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"WILL & GRACE."   Term Paper ID:28757 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Critical analysis of NBC sitcom. Compared to "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" in terms of bringing new social issues to public view.... More...

4 Pages / 900 Words 3 sources, 6 Citations, MLA Format $16.00 Return to List of Papers

Paper Abstract: Critical analysis of NBC sitcom. Compared to "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" in terms of bringing new social issues to public view. Paper Introduction: The controversies generated by television programming often appear in very different lights depending on which critical approach one takes to them. A brief analysis of the NBC series Will and Grace (1998-) via the "cultural" approach of Newcomb and Hirsch and the Gramscian "hegemonic" analysis of Gitlin provides insights into the program and into the theories as well. Will and Grace is a sitcom that deals with the lives of the title characters, respectively a very successful New York attorney and an interior designer. Will is gay and Grace is straight and the supporting characters, Jack and Karen, are Will's friend and Grace's do-nothing employee. Jack and Karen are a flamboyant, self-involved gay man and a flamboyant, self-involved straight woman. Both are comic sexual predators; Jack wants to sleep with every man he meets and Karen has married an Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. Gitlin adopts Gramsci's theorybut also asks precisely how television's formal means "express socialconflict, containing and diverting the images of contrary socialpossibilities" (576). Television: The Critical Eye, 561-73. The contribution of Will and Grace to the public conversation abouthomosexuality is, therefore, to gently assert that gay people are just likeanyone else and can possess qualities that raise them above the crowd.Gitlin's take on Will and Grace would also acknowledge that, like The MaryTyler Moore Show on career women, the series says that gay people openlyliving their own lives are here to stay. Works CitedGitlin, Todd. Thus theshow was not intended as a complete endorsement of feminism per se but asan acknowledgment that it was a force in society yet the show's hegemonicdrive, i.e., the drive to reproduce the terms of the dominant culture, wasto keep this new phenomenon contained. Horace Newcomb. Moore's character was the most stable andsanest individual at the heart of a group of people who ranged from wildlystereotyped to witty, slightly dysfunctional types. In both analyses the methods recognize that television takes onissues in its series in a low-key fashion and both analyses would recognizethat Will and Grace acknowledges the newly won 'normal' status of gaypeople. If Mary was not assertive about her feminism so Will is notassertive about his sexuality. KoMut Entertainment-NBC Studios/Three Sisters Entertainment, 1998-2 . The controversies generated by television programming often appear invery different lights depending on which critical approach one takes tothem. And just as the earlier program made the assertion that asingle woman could have a good life and a good career--but made it gentlyand without focusing on sharply defined relevant issues--so Will and Graceasserts that a gay man can have a good life. He may make points about gay rights but hecounterbalances Jack's stereotypically gay flamboyance and overactive sexlife by being a soberly dressed man who has broken up with a long-termlover and now leads a life that, while not empty of dates or implied sex,seems sexless next to Grace's life. They are,however, such kind and giving people that their friends take up too much oftheir time and they sometimes do not focus sufficiently on their own needs. Just as Mary was never forced to be extremely assertive or dogmaticabout feminist principle--because people's objections to her life were onlycast in terms of comic exaggeration--so Karen's casual insults directed atWill stand in for opposition that gay people face in real life. This approach askswhat programs "mean" if American television programming is a culturalsystem that promotes its own reproduction. There is still agreat deal of prejudice against gay people and the network was taking acalculated risk--but with a very tame show that was forthright but avoidedany difficult issues aside from the sexuality of its characters. Both shows also make thecharacters' lives enviable and pleasant and give them a degree ofvulnerability. Two seemingly opposed types of critical analysis produce surprisinglysimilar answers. Will is gay and Grace is straight and the supportingcharacters, Jack and Karen, are Will's friend and Grace's do-nothingemployee. Thus the beautiful and charming Mary and the beautiful andcharming Will both have a difficult time finding the right man. But Gitlin adds to his remarksabout the earlier show that it, and its imitators, allowed that feminismhad become a fact of life but "work[ed] to contain it with hilariousversions of 'new life styles' for single career women" (581). All four characters are very attractive and, asidefrom Jack's perennial poverty which is paid for by Will, they never wantfor anything. Horace Newcomb. The program did this in a cheerful,understated fashion and viewing it from Newcomb's and Hirsch's culturalapproach it is clear that Burrows and his collaborators have taken some ofthe forms of the earlier show and reproduced them in Will and Grace inorder to present the analogous assertion that gay people are part ofsociety and are here to stay. Television: The Critical Eye, 574-94. Thus gay men are contained by theterms of the program--acceptable as long as they behave in the proper wayand negligible, if amusing, when they behave like Jack. When the show was at first aired it was regarded as a risky strategyto offer gay men's lives as subject matter in prime time. Ed. Jack and Karen are a flamboyant, self-involved gay man and aflamboyant, self-involved straight woman. The basis of their approach is that Newcomband Hirsch claim that, like all artists, television's creators are takingpart in an ongoing process in which the culture examines itself.Accordingly, they see television as a rich medium that contributes tosociety's dialogue with itself, and to social change, by supplying a bodyof material complex enough so that each viewer "selects, examines,acknowledges, and makes texts of his or her own" (57 ). But one approach sees this as continuing the conversation whilethe other sees it as trying to set limits on it. Newcomb and Hirsch proposed looking at televisionprogramming as one aspect of the "process of public thinking," i.e., the"social construction and negotiation of reality" by producers and writerand, "to a lesser extent," directors and actors (563). Executive producers: Max Mutchnick, David Kohan, and James Burrows. But justas Mary's kindly boss thought she ought to be married and that women didnot really belong in a news-room, so Karen allows that Jack is great fun(and the closest things she has to a friend) and that Will is a verycapable and presentable lawyer whose services she secured for her powerfulhusband. Hirsch. Both are comic sexual predators;Jack wants to sleep with every man he meets and Karen has married anextremely wealthy, powerful man and is concerned with keeping him in lineby withholding sex. A brief analysis of the NBC series Will and Grace (1998-) via the"cultural" approach of Newcomb and Hirsch and the Gramscian "hegemonic"analysis of Gitlin provides insights into the program and into the theoriesas well. Ed. Will and Grace is a sitcom that deals with the lives of the titlecharacters, respectively a very successful New York attorney and aninterior designer. "Prime Time Ideology: The Hegemonic Process in Television Entertainment." "Television as a Cultural Forum." (1979). Will functions in thesame way, with a neurotic best friend and the over-the-top characters ofKaren and Jack. These artists lookfor new meanings by devising fresh combinations of "cultural elements withembedded significance" (563). New York: Oxford UP, 2 .Will and Grace. New York: Oxford UP, 2 .Newcomb, Horace, and Paul M. 6th ed. 6th ed. Gitlin, on the other hand, derives his analysis from AntonioGramsci's theory that "every society works to reproduce itself--and itsinternal conflicts--within its cultural order" (574). If anti-gay rights amendments can pass in variousstates and the majority of religious leaders condemn homosexuality, why isthis program so popular? Gitlin notes that The Mary Tyler Moore Show, a product of the 197 s,was the first of a number of series that acknowledged that "some sort offeminism is here to stay" (581). "Television as a Cultural Forum." (1983). Thus, they note, various producers tend tomake a particular type of contribution. Newcomb and Hirsch point out that artists design their contributionto the public conversation about issues in ways that "will maintain anaudience with sufficient reference to the known and [also] move ahead intosomething that distinguishes" their shows from all the others for networkbuyers and for audiences (568). Theprogram became a major hit and the network made it one of the cornerstonesof its programming. If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.