TV Family Values: Gender, Domestic Labor, and 1980s Sitcoms in Bloomington, MN

During the 1980s, U.S. television experienced a reinvigoration of the family sitcom genre. In
TV Family Values
, Alice Leppert focuses on the impact the decade's television shows had on middle class family structure. These sitcoms sought to appeal to upwardly mobile “career women” and were often structured around non-nuclear families and the reorganization of housework. Drawing on Foucauldian and feminist theories, Leppert examines the nature of sitcoms such as
Full House
,
Family Ties
Growing Pains
The Cosby Show
, and
Who's the Boss?
against the backdrop of a time period generally remembered as socially conservative and obsessed with traditional family values.