What I Like About You

This week I will be writing my blog about an episode of the TV sitcom What I Like About You. This show is centered on a high school girl (Holly) who is living with her older sister. In this particular episode her older sister, Val is in a strange position because she eloped with a man (Vic) one night after drinking and now that they are married she is starting to fall in love with him (she hated him at first). A little background on Val is that she was previously engaged to a man named Rick and was suppose to marry him one year ago on Thanksgiving (the episode takes place on Thanksgiving day). Rick is now married to another woman.

Val’s friend, Lauren, is falling in love with a married man she met in an online poker chat room but she has never met him in person yet. Lauren says that she is so interested in this man because he is funny, sweet, sensitive, honest, caring, sincere, and a good listener. This statement sends out a gender message because it is saying that this is what women are looking for in a man. They want someone who isn’t unafraid to show emotion, even though typically, men think they should never show/talk about their feelings because women will things it is feminine or they are less of a man. On Thanksgiving morning she plans to meet him and it turns out to be Rick. They are upset at first but then once they start talking they end up kissing even though Val is Lauren’s best friend and Rick is married to someone else.

Another message sent out in this episode goes along with the first one. Vince (Holly’s boyfriend) spends the whole episode drooling over an old friend of Vic’s that comes over to the apartment for Thanksgiving dinner. The woman is beautiful and while Lauren (women) is interested in the emotions and feelings of a man Vince (men) is solely focused on her beauty. This sends the message that men are only interested in physical attractiveness, not a woman’s personality.
Towards the end of the evening Val ends up finding out about Lauren. Everyone is terrified when she does and assumes she is going to go crazy or have an emotional breakdown right then and there. This is sending the message that women are highly emotional and unstable because it is expected by everyone that she will be so upset. In actuality though, she is not upset about hearing about Rick, just that Lauren betrayed her. Val surprises everyone by appearing (and being) completely over Rick and their broken engagement.

On a final note, there is one more gender message in this show/episode that has to do with women in the workplace. Val owns her own a business and is very successful with it. While at first this may appear to be sending the message that women are just as equal to men in the business world and so forth, but actually it is sending the message that women belong doing feminine things. Val’s business is a bakery/cupcake shop. Baking is typically seen as a feminine or domestic thing. Women are expected to do it, not men. So, while Val is out making herself a career we still view her as a stay at home mother figure because she is spending the day baking in a bakery with pink and purple walls and big cupcakes everywhere. Even though she is spending a large portion of her airtime at “work,” we still see her in a domesticated sort of way.