That's No June Cleaver -- Week 3 Deconstruction

Sometimes, the More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same

So one question that often comes up when we start looking for all of these cultural truth claims and examining their effects is – “Who started these ideas and why?” If we think in terms of the Panopticon metaphor, we might wonder, “Who came up with the training program for the guards?” (We’ll talk more about the question of “and why?” in the next lecture).

Most of our most well-worn cultural truths have seemingly been around forever in one form or another and are difficult to trace back to their origins – like gender roles, ideas about human nature, etc. But what we can often do is trace how these norms change and evolve in varying historical and social contexts. At any given time, certain versions of these ideas are promoted by certain groups of people who are in a position – in terms of authority/power and access – to do so. This is often in response to changing historical circumstances that we as a society are trying to make sense of and adjust to – like war and post-war circumstances, economic depressions, race relations, and so on.

For instance, during World War II, psychologists focused much of their attention on the psyche of the soldier. However, when the war ended, the military no longer needed their services and men were less interested in therapy. Psychologists then turned their attention to the homes to which the soldiers returned – and more specifically, the American housewife and her role in recreating social stability through adherence to the traditional norms. During this time, women’s magazines were important conduits of these emerging “therapeutic” principles through their advice on how to be the best wife and mother. And we saw the epitome of this 1950’s woman represented by “Leave it to Beaver’s” June Cleaver.



But what starts out as an attempt to deal with particular historical circumstances can, with repeated exposure over time, take on the appearance of “truth” and “reality,” the result of which is that we are no longer aware of why we believe certain things or if those views even make sense in our current reality. Even more disorienting, is that the representation of those truths evolve over time making it even harder to recognize the common assumptions underlying them.



After all, this is no June Cleaver:



Enter deconstruction:
Think about what ideas about men and women are common to both the “traditional” 1950’s gender roles and this ad. What truths are the advertisers who produced this ad counting on you knowing in order to not only make sense of it, but “buy” into it?
Look at the man, how he’s dressed, how he’s positioned. Look at the woman, how she’s dressed, how she’s positioned. Look at the text at the bottom: What is “wrong” and why is it “right?” What might be the effects of this?