living with the phillips

project for art 100

Analysis:
The short is a critique of 1950's TV sitcoms, which ultimately depict women as being financially extravagant, emotional reconcilers, and the object of physical humor, as well as their husbands' stormy tempers. Throughout the short, we see that Nancy will do anything to please her man. Despite her attempts, she is ignored. Harry does not understand her struggles, nor makes an effort to. He is too immersed in his bubble of "masculine" matters, including reading the paper and financial business. Through the placement of the laugh tracks, we see that whenever Nancy is ignored by her husband or make a blunder, the audience explodes into laughter. She is a victim, yet we, as the desensitized audience, laugh along with the laugh track, almost brainwashed. However, what we are laughing at is Nancy's struggle to please Harry, as well as her failures. The attempts to please and meet the unrealistically high expectations of men have been a universal struggle for a long time, and hardly something to laugh at. In fact, if we were to take Harry and Nancy's relationship outside of the sitcom context, we would see that their relationship is quite pitiful. Harry is chauvinistic, stingy, hot-tempered, and a control freak, yet Nancy remains pleasant and patient with him the whole time. The focus later shifts to Nancy's desire to buy clothing, and Harry's anger at her spending his money. He mentions Nancy's "allowance", as if she is dependent on him to satisfy her insatiable desire to shop. And yet, Harry is plagued with the fear that she will simply shop him dry. This causes him to be extremely angry and sensitive to financial matters. When his anger culminates into physical violence and a heart attack, Nancy is there, yet again, to comfort him and aid him, despite him raising a fist to her seconds before. Women are told that they must always must forgive and come to rescue their man when his own flaws have caused him trouble. Nancy does exactly this.
The closing scene becomes a mockery at Nancy. We think that after resolving to stop spending money, Nancy would stick to her convictions, and we are deceived into thinking this by the fleeting peace between Harry and Nancy. He even shows her affection, by saying "that's my woman", and "you know how I love pot roast". Will his approval last?
No. Nancy falls back into her old spending habits, and upon seeing a deal on pearls in the paper, she brings up buying them. The audience roars into laughter. Nancy has failed to control her spending habits. Her relapse is our comic relief.
However, the fact that Harry is played also by a woman makes it reminiscent of "Cock and Cunt Play" performed at the Womanhouse. The presence of only females makes it clear that this isn't meant to be taken seriously. This is a mockery of the mockery of women thorough TV history, and an attempt to make note of the inequality of the sexes. Male privilege and Woman subservience continues to be depicted on television and in other forms of media today. And even within certain cultures and family, this disparity between the sexes exists. However, there is no laugh track that remedies the tension of the situation in "real life". Instead, these women are taught by media that they must take their burden and take it with a smile.

Category:

Comedy

Tags:

• love
• lucy
• living
• with
• the
• phillips
• sexist
• feminist
• sitcom
• Sexism
• UCLA
• university
• of
• california
• los
• angeles

[V8Supercar1]

I like this. This is cool. :)

[zonedout245]

I like the meaning behind this. At first it seemed a bit silly, but then I understood it. You both play your roles well, too.