Feb
22
Proposed Paper Topic: Carrie Goes to the SHU: The impact of Sex and the City on female relationships in Orange is the New Black
February 22, 2015 | 2 Comments
I am interested in exploring how Sex and the City altered the way female relationships are portrayed on television and how this lead to an expanded market for televised storytelling from the female perspective. In order to focus my work, I want to compare Sex and the City to Orange is the New Black looking for similarities and departures. This may or may not include comparing the books that inspired the shows as well.
Some guiding questions I have as I try to narrow down my thesis:
How does the way women bond differ from the way men bond? How is this portrayed in both shows?
How much do the characters in both shows rely on talking about intimate relationships as a way to strengthen friendships?
How is conspicuous consumption used in both shows to define female characters and friendships?
What roles do class, race and gender play in defining the relationships between characters?
Culturally, how did we get from Sex and the City to Orange is the New Black?
How has the television market changed to include a stronger female voice? Has it?
What has Netflix/Amazon Prime done to open the market to female voices?
What need (if any) did both shows fill for their female audience?
As for materials and sources, I have both television shows and the books that inspired both shows to evaluate. In addition, Reading Sex and the City by Akass and McCabe and Redesigning Women: Television after the Network Era by Amanda D.Lotz. In addition, my library searches have turned up a number of articles.
(post by Melissa Boronkas)
Comments
2 Comments so far
Hi Melissa,
I think this is coming together–but I would want to see you make sure that you are relating it to the course theme of “oversharing”–so your questions re. female voices don’t seem as closely aligned to course themes for me. But the material on intimate relationships hits closer to home. I would encourage you to develop this…but to make sure that you are focusing on oversharing, and not just random themes of interest. Otherwise I am excited to see you work on this! Carrie
Duly noted, as I was typing it seemed wonky.
I’ll focus more on how oversharing in SATC and OITNB plays a role in developing and defining female relationships.