Critical apporaches to "Rosseane" the TV show

I guess you are all familiar with the TV show from the 80's Rosseane, starring Rosseane Barr, John Goodman, Sarah Gilbert etc.
Well, you must have seen the re-runs...anyway, I believe that this sitcom is great for Critical Analysis.

First of all, look at it from the Critical Discourse Analysis point of view.

It is a wonderful example of the Discourse of class. This family represents what most of middle-class working families are like. It presents problems of teen pregnancy and wha tit leads to, not goingto college and belongingto the hard labor working class, and making ends meet; having three children and trying to provide for them as best they can, dealing with relatives who look at them for comfort and support. Trying to keep a marriage-loving relationship afloat. It is the lives of many Americans and many people around the world.

I must admit that at the beginning, I used to NOT like the show. I found it vulgar and offensive. I believed it was a means of accepting the rude behaviors as okay. I thought it was goingto corrupt society! JA! ...Little did I know.

It was later that I learned that the whole point of the show was to enhance these characteristics, that I found particular, as a way of expression, as a way of CRITICISM and in a way of comforting, perhaps, to those in that situation (societal class).

The show presents the working class being oppressed by the higher class, sometimes staying that way, but most of the times, overcomming the high class, outwitting the oppressors. Winning in the end.

According to Neo Marxists and their definition of "cultural capital", Rosseane and her family have none of it whatsoever. Their ways of speaking, acting, moving, thinking are all marks of them not being refined or cultured. Most of the times they are vulgar and rude and they wnjoy that. When one of their children would complain about their behaviors Rosseane and her husband would laugh and enjoythemselves. They knew who they were and where they came from. They were okay with that.

I believe teh series could also be Analyzed in terms of Narrative Analyis. In Northrop Frye's narrative patterns, it would fall under the category of Irony. It was a very ironic show, presenting the oppressed working class and how they always, in the end, finished happy and achieved whatever their goals were. I believe it was poking the eyes of all of those people-who like me at the beginning- don't like , or understand the working class.

There are also cultural codes that we can draw from the Semiotic Analysis. You must have an understanding of the American working class in order to fully understand the irony, sarcasm, comedy in the series. (Like the Simpson's or South Park)
People identify with the characters and situations in the series, because they can relate.

Finally, I believe that the TV show can also be analyzed from the Psychoanalitcal Theories perpsective- Feminist Analyisis.
How much mor efeminist can Rosseane get. Her household wsa matriarchal. The Mother ruled the house. The father was someties afraid of her. he ws submissive, she had teh final word. The show did not present Dan-the husband- in a way that implied that he was not masculine, nor did it present him as weak. Sometimes he expressed his frustration with havingto deal with Rosseane's authoritarian ways, yet he comlpied.
Rosseane taught her children that women were powerful. She taught her son to respect women..somethin most middle class families do not do. They just accept the "nachismo" of society where the husband is teh MAN of the house. She broke that rule, that stigma. Towards the end, she even had a lesbian friend and she would talk openly about how women had choices and could make them, openly. PLEASE DO NOT confuse lesbianism with feminism. But it is ,in a way. a form of expressing that women can express themselves freely and that they can havie choices other than those imposed upon them by a male dominated world.

Here's a link to the 1st season:
http://www.carseywerner.net/inflight/roseanne/roseanne_season1.htm