"Feminist" Television

When initially hearing Ms O'Connell's talk, I completely understood her argument when it came to the feminism in television when she was a child. She used a personal example stating that when she was a child, all of the action shows had men leads and women were getting saved and gushing over these men, their heroes. The first movie Ms O'Connell remembers seeing a strong women lead character was in 2001, past her childhood. She now sees movies like Wonder Women, the Hunger Games, and Captain Marvel and it is an era of women leads. This just shows how gender roles in television have changed throughout history. Thinking about this on one of my personal experiences, I think of my favorite movie series, the Oceans movies. There is four movies in the series, Ocean's eleven (2001), twelve (2004), thirteen (2007), and eight (2018). The series is about groups of people who get together and rob museums, banks, etc. The first three movies are all male groups. However, the last movie is an all female group. If you look at the time these movies all came out, the first three (the all male movies) came out in 2001, 2004, and 2007, all relatively close to each other. It wasn't until 2018 when the all female movie came out. As well as the action movies Ms O'Connell remembers, the oceans movies also show how much things can change throughout history.

The Mary Tyler Moore show also stood out to me, I have never heard of it before today. The main character, Mary, is very aware of how good she is at her job even better than the males. She explains how when the boss shows new employees, he shows Mary off and says "this is our women executive". She also is looking around one day and sees that the man that had the job she did before earned $50 more than she did, even though she was better at her job than he was (stated by her other employees). Mary asked her boss why she wasn't getting paid like the other man and his response was "he is a man". He also says that she was better than the man prior and that he has a family to support and she didn't. This show aired in 1970 and Mary Tyler Moore was the most important feminist legacy in television history. She was also attacked by male watchers and feminists for "things she did wrong on the show". Overall, the show gave viewers a perspective of the future of gender roles and controversial equality.