Critical Analysis - The Jetsons
The Jetsons was an American animated sitcom produced by Hanna-Barbera in the early 1960’s. The show was about the daily life of the Jetson family. The family members included: George (the father/patriarch), Jane (the stay at home mom), Judy (the eldest daughter), Elroy (the youngest son), Rosie (the housemaid), and Astro (the family dog). Although the show was aired in the early 1960's, the Jetson family lived in the year 2062 where there were robotic contraptions, aliens, and flying cars. Although the creators of the show were anticipating life in the 'future' through the family and setting, each of the show’s characters fit the stereotypes of the members of an upper-middle class, nuclear White American family in the 1960’s. The patriarch, George works to provide for his family and his wife Jane stays at home in addition to spending time at the mall shopping and talking with Rosie the housemaid. Judy is the typical self-obsessed teenaged girl who loves clothes, makeup, hanging out with her friends and boys while her little brother Elroy is represented as a cute, innocent young child. Stack and Kelly state: “The mainstream media and education systems are key institutions that perpetuate various social inequalities” (Stack & Kelly, 2006, p.5). Social inequalities including race and sex/gender roles are perpetuated through the animated sitcom. For instance, there were no black characters in the show. The family and friends of the family were all White, a representation of the dominant culture of the time in which the show was created. In addition, blogger Matt Dovak states: “When George introduces Jane in the title sequence, it's while handing her dollar bills as she heads off shopping while he goes to work” (Usborne, 2012, n/a). This is an example of gender roles and expectations of the nuclear family; men went to work to make money and the women were give a certain amount of their husbands money to spend since they did not work or earn for their families. If you’ve ever watched the sitcom, you might recall Rosie (the robotic housemaid) feeling sad and lonely inside of the Jetson home while the rest of the family were in their designated areas throughout the day. Representations of women in the private sphere and the money-earning husband in the public sphere are distinctly shown here as the husband is situated outside of the familial at home earning a wage while the women stay home, clean and gossip. Stack and Kelly remind us that TV shows provide insights for other relevant topics including power dynamics that are based on gender, race, class, age, workplace democracy and family life. Weinbrenner and Fernandez write about how American media portrayals of the family are often times linked to underlying social, historical and economic factors that are embedded in the actions of the characters on the show as well as the ways in which they are represented to the mainstream audience (Weinbrenner & Fernandez, 2016). Assumptions of how to behave as a man or woman can be made by simply watching an episode. Author and Editor Mary Kosut writes about how the creators of the Jetson family intended to celebrate nuclear families, stay-at-home moms and working fathers during the post-war era while at the same time anticipate the future. Furthermore, popular culture and the mass media can often times provide a hegemonic view of the family with The Jetsons being a prime example of this.
References
Kosut, M. (Ed.). (2012). Encyclopedia of Gender in Media. SAGE Publications.
Stack, M. and Kelly, D. (2006). Popular Media, Education, and Resistance, Canadian Journal of Education, 29(1), pp. 5-26.
Usborne, S. (2012, October 24). Back to the future: Why The Jetsons is the most influential TV show of the 20th
century. Independent. Retrieved from www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/back-to-the-future-why-the-
jetsons-is-the-most-influential-tv-show-of-the-20th-century-8225272.html
Weinbrenner, D. and Fernandez-Baca, D. 2016. Media Representations of Family in the United States. The Wiley Blackwell
Encyclopedia of Family Studies. 1–7.