, is still coming through.
In sitcoms, there is often an over-exaggeration of a certain stereotype with male and female characters just to be satirical. Do you think this resonates with the audience, or do you believe that this makes them even more judgmental, per se?
I think it’s probably both. When we see an image, and we think that it’s funny, we think it’s funny because it carries a meaning to it, but when we continue to see those meanings, it’s reproducing those inequalities as well.
Concluding Thoughts
Suzan Walters explained the fact that feminist studies cannot exist without that of masculinity, and these two themes interact with one another in a way that informs studies about each. Also, because Walters provided specific examples to relate to, her information will be more easily comprehended by a wider audience that watches television. For example, her referral to Modern Family provides a parallel show to relate It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia to. The most significant part of this interview is, perhaps, the way Walters explains that masculinity cannot exist without the negation of femininity, and vice versa. This will provide further insight into the way masculinity and femininity will be researched further, especially in relation to modern sitcoms.
Although Walters believes that there is a transition into new stories and representations of masculinity and femininity in the media, and especially television, she also believes that there still is an underlying sense of false representation in the media, even with satirical over-exaggeration. Relating to studies of audiences, this will inform research into the way that men in the audience view television and search for representations of themselves while they are ultimately disappointed with an over-exaggerated and unreliable representation of themselves as white, middle-class men, which is a declining population, according to Walters. The information gathered from this interview with Walters provided much valuable insight into masculinity as well as femininity in the media, and particularly in television sitcoms.
Suzan Walters explained the fact that feminist studies cannot exist without that of masculinity, and these two themes interact with one another in a way that informs studies about each. Also, because Walters provided specific examples to relate to, her information will be more easily comprehended by a wider audience that watches television. For example, her referral to Modern Family provides a parallel show to relate It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia to. The most significant part of this interview is, perhaps, the way Walters explains that masculinity cannot exist without the negation of femininity, and vice versa. This will provide further insight into the way masculinity and femininity will be researched further, especially in relation to modern sitcoms.
Although Walters believes that there is a transition into new stories and representations of masculinity and femininity in the media, and especially television, she also believes that there still is an underlying sense of false representation in the media, even with satirical over-exaggeration. Relating to studies of audiences, this will inform research into the way that men in the audience view television and search for representations of themselves while they are ultimately disappointed with an over-exaggerated and unreliable representation of themselves as white, middle-class men, which is a declining population, according to Walters. The information gathered from this interview with Walters provided much valuable insight into masculinity as well as femininity in the media, and particularly in television sitcoms.