Based on your viewing of our screening of Thirtysomething as well as Feuer's analysis of the program--what role do you think yuppie guilt plays on the show and how is it represented?
For years yuppies were not represented on television during the Reagan years, but around the 1990s, they started to gain a presence on television, along with yuppie guilt. Yuppies, or young urban professionals, are young business oriented people who are trying to make it big in the world. They often strive towards being greater than middle class. They often put their job first and family second. The show Thirtysomething does a great job at portraying yuppies in our screening through the character Michael. As Feuer says, Elvis Mitchell calls the show "a bunch of white people sitting around whining." (Feuer 61) I completely agree with this statement. The entire time I watched this show I couldn't believe how much Michael was complaining about his life that was honestly much better off than a lot of others. He complained about his job not being successful and complaining about the costs of renovations and paying for the party at his house which he didn't even need to do. He put all of this stress on himself because he believed he needed to maintain this yuppie image. He felt guilty for not having a house warming party and not having a gorgeous looking house that he thought his wife deserved. Feuer talks about how the show is debated over whether its real television of just yuppievision and I think it is a bit of both. Most people never encounter some of the problems that Michael faces because most people aren't yuppies and won't put the added stress on themselves to maintain an image, but for those who are yuppies, the show is very representational. The show uses yuppie guilt to bring up problems for the characters in the show, but to the viewer, these problems are negligible. Viewers loved the show because they wish that the only problems they had to worry about were these yuppie problems of throwing a grand party and doing unnecessary renovations on their home.
Yuppie guilt plays a non-trivial role in the show thirtysomething. The episode we watched in class had a particularly clear scene representing yuppie guilt. In the episode we watched, the successful male protagonist went through an imaginary trial in front of a jury of his pretentious twenty year old friends. These friends accused him of abandoning his principles and his imaginary version of his wife gave him a "guilty" verdict. This episode plays yuppie guilt as an emotion that only affects a few and seems to be an emotion destined to be forgotten.
In the episode, the male protagonist is the only character that seems visibly pertubed by any sense of guilt. All other characters have no issues having a large house, building a successful marketing business or being wealthy. I personally found all of the male protagonist's remarks snooty and almost bordering on a form of PTSD.
What wasn't obviously portrayed was the irresponsible, condescending, and outlandishly simple behavior shown by the twenty-somethings in the imaginary trial. These illusions were openly mocking the protagonist for trying to improve his family's life. As a viewer, we're supposed to side with the protagonist, who feels guilt for doing this. As a rational human being, this idea of selfless improvement for family seems wrong.
Beginning in the late 1980s to 1990s, television shows made a dramatic shift in their representation of yuppie culture. A culture of young working adults that had previously been glorified was now more open for criticism, as the faults of yuppie values were made clear. Along these lines comes yuppie guilt—guilt springing from the problems that yuppies face, which to critics are not necessarily rational problems. Yuppies often put their career first and family second, something that we see clearly in Thirtysomething. The male protagonist is obsessed with his job, and his low funds cause him to turn into a nervous wreck and worry that he will not be able to complete the renovations to his house before his housewarming party. Not once does he think about what is best for his family—he wants to have a beautiful house for his wife to live in, but it’s more to impress than to be a comfortable home. His problems seemed pretty ridiculous to me— his life screamed of privilege, and I totally agree with Feuer’s quotation of Elvis Mitchell that Thirtysomething is about “a bunch of white people sitting around whining” (Feuer 61). Feuer also states that yuppie guilt is embedded in yuppie culture—“yuppie guilt is not an aftermath of yuppie values but a constitutive part of them” (60). The male protagonist in Thirtysomething is an extremely guilty character, as ridiculous as his problems may seem to the audience, and for this reason he epitomizes yuppie guilt and yuppie culture as a whole.
Thirtysomething was the poster-child television representation of yuppie discussion during the 1980s. At a time when the baby-boom generation had finally grown past its hippy youth into the self-supporting necessities of adulthood, the issue of materialism became evident in the very term coined for these Young Urban Professionals. Feuer points out the conflict between yuppie guilt and yuppie envy, and how these binaries played out within thirtysomething versus the other yuppie-focused TV shows. Thirtysomething avoided portraying any yuppie envy by restricting these hidden desires for the commercials and their promotion for materialism. Instead, the narrative of the show emphasized the yuppie guilt of wanting money and nice possessions, often sacrificing their dreams as well as family and friends for the sake of their careers.
These characteristics were clearly evident in the episode we watched, in which Michael feels his life is unraveling before him, while in contrast his wife (and the viewer) acknowledges that he has everything he could really need. Michael complains about work, about potential business growth, the appearance of his new home, even his wife’s previous lover. Meanwhile he neglects the loving family and friends that everyone else knows he really should be caring about. He whines and complains, to the point where the audience can patronize him for his yuppie beliefs and actions, whatever their true feelings may be. In a culture that wants to succeed but is unwilling to give up their anti-materialistic beliefs, thirtysomething does a great job of balancing those emotions into a relatable weekly narrative.
For years yuppies were not represented on television during the Reagan years, but around the 1990s, they started to gain a presence on television, along with yuppie guilt. Yuppies, or young urban professionals, are young business oriented people who are trying to make it big in the world. They often strive towards being greater than middle class. They often put their job first and family second. The show Thirtysomething does a great job at portraying yuppies in our screening through the character Michael. As Feuer says, Elvis Mitchell calls the show "a bunch of white people sitting around whining." (Feuer 61) I completely agree with this statement. The entire time I watched this show I couldn't believe how much Michael was complaining about his life that was honestly much better off than a lot of others. He complained about his job not being successful and complaining about the costs of renovations and paying for the party at his house which he didn't even need to do. He put all of this stress on himself because he believed he needed to maintain this yuppie image. He felt guilty for not having a house warming party and not having a gorgeous looking house that he thought his wife deserved.
ReplyDeleteFeuer talks about how the show is debated over whether its real television of just yuppievision and I think it is a bit of both. Most people never encounter some of the problems that Michael faces because most people aren't yuppies and won't put the added stress on themselves to maintain an image, but for those who are yuppies, the show is very representational. The show uses yuppie guilt to bring up problems for the characters in the show, but to the viewer, these problems are negligible. Viewers loved the show because they wish that the only problems they had to worry about were these yuppie problems of throwing a grand party and doing unnecessary renovations on their home.
Yuppie guilt plays a non-trivial role in the show thirtysomething. The episode we watched in class had a particularly clear scene representing yuppie guilt. In the episode we watched, the successful male protagonist went through an imaginary trial in front of a jury of his pretentious twenty year old friends. These friends accused him of abandoning his principles and his imaginary version of his wife gave him a "guilty" verdict. This episode plays yuppie guilt as an emotion that only affects a few and seems to be an emotion destined to be forgotten.
ReplyDeleteIn the episode, the male protagonist is the only character that seems visibly pertubed by any sense of guilt. All other characters have no issues having a large house, building a successful marketing business or being wealthy. I personally found all of the male protagonist's remarks snooty and almost bordering on a form of PTSD.
What wasn't obviously portrayed was the irresponsible, condescending, and outlandishly simple behavior shown by the twenty-somethings in the imaginary trial. These illusions were openly mocking the protagonist for trying to improve his family's life. As a viewer, we're supposed to side with the protagonist, who feels guilt for doing this. As a rational human being, this idea of selfless improvement for family seems wrong.
Beginning in the late 1980s to 1990s, television shows made a dramatic shift in their representation of yuppie culture. A culture of young working adults that had previously been glorified was now more open for criticism, as the faults of yuppie values were made clear. Along these lines comes yuppie guilt—guilt springing from the problems that yuppies face, which to critics are not necessarily rational problems. Yuppies often put their career first and family second, something that we see clearly in Thirtysomething. The male protagonist is obsessed with his job, and his low funds cause him to turn into a nervous wreck and worry that he will not be able to complete the renovations to his house before his housewarming party. Not once does he think about what is best for his family—he wants to have a beautiful house for his wife to live in, but it’s more to impress than to be a comfortable home. His problems seemed pretty ridiculous to me— his life screamed of privilege, and I totally agree with Feuer’s quotation of Elvis Mitchell that Thirtysomething is about “a bunch of white people sitting around whining” (Feuer 61). Feuer also states that yuppie guilt is embedded in yuppie culture—“yuppie guilt is not an aftermath of yuppie values but a constitutive part of them” (60). The male protagonist in Thirtysomething is an extremely guilty character, as ridiculous as his problems may seem to the audience, and for this reason he epitomizes yuppie guilt and yuppie culture as a whole.
ReplyDeleteThirtysomething was the poster-child television representation of yuppie discussion during the 1980s. At a time when the baby-boom generation had finally grown past its hippy youth into the self-supporting necessities of adulthood, the issue of materialism became evident in the very term coined for these Young Urban Professionals. Feuer points out the conflict between yuppie guilt and yuppie envy, and how these binaries played out within thirtysomething versus the other yuppie-focused TV shows. Thirtysomething avoided portraying any yuppie envy by restricting these hidden desires for the commercials and their promotion for materialism. Instead, the narrative of the show emphasized the yuppie guilt of wanting money and nice possessions, often sacrificing their dreams as well as family and friends for the sake of their careers.
ReplyDeleteThese characteristics were clearly evident in the episode we watched, in which Michael feels his life is unraveling before him, while in contrast his wife (and the viewer) acknowledges that he has everything he could really need. Michael complains about work, about potential business growth, the appearance of his new home, even his wife’s previous lover. Meanwhile he neglects the loving family and friends that everyone else knows he really should be caring about. He whines and complains, to the point where the audience can patronize him for his yuppie beliefs and actions, whatever their true feelings may be. In a culture that wants to succeed but is unwilling to give up their anti-materialistic beliefs, thirtysomething does a great job of balancing those emotions into a relatable weekly narrative.