Hegemony in Television Shows

Hegemony in the sense of communication and the mass media is when the media portrays the ideology of the elites and quiets differing views. The media intends to keep groups without power from gaining that power. This output of one idea is called dominant ideology. (Trenholm, p. 292)

The first show that I chose to watch was a cartoon called “Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends.” In this show the characters with high status are Madame Foster and Mr. Herriman. Madame Foster is a human and the owner of the mansion for imaginary friends that have been discarded. Mr. Herriman is a large rabbit and Madame Foster’s imaginary friend from her childhood. Mr. Herriman is the president of the house and has a long list of rules that he believes should be followed. Mr. Herriman has a sophisticated etiquette and wears a tuxedo coat and a top hat.

The characters that have middle status are Mac and Frankie Foster are human characters. They both wear the clothing of an average individual. Frankie Foster wears shorts, a white shirt, and a green jacket. Mac wears brown jeans and a red shirt. Frankie Foster assists her grandmother in operating the house. Mac is a child who refuses to completely abandon his imaginary friend, Bloo.
The women characters play stereotypical roles. Madame Foster owns the mansion but acts very friendly and can start going on and on in her conversations like a stereotypical older woman. Frankie Foster performs most of the household duties, such as cooking and cleaning. She gets angry when others don’t to their part.

There didn’t seem to be a victimization of women more than men in this cartoon. The women characters run the house, so they are rarely victimized. There are two male characters that are imaginary friends that are often victimized, Wilt and Eduardo. Wilt is an imaginary friend in the form of a basketball player with a short arm and a crooked eye. He can not say no to anyone. In one of the episodes he is trying to watch television and other characters constantly ask him to do them favors and he repeatedly says yes when he clearly wants to say no. The other character that is victimized is Eduardo. He is an ogre-like imaginary friend that has a Hispanic accent. He is scared by many things and other characters take advantage of this at times.

Some minorities are underrepresented in this show. There are no characters that are explicitly African American. None of the human characters are anything but white. Eduardo is a character with a Hispanic accent. There is a minor character that has a Middle Eastern accent. Wilt is a basketball player and most likely represents Wilt Chamberlain who was black, but Wilt the character has a red-colored skin.

In the advertisements that are present during the episodes that I watched, there were a large assortment of commercials aimed at children, since this show is a cartoon on Cartoon Network. There were commercials advertising cereals and toys. In this advertisements, children are either eating the cereal or playing with the toys. While doing either of these activities they are smiling and commenting on how good the cereal is and how fun and cool the toys are.

The second show that I chose to watch was “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit.” All of the characters are of a middle to higher class. They all work as detectives or doctors. One of the doctor characters seems to be of the highest class of all the characters. George Huang is the psychologist and knows a large array of knowledge about his area of expertise.

The status of the characters was marked by the clothing they wear. All of the characters dress professionally, except for the medical examiner who wears a white coat. Knowledge is another thing that marks the status of the characters.
In this show the female characters are just as active as the male characters. One of the two man characters is a female and the other a male. One of the two doctors on the show is a female character, the medical examiner. The assistant district attorney is played by a female character and she does the prosecuting against the criminals.

In this show the majority of the victims are women since it is a special victims unit. The show details with women who are raped, beaten, kidnapped, or murdered. The show rarely has men that are victims. One of the episodes that I watched had young boys being victimized.
This show does a good job at representing minorities. One of the detectives is an African American, detective Odafin Tutuola. The psychologist character is played by an Asian American. One of the detectives is a Jewish man.

The advertisements for the show have a wide target audience. There are some car commercials, beer commercials, restaurant commercials. The car commercials show the drivers driving their cars and smiling and being happy with the new vehicle they just purchased. The beer commercials show people having alcoholic beverages and enjoying themselves greatly. They always smile when they have the beer in their hands and they show a jolt of happiness when they open the bottle or can. The restaurant commercials illustrate the products that they have, the deals that are going on, and someone eating food from the restaurant and having a big smile on their face and seeming to be satisfied with the taste of their dinner.

The television shows that I watched were extremely different. They had a completely different target audience. One was a cartoon that involved humor, the other was a show about detectives that had a more serious tone. Neither show focused on the lower status of individuals. In “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit” the characters are of high status, in “Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends” the majority of characters are of slightly high status or middle class. In “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit” women didn’t necessarily fill the stereotypical roles, but gave women a more powerful role in the show. In “Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends” women played a more stereotypical role. In “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit” minorities are well represented. In “Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends” minority characters are underrepresented. There were few minorities in this cartoon. The advertisements for the shows were completely different because of the target audiences. “Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends” had advertisements that were mainly for children, such as cereal and toy commercials. “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit” has advertisements that are generally for an older audience. The commercials were for cars, beer, and restaurants.

I chose these two shows because they are two of the few shows that I watch on a regular basis and they are very different. So I thought that they would be good contrasts to each other. I thought that one was a little bit more stereotypical than the other. “Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends” was the show that was more stereotypical than “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit.”