The Different Lives of Men and Women on Television: Ott and Mack's Analysis and Television Study

Everybody Loves Raymond Season 6 DVD
Source: HMV.ca

In a discourse analyzing television, Ott and Mack suggest that the medium betrays a different construction for the characters within the male realm and those within the female arena (184). The authors begin with the former, who are cloaked with aspects such as a degree of volition and as having power within their palms, which is indeed the precursor to the figurative outfit they dawn on television as the conqueror of occupations and thus the holder of the family’s economy (Ott and Mack 184). In line with this design, one who engages with a television program is easily rewarded with a portrait men engaging with different jobs, and as this necessitates some visual visitation of work-place, the authors acknowledge that a televised man is aligned with public standpoints (ibid). This illustration suggested of men fails to encapsulate the opposite sex finding representation on television: according to Ott and Mack, televised women fail to bring forth the emanation of strength, catalyzing their highlight as she who over-watches aspects of the familial (ibid). The authors urge the reader to analyze housewives finding representation in media, while Ott and Mack also acknowledge illustrations of the actions held within the grasp of the aforementioned women, and among others, the one betraying relevance to my blog is the effort allocated for tidiness to permeate domesticity (ibid). I have mentioned my adoration for Everybody Loves Raymond in an earlier blog but I will once more illuminate a scene which is relevant. I recall an episode where Raymond (Ray Romano) and Debra (Patricia Heaton) vehemently suggest to one another that they should relocate a suitcase stationed in an unsuitable portion of the home, in the midst of an adjoining staircase ("Baggage," Everybody Loves Raymond). The voice of Raymond’s father (Peter Boyle) soon finds representation, acknowledging to Deborah that the travelling article should indeed be re-positioned by her hand due to his reasoning that “that’s the way it's supposed to be,” (Youtube: Everybody Loves Raymond Baggage Episode Full Skit) thus illustrating the conceptions illustrated by Ott and Mack in “Feminist Analysis.” I am interested in the dynamic created by the fact that the often vicious Frank makes the impolite suggestion. I believe I have viewed the entire catalogue of the television series and there are a myriad of detrimental postulations emanating from Frank Barone. Thus, does the suggestion that viewers of the program possess, whereby the television character is utilized to demonstrate the uncouth, decidedly trample underfoot any semblance of what Ott and Mack suggest is the interconnectedness forming the connection between televised women and their seemingly uncontested residence within the conception of domesticity (Ott and Mack 109)?

                                                                                     Works Cited

"Baggage." Everybody Loves Raymond. CBS. 5 May 2003. Television.

Everybody Loves Raymond Season 6 DVD. Warner Home Video. HMV.ca. Web. 3 Nov. 2013.

Ott, Brian L., and Robert L. Mack. "Feminist Analysis." Critical Media Studies: an Introduction.

     Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010. 177-196. Print.

---. "Rhetorical Analysis. Critical Media Studies: an Introduction. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010.
     99-123. Print.

SamieTrimble7. "Everybody Loves Raymond Baggage Episode Full Skit." Online video clip.
     Youtube. Youtube. 5 Nov. 2012. Web. 3 Nov. 2013.