IV Hope & The Male Gaze & Reagan's TV 80s

[alice wellintown]

Seeing through the eighties: television and Reaganism By Jane Feuer

htThirtysomething was influenced by the 1983 film, The Big Chill.[2]
It reflected the angst felt by baby boomers and yuppies in the United
States during the 1980s,[3] such as the changing expectations related
to masculinity and femininity introduced during the era of second-wave
feminism.[4] It also introduced "a new kind of hour-long drama, a
series which focused on the domestic and professional lives of a group
of young urban professionals, a socio-economic category of increasing
interest to the television industry [...] its stylistic and story-line
innovations led critics to respect it for being 'as close to the level
of an art form as weekly television ever gets,' as the New York Times
put it."[2] During its four year run, Thirtysomething "attracted a
cult audience of viewers who strongly identified with one or more of
its eight central characters, a circle of friends living in
Philadelphia."[2] Even after its cancellation in 1991, it continued to
influence television programming, "in everything from the look and
sound of certain TV advertisements, to other series with feminine
sensibilities and preoccupations with the transition from childhood to
maturity (Sisters), to situation comedies about groups of friends who
talk all the time (Seinfeld)."[2]

Some were particularly critical of the show. Susan Faludi in her 1991
bestseller, Backlash, argues that the show exhibited a disdainful
attitude towards single, working, and feminist women (Melissa, Ellyn,
and Susannah) while at the same time "exalting homemakers" (Hope and
Nancy).[5]

tp://www.powells.com/biblio/0822316757?&PID=33286