Who’s the Boss differs from Disney tradition in it’s feminism, but in a very odd way: the producers simply switched gender roles, and then let Angela and Tony’s characters deal with the resultant uncertainty. They took the stock family sitcom and reversed the roles by slapping an apron on the father and sending the mother off to earn the bacon. This strategy is brilliant in its simplicity: in order to keep the show as close to original genre without dealing with real issues of power, the producers decided to invert the mother/father roles, without mention. Had they chose to have Tony work on Wall Street or move Angela into the household with Tony, Who’s the Boss? might have been pressed to attend to more complex issues of familial relationships, like parental absence and economic disputes. Instead, we see a perfectly complimented parental pair, unusual only in the gender roles they occupy. When the two switch roles, they are greeted with failure. When Angela attempts the domestic by baking cookies for Jonathan (Angela’s son) and Samantha (Tony’s daughter), the children groan and go outside to play to escape the culinary torture.

:: :: Mrs. Danny Glover in "Lethal Weapon"

The 1980’s ushered in an era of cinema forms that re-acclimated America to the presence of hegemonic culture, a presence questioned by films of the 1970’s. This re-socialization, in combination with a forward and idealistic vision of racial equality no doubt fueled the realization of the Trish Murtaugh character in Lethal Weapon. Trish is conforming exactly to that role of middle class, suburban, wife and mother with one exception. She is black. This implies the once white-only role (a role not openly recognized as inherently white supremacist, but encoded as such by systematically excluding women of color) opened up to include women of all races in the 1980’s.

The Women’s Liberation movement of the previous decades afforded changes in the attitude and demeanor of many contemporary female representations in the 1980’s, allowing Trish’s character to be more aggressive and forward than her 1950’s counterparts. She swears and puts her husband in his place in front of Riggs, saying, “Roger, you’re being an asshole” when he is acting inappropriately in front of their guest. She asserts her power in the daily morning routine, acting self-assured and knowing in the morning while her husband fumbles to function. Riggs even notices Trish’s superiority in all things domestic when he states, “we resolved your wife takes out the trash”. This reflects a 1980’s re-conceptualization of the roles and duties of a husband and wife team, yet does nothing to place Trish as superior to her husband. She is after all, taking out the trash, keeping her world-view within the home.