Abstract

The Desperate Housewives is one of the typical television series reflecting the lives of American middle-class families. There are lots of differences in many aspects between American and Chinese females. With a growing number of frequent international exchanges in the environment of economic globalization, more and more people pay attention to cultural differences. And with the in-depth exchanges and development, the difference between different cultures under the influence of the female is paid more and more attention. The play mainly tells four housewives in the ups and downs of life and how to maintain and strong their friendship in the trivial and major events. Desperate Housewives is a reflection of USA middle-class family story, reflects the various aspects of American life culture. It is a good way to learn America culture. To a large extent, character, values and minds of characters in the series reflect the status of the contemporary American females. From the TV series, we can see there are certain similarities between two contraries females, but in ideology, religion and other aspects, existence of differences still can be seen.
This paper selects four main characters in the series to analyze the differences between Chinese and American females and the reasons for them. The first part is the introduction which studies the background of the research on females’ differences including present studies at home and abroad, main contents and objectives of this paper. The second part is a brief introduction of the Desperate Housewives and the analysis of these four females who is different from Chinese’s. The third part is giving reasons for the differences. The last part is a brief conclusion which puts forward how to understand the concepts about females’ social status correctly. This article aims at showing some differences between Chinese and American females, promoting people’s understanding under the context of globalization, thus it is of great importance to remove mistakes in cross-cultural communication.

Key words: Desperate Housewives; females’ differences; cultural cross

摘  要

《绝望的主妇》是一部典型的反应美国中产阶级家庭的生活剧，剧中，美国女性与中国女性在很多方面存在着差异。在经济全球化的现在，国际交流日益频繁，人们越来越重视不同文化之间的差异性。而随着交流的深入与发展，不同文化影响下的女性之间的差异性越来越受到关注。这部剧主要讲述四个家庭主妇怎样在生活的跌宕和人生的变故中变顽强，她们之间的友谊是如何在各种各样的事件中获得维持和升华。《绝望的主妇》反映了美国中产阶级家庭的故事，它反映了美国文化的各个方面，是我们对美国文化认识的一个很好的方法。本文通过《绝望的主妇》分析家庭、交际和社会中存在的文化现象，以及这些现象在女性身上体现出的特点，并与中国女性做恰当的比较，使我们能更好地懂得中美文化的差别。剧中主妇的性格特点，价值观和世界观在很大程度上反映了当代美国女性的现状。从这部电视剧中，我们可以看到中美两国女性之间的一些相似之处，但在她们在意识形态、宗教信仰和其他方面都存在着较大的差异。
本文结合剧中四个主妇人物性格特点、价值观和人生观，分析研究了中美女性的不同及其原因。第一部分是绪论，主要研究中美文化差异的背景，其中包括国内外的研究现状、本文主要内容及意义。第二部分简要介绍了《绝望的主妇》中四位女主妇在剧中表现的人物形象并简述了她们在思想上开放性、生活上的独立性以及在家庭价值观和宗教信仰上表现出与中国女性的不同之处。第三部分从地理、信仰以及历史等方面分析了中美女性间存在差异的原因，目的是帮助人们更好的了解中美女性，以及在跨文化背景下对其进一步了解，避免在交际过程当中产生误解，其研究意义深远重大。

关键词：绝望主妇；女性差异；跨文化