The Little Couple: Uncovering Gender and Race Stereotypes

"Spending Time With Will" - Episode (Watch)

            T.V. has been criticized for the gender and racial stereotypes that it produces and reflects on, for many years. It is interesting how these gender and race stereotypes have changed in society, yet are still the base of many television shows. In the show “The Little Couple” on TLC, I noticed how they tried challenging some typical gender stereotypes, yet failed and reinforced them. The same happened when they introduced a new race to the family through their adoptive child. Do shows actually reinforce gender and race stereotypes when they try too hard to tell the public that they aren’t being racist or sexist? Is this dangerous since the public is oblivious to the racism and sexism portrayed? 

 In “The Little Couple”, the couple had recently gone to China to pickup their adoptive child, who also has Dwarfism. They made the decision to adopt after they had many failed attempts to get pregnant. The fact that they adopted a child from China brings up an interesting concept of race and how it may be portrayed. The show could intend to show a generous couple making a good dead while going through a struggle, this could also be represented as a wealthy white couple helping a foreign poor child, while they get something out of it. This concept reminds me of “The Blind Side”, where a poor African-American is adopted and taken out of poverty and made into a famous football player. Many of these stories use Pathos to engage people in the story. Yet many of the race and power stereotypes can be interpreted differently. In the journal, "The 'Other' Laughs Back: Humor And Resistance In Anti-Racist Comedy," Weaver talks about the issue of reverse racism in the form of comedy. This could be relevant because it is taking something that is supposed to make the public laugh in a positive way, but may still produce an unknown normativity of racist thoughts.

The show “The Little Couple” seems to be an innocent show that portrays family struggles. In the episode, “Spending Time with Will,” the family takes Will to the grocery for the first time. During this episode, they also tried showing how caring and concerned Will’s parents were with him, and how they wanted to adapt him to the American culture without giving him a culture-shock experience. When analyzing it through a different perspective, we see that the mom emphasized many Chinese stereotypes. She makes comments on how Will can’t only eat rice, or questions if it is “safe” for him to eat certain foods. She looks at the Asian culture as something exotic and completely different. She also makes a lot of weird comments on how there are no groceries stores in China.

This episode was also mostly about the dad playing with the boy and the mom cooking. Through out the scene, the characters stated many times that the dad would usually be helping in the kitchen also, but that the dad was playing with Will, so he couldn’t help. Then he also made a comment about how the food was actually good and that his wife didn’t burn anything. These things were said to try to cover up the fact that there were traditional gender roles being played out. This would have been unnoticeable to a typical viewer, but I believe that by them stating it throughout the scene it makes it look like they are playing stereotypical gender roles and that there is a level of sexism. The men were playing with toy cars and were wrestling on the floor, while the woman was cooking food and making the grocery list. The husband also stated that she would be the one taking care of sinning him up for school and all of the logistics like that. This could be another way of showing sexism bluntly but subtlety. In “The Subtleties of Blatant Sexism” they argue that “provides viewers with rhetorical resources to imagine their view in practices as an act of protest against an imagined dominant female authority, and that those resources potentially allow viewers to accept the sexism of the program at face value. This is a dangerous concept, like hidden racism, because viewers don’t think about the subtle messages the show presents.

            It is interesting to see how channels like TLC try to show a diverse range of shows, yet try to adapt to a conservative side of society. Even though shows like, “The Little Couple” try to present themselves as modern and liberal, they still stick to many of the stereotypical foundations. “The Little Couple” is a show that one might find enjoyable because of how emotional it is, and how easily it is to share feelings with the characters. What we overlook is the amount of hidden racism and sexism that innocent shows subtlety show. This could be very dangerous because the viewers think positively of the show and may take it as a role model show rather than think about it critically. Do you know any shows that might have hidden racism or sexism? Is it inevitable?

"Bill and Jen's Excellent Adventure: From TLC to Oprah and Beyond: Bios: TLC." TLC. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Oct. 2013.

"How We Got On TV: Little Couple: TLC." TLC. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Oct. 2013.

Johnson, Ann. "The Subtleties of Blatant Sexism." Communication Critical/ Cultural Studies (2007): n. pag. Web.

"The Little Couple Unite with Their New Daughter." PEOPLE.com. N.p., 14 Oct. 2013. Web. 20 Oct. 2013.

"TLC's 'Little Couple' Defends Their Double Adoption." Wetpaint. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Oct. 2013.

Weaver, Simon. "The 'Other' Laughs Back: Humor And Resistance In Anti-Racist Comedy." Sociology 44.1 (2010): 31-48. Communication & Mass Media Complete. Web. 17 Oct. 2013.