A Very Special Episode: The Good, Bad, and Ugly of TV Trope Volunteering

As Leaders of Volunteers (#LOVols), we have a stake and a say in how the media portray our work, and the genuinely good benefits of volunteerism to individuals and communities. Representation in the media is important, but isn’t always for the greater good! 

It is always worth it to analyze the ways in which media narratives align with, highlight, and bring into question the dynamics of our reality. We can only counter harmful stereotypes and tropes when we understand their impact on the public perception of volunteering. After all, the (mis)perception of the value of volunteering drives the decisions of funders, executive directors, legislators, and volunteers in shaping reality for Leaders of Volunteers!

For today, I’m using the definition of trope as a common or overused theme or device: cliché.

Whenever a TV show or movie needs to show a character is ”good,” they cut to them volunteering in a soup kitchen or food bank as the most common trope-setting, followed closely by animal shelter, picking up litter, or after-school tutoring of “under-privileged” kids. It’s even the biggest trope in stock photos of volunteering!

Literally faceless food bank volunteers!

A quick search of “TV tropes volunteering” reveals thousands of results:

The list of tv shows and movies with this trope grows every day, but let’s take a look at a few examples with classic NBC sitcoms ”The Golden Girls,” “Fresh Prince of Bel Air,” current Netflix comedy hit “Kim’s Convenience,” ABC’s long-running “Modern Family,” and the CW’s action-adventure “Supergirl.”

The Good 

1. Any positive portrayal of volunteering helps remind people and raise awareness of the good they can do in their own lives! It’s fairly common for TV shows using the volunteering trope to have direct appeals for donations or volunteers with after-show mini-commercials (aka “PSA tags”) by the cast, as on “Modern Family” for GLSEN (LGBTIA+ youth services) in 2010, and many other charities and causes. “Modern Family”(2009-2020) had several episodes where the main characters volunteer, generally doing a good job portraying civic service and Leaders of Volunteers. 

Actor Ty Burrell of ABC/Disney’s “Modern Family” sitcom appears in a screenshot of the GLSEN Public Service Announcement.

2. The characters “learn a lesson” and gain self-awareness around class, privilege, and bias  - aka A Very Special Episode. Although, the good and bad is often mixed into this trope even in the same episodes, “The Fresh Prince of Bel Air” Thanksgiving season finale arc “There’s the Rub Parts 1 & 2” demonstrates in the scene below that lesson-learning by the main characters is often done with shame and guilt.

“Fresh Prince of Bel Air,” NBC/Universal.  Really not the ideal volunteer culture!

Lead characters Carlton and Hilary volunteer at a homeless shelter on Thanksgiving, but they are only doing it to serve their own needs. Carlton wants the volunteer service for his college application and Hilary wants to film the experience for her talk show. Carlton is called out by a homeless teen boy (see above). By the end of the 2-episode arc, Carlton and Hillary realize that they really do want to help the homeless, so they return to the shelter with a catered candlelight dinner. When the camera crew finally shows up, Hillary sends them away because she doesn’t want to exploit the homeless anymore. Lesson learned!

The Bad

1. “Holier-Than-Thou” Volunteer; reinforcing the stereotype of new volunteers being unwelcome by “the regulars”. Staying with the “Fresh Prince of Bel Air” example, here’s the episode description:

Hillary gets annoyed at manual labor and starts clearing plates before people are done eating, then she is totally shocked and horrified when they run out of food. When she finds out that the supervisor who has been bossing her around is not some holier-than-thou volunteer, but rather a homeless woman, she realizes she has been a big jerk.

2. White savior syndrome is often the motivation to volunteer, for the “under-privileged” or “inner city” (code: BIPOC) people, and usually just for one shift – on a holiday like Christmas or American Thanksgiving. “White savior syndrome” is another problematic trope in which a white character rescues non-white characters from unfortunate circumstances, also called “Mighty Whitey.” “The Fresh Prince of Bel Air” did a good job of flipping-the-script with this sub-trope, being a show about a wealthy Black family, but they kept the themes of class awareness and only volunteering on a holiday. Unfortunately, with the lack of BIPOC representation (people of color represent 39.5 percent of the total population but just under 27 percent in the Share of Screen metric per a Nielsen study of 2019 streaming/network content), most TV-volunteering keeps characters stuck in a triple trope; A Very Special Episode-Holiday-White Savior!

“The Golden Girls”, NBC/Universal: “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas”

Beloved ‘80s sitcom “The Golden Girls” has a prime example with “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas.” When the girls volunteer at a homeless shelter, they learn that Dorothy’s (Bea Arthur) ex-husband Stan has been thrown out on the streets by his current wife. Hilarity, heart, and canned studio-audience “Awwwws” ensue!

2. Reinforces moral licensing: the process of fooling ourselves to justify bad behavior using other good behavior. The “moral licensing” effect causes people who exhibit good behavior initially to later perform dishonest, unethical, or bad actions later on. In TV show tropes, a character acts like a jerk (or worse, is blatantly abusive), but the other characters discover he/she/they volunteer at a  - you guessed it! - soup kitchen once a week, so all is forgiven.

New character William Dey (Staz Nair) on CW’s “Supergirl,” after spending all of his previous screen time being a jerk to the lead female (superhero) character.

The Ugly

Note the 2nd result on the TV Tropes list is “Got Volunteered” = Voluntold: The Unwilling. Meaning, being coerced or manipulated into service, which is at the very least a negative connotation of volunteering being annoying, inconvenient, and uncomfortable. At worst volunteering is shown as a punishment by authority; parents, school, or court. A future blog post will dig into the Voluntold topic, so stay tuned.

In “Kim’s Convenience”, Mrs. Kim volunteers her husband to help their church sell tickets to a Korean singers' concert. A confused and annoyed Mr. Kim asks his wife when he did this (sign up to volunteer), and she cheerfully replies, "When you marry me."

Netflix/CBC “Kim’s Convenience.” Mr. Kim has a clipboard, which means he is in charge.

How Do We as #LOVols Keep the Good Tropes and Dump the Bad?

I can hear the questions before they are typed: 

“Do we get a stake and a say in media portrayals? Is this a call to action for Leaders Of Volunteers to do something else? Because if so - ah, we’re a little busy right now!”

Good news - keep doing your great work! If you happen to get news or other media attention for your agency and volunteers – YAY! – and do everything in your power to make it a positive story. It’s up to civic service sector thought leaders, speakers, authors, orgs, bloggers, to further amplify the voices and value of Leaders of Volunteers, and to call out the media when they get it wrong. 

2020, in all its chaos and crises, made it very clear that volunteers and community mutual aid are the glue of society. Organizations like Points of Light, International Association for Volunteer Efforts (IAVE), VolunteerMatch, the National Alliance for Volunteer Engagement, and regional professional associations (AL!VE/USA, VMPC/CAN, AVM/UK) all are doing amazing work collectively advocating for the value and power of volunteerism to drive positive community changes. 

There are also organizations dedicated to creating social change through the entertainment industry including Hollywood, Health & Society (HH&S), Propper Daley(dot com), and The Global Media Center for Social Impact (GMI). These “social impact agencies” set up tours and other direct communication between producers and NPOs, which makes it a lot easier for writers to portray a cause or agency mission accurately, hopefully leading to fewer stereotypes and repeated tropes for civic service.

The first big test of positive-social-change-with-media was by Jay Winsten, associate dean at Harvard’s School of Public Health, who deployed a new strategy in the 1980s to reduce drunk driving deaths by enlisting Hollywood executives and producers to instill positive messages about sober transportation into television shows and films. The innovative campaign proved a blockbuster hit. Between 1988 and 1992, the term “designated driver” made cameo appearances in more than 160 prime time shows, including hits such as Cheers, L.A. Law, and The Cosby Show. 

Four years into the media blitz, drunk driving fatalities dropped by 25 percent. While tougher traffic laws and stricter enforcement at the time unquestionably helped save lives, Mr. Winsten credits his media campaign for playing a significant role, as well.

A growing number of nonprofits have turned to boutique agencies to create not only awareness in the popular culture, but quantifiable change. I would love to see Points of Light, IAVE, and other global civic service organizations add this as a strategy in their marketing campaigns to amplify the value of volunteering!

There is a LOT to unpack with this trope, not the least of which is the centering of white, upper-middle-class, Western culture. Check out my friend and colleague Jerome Tennille’s recent blog that goes deeper into examining and challenging core assumptions about “doing good” as volunteers and working with NPOs.