When we watch a movie, or a tv show, or even read a book, every character we know and learn about is based of off an archetype. As Deborah Anne Macey points out in her article, these archetypes have existed for as long as humans have been telling stories, and they are constantly repackaged and recycled. As did the myths of past cultures, television serves as one of our modern modes of storytelling, teaching what we value and helping us make sense of our culture. Her study focuses on the prevalence of archetypes, particularly under the umbrella of female archetypes. To do so, she analyzes the cast of popular American sitcoms. She studies the narratives and characters in Golden Girls, Living Single, and Sex and the City. While these shows are seemingly unrelated, the four main characters in each show represent feminine archetypes found throughout Western mythology: the iron maiden, the sex object, the child, and the mother.
Although Deborah's analysis of archetypes pertains only to fictional characters, do they translate similarly into the real world? Think about it, do you relate to a specific character, or think that friends or family members do? Are our personality types all recycled the same way as fictional characters?
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