partners, with both men and women participating fully in home life as
well as the paid labor force. 1

The media feud over out-of-wedlock births that broke out between
Dan Quayle and the producers of Murphy Brown during the 1992 presi-
dential campaign is just one example of how competing ideologies
about women's place in the family and work confront each other on tv
screens. In such disparate television formats as celebrity talk shows, the
evening news, situation comedies, and dramas the battle over compet-
ing visions of gender is waged. Television thus serves as a site of contes-
tation, reflecting contemporary struggles over gender and family ( Barrett
1980:112).

One of the most ambitious efforts to represent the family in the last
decade is the network television series thirtysomething, now in rerun on
the Lifetime cable channel. An hour-long dramatic series, thirtysome-
thing aired from 1987 to 1991, in the twilight of a decade in which the
post-war generations came of age. Set in an area somewhere outside
Philadelphia, thirtysomething revolves around the personal lives of seven
friends in their thirties: Michael Steadman and his wife, Hope, the pri-
mary characters; Elliot Weston, Michael's business partner and close
friend, and his wife, Nancy; Melissa Steadman, Michael's cousin; Gary
Shepherd, Michael's oldest friend; and Ellyn Warren, Hope's oldest
friend. Of the main characters, five are married and have children; two
are single women. All of them are white, well-educated, middle and
upper middle class; all have had or are currently pursuing careers.

The plots of thirtysomething usually center on personal crises or events
that the characters are facing in their work or family life, and the main
"action" consists of discussions between the characters about these
events. This primary focus on the characters' work and family lives is in
keeping with what the producers, Edward Zwick and Marshall Her-
skovitz, wanted to explore in their effort to capture the "small
moments" of people's lives as a means of creating a bond between the
characters and the viewing audience. 2

In terms of the problem of gender, some of the day-to-day or "real
life" conflicts the married female characters Hope and Nancy go
through revolve around wanting to go back into the paid labor force
versus wanting to stay home with their children full time; wanting to be
taken seriously as autonomous individuals versus wanting to be
immersed in the mothering role; wanting equality with their mates ver-
sus wanting to be "taken care of; and more generally, trying to commu-
nicate and establish sexual intimacy with their spouses, relating to their
single women friends, and dealing with the conflicting burdens of
home, family, and their desire to find meaningful outside employment.

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