This toolkit, developed by the Geena Davis Institute in partnership with Caring Across Generations, is based on our 2023 research report, “Making Care Pop: What We See and Don’t See About Caregiving on TV” offers insights into our content analysis on the representation of care, particularly aging and disability care, in scripted television from 2021. Our findings reveal a stark underrepresentation of care narratives, with a disproportionate focus on parenting, and scarce portrayal of aging and disability care.
We discovered that such care is often depicted as “women’s work” and lacks diversity, predominantly showing white, heteronormative families. The complexities of caregiving, including the financial, physical, and emotional challenges, are seldom portrayed, as are the daily activities involved in caregiving.
The toolkit provides recommendations for media creators to foster more authentic and diverse representations of caregiving, thereby encouraging a shift in how care-related narratives are approached in television storytelling.
