House

House, despite having a sexist main character and hardly and characters who are women, is my very favorite television show. When I watch (which, by the way, is every week; religiously), I do so because of the intensity and intrigue of the program. The various medical cases that the show involves keep me on my toes and excited for what is about to happen next. It wasn't until this week, however, that I noticed just how many inequalities and separations there are between men and women in the show.

First of all, the main character of House, Dr. Greg House, is a man. Whether or not the position could be played as either a man or a woman, I do not know. However, I should say that Hugh Laurie, the actor, does a truly remarkable job (he won a Golden Globe last year). On top of being a man, however, House is a very cranky, angry human being. He is bitter to the point of being cold. This aspect of the character makes his interactions and relationships with other characters very interesting at times. He has, in past episodes, turned the only people close to him away, and hurt them very badly. It should be noted that the people I am referring to are women. One was his ex-wife. She was a character for a short time, as she came to work in the same hospital as House. They began to fall in love for a second time, until House's bitterness turned her away again. The other woman who began to move in on house is one of his subordinates.

House has three doctors working under him. Fresh out of medical school, these three fresh young kids are very bright, but aren't that experienced in the medical field yet. Two of the three are men and the other a woman. House does not treat any of them with respect. If one were to analyze just the relationship and interactions between House and Dr. Cameron, the woman, one would see that House is tremendously sexist. He has absolutely no tact in dealing with her, and has mentioned on made many remarks about her gender. Later, I will discuss how this is evident even in this one particular episode.

To only look at House's relationship with Cameron, however, would prove as an injustice. House is equally rude and uncouth with his other two employees. One is black, and one is British. To say that House ignores either of these factors would be completely incorrect. House refers to the black man as "darky", asks him about crime related incidents, all in an effort to spite him. This is the same way he speaks with Cameron about her womanhood. Is he sexist? Is he racist? Maybe. Personally, I feel that he is not meant to be portrayed as such. I think he is just an old, angry man.

Tonight's episode did not disappoint, and has actually proved quite pertinent to this assignment. It revolves around a sixteen year old supermodel who has a panic attack on the runway, punches a fellow model, and then collapses to the ground, unable to move, but still aware of what is around her. When she arrives at the hospital, her father admits to giving her Valium prior to her performance in order to help with nerves. Also, he later admits to having had sex with her a year or so again. House is not concerned with this information, and decided to keep the father around to ask him more questions about the daughter. Cameron, however, finds this information very troubling and reports him. At the very end of the show, as with every episode, there is quite the twist. All of the girl's symptoms lead to cancer. After being unable to find any anywhere in her body, House takes another look. He sees that her ovaries are very small. In fact, he discovers that they are not ovaries at all; they are testicles that never descended. The sixteen year old supermodel is actually a boy.

As you can see, there are many different representations of both men and women that can be analyzed here. Everything about the patient, the supermodel, is interesting in one way or another. Also, the way house treats her, speaks with her, and looks at her is quite peculiar and deserves to be looked at. Finally, it is also of importance to inspect the dangerous relationship between the model and her father.

When the model was introduced at the beginning of the show, I thought she may have been my age, maybe a little older. She