Entertainment Initiative: Re-Scripting Gender, Work, Family, and Care

Both progressive and conservative-leaning viewers share interests in work, family, and care content and stories about how characters manage.

New research conducted by the media research firm MarketCast for New America’s Entertainment Initiative shows that U.S. television and film viewers are hungry for and engaged by entertainment that includes stories about people managing work, family, caregiving, and personal obligations, and they are eager to see characters navigating related complexities and finding solutions.

A survey of U.S. streaming viewers conducted by MarketCast for New America’s Better Life Lab finds that 84 percent of audiences want to see more depictions of realistic work, family, and care situations on TV.

Read the full report here.

Variety features findings from the 2024 MarketCast study and New America’s work to drive narrative and culture change around work, family, and care. As our Director Vicki Shabo shares, “These narratives in the culture about pulling yourselves up by your bootstraps and managing these life challenges through individual initiative…[do not] accurately reflect the reality that we need: policies that support families navigating work, child care, and elder care.”

Read the article here.

Storytellers can make a big difference by showing the realities that most people face as they manage jobs and family. Stories must be clear about the policies at play that affect parents and caregivers to loved ones—such as the availability (or lack of) paid leave and child care—and question the stigma that exists for parents and caregivers at work.

TV and film can help get rid of the myth that individual grit is the key to success at work and at home, and instead show the systems we need to ensure that all people can truly survive and thrive. See the digital version here and the pdf format here for easy printing.

Our issue primer explores Americans’ cross-pressured views on gender equity and gender roles, provides real-world economic, labor force, and time use data, examines cultural stereotypes, and offers narrative strategies and storytelling tips to writers to encourage writing about people of all genders doing the human activities of work and care. A pdf is available here: https://d1y8sb8igg2f8e.cloudfront.net/documents/Breaking_Out_of_a_Gendered_Box_v4vtKp2.pdf

Millions of U.S. workers face stresses related to jobs and money, and they are often doing so while managing care for children, loved ones, or themselves. Working people and their families are rarely represented authentically in TV and film, yet audience-interest research finds that TV and film viewers seek visibility, understanding, and solutions in the media they consume.

This September 2025 resource guide for entertainment-industry storytellers offers tips for crafting stories about work, finances, and care that reflect viewers’ real lives. This work is grounded in research we commissioned—a survey of 1,310 TV and film viewers conducted by MarketCast in April 2025—and additional data on the experiences of American workers and consumers.

Our resource guide, created in collaboration with Abortion Onscreen at UCSF’s Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH), shares new research from ANSIRH’s TV and film database about how infrequently abortion plotlines include discussions of depictions of work-family, caregiving and financial considerations—and includes data and evidence to support more holistic storytelling. We also applaud depictions from popular shows and movies that we encourage others to build on. On the web here, and in pdf format here for easy printing.

Marrying new data on what U.S. audiences relate to and want to see on screen when it comes to reproductive health stories and analysis of 10 years of on-screen storytelling, this third collaboration between New America and Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health shows that there is storytelling value in including authentic holistic depictions of how people navigate decisions about whether, when, and under what circumstances to start or grow a family—or to decide not to—in television and film storytelling.

Read the web version here: https://newamerica.org/entertainment/reprohealth

This two-page tip sheet from Better Life Lab and Abortion Onscreen at UCSF’s Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (AHSIRH) shares key demographic and economic data about abortion-seekers. It quantifies the challenges that abortion-seekers face finding care. And it provides data on the work, family, and financial context in which people in the U.S. make pregnancy and abortion decisions.

The second page offers a quick guide on how TV depicts abortion decisions now, shares examples we love, and offers tips for TV and film writers in telling holistic stories.

This 2024 short guide builds on our longer 2023 research brief and resource guide, which is at https://newamerica.org/rescriptingabortion.

A tip sheet for creatives on authentic on-screen representation of working parents in the United States that builds on our core tip sheet, Re-Scripting Gender, Work, Family, and Care. This resource is grounded in both media and policy research. It names tropes and stereotypes commonly seen on screen and suggests alternative approaches to representing gender equity at home and at work, supportive workplaces, and people speak proudly about their parenting and caregiving responsibilities.

Building on recommendations from the Civic Storylines toolkit, we offer storytellers data points, character, setting, and action suggestions, and real-life examples of people who have advocated for paid family and medical leave, child care, pregnancy fairness, and other family-supportive policies.

For showrunners and writers telling stories involving work, family, and care in particular U.S. states, there are programs and laws related to paid leave that should inform characters’ experiences and stories. Learn more about these laws and their implications for characters and plot in this tip sheet and reach out to us for specific details!

The Better Life Lab, Caring Across Generations and Equimundo-US joined forces to brief Writers Guild of America Members and created a two-page guide that offers writers a “lens” for writing stories that help to make caregiving and work-family caregiving challenges visible, reduce stigma, toss aside harmful stereotypes and tropes about people who provide and receive care, and point toward a future where care is valued and addressed in collective ways.

We are proud collaborators with Storyline Partners, one of a diverse collection of organizations that collaborate with the entertainment industry to promote accurate, authentic, and equitable cultural narratives in television and film. With Storyline Partners, we have created “readers” that include:

• Writing About Paid Family and Medical Leave
• Writing About Women, Work & Care: Long Road Back from the Pandemic
• Writing About Abortion (section on anti-poverty, pro-family connections)
• Writing About the Climate Crisis, Work, Workers and Care (contributed to sections on work, workers and care)

Read more about why we joined Storyline Partners and our shared vision of more inclusive and equitable storytelling here.

The fourth installment of the annual New America/Caring Across Generations list of 10 of our favorite stories about work, family, and care on TV this year, 2025

Vicki Shabo writes for Ms. Magazine about what streaming viewers in the U.S. want, based on newly released data from New America and MarketCast, and how the Emmy-nominated show, Hacks, delivers. Shabo concludes, "For creatives and studio executives looking to reach new and more diverse audiences—especially in a time when cultural divisions often push networks to oversimplify or water down content—Hacks offers a roadmap: Respect women viewers. Tell stories that reflect the complexity of their work, relationships, and daily realities. And above all, recognize that validation and understanding aren’t side notes to entertainment—they’re at the core of what makes it resonate."

Read the full op-ed here.

Jasmine Heyward, Entertainment Initiative Senior Associate, writes for Women’s Media Center about how the women characters in the 2025 hit feature film Sinners.

Heyward writes, “Sinners doesn’t reinvent the idea of what it means to be a ‘strong female character’ so much as it reminds us what strength actually looks like when it’s grounded in real human need. These women fight and sacrifice, yes—but they also grieve, laugh, desire, compromise, and change. Their strength isn’t conditional on perfection or isolation; it’s shaped by community, love, and choice. In a media landscape where representation is often flattened or politicized, Sinners offers something rare: textured, emotionally resonant portrayals that feel both exciting and deeply familiar."

Read the full piece here.

This essay for New America’s The Thread by entertainment initiative founder/director and policy expert Vicki Shabo links real-world financial and work, family, and care precarity for families to the stories that audiences want to see on screen. The piece included applause for recent television highlights from The Bear, High Potential, The Neighborhood, and The Pitt that name both problems and show solutions for families.

New America’s Better Life Lab and Caring Across Generations provide a third annual round-up of notable television shows that represented work, family, and care stories well in 2024.

For Father’s Day 2024, we celebrated five shows with TV dads and father figures that provide hands-on care and support to children of all ages: And Just Like That (Aidan), Fire Country (Jake), Grey’s Anatomy (Ben, Link, and Owen), Lopez vs. Lopez (George and Quinten), and Reasonable Doubt (Lewis). Read more about why representation of caring fathers matters for gender equity in the United States.

Read about the top ten shows representing care of all kinds on TV in 2023. This piece, in collaboration with Caring Across Generations, builds on our 2022 top 10 list. This blog is posted on both organizations' websites.

Senior Fellow and entertainment initiative Founder and Director Vicki Shabo writes for the Hollywood Reporter’s Culture Shift about how the second season of Max's Sex and the City spin-off does a better job of depicting its newly diverse ensemble’s "full complexity of lived circumstances" with respect to gender and work-family conflict—and the show could go even further.

New America’s Vicki Shabo and Steph Herold of Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health’s Abortion Onscreen Project at UCSF write for Romper about how TV and film storytelling about pregnancy decisions and abortion could be made more authentic by referring to work, family, financial, and health considerations. They provide examples of shows like Grey’s Anatomy, Station 19, and P-Valley that offer an example of how providing this context can enhance storytelling. This article followed the publication of a New America/ANSIRH resource guide for creatives on Re-Scripting Depictions of Abortion Onscreen.

Inspired by the final season and concluding episode of Amazon Prime’s The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Senior Fellow Vicki Shabo wrote about the inspiration that all viewers—especially women and anyone marginalized in a workplace or society—can take from the show to “grab the mic.”

Senior Fellow Vicki Shabo provides a fresh perspective on Chloe Domont’s film Fair Play, streaming on Netflix. She points to social science research showing the harm of “masculinity contest cultures” and the multiple sources of value in establishing healthier and more equitable workplace practices.

For Women's Media Center, Vicki Shabo writes about the connection between writers’ diverse lived experiences and on-screen representation of circumstances related to work, family and care.

For New America’s The Thread, Vicki Shabo writes about how on-screen representation of identities is a gateway to authentic representations of work, family and care.

In partnership with Caring Across Generations, Better Life Lab wrapped up 2022 with a review of 10 moving moments for care, work and family on television in a blog cross-posted on both organizations' websites.

A grounded, hopeful, and candid discussion about navigating increased political backlash while still pushing creative boundaries.

Entertainment-industry jobs have a reputation for being demanding and unpredictable—especially for independent creators—yet filmmakers are finding innovative ways to make filmmaking more accessible and approachable. This panel will explore opportunities to improve working conditions through labor-, family-, and care-centered practices that are compatible with current systems, as well as through collective action to support industry and policy changes that benefit all creators.

At A Day of Unreasonable Conversation in October 2025, Vicki Shabo joined Liz Plank (moderator) and Brittany Martinez Hugoboom and Nabela Noor for a spirited conversation about gender roles in the U.S. and on screen. New America’s entertainment initiative was pleased to sponsor this event and to release our writers’ resource, Breaking Out of A Gendered Box (https://newamerica.org/entertainment/genderroles) to complement Vicki’s on-stage remarks.

This panel was held at the Robin Williams Center of the SAG-AFTRA Foundation in New York City on May 5, 2025. New America’s entertainment initiative co-planned and presented on this panel, which featured showrunner/writer Liz Meriwether (Dying for Sex), co-EP/writer Mfoniso Udofia (Lessons in Chemistry), and actor/comedian Steve Way (Ramy), along with Vicki Shabo (New America) and Lydia Storie (Caring Across Generations), moderated by writer and co-chair of the WGA-East Women’s Salon, Sasha Stewart.

The opening panel of the Television Academy’s 2024 Inclusion Summit, on December 4, 2024 in North Hollywood, CA, was moderated by Jerome Core (Amazon/MGM Studios) and featured insights from Vicki Shabo (New America), Tiffany Chao (Gold House), and Diana Luna (NALIP) about the importance and current state of inclusion of people from underrepresented backgrounds and circumstances surrounding work, family, care, and gender equity on screen and behind the scenes.

Read a write-up of the panel on Emmys.com.

This Wrap Power Women Summit 2024 panel, was held on December 3, 2024 in Beverly Hills, CA. The panel was presented by Women in Film (WIF) and featured storytellers and activists Linda Yvette Chavez (Director, Writer & Showrunner), Nicole Jefferson Asher (Writer & Producer), Dr. Stacy Smith (Founder & Director, USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative) and Vicki Shabo (Senior Fellow for Gender Equity & Founder/Director, Entertainment Initiative, Better Life Lab at New America) exploring the challenges women face in accessing reproductive healthcare and caregiving support, as well as how these issues are portrayed in film and TV. Syrinthia Studer (EVP, Board of Directors, WIF) moderates.

For a write up of this panel, check out this article on The Wrap’s site.

Video of a May 8, 2024 live event at the Television Academy in Los Angeles, California co-presented by Better Life Lab at New America, Caring Across Generations, and the Television Academy Foundation featuring:

Panelists

• Brandee Evans, Actor, Advocate, Businesswoman, and Member of Caring Across Generations’ Creative Care Council
• Angela Nissel, Writer/Producer
• Vicki Shabo, Senior Fellow for Gender Equity, Paid Leave, and Care Policy and Strategy, and Founder, Entertainment Practice, Better Life Lab at New America
• Lydia Storie, Director, Culture Change, Caring Across Generations

Moderator

• Rebecca Sun, Senior Editor, Diversity and Inclusion, The Hollywood Reporter

In September 2024, the Writers Guild Foundation, in partnership with Storyline Partners, hosted this conversation on contextualizing pregnancy and abortion storylines in the current political and social climate. The panel explored how writers approach these storylines holistically by addressing how public policies—or lack thereof—can create disparities in access to healthcare, childcare, and workplace flexibility. Panelists were Elena Crevello (AMERICAN AUTO), Steph Herold (Researcher, Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health), and Charlotte Stoudt (THE MORNING SHOW). Moderated by Vicki Shabo (Founder, Entertainment-Focused Narrative and Culture Change Practice, Better Life Lab at New America).

In May 2024, Senior Fellow, Vicki Shabo, joined an engaging panel convened by the Geena Davis Institute to discuss the U.S. policy landscape and how more authentic and aspirational representation of mothers and families has the potential to shift narratives and policies in the United States.

Speakers at this event were:
Geena Davis
Founder and Chair, Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media
Madeline Di Nonno
President and CEO, Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media
Reshma Saujani
CEO and Founder of Moms First and Founder of Girls Who Code
Meredith Conroy, Ph.D.
Vice President, Research and Insights, Geena Davis Institute
Michele Meyer, Ph.D.
Sr. Director, Research and Methodologies, Geena Davis Institute
Selenis Leyva
Actress/Author/Activist
Danielle Fishel
Actress, “Boy Meets World” & “Girl Meets World”; Director, “Lopez vs Lopez”
Debby Wolfe
Executive Producer, “Lopez vs. Lopez”
Dr. Anna Malaika Tubbs
Author, The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King, Jr, Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped a Nation
Vicki Shabo
Senior Fellow, New America; Founder and Director of the Entertainment Project at the Better Life Lab

Video from a May 14, 2024 panel presented by the NRDC Climate Storytelling Fellowship and Storyline Partners, which featured Vicki Shabo as one of several speakers. Vicki’s slides, which focused on the opportunities to integrate work, family, and care themes and plots into climate stories, are here.

The program included:

• Welcome messages from Katy Jacobs, NRDC and Megan Halpern, Black List; Franklin Leonard, Black List; Sanaz Alesafar, Storyline Partners; Adam Umhoefer, CAA Foundation
• Abbie Burrus, Center for Scholars & Storytellers in conversation with Dr. Laura Laura Erickson-Schroth, The Jed Foundation on youth and climate anxiety.
• Vicki Shabo, Better Life Lab at New America on intersections between climate stories and work, family, and caregiving.
• Cara Reedy, Disabled Journalists Association interviews Valerie Novack, disability rights advocate and researcher on disability justice in climate stories.
• Katy Jacobs, NRDC presents Rewrite the Future Climate Storytelling 101

Vicki Shabo joins documentary filmmaker Cameron Kit to talk about how hollywood can shape stories about work, family, and care. In this episode of the Cool Cool Cool Podcast, Vicki shares: 🌟 How TV and entertainment can change the way we think about caregiving and work 🧠 Why representation of childcare, paid leave, and family struggles on screen matters more than we realize 💥 What audience research says about the demand for authentic caregiving stories 🌍 How shifting narratives can drive cultural and even policy change This one’s for the storytellers, policy shapers, and anyone who believes pop culture can spark real progress.

Who Controls the Hearts and Minds in Media with Vicki Shabo

Host Sabrina Merage Naim and Vicki Shabo chat about the ethics of using media to influence people’s hearts, minds, and actions.

On this April 5, 2024 episode of Reel Talk, the executive director of Reel Families For Change — a group seeking to make the entertainment industry more family-supportive — interviews Vicki Shabo of the Better Life Lab about the state of work-family policy in the United States, and how on-screen depictions as well as practice changes in the entertainment industry, can help to advance changes for working families.

BLL’s Senior Fellow, Vicki Shabo, was in conversation with Essential Labor author Angela Garbes at the MAKERS Conference in Dana Point, California in October 2022, sharing with the audience of business leaders and entertainment creatives the importance of activism and storytelling about care economy policies and the role for public investments in care. Watch the video here.

In June 2022, the Better Life Lab at New America was proud to work closely with Caring Across Generations to help plan and participate in a panel hosted by Women in Film (WIF) and Storyline Partners.

Caring Across Generations’ Aisha Adkins and Lydia Storie, Disabled Journalists Association’s Cara Reedy, writer/director Terrie Samundra and lawyer Toni Jaramilla came together for a virtual roundtable discussion, moderated by senior fellow Vicki Shabo, that delved into how we can engage with and shift narratives about care work, labor, and paid leave on-screen and behind the scenes.

Our entertainment initiative joined with partners including CAA Community Impact, GLAAD, MPAC, and Imaginable Futures to share resources at SXSW.

For the two years leading up to the May 2025 release of the film LILLY, we contributed to the development of the film’s social impact campaign. We participated in a “brain trust” convened by a social impact firm, provided connections to other potential nonprofit partners and government leaders, and were thrilled to include filmmaker Rachel Feldman on a New America panel about gender, work, family, and care. In anticipation of the film’s release, we have contributed social media content to highlight its themes and encourage viewership.

In April 2025, we partnered with filmmaker Richa Rudola and her social impact team to develop and co-host two screenings of the fictional narrative short film Cow Heavy and Floral. We brought together cohorts of national and state-level leaders working on paid leave, early childhood, and maternal health to screen the film, engage in Q&A with the filmmaker, and discuss the film’s messages and the role it could play in fostering community conversations. This sizzle reel shows the impact the film has had and our role in fostering connections between the film team and advocates.

This evocative film catalyzes internal reflections, sparks dialogues, and motivates viewers to take action to improve the lives of mothers and parents. Learn more about the impact work we

Vicki Shabo serves as the policy advisory on Black Girls Film Camp’s advisory board and helped to develop and pilot a social impact pillar of the camp in 2025, which will be built out further in 2026 and beyond. Learn more about Black Girls Film Camp here.

The documentary, Make A Circle, takes on the issue of affordable child care in the United States. In this October 2024 virtual panel, New America’s Vicki Shabo speaks about cultural and policy changes that would better support families, children, and professional child care providers.

The Better Life Lab’s entertainment project was thrilled to discuss leadership, gender equity, reproductive freedom, and the ways in which with two of the young women featured in the Apple TV+ documentary, Girls State.

Better Life Lab research and writing fellow, Haley Swenson, wrote an essay for Ms. Magazine about the Apple TV+ documentary, Girls’ State and the experiences young women had at the Girls State program in Missouri in the summer of 2022 as they learned lessons about leadership, gender equity, and the ways in which the personal is political.

In June 2022, BLL senior fellow, Vicki Shabo facilitated a panel discussion about its implications with filmmaker Jennifer Seibel Newsom, author Eve Rodsky, Caring Across Generations’ Chief of Narrative and Culture Change Ishita Shrivastava, Equimundo CEO Gary Barker and National Women’s Law Center President and CEO, Fatima Goss Graves. New America’s CEO, Anne-Marie Slaughter and BLL reporting fellow Haley Swenson appear in this documentary to share their personal and professional knowledge on unpaid care work.