I've just stopped caring

Stereotypes in the media with a focus on Home Improvement

The media plays a large role in creating and reinforcing gender stereotypes. This is evident in almost all forms of media from the news to cartoons. Actually cartoons are especially to blame for stereotypes in the media. In cartoons it is always the ugly character that is credited as the brainiac (think Thelma in Scooby Doo). Cartoons also portray people from the south as dimwitted, and all Asians as knowing kung-fu. The media is great at subtly continuing stereotypes through sheer reinforcement. It always assumes that politicians are evil, you hate your mother-in-law and your wife’s cooking is despicable. It is the joke made in every sitcom since Al Gore invented the television. Even the surprise hero’s are almost a stereotype. It’s always the underdogs from the wrong side of the tracks. Or the character that runs into the supposedly unwholesome character who turns out to be honest and trustworthy, a hooker with a heart of gold so to speak.

These media stereotypes also include gender stereotypes. Every woman has a gay friend; all men hate shopping; guys are dumb, and have dumber friends; your wife is always way hotter than you, at least in the King of Queens, According to Jim, 8 Simple Rules, Everybody Loves Raymond and all those other shows that people watch as they are deciding how to end their life. It is so easy to pick on sitcoms because their entire existence is to play these dumb stereotypes against each other.

Lets take a look at a sitcom that was set in Detroit and starred a guy who was once arrested with a kilo of cocaine and who’s title is a pun; Home Improvement. This show is all built on gender stereotypes. Tim “The Tool Man” Taylor was a macho man who loved to grunt and talk about Binford Tools on his mainly T.V. show. His sidekick, Al, was a guy who despite being a total lamer, was actually a good person but we couldn’t root for him. All we could do was hurl fat mom jokes at him. His wife of course was a smart, loving, caring and questionably hot mom who tried to have a career but whom we lost respect for after she crashed her husband’s classic car even though it brought them closer in the end. Then there were the children. Three rambunctious boys who the mom couldn’t keep under control because they were constantly looking up to their oaf of a dad. Eventually the youngest son went goth, as would anyone who had to follow in the footsteps of Jonathon Taylor Thomas and Zachary Ty Bryant, but we will save that for a different dialog class. Of course the neighbor Wilson was always the voice of reason ala Mr. Feeny. There was even a “Tool Girl” that was played by a budding Pamela Anderson. Her role was to Vienna White the new Binford 6100. The “Tool Girl” just had to be a total babe. There was one episode where - as normal - Tim was making a fool of himself trying to install a new toilet and a female member of his studio audience was brought on stage so he could show her what he was doing, and explain it to a dumb girl. But as it super ironically turned out, she was the one who actually knew how to fix it. This plotline would not have worked if he had brought a man onstage, because all men know how to fix toilets, and all women don’t. Ahh, the classic gender stereotypes, and the humor surrounding role reversals!