1
The Girls and Television
"TV is one of the things I do"

In exploring the ways in which these urban, adolescent girls perceive and interpret the details of their own lives and the characters' lives on television, I have attempted to get an inside look at (a portion of) their daily lives with a sampling of the attendant routines and factors involved. My goal is not just to compare and contrast in quantitative fashion the details of actual life with televisual life, but to see how and where the two entwine for the girls. I have tried to provide a qualitatively accurate, understanding of the girls' interpretations of and relationships with television characters by considering all the available environmental detail the girls provide. As this has been a short-term study, it's status remains preliminary and no where near complete (if that is at all possible). Despite the length, the substance obtained during my time with the girls illustrates, I believe, an accurate example of urban, adolescent female viewing habits and subsequent meaning-making and use of the television characters.

My approach with the girls has been an open and free forum of conversation. Through the course of group and individual interviews, the girls offer me their information, opinions, feelings and convictions on a variety of topics central to their daily lives. My questions are posed in such a way as not to critically analyze issues, only to prompt actual and telling responses. Sometimes the girls answer my questions directly and on occasion they fall into conversation amongst themselves, expanding the topic of the original question into additional related areas which provides more detailed insight. I have condensed and contextualized their responses according to the question or topic at hand and have tried to reproduce their language as accurately as possible, paying particular attention to slang and articulation.

The girls' practice of perception is certainly not passive. It is creative and open and allows the discovery of additional components of reality. The process of imagination occurs before, during and after the girls' perception of the television characters. The girls' imagining combines with and contributes to their understanding of the characters and their various attributes. The limits of the girls' understanding are determined by their own perspectives based on their horizons of experience. It is through their personal perspectives that the girls produce interpretations of the characters which in turn provides relevant meaning and sense to the girls in their lives. The girls' interpretive actions demonstrate the otherwise hidden phenomenon of the virtual family. A realization of television characters as such is not immediately detectable or knowable without attention to the results of this interpretive process.

There are 5 girls with whom I carried out this study. They are between the ages of 12 and 17. They all live in the East Village in New York City in rented apartments and subsidized housing complexes. They are of African American, Hispanic and South American ethnic backgrounds and identities. Their family constructs range from traditional nuclear to various forms of extended. A condition of their participation with my study is that they remain anonymous. At the girls' request, they are identified by first name or nick-name only.

All the girls attend public school. Some of them are involved with sports programs and after-school activities. The subject of boyfriends and romance is primary among them all. They all assert an independent attitude and are proud of their independence. Some of them work at home for an allowance and four have outside jobs at retail stores and movie theaters. Some of them care for younger siblings and older parents or grandparents. Two of them are mothers. All of them are aware of sex and the possible consequence of infection. Drugs and alcohol are immediately accessible to all of them. They are concerned with their physical appearance and believe that society judges them highly on that basis.

Elva is 12 years old, Puerto Rican, moved to New York with her mother and brother three years ago. They lived with her uncle until her father arrived last year. Elva is actually somewhat shy, but she projects a tough image. She is still learning English and attends an after school program near her living complex.
Renalda is 14, almost 15. She has lived in New York all of her life. Her parents moved here from Mexico. Most of her extended family is in Mexico, but she has never been there. Renalda is the oldest of five children. She works at home and cares for her younger brothers and sisters while her parents work. Renalda and Elva are friends. They live in the same complex.

Keisha is 15 and African American. She has also lived in New York all her life. She lives with two older sisters who help Keisha take care of her one year old daughter. Her favorite sport is basketball and she considers her physical education teacher to be one of her better friends. Keisha wants to live in California and work in the movie business. She works as an attendant at a local theater three nights a week.

'Sister G' is 17. She is of African-Cuban descent. She was born in Havana and moved to New York with her aunt, her grandmother and three cousins when she was 10. Her mother remains in Cuba. Her father comes in and out of her life, living in various locations in the city. Sister G plans to remain in the Lower East Side and work as an 'activist/social worker/rap performer'. She has two children who take turns living with their fathers and with her. Sister G, Keisha and Renalda know each other from school.

Maria-Louisa, or L.J., is 17 years old. She is Dominican. Her family has lived in New York since her grandparents immigrated here in the 1950's. L.J., Keisha and Sister G hang around together. They are usually seen as a group. L.J. attends a different school than Keisha and Sister G, but she has come to know them since her involvement with one of Sister G's ex-boyfriends. L.J. is outspoken and somewhat aggressive. She says she has to be in order to get respect.

A major component of the routine of the girls' daily lives is television. Their estimated 21 weekly hours watching television falls in line with a national statistic for girls (Girls, Inc. 4). They approach television in several ways; sometimes passively, sometimes selectively. Often, they report receiving important information from television. They have favorite programs and characters. Their opinions and feelings about the characters extend into and overlap with the manner in which they express their regard for the living people in their life realms. A similarity can be seen in the way that the girls refer to certain characters as significant and authoritative, depending on the particular roles or attitudes that the characters represent. In their association with chosen characters, thinking and feeling are not separated for the girls. They refer to and depend on certain characters as they would actual people, friends and family.

This process involves the concept of representation and identification certainly, and the girls recognize this. They do not, however, think that by identifying with television characters, they are being controlled or coerced. They assert that they have a control over their use of television. They feel that they are free to choose amongst the material available through the text and to abandon it at any time. The girls are clearly aware of the representational role of the television characters and make the distinction between the 'real' and the televisual. They watch television in an intuitive fashion, without preconceived judgment. They perceive the television characters independently of any prejudice towards whether the representation is real or not. They regard television, its texts and characters as a reality.

Many instances represented on television are very similar to the girls' own life situations. Many of the girls' perspectives are mirrored by the characters and in these instances the characters, even though they are televisual representations, provide substantial reference and even companionship to the girls. The actions, personalities, values and statements the characters represent are real to the girls. Based upon their own horizons and worldviews, the girls employ a method of 'gap filling' as they interpret the world of the television characters. The girls' "confrontation between (their) initial expectations and the text forms a sort of provisional fictional world, on the basis of which (they) develop further expectations of what is likely to happen next as well as assumptions about the relationship between any one part of this fictional world and any other" (Allen 105). Meaning and information are obtained as the girls interpret the actions of the characters. A relationship develops as the girls process the meaning as appropriate for themselves. It is through this relationship that the characters occupy a space called family -- virtual family.

The girls have grown up with television. Idealistic representation and stereotyping through all media is very familiar to them. If individuality can be seen as an intersection of social practices of which television is a major player, then many of the aspects of the girls' identity is inherited from culture -- television culture. They each negotiate the media content they come in constant contact with on television, magazines and outdoor advertising in different yet similar ways. On occasion some of them fall prey to intended meaning while others actively defy it. They all recognize that most media images are glossier than 'real life'. They regard media and advertising as a very normal component of life and are not very suspicious or threatened by any coercive properties it may employ. They don't often critically question the concepts of economics and consumerism for themselves, but the issue of class difference and affluence in particular is painfully persistent in their minds as they participate with their society and media.

The girls describe what they do on a daily basis:

LJ: School, we go to school. Flirt with boys. Diss the boys. I study for my homework and at home I also work.
Keisha: Yeah, school is everyday. I like it most of the time. I don't pay my attention to many boys - they're not all that....I do my work at school.
LJ: I have a boyfriend. You know, he's my man. We meet up for lunch and afterwards. And I do the school work but I don't like the school much. You can say there's a lot of competition there for popularity.
Keisha: I go to my job and attend to my other things.
Elva: Everyday I go to school or someplace. I hang with my friends. We look for things to do and maybe cause trouble - but not really too much.
Renalda: Most of the days are the same. There is not all that much different to do. Until you are older and makin' the life of your own, everyday is pretty much the same 'cause you got to do what other people tell you to do.
Renalda: I don't like to stay home much.
Elva: They make the girl work!
Renalda: I do everything at home, but it is not all that bad. I have my own time. I hang with my girls and all. At home I help my mother. I have three little sisters and a brother and they are trouble! I have to watch them and clean for them. I stay at home a lot, really. My father is at home, too, but he just watches TV a lot.
Elva: At my home I do the usual thing. It is just my mother and my brother there and my brother does most of the stuff for my mom so I have my life how I want it - but I try to do the home thing, too.
LJ: At home I watch the TV.
Elva: That's about all there is to do at home! The TV is always on at my place. My mother, she does not turn it off. Late at night my brother watches TV.
Sister G: I watch TV a lot. I also do my homework and watch TV. Sometimes I listen to the radio, but when I'm working around the apartment I just leave the TV on and look at it when I pass, but mostly, I'm just listening to it, too. My grandmother also watches the TV, but she just watches anything.
LJ: I watch TV with my mother sometimes, because she chooses the shows, but during the day I don't watch it because I'm gone, but even if I'm there she watches those novellas and I don't like them.
Renalda: At home I watch TV, but I have to get there before my dad because he turns to things I don't like to watch.
Sister G: I go to my friend's place, because we see our shows there together and no one's around to say nothing about what we watch, but sometimes I can't go and I miss the show. She tells me what happens then because I still want to know and sometimes the shows are reruns. So, yeah, TV is one of the things I do.

The girls talk about their general impressions of television:

Keisha: A lot of TV is cool and a lot of it is a big waste of time. It depends on your taste, you know, 'cause there is every kind of show and sports and the news. It depends what you want to watch. You got to know what you're looking for. And there's always music videos.
LJ: Yeah, music videos are hype. I like TV just to pass time if I'm somewhere and it's on, I watch it just to have something to look at. But I also know the times for my shows and I turn them on for like entertainment.
Sister G: TV is for entertainment, I think. All the soap stories and the ones at night, too. They are all for people to watch, like movies, but different. And if you don't have no work to be doin' or have to read or somethin' then there's always the TV, and it's good like that.
Keisha: There are some role models on TV, too, I think. It's not always only violence like a lot of people are sayin'.

The girls say that they have always watched television:

LJ: Yeah, girl, always! I mean, I have always watched TV 'cause it has always been there. Well, sometimes it has been broke, but there is a TV everywhere.
Sister G: Yeah, me, too. I watched the little kid shows when I was young and at school they show tapes on the TV.
Renalda: I think everybody has always watched TV at some time or another. It's a pretty regular thing to do - mostly at home.
Sister G: But also everywhere else - like here, for instance! (We are at a local laundromat where a television is kept on all day).
LJ: Yeah, here they always have the TV on. It's good - helps to pass the time when you are havin' to wait around here for your clothes to finish.

The girls describe how they think television illustrates or represents fashion and trends:

Sister G: TV always shows what the fashions are, but they are always kind of late, you know, it takes awhile for what's really happening to show up.
LJ: Except in music videos - the fast fashion is always there.
Renalda: Yeah, that's true. You can always see how to wear your stuff
on MTV and then later they try to do it on the shows.
Keisha: The same advertising that you see on the street is on TV, but TV makes it more exciting.
Sister G: I think it is kind of a pressure for people to be lookin' the right way when there is fashion and hype all over the TV, but you can't help it.

The girls have differing opinions about the influence of television upon them:

LJ: There is attitude in the people on TV a lot and that is also somethin' that is a pressure like fashion - like to say things a certain way and to behave, or somethin', in a certain way - that's kind of like fashionable, too, and you can see it on TV.
Elva: No, I don't care. I just get behind what I want to. It doesn't matter to me like that.
Renalda: Yes it does, Elva! You tell me about the hair and the shirts you see on TV. I know some of that gets in to you.
Elva: Not so much like I think I have to be like all that! I just notice somethin' I like, maybe.
Keisha: Some of the characters of TV shows do things and they seem cool for doin' them that way - that kind of thing can influence you if you see it and if you think you can be cool like that, too.
Elva: You don't have to think like you got to copy what's on TV. Like me, I just like to watch what I like and I might talk about it sometimes, but I don't think I got to be like that.
Sister G: The people and the stuff on TV are just stories - they are like the real stuff that you know sometimes but they are mostly just stories that aint exactly like your own life, so you can just take it like that and if you see somethin' that you would like to be like or try doin' or somethin', then you can, but you got to
choose for yourself.

NEXT CHAPTER


TABLE OF CONTENTS