An adult daughter sits at a kitchen table surrounded by pill bottles, calendar planners, and unpaid bills. She takes a quiet breath before stepping into her father’s room to help him stand. Millions of Americans navigate these demanding moments daily. However, viewers rarely see this reality on their television screens. This Geena Davis Institute study, Making Care Pop: What We See and Don’t See About Caregiving on TV, reveals that scripted shows offer a narrow picture of support networks. Consequently, viewers who provide or depend on aging and disability care often feel isolated and undervalued.
To measure this gap, our team evaluated all 608 broadcast, cable, and streaming scripted series available in the U.S. during 2021. Just 64 of those shows included storylines prominently featuring caregiving. We defined caregiving as activities such as emotional support, managing finances, and assisting with everyday tasks to help a dependent individual of any age.
Key Findings: Quick Overview
Our analysis highlights significant disparities between actual family needs and on-screen narratives:
- Overwhelming Focus on Parenting: When care appeared on screen, 75% of storylines focused strictly on parenting. Depictions of care for older adults and disabled characters remained extremely rare.
- Gender Disparities in Support: Shows consistently framed aging and disability support as women’s work. Mothers of disabled children frequently carried heavier physical and emotional workloads than fathers.
- Lack of Cultural Diversity: Care storylines involving aging and disability lacked demographic variety. These plots overwhelmingly reflected white, middle-class, heteronormative nuclear households.
- Absence of Home-Based Care: Scripted shows rarely depicted aging-related care at home. Instead, storylines defaulted to institutional nursing facilities.
- Erasure of Daily Tasks: Fundamental responsibilities—such as bathing, dressing, meal preparation, medication tracking, and bill management—were almost completely absent.
- Omission of Financial and Mental Strain: Series routinely omitted common struggles, including income loss, caregiver burnout, and balancing professional jobs with household duties.
- Reinforcement of Ableist Narratives: Portrayals often depicted older and disabled individuals as lacking personal agency. Characters rarely influenced decisions regarding their own care.
- Invisibility of Structural Policy: Storylines almost never (less than 0.01% of episodes) mentioned public policies like paid family leave or Medicaid. Instead, 20% of storylines framed solutions purely as personal responsibility.
Analyzing the Invisibility of Aging, Disability, and Domestic Support
Entertainment storylines heavily influence how society values different stages of life. When television erases the daily work of elder care and disability support, it reinforces harmful stereotypes. Viewers absorb the message that aging and disability are burdensome subjects rather than natural aspects of human life.
Furthermore, ignoring the practical realities of caregiving hides the physical and financial sacrifices that family members make every day. Showing characters managing logistics, navigating public benefits, and sharing responsibilities normalizes these experiences. Authentic screen storytelling validates real-world caregivers while offering audiences a template for how community care can function.
Actionable Recommendations for Television Writers, Producers, and Showrunners
To build authentic and nuanced narratives, creators can adopt several practical strategies:
- Make Home-Based Care Visible: Depict older adults and disabled characters receiving respectful support at home from families, friends, and professional aides.
- Tell Culturally Diverse Care Stories: Feature caregiving within BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and low-income communities to reflect varied cultural traditions and systemic hurdles.
- Incorporate Everyday Care Tasks: Integrate routine actions—such as managing prescriptions or preparing meals—into scene action to build authentic environments.
- Depict Systemic Challenges: Explore the real friction caused by medical costs, career balance, and personal health impacts to heighten dramatic tension.
- Model Supportive Policy Solutions: Show characters using respite stipends, workplace family leave, and public assistance programs to demonstrate accessible support structures.
Supporting Evidence-Based Media Research for Family Inclusion
Rigorous media research illuminates cultural blind spots and empowers creators to tell richer stories. At the Geena Davis Institute, we work alongside entertainment leaders to ensure screen portrayals reflect the full complexity of modern families.
Support our ongoing media studies to help bring invisible caregiving stories into the spotlight. Donate to the Geena Davis Institute today to advance authentic representation across television.