Bullying on "The Drew Carey Show"

The following is the nineteenth in a series of essays written in response to the media analysis assignment described in the January 28, 2000 article on this topic page. Colorado State University student Lindsay Hazouri looks at the portrayal of bullying in The Drew Carey Show and the effects of bullying on society.

Bullying on The Drew Carey Show by Lindsay Hazouri

In today's society, bullying is a common issue among peers ranging from elementary ages through adolescence. People bully one another without taking someone's long-term effects into regard. Margaret Gunter, a PhD student of psychology at the University of New England researched the topic of bullying. She observed 70 victims between the ages of 17 and 56 who had been bullied in the past and compared them with 50 people who hadn't been bullied, all from the same age group. The people who had been bullied were more vulnerable to depression or post-traumatic stress disorder along with schizophrenia depending on how severe the bullying was. Australian studies have shown that almost 20 percent of students are bullied growing up. Seventeen percent of those students have suffered severe bullying. "Our society is one in which we glorify the strong and ridicule the weak, and I think kids tend to very much take this on," comments Associate Professor Michael Carr-Greg, head of the education and training unit at the Center for Adolescent Health.

Bullying is a common issue addressed in most television sitcoms. Sarcasm and verbal harassment is used as a lighthearted source of entertainment in our culture. Drew Carey and Mimi are two characters in The Drew Carey Show, a popular television comedy that is rerun on the Fox network. The show reinforces the cultural condition of bullying by incorporating it into their comedy dialogues. The characters on the show are constantly antagonizing each other for the humor of the audience. Mimi, along with all her fellow co-workers, gives Drew a hard time about his weight and continually calls him names referring to his food intake or his eating habits. Drew reciprocates the verbal remarks by calling Mimi a clown or addressing her "colorful" make-up and clothing choices. The amusement of The Drew Carey Show focuses on one person bullying another and the little effect it has on them.

Television sitcoms, such as The Drew Carey Show, have been able to integrate a cultural condition like bullying into their show and turn it into a comical, lighthearted issue. The sarcasm and verbal harassment is taken as a joke on TV, but if the same idea is brought into the real world, the humor is lost, and hurt emotions and feelings come into play. People who have been laughed at or bullied tend to avoid those hurt emotions and laugh it off. Television sitcoms lighten a serious situation, avoiding the reality that comes with it, and creating a society that doesn't understand the effects and long-term issues associated with bullying others. As a resident assistant, there's evidence that I've observed and confronted concerning bullies. A girl on my floor has been teased and tormented this past semester with name-calling and other verbal harassment. She has grown up being bullied and is now dealing with depression and physical and emotional insecurities because of the numerous bullies throughout her life. She knows that people talk about her behind her back and she shows apathy towards the remarks about her. Sometimes she'll laugh about it and tell me that she doesn't care because she doesn't like those people anyway. Her reactions towards the bullying could possibly be a learned trait from what she sees on TV or how society views sarcasm and making fun of others.

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