Monday, March 2, 2009

Interview?? heck no

My topic is Will and Grace and the stereotypes perpetuated within the series. I decided to interview my sister Jessica because she watches the show often and is familiar with the characters. We talked about the stereotypes that were obvious to her first. She said the one that stood out the most to her was the character Jack and his flamboyant demeanor. When I asked her to give me more detail she was very specific. She described him as girly in the way he walks, swinging his hips, sometimes with his hand on his hip or in the air with a limp wrist. She said he wears tight clothes and is very well groomed. The second stereotype she told me she saw a lot in the show was Karen and her drinking habits. She said that Karen is seen at least once in every episode with a drink in her hand and she is often depicted as very sloppy. She sometimes slurs her words, and she never does any work for Grace. I thought that the stereotypes my sister thought were obvious were obvious and it made me realize that I was more focusing on the ones that were not obvious. In my first and second draft I mostly wrote about the stereotypes of Will and Grace’s characters and the stereotypes between them, which I thought was good because it shed some light into some more in depth stereotypes that most people might not have found in the show. When I asked my sister to think of one stereotype that was not as obvious she started to tell me about Grace’s mother, who is Jewish. She is only seen in a few episodes, but to my sister she is always the image of what Jessica thinks a Jewish mother is. She said that Grace’s mother is controlling and very critical, always wondering when Grace will get married and whom she is dating and what her job is like and things of that nature. She sometimes criticizes Grace’s hair and posture in the series too. I really enjoyed interviewing my sister because it gave us a chance to laugh about the series that we both watch and find hilarious. It always gave my sister and I a chance to bond over my college assignments.

1 comment:

  1. Do you have anyone who is gay or that has a gay friend to interview? then you could cross reference what straight people perceive and what actually occurs. And at the same time you could see how gay people view themselves and this could allow seeing if the stereotypes that are present transcend this show and are actually prevalent in gay people themselves. If you don’t have anyone like that to interview you could do some research to see if there are any documents out there that could answer those same questions. But I think it’s an area definitely worth exploring

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