Mary Tyler Moore & Murphy Brown
The nature of the relationship bet
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The nature of the relationship between women and the mass media has been considered in recent years by sociologists and psychologists as well as media critics, in part based on a concern that the way women are portrayed in the media has a deleterious effect on the way women are viewed in society at large. Women's roles in society have been changing through the determined efforts of feminists and sympathetic political groups over the past two decades, and some of these changes are clearly reflected on television, in film, and in other media portrayals. At the same time, it is evident that progress in changing media portrayals is behind the curve as far as the degree of equality that should be depicted, the roles given to women in the media, and the roles women play behind the scenes in the media as well. When it first went on the air in the 1970s, The Mary Tyler Moore Show was considered a breakthrough because it presented a young woman in the working world rather than as a wife and mother. A more recent example of a working woman in a television comedy is found on Murphy Brown. A comparison of the two shows will be performed using two methodologies, one considering the shows as television shows and analyzing how they are produced and what need they seem to fulfill for a television network, and the other considering the nature of their treatment of women and of other social issues and considering the positive and negative images that infuse each of the shows.
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TV are concerned with family and marital/romantic problems, have problems solved with the help of others, and if employed are supervised by others (Liebert, Sprafkin, and Davidson 163-166).
THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW
The prevailing patterns of employment for female characters on television shows should be recalled as we look to The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Murphy Brown, both series about working women, though these are women in more glamorous occupations than can be achieved by most women. Mary Richards in the first episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show has just come to the Twin Cities and is seeking a job. She is a young woman fleeing from a failed love affair. Originally, she was supposed to be divorced, but the network would not allow a divorced woman as a lead on a comedy show. Even the love affair is kept at a distance so it is never clear what that entailed, and the character had a virginal air that assuaged viewers who might want to think the worst. Considering the degree of sexual frankness on television today, it is surprising how much concern was expressed over the decision by Mary Richards to strike out on her own and seek a career.
Some critics have seen the effort of Mary Richards as a response to the socia
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Approximate Word count = 5287
Approximate Pages = 21 (250 words per page)
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The nature of the relationship bet
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