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TV families are spared the juggling act, study says
TVData Entertainment Features Syndicate - April 2, 2000
By Jacqueline Cutler
TV families are spared the juggling act, study says
If you don't know what a work-family conflict is,
you're either blessed or a television executive.
Those of us who juggle the care of preschool
children and ailing parents with mounting deadlines
and mandatory meetings are intimate with the term.
But don't look to TV for confirmation that you're
not alone.
Ninety-nine percent of prime-time TV characters
never experience work-family conflicts, according
to a study commissioned by the National
Partnership for Women & Families, a nonprofit
organization lobbying for quality health care, laws
to help people balance work and family, and
fairness in the workplace.
"We wanted to look at how family and work is
portrayed in that television is such a powerful force
in life," says Lauren Asher, communications
director for the partnership. "It both reflects and
shapes our expectations. And, research has shown
that in a lot of different ways, no one had really
looked at how working people on television
negotiate the delicate balance between their
obligations at home and at work."
A main exception noted in the report is Fox's
Party of Five. Now in its sixth season, the show
about siblings taking care of one another after their
parents die hits on a variety of work-family
conflicts.
Charlie Salinger (Matthew Fox) recently assumed a
management role that's eating up a lot of time, says
P.K. Simonds, executive producer. "Like so many
jobs, it appears to be one thing, and in reality, it's
another. Then, you renegotiate the understanding
you had with your loved one."
Simonds, the father of a 2-year-old son, says he
draws from his own life for ideas for the show.
Salinger took this job to pay for expensive fertility
procedures. His wife is now pregnant, "and the job
he started to pay those bills offered other
opportunities." The offers are too good to refuse,
Simonds says, "but the pressure keeps mounting at
home."
While citing Party of Five as one of the best at
depicting work-family conflict, the study did not
rank the worst offenders. "We're not ranking, just
counting, and (the best) are hard enough to find,"
says Asher.
The study also found:
- 69 percent of male characters and 62 percent of
female characters are shown in work settings.
- 61 percent of the adults shown in work settings
are not parents.
- Females are more likely to be identified by their
marital and maternal status while males are more
likely to be identified by their careers.
Martha Lauzen, professor of communication at San
Diego State University, conducted the study by
randomly reviewing the top 100 shows in prime
time. Her conclusion? "The numbers are dismal."
Lauzen's theory as to why TV ignores work-family
conflicts is based on numbers. "When we looked at
individuals working behind the scenes in the
1998-99 season, we found that 79 percent of the
writers were male."
Lauzen was able to cite one new show - with a
head female writer, incidentally - that does address
work-family conflicts. In CBS' Judging Amy -
which is too new to be included in the study - a
family court judge (Amy Brenneman) going through
a divorce has returned with her daughter (Karle
Warren) to live with her mother (Tyne Daly).
Lauzen mentions disparagingly that Amy lives at
home.
Barbara Hall, the creative force behind the show
and herself once a single mother, has heard the
criticism of this high-powered woman running home
to mommy.
"Anyone with a child would not ask that question,"
Hall says. "I had to pay people to get them to help
with my child. They are just assigning the care
giving to family members. It plays on a fantasy that
we all wish we had our mothers or sisters to help
with the families."
Whether TV exists simply to entertain or has a
larger social responsibility is the subject of a
continuing debate that has produced government
mandates concerning children's programming and
political campaigns.
"I don't think television has a responsibility to
promote certain social policies or certain political
perspectives," says Katharine Heintz-Knowles, a
former professor of communication at the
University of Washington whose family-work
conflicts were so frequent that she is now a
freelance researcher of TV.
"But I do strongly believe TV viewers develop our
sense of what the world is and what we would like
the world to be based on what we see on TV.
And, we develop ideas about parceling work and
family, and how easy that is to do, based on what
we see on TV," she says.
"If the only models we see on TV are where it's not
a problem, then the people in the real world will not
get the support they need where it is a problem."
Copyright © 2000 TVData Entertainment Features Syndicate. All rights reserved.
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