Mr. Feeny In Boy Meets World

Television is a unique medium of communication to study because of the cultural relevance it holds and the opportunity to study these implications. When discursively analyzing television it is important to break down themes, cultural relevance, and genre of the piece. I will provide an analysis of television sitcom New Girl, with sitcom Boy Meets World, and comedy movie Mean Girls. Each provides a different take on teachers in the media, and allows for exploration of these within in different genres, with a specific emphasis on the gender relation to the characterization.
New Girl is a sitcom following the day-to-day life for Jessica Day, who is a passionate teacher, which is often overshadowed by her ‘dorky’ and loveable personality. Throughout the series …show more content…
Feeny from sitcom Boy Meets World. This comparison will provide an inter-textual gender role comparison of female and male teaching roles in sitcoms. Different from Jess in New Girl, Mr. Feeny is a well-spoken, educated, idolized mentor to the younger characters in Boy Meets World. He provides comfort as a father, a teacher, and a mentor throughout the course of the series. Mr. Feeny’s teaching style is very consistent, providing lectures where the students feel obligated and drawn to be attentive, our of respect and potentially fear of their teacher. This fear is not portrayed as negative however, but out of admiration. However, Mr. Feeny living next door to main character Cory allows for many evening lessons around the fence in their backyard. Ultimately, Mr. Feeny is illustrated as a respectable and admired mentor to the cast, and is responsible for aiding their maturation into young men. This picture of a teacher is very different from the emphasis placed on Jess in New Girl. For Jess is known for her inability to hold a relationship, meanwhile Mr. Feeny is depicted as a hero. This vast difference is an example of how gender themes of teachers differ in