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Shameless fans have been following the shenanigans and emotional ups and downs of the Gallagher family and friends for over 8 years and 103 episodes. It's not quite the length of the viral #10YearChallenge, but the Shameless cast has certainly changed since the show premiered in 2011.

The Showtime drama returns for the final seven episodes of its ninth season on January 20. But, be warned, you might need a box full of tissues for the final episodes. Viewers will have to say goodbye to Emmy Rossum as Fiona Gallagher, the tenacious matriarch of the family, in the season finale which will double as Rossum's farewell. Rossum surprised Shameless fans by announcing her upcoming departure before the season began. Shortly after, Cameron Monaghan also revealed this season would include his last appearance as Ian Gallagher.

Before we have to experience the pain and loss of losing an incomparable television character and another beloved Gallagher, let's look back at the Shameless cast and their journeys from season 1 until now and remember all the crazy storylines they have been through.

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Shameless fans have been following the shenanigans and emotional ups and downs of the Gallagher family and friends for over 8 years and 103 episodes. It's not quite the length of the viral #10YearChallenge, but the Shameless cast has certainly changed since the show premiered in 2011.

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Besides gay rights, Shameless, Showtime's hit liberal show, has yet another social justice cause to champion. This time it's equal pay.

In the September 16 episode title "Mo White," Debbie Gallagher (Emma Kenney), a female welder on a construction site, is upset because she is paid less than the men she works with. Which by itself is already illegal, but instead of talking to her boss or filing a lawsuit, like any non-social justice warrior would do, she starts agitating and pushes the national gender wage gap myth.

"Eighty cents. That's how much women make on the dollar compared to men. And if you're a woman of color, 65 cents. This is a sexist shit nugget of a country," she complains after a family member benignly asks her to pass the milk. Then, because she is the only one off work she is asked to babysit for an hour. That doesn't go over well.

Carl: Debs, can you pass me the milk? Debs.

Debbie: Eighty cents. That's how much women make on the dollar compared to men. And if you're a woman of color, 65 cents. This is a sexist shit nugget of a country. Don't you forget that.

Kevin: Oh, Debs! Thank God you're not working. Hey, I need a favor. I gotta take V to this nursery school tour. Can you watch the girls for like an hour? They can't come. Thanks.

Debbie: Why are you speaking to me?

Kevin: 'Cause you're Debbie.

Debbie: No. Why are you speaking to the only woman in the room, Kevin Ball? Why is childcare a woman's job? Let me tell you why. Did you know that the average American man works about 17.5 hours a week doing unpaid home labor? Cooking, cleaning. While women, however, spend about 28.4 hours a week. Now, considering the fact that the average American makes $26.82 an hour, that's $40,000 a year that women are not getting paid to cook, clean, and wipe baby asses.

Kevin: So you can't do it?

Debbie: Come on, Franny, let's oppose patriarchal oppression. Yeah!

She fails to mention that men, on average work more hours than women and are more likely to choose to work overtime.

Afterwards Debbie decides to fight the cause by organizing at other construction sites, but she quickly comes to realize that there aren't many female construction workers. Most likely because men and women willingly choose different occupations.

Meanwhile, Ian Gallagher (Cameron Monaghan), self-titled 'gay Jesus,' is back, this time officiating a mass gay wedding at the prison, by quoting the Bible. At least he acknowledges it's not really applicable, I guess.

Ian: When we speak of marriage, what do we speak of? Well, you could turn to the Bible, see what they have to say. We could try Ephesians 5:25. 'For a man shall love his wife the way Christ loves the church. He gave up his life for her.' But that's not very applicable to us, is it? Well when I see these beautiful couples standing before me today, living under the terms of our newly-negotiated deal, one of mutual consent and reduced aggression, I see a true union that defines categorization.

To top it all off, Frank Gallagher (William H. Macy), who sees how much money working for campaigns can make, complains that there aren't any white male candidates for Congress - "We used to be the leading men. Now, we're marginalized," so he advocates for a man conveniently named "Mo White" to run. He changes Donald Trump's "Make America Great Again" to "Make Chicago White Again." Or what most liberals think conservatives are really like.

Frank: Let me ask you fine gentlemen, which of these congressional candidates look like you?

Bar Patron: That's a gay Latino man and a semi-hot black woman, Frank.

Frank: Exactly. American men used to control everything. Look at a history book. We used to be the leading men. Now, we're marginalized. I attended a congressional debate this afternoon, and you know what I experienced? Reverse racism. It's all diverse gays and vaginas now. The tide is changing, gentlemen, and it's changing too damn fast, am I right?

Bar Patrons: [Agree.]

Frank: Give me a beer. I'll tell you something else. They're trying to take the Old Blue Brewery away from us. They wanna convert it into an ltgb-e-I-e-I-o, or a--a goddamn African Art gallery? So? We need a candidate of our own, boys. A bright, shining beacon of hope. We need someone who will promote and protect our values. Someone who'll make sure our culture doesn't disappear. Someone who sat on a barstool and stared down the gun barrel that is the working class experience. But who? What about Mo White?

Bar Patron: He died.

Frank: He did? Are you sure? He did--somebody check. Did he die? Uh, says here he's alive, just retired. Well, that's perfect. Mo White is a genius idea. He was a true American congressman. He loosened the liquor license rules so that the Irish would have some place to drink. He helped rebuild Comiskey. He put in bocce for our Italian brothers. A--and--and horse-shoe pits. - That's right. Didn't he keep the Chris Columbus memorial from being torn down? You bet your ass he did. Mo White is a friend of the South Side. We gotta find Mo White and write White in. We need seed money for his campaign. Ten bucks. I'll go first. Give me that. Ten bucks. Everybody, ten bucks. What do you say? Come on, yeah. The fundraising starts right now. The campaign pot is coming around. Hey, let's make Chicago White again.

Bar Patrons: Mo White! Mo White! Mo White! Mo White!

The show repeatedly pushes a liberal agenda and showcases social justice warriors as something to aspire to. But in reality they are using incorrect facts and perpetrating negative stereotypes to push their agenda. How truly shameless.

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'Shameless:' America 'Sexist Sh*t Nugget of a Country'

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Besides gay rights, Shameless, Showtime's hit liberal show, has yet another social justice cause to champion. This time it's equal pay. In the September 16 episode title "Mo White," Debbie Gallagher (Emma Kenney), a female welder on a construction site, is upset because she is paid less than the men she works with.

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Actress and director on the comedy-drama Shameless , Emmy Rossum, joined her fellow high-profile actresses, including and , at the Comedy Actress Roundtable. There, they talked about their experiences in front of and behind the camera. Aside from Rossum's discussion regarding her public battle to earn the same salary as her male costar and her journey to becoming a director on , she told one story about an alternative auditioning process that struck her as bizarre and sexist.

Being familiar with the show , Adlon mentioned that people see Rossum nearly in the nude often. To her, the bid to see Rossum in a bikini was more than a strange request, it was a superfluous one.

Clarifying what Rossum believed the director was attempting to get out of the meeting, she added "He wanted to know if I was fat now. That was basically the question." She weighed the offer, thinking it might be legitimate. "I actually had this moment like, 'Well, how good is the part?'" said Rossum, "For a second, I was like, 'Would I do it? Send me the script. Maybe the character is in a bikini in the movie.'"

Much to her surprise, the character never appeared in a bikini. She was "not in a bikini in the movie, not naked in the movie. 'We really love your work, but we just want to see how tight your ass is.' Are you f - ing kidding me? Last time I checked, I'm not a f - ing model," said Rossum.

Now, Rossum worries for a younger generation facing a culture wherein directors can treat them the same way she was treated. "I feel like we're all vulnerable to it. If somebody with my years in the business would think, 'Well, I wonder if it's worth it,' then what would a girl who doesn't have my success do? She would do it."

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Actress and director on the comedy-drama Shameless , Emmy Rossum, joined her fellow high-profile actresses, including and , at the Comedy Actress Roundtable. There, they talked about their experiences in front of and behind the camera.

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When I rank my favorite members of the Gallagher family, Debbie (Emma Kenney) is often competing with her older sister Fiona (Emmy Rossum) for the bottom spot. The 16-year-old is a walking cocktail of teenaged cluelessness and arrogance. I've spent an unnecessary amount of time trying to figure out how I would handle a kid like her if I were a parent, and I still don't have a sufficient answer. As vexing as she can be, though, Debbie's character evolution over the course of nine seasons might just be the realest testament to the impact of generational poverty, a constant theme of Shameless. All of her major moments - from running a renegade daycare to making a proactive decision to get pregnant while still in high school - draw viewers' attention to bigger issues facing poor women. With last night's season premiere, Debbie is taking on equal pay. And while her general abrasiveness makes her a bit of a killjoy, she is still fighting the good feminist fight. That counts for something.

After giving birth to her daughter, Debbie was stumped about how to provide for her. Underaged and without a high school diploma, she first tried to work things out the Gallagher way: stealing and conning. Neither turned out to be sustainable options, and in season 8, Debbie picked up the welding trade. Despite the fact the she's already lost three toes in an accident and has a slight limp, things are going as well as they can. She's working in her field and making $15 an hour, which is fine until she finds out that the men she works with get paid $18 an hour. Her foreman is very blunt about the fact that she's being paid less because she's a woman and takes longer bathroom breaks. If this sounds like a ridiculous justification, it's because it is. I know it, you know it, and Debbie knows it.

Refusing to accept $3 less per hour than her male counterparts, Debbie gets smart. She constructs an adult sized diaper from Frannie's smaller ones so that she doesn't have to take a single trip to the portable toilet during her shift. She makes sure her boss knows it, and clocks the time her male co-workers have spent in the can, too. It seems like a juvenile antic to thumb her nose at her boss; another shining example of how stubbornly petty Debbie can be. I find myself pleading with Debbie to keep her head down, save up, and not make waves until she can figure out something better for herself and Frannie. But much to my surprise, her plan works. The foreman reluctantly agrees to bump her pay and suddenly I was forced to rethink all of my biases against her.

Since Debbie's victory in the Shameless premiere, I've asked myself why it's been so easy to write her off. Debbie's adolescent ignorance, combined with that Gallagher grit, have put her in some unnecessarily precarious situations. In season 4, she became obsessively jealous after a guy she liked rejected her. I cringed watching her humiliate herself. She insisted on having a baby in season 5, and I wanted someone to rush in and stop her. When she started stealing from stores and other moms to make money in season 7, I thought she was being reckless, not resourceful. When it comes to Debbie, more often than not I am screaming at my screen, MAKE BETTER DECISIONS! I've certainly never accepted her as the onscreen feminist shero that I can count on.

But to demand that Debbie be cool, calm, collected in order to advocate for herself is itself problematic. We expect perfection from women - or, at the very least, for them to make us feel comfortable - before we're willing to hear them out. Debbie is not warm. She is rarely put together and certainly can't be described as pleasant. She is a teen mom. She has made decisions about her body that we typically demand that girls her age be able to make, despite what their families think. It is survival, not stupidity, that has drawn her to some of her most unsavory decisions. Perhaps Debbie been the feminist (killjoy) character we've needed all along, and my own internalized sexism made it harder for me to realize.

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Debbie Is The Feminist Killjoy We Need On Shameless Season 9

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When I rank my favorite members of the Gallagher family, Debbie (Emma Kenney) is often competing with her older sister Fiona (Emmy Rossum) for the bottom spot. The 16-year-old is a walking cocktail of teenaged cluelessness and arrogance.

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What media teach kids about gender can have lasting effects, report says | CNN

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Gender stereotypes in movies and on TV shows are more than persistent; they're incredibly effective at teaching kids what the culture expects of boys and girls.

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Media plays a large role in creating social norms, because various forms of media, including advertisements, television, and film, are present almost everywhere in current culture. Gender roles, as an example, exist solely because society as a whole chooses to accept them, but they are perpetuated by the media. Conspicuous viewers must be aware of what the media is presenting to them, and make sure they're not actively participating in a culture of oppression.

Even on young children, gender roles are being pushed through advertisements. My search for American advertisements with girls playing with action figures and boys using easy-bake ovens was fruitless, and even when I moved to a gender neutral product, sidewalk chalk, the advertisement was sending different messages towards boys versus girls. The girls were all coloring on the sidewalk, as the one young boy rapped, ending in a short dance routine where it was clear that the only male in the advertisement was the main character. Are consumers of sidewalk chalk actively trying to send this message of submission to their 9-year-old girls? Likely not, but the media is sending them the message without being stopped. However, Tide, a Proctor and Gamble laundry detergent, has taken its advertisement in a better direction, recently showing a clip where the leading male actor proudly proclaims "I'm a stay-at-home dad," and later goes on to braid his daughter's hair. By showing a man playing out typically "feminine" behaviors, Tide is promoting a more equal society.

Television is the most pervasive form of media, with 96.7 percent of American families owning a TV, according to The Nielsen Company, which takes TV set ownership into account when it produces ratings. This, of course, means that viewers must carefully examine the content of the programs they choose to watch, and decide if they can ethically support and promote said content.

For example, The Big Bang Theory, in its earlier seasons, had only one consistently present female lead -- Penny, played by the lovely Kaley Cuoco-Sweeting. Penny's character was that of the stereotypical female: the ditzy, attractive neighbor, who existed solely to create sexual tension between herself and one of the show's leading men, Leonard Hofstadter. As the show progressed, the characters developed and more females were introduced, but Sweeting's character still exists primarily to create romantic tension.

A better example of female representation in television can be found in the American version of the TV show The Office, which had five consistent female leads -- Pam Beesly-Halpert, Angela Martin, Phyllis Lapin-Vance, Meredith Palmer and Kelly Kapoor. There is a strong, working-class female represented in each department of the fictional paper company Dunder Mifflin, and all of these female characters are dynamic. Even though some of them did portray female gender roles, such as the character of Kelly being emotional, the characters were given enough development and background to be more than just stereotypes. The Office worked against the unfortunate statistic that men outnumber women in television two to one, and gave viewers a plethora of strong females in the workplace, helping to move the media to more accurately represent the real world, where women are 51 percent.

Film is less pervasive than television, which means consumers must be even more particular when choosing movies to support. Every $8 movie ticket tells the film industry to produce more movies like the ones viewers have paid to see, which is why it is disappointing that Grown Ups 2, directed by Dennis Dugan, grossed about $200,000,000 more than The Call, directed by Brad Anderson. Only about a quarter of the cast of Grown Ups 2 is female, and the movie doesn't pass the Bechdel test, a test created by Alison Bechdel, which asks only three questions: Does the piece have two or more female characters? Do they speak to each other? Do they speak of topics other than men? Although the movie has stars such as Maya Rudolph and Salma Hayek, the female characters don't have a conversation about anything other than men. The Call, starring Halle Berry and Abigail Breslin, features a strong female lead (Halle Berry) who saves a young girl (Abigail Breslin) after being kidnapped by a character played by Michael Eklund, but grossed significantly less. The message consumers are sending to filmmakers is that they should produce more films with women falling into the resigned, quiet, gender role, as opposed to films that break away from these molds.

There's nothing wrong with accepting gender roles. For example, I want to be a stay-at-home mom, but this is a personal choice, not something that I feel society or tradition is forcing me to do. The problem with gender roles is that they can cross a line and become oppressive. If a young woman wants to become a doctor, and a young man a teacher, it is the rest of the world's responsibility not to bat an eye. If a doctor can cure the sick, what does gender matter? If a teacher can educate a student, who are we to deny the pupil the right to learn, solely on the grounds of the sex of his or her teacher? If a man wants to cry, let him cry. Men feel just as women do.

Although the media isn't yet representing either gender void of stereotypes, a societal change will bring about a change in the media. Regardless of this, gender roles are just that, roles. It is up to the individual to decide whether or not they are going to fill them. The best advice that can be given is to make sure, above all else, that you are fulfilling a role you want to be fulfilling, regardless of where it fits in society's set of theoretical constructs.

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Media plays a large role in creating social norms, because various forms of media, including advertisements, television, and film, are present almost everywhere in current culture. Gender roles, as an example, exist solely because society as a whole chooses to accept them, but they are perpetuated by the media.

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Shameless Season 3: Episode 9 Clip - Men Are Never Right

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Frank's vision fails him when he opens his eyes. Instead of seeing the disapproving city worker standing above him, all he sees is a blurry mess of a man with an orange glow. The bright aura could be due to it being 7AM and therefore far too early for sobriety for the slob savant. However, it's more likely from the worker's paint can. He's been ordered to come by the Gallagher house and inform its denizens that because of a pipe leak, they'll be back in a few days to tear up the yard and clean the crap bubbling within. Realizing they'll soon be clearing all the yard's shit, he decides to leave the biggest piece in it right where he is when he paints the orange x over Frank's face.

"The Sins of My Caretaker" is the ominous title of the episode and sins of the past, present and future is the name of its game. For these primarily Irish-Catholic Chicagoans, only mistakes lay ahead.

First is the immediate reaction of last week's revelations. A few, like the whole Gallagher family finding out Jimmy's dad is Gay when he tried to slip into Ian's bed and accidentally put it in Lip, I was able to properly cover. But as this show's plotting is as dense as a slice of pizza on Wacker Drive, I had to gloss over a few things like, oh, Mandy's orphaned half-sister, Molly, actually being a boy who thinks (s)he has "a girl penis." As Fiona says, it's just a small reaction from a "meth ravaged junkie who hates men." Anyway, Jimmy's world is so rocked that he can't even focus on Fiona's spectacularly (and gratuitously) nude body while he wonders who else from his childhood onwards his closeted father was taking to the wardrobe. Fi doesn't have time to worry about Jimmy's daddy issues, because she still has to find Molly a home so that she and Mandy don't become permanent members of the Gallagher house. It doesn't help when Molly thinks she's a girl and young Carl is getting all confused by these boy/girl gender labels, especially since he's like the last one to pick up on Ian being Gay. Lip is also perplexed as to why Mandy is hanging around his every breath like he's some prince charming who drove across state lines to rescue her abandoned transgender half-sibling...oh right.

Meanwhile, we learn of the titular sins in this week's title at Sheila's home and board. Turns out making a recovered sexaholic like Jody become her new plaything has awakened the beast within and he now wants to install a sex swing in the bedroom. It all comes to a head when the Church comes by to deliver another patient for Sheila's hospice care (because it worked SO WELL the last time). This time, it's a dying nun who has taken a vow of silence. Sheila intends to use the chaste sister's quiet as an excuse to vent her sexual misgivings about the new Jody. Unfortunately, Sheila forgot silence does not mean the iPad-savvy Bride of Christ can't use her Apple to blog about the sins perpetrated in this house. Sheila forgives the nun too for this betrayal when she drops her off by the Church's front door and the iPad into the heavily trafficked street.

Fiona's problems just keep mounting the rest of the episode. At work, she has become the supermarket punching bag because she's the only one who won't tend to Bobby's beef. Instead of reporting him last week, they're just taking their anger out on Fi. But stabbing thumbtacks in the cash register is nothing compared to the stabbing notice from the city. Digging up the backyard means they may find Aunt Ginger's body (as mentioned in Season 1, Frank buried Ginger there 15 years ago and has been cashing her social securities checks ever since). So before heading to work, Fi helpfully gives Frank the task of finding the bag of bones and an 8AM bottle of beer. You see, Frank is like Popeye and PBR is his spinach. He of course ends up drinking more beer than he does digging holes until he is lectured that hiding a body and stealing for over a decade from the federal government would send him up the river for life. He then rolls up his sleeves, stands up on his two feet and GOES TO KEV'S BAR TO ASK FOR HELP (he tells them they're looking for jewelry instead of evidence of a felony).

Lip just will not let a girl being nice to him go. Kev teases him at their weed-selling ice cream truck that he's "ghetto married" (she stays over four nights a week and cooks and cleans for him), but because Lip never wants to be happy, he curses her out and tells her to go home. He'll spend two seasons pining for psycho Karen but can't accept a girl like Mandy actually caring about him? I'd hit Lip, but he'd probably be grateful.

There's some other drama this week, like V-Kev accepting that if they want a child they'll need a surrogate and Ian robbing Jimmy's dad's house/divorcing wife for him, but it really all boils down to two big, final scenes. In the first, Fiona and the rest of the Gallagher crew decide to start digging in the backyard too because Frank is useless, but her dismissal of Jimmy's woes reaches a breaking point. To be fair, he made the biggest mistake of walking to her house drunk in the afternoon (after wallowing some more about Gay Dad) and then whining about his problems. Fi's spent too many years dealing with a drunken father coming home and doing exactly that. Yet, even though they're looking for the body of a dead relative so no one goes to prison, Jimmy has a point that he's been her shoulder for most of the first two seasons and she won't throw out a lifeline to him. And, in typical Gallagher fashion, Fi craps all over emotion as if it's the last clean speck of grass in this crap heap they call a lawn. "Real pussy move," she echoes as he walks off. "Go cry to your Gay Dad about it!" It may not be a sin, but it's about the stupidest mistake you could make....except, Lip one-ups her when he calls KAREN. Yeah, he calls her a weed and says they're all better off that she ran away. But he ends the call on a compliment and, like weeds and certain masked Bat-villains, when you speak of them, they do come back. Especially if you dare utter their names.

The next morning begins with the fallout from that evening's mistakes. Jimmy sins by sleeping with his...wife? Well, that's just an odd, Brazilian twist. Speaking of Brazilian, Debs finally holds her breath underwater when she beats back at mean girls from the local pool on Fiona's advice. Oh, also, Mickey gets shot in the ass when he and Ian are cleaning out Jimmy's mom's house. That means Jimmy's dad, who paid them to rob the place blind, has to come over to the Gallagher house and pull the bullet out of the Milkovich's rear end. All this mayhem and more is occurring when CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES appears.

Remember at the end of this season's second episode when Frank self-pityingly ratted his children out for living alone because they kicked him out for being a worthless shell of a human being? The social work is coming home to push paper now and everything could be ruined. I will give credit to the young public servant for stepping into that house. Before she got out of the car, she saw a man with a bullet wound rushed inside mere seconds before a Mercedes pulled up with a sketchy doctor running in. When she gets through the front door, she sees a boy dressed like a girl dancing on the table around Debbie's summer daycare toddlers, while Debs is sing-bragging about beating up a mean girl and Jimmy's dad gives Mickey a congratulatory slap on the ass when the bullet comes out. After that sight, I'm sure all the Gallagher kids will too next week.

This episode was so overstuffed with plotting it could have been a Nabisco cookie. That is actually true for almost all episodes of Shameless, but it feels like the screw-ups are really going to be long lasting this time. Hatred of Karen or the eyes of nuns aside, it feels like Frank has done major damage this time. As viewers, we know that these kids are more than self-reliant and that Fiona is an amazing mother (albeit girlfriend is a different story). Seeing them lost in the system, which it appears is the direction of next week's show, is something that really makes Frank all the more irredeemable. Even so, Shameless finds a way to make a potentially game-changing moment hilarious by creating a scene of stunning anarchy. Even by Shameless ' standards, what young Miss Social Worker sees is a new low.

I hope next week that the Gallaghers can get out of it, even if it will likely mean being indebted again to the vile patriarch. I also hope Fi and Lip get their crap together when it comes to how they treat their significant others. But at this rate, the only happy storyline we can count on is the always reliable V and Kev. For the Gallaghers, it isn't about how good or how bad things get. It's how hilariously crude and absurd these life moments come with only sprinklings of that gift card sentimentality around its raunchy cynicism. This time, they reached a new level of chaotic insanity when the poop, quite literally, went flying. For that, it deserves another congratulatory slap on the ass.

Most Shameless Quotes of the Week:

"It hides my girl penis. Mom said it's impolite to show off my bulge." Molly.

"You bet, just as soon as we dig up this old crack-whore." Frank patronizing Carl who wants a party for "beating cancer."

"I'm not even thinking of your dick in my dad's mouth." Jimmy after Ian accuses him of checking out his body.

"Of course they do." V responding to Jimmy wondering why Gay men hit on him. "You wear designer jeans and coconut hair product. You're like Gay Flypaper."

"I've never had so many things inserted into so many parts of my body at once." The incomparable Joan Cusack (Sheila) confessing all to the silent nun before her.

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Shameless, Season 3, Episode 5: The Sins of My Caretaker, Review

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Frank's vision fails him when he opens his eyes. Instead of seeing the disapproving city worker standing above him, all he sees is a blurry mess of a man with an orange glow. The bright aura could be due to it being 7AM and therefore far too early for sobriety for the slob savant.

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Shameless 3x02 Promo -The American Dream (Subtilulado)

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By: Michael Sabatino

Over the last few months I have found myself binge watching Paul Abbott's hit comedy show, "Shameless," which airs on SHOWTIME. The show is about a family living in Chicago, on the south side that struggles to stay afloat financially, and rejects conforming to the way society on the north side thinks they should act. Many viewers and television critics might agree that the Gallagher family is quite possibly the most dysfunctional family on television to date. Watching this family and the things they do is laughable, intriguing, and yet also sad to think that some children do grow up struggling the way the Gallagher children do. Fiona is the eldest Gallagher child, followed by her brothers Ian and Lip, their sister Debbie, and little brothers Carl and Liam. The kids grow up essentially caring for themselves due to the lack of parental support and supervision from their mother Monica, and Father Frank who are alcoholic, drug addicts. If you put all of the profanity the show uses aside you can see that, Shameless" is taking a stance against multiple stereotypes, and engages its viewers with comedy and life lessons.

The show normalizes diversity by exemplifying a lower class, biracial family including a teen mom and homosexual son rather than a traditional heterosexual, Caucasian, middle-class family. The second oldest son, Ian, is homosexual, and he fears what his family might think. Contrary to his predictions, his family was totally cool with it and could care less whether he was gay or straight. Many young kids struggling with their sexuality and finding who they are worry about the day their family finds out they are 'different'. Both Ian and his boyfriend, another local south side kid, Mickey defy the stereotype of what a 'typical' young gay man is like. Ian ran track as a kid, but dropped out of high school to enlist in the army under his older brothers name due to the fact he was still underage at the time. Many people look at gay men as all being . There are some gay men who express themselves more femininely than others, but there are many that do not. Mickey would also be the opposite of this stereotype of gay men, as he is a rugged guy who acts like a stereotypical straight tough guy. Both Ian and Mickey represent the opposite of the stereotypical gay man, and this is beneficial for society to see. Yes, in a few episodes we see Ian dancing and bartending at a gay club, but that is feminine also due to the typical things kids his age do. Society benefits from seeing gay characters in shows and movies be the opposite of their stereotype because it shows people that not everyone is a certain way. No one should be judged based on their sexuality because there are certainly manly and muscular gay men that act 'straighter' than a heterosexual man.

One of the family friends, Kevin, who lives next to them in south side is your stereotypical tough guy, and is comfortable with his sexuality and being around Ian. There is an unspoken appreciation viewers can tell that Ian has for Kevin due to him treating him like just any other guy, not taking into account he is attracted to the same sex. Kevin will joke around with Ian like he is another guy, from conversations regarding getting laid to just not sure what to do about a situation he is struggling with. Kevin is there for the Gallagher kids like a big brother, and he adds to the families dynamic as a dysfunctional, but dependable group of individuals. Lip, the eldest Gallagher son, runs into some trouble deciding about committing to going to college or backing out. Kevin was there to remind him that south side was not somewhere he should stay if he had the chance to get out by telling him, "This isn't your home, it's where you grew up. It's not where you're meant to be." Kevin struggles himself, as an adult, and he does not want that for the Gallagher kids. Lip was fortunate enough to get into college, getting himself out of a toxic environment back at home. This goes to show that no matter where someone starts in life, that does not define where they will end up. Lip's older sister Fiona also exemplifies this in season 7 of "Shameless" when she stumbles upon an opportunity to begin flipping properties. She had been her own worst enemy for quite some time, but then started to get her shit together after serving some time in prison, and becoming the manager of a local south side diner. Fiona tries her hardest to take care of her siblings and set a good example for them, reminding them to aspire to be better than their parents ever were.

When Fiona's youngest brother Liam was born, the siblings and their father Frank believed that Liam was not his child. Come to find out, shockingly enough, Liam is in fact Frank's son. This was a shock to many, myself included, because Liam is African American and the family is Caucasian. The Gallagher children still treated Liam the same both before and after they found out he was their full flesh and blood, and not a half sibling. On top of Liam being a part of the Gallagher family, there is also Kevin's girlfriend Veronica who is African American as well. Kevin and Veronica are an interracial couple, that love each other deeply. Before having children of their own, the couple took in a white foster child to try and give her a better life. Moral of the story, biological "Shameless" creator, Paul Abbott, sheds light on the normalization that interracial families are common and acceptable in southside Chicago. The community on the southside is all different types of messed up with alcoholics, drug addicts, and homeless people. One thing these people all live by though is that southside residents stick together. This is a specific motto the Gallagher family lives by because no matter their differences, they are always there for one another to present a united front when times are tough.

"Shameless" does an exceptional job representing a lower class family, and how they survive. The Gallagher family may be an exceptionally dysfunctional family displayed on television, but they are a family that teaches their viewers a lot. Many people may not like the amount of profanity the characters use in the show, but they will most certainly benefit from watching. It can teach people how to be independent, not to feed into stereotypes, and accept others for their individuality without judging them by their appearance. This is very beneficial and needed in today's society so we can put an end to stigmas about gender, race, and sexuality. As more seasons air, I hope to see the family succeed more and become a well off family coming out of poverty. It would be a positive message to send to viewers, not only that some people in the lower class do live like this, but that not all are helpless and unwilling to succeed like; breaking the stigma of people in similar situations.

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Shameless: Contributing To The End Of Stereotypes

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By: Michael Sabatino Over the last few months I have found myself binge watching Paul Abbott's hit comedy show, "Shameless," which airs on SHOWTIME. The show is about a family living in Chicago, on the south side that struggles to stay afloat financially, and rejects conforming to the way society on the north side thinks...

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So why doesn't Fiona Gallagher get credit for being one of TV's most difficult men? The easy answer is that she's not a man, but simple gender bias doesn't fully explain it-not with Scandal and How to Get Away with Murder as cultural hot-buttons and The Honorable Woman winning critical support and Golden Globes. Still, there's a classiness and a respectability to the women in those shows: Their characters may make incredibly thorny choices, or even be outright villainous at times, but they do so with a veneer of respectability that Shameless has never aspired to.

The whole point of the Gallaghers is that they're unapologetically white-trash Chicagoans scrounging their way through life without regard for law or impropriety, and that there's a kind of charm in the way in which the family doesn't bother to differentiate between moral and immoral means to get by. Pre-teen Carl sells drugs, sweet Debbie operates an off-the-books daycare service, Fiona slings hash, Ian go-go dances at a gay bar. The show rarely asks for much sympathy for its characters, but it's impossible to elude the heartbreak of it all, particularly with characters like Lip and Fiona, who shoulder the burdens of their family while their youth, beauty, and talents threaten to fall victim to lives spent evading disaster.

During the past season-and-a-half, Fiona came as close as she ever had to a way out, with a burgeoning sales career and a clean-cut boyfriend. Her subsequent squandering of all that-through drugs, through infidelity-was played as the character reverting to a hereditary Gallagher appetite for self-destruction. She went to prison for endangering her brother and almost lost her family for good. For anyone whose investment in the show goes beyond laughing at Frank's drunken antics, it was a devastating storyline, and one handled with the hard gaze of TV's best antihero series. This season, even though Fiona's out of jail, the danger of backsliding lurks everywhere. It's there as she flirts with her boss at the diner (played by Dermot Mulroney), a recovering addict who seems ready-made to pull Fiona back into the abyss. It's there as she gets caught up in a euphoric new romance with Gus (Steve Kazee), who by all indications is a sweet, kind, gorgeous guy with a beard and a guitar and a conscience. But it's not enough just to spend a hazy week in bed with a new beau. Mulroney's character recently pinpointed Fiona's addiction, not to drugs or booze, but rather to chaos. So an uncomplicated new boyfriend becomes, by the end of last night's episode, an impulsive quickie marriage that will almost surely end in disaster. Particularly when the audience knows (if she doesn't) that ex-beau and con artist Jimmy/Steve is back in Chicago and waiting to drop in on her at the most inopportune moment.

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Why Isn't Fiona From 'Shameless' Treated Like the 'Difficult Men' of TV?

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So why doesn't Fiona Gallagher get credit for being one of TV's most difficult men? The easy answer is that she's not a man, but simple gender bias doesn't fully explain it-not with Scandal and How to Get Away with Murder as cultural hot-buttons and The Honorable Woman winning critical support and Golden Globes.

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In this project I will be using feminist theory to discuss how the context and scenes in the episode "An American Dream" portray Gender roles.

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An alcoholic father, a bipolar drug addict mother, and living in an impoverished neighborhood on the south side of Chicago is not the ideal way for six children to grow up, yet the Gallagher family manages.The Showtime series Shameless shows struggles that most comedy-drama television shows would not dare to address, like not knowing where the next meal is coming from, or if they are going to be able to afford their home.The series gives the word shameless a new meaning by peering into the personal lives of the Gallagher family and how sexuality, race, gender and class resist dominant television stereotypes.

The Gallaghers have no shame and live with no rules.They are crude and rude and don't care.Even the opening credits to the series show each character in the bathroom, which is one of the most private rooms in a house.Their mother, Monica, is only in the series for seven episodes and is never a positive role model, and Frank, their father, is always drunk and typically passed out somewhere around the city.The children rely on each other to support their family.All the children except for the baby, Liam, have a job so they can save money to make it through the year.Laws are more of guidelines to this family.Karl is ten and will causally drink a beer. Fiona the eldest dates a guy that steals expensive cars, and no one has a problem with stealing food if it will benefit the family.They are nothing like the typical American family shown in television shows.

Shameless portrays a new kind of poverty."The Gallaghers are a level of poor we've never been exposed to before on the small screen.We're talking steal-from-UNICEF, con-Social-Security-to-get-a-dead-aunt's-money levels of poor.It's not blue collar; it's no collar" (Ektin, '"Shameless': Poverty Gets The TV Treatment, But What Message Does It Send?").The series takes place on the south side of Chicago in an already rundown neighborhood.None of the Gallagher's have a consistent job, but they somehow manage to make it, even if they have to beg, lie or steal.Throughout the summer all of the children work and save money so they have enough cash to make it through the winter months when everyone goes back to school.They do not have a car, health insurance, new clothes, or emergency money in case something goes wrong.When their water heater breaks, Lip and Ian, the two older boys, have to steal one from their dead neighbor's house.During one of the episodes Frank and Monica find the kids' "Squirrel fund," which is the kids' money they save for winter.Instead of leaving the money alone because it is not theirs, Monica and Frank decide to buy cocaine and spend the money as fast as possible.The Gallaghers come from an impoverished family but find a way to stay out of foster care and still be their own version of a family.

Ian Gallagher is the third eldest child.At seventeen years old he is struggling with being a teenage boy and his hidden sexuality, until his brother Lip finds a magazine stuffed behind the dresser in their bedroom.When Lip finds it, he does not know how to react and decides to confront Ian, who later comes out to their older sister Fiona.Ian works at a convenience store and has a secret relationship with his boss who is married to a woman and has two children.This continues until his boss's wife finds out and forces them to stop.During this time Ian hooks up with the neighborhood bully, Mickey Milkovich.Mickey continuously picks on Ian and neglects to admit his feelings for him.He is known as a tough guy and refuses to accept anything else.Mickey fights with himself about his feelings towards Ian. And will not show any affection towards him.When Mickey's dad walks in on him and Ian, he beats both of them bloody.He makes Mickey have sex with a hooker saying, "she's going to fuck the faggot out of you, kid" and he forces Ian to watch.Most television shows about teenage boys show the awkward stages of going through puberty and starting their first heterosexual relationships.In shows like Modern Family and Will & Grace, the gay characters are adults and mostly flamboyant. Shameless is one of the only series that shows a teenager struggling with his sexuality.Ian prefers to keep his sexuality hidden from most people, and he tries to over compensate by being more masculine.He wants to join the military, and the few times he gets into physical fights with Lip, he has to prove that he is the stronger one.

Fiona is the oldest Gallagher and she is the most responsible one.She took on the "mother" role when her mom left.She dropped out of school and got a job so she could help support her family.She watches over her siblings like they are her own children, and in the third season Fiona gains custody of all five of her younger siblings because her parents are unfit.They "believe being poor together is better than living comfortable yet separated lives with different foster parents" (Rochlin, "The Family That Frays Together").Shameless portrays the strong ties of a family that is living the rough life without real parents and lacking consistent money.They aren't' the average American family, the youngest, Liam is black even though both his parents are white.Liam's race is only brought up when Monica tries to take custody of him with her new lover Roberta.The children have love and an older sister that does all she can to watch over and care for them.

The Gallaghers are not a typical family depicted on television.They do not have a nice home or live in a good neighborhood.Their parents are absent most of the time, one brother is gay, and another is black.They defy the stereotypical families shown on television.They are nothing like the Dunphys from Modern Family or the Matthews family from Boy Meets World.Sex, drugs, and alcohol are introduced into their lives at a young age, as well as poverty and misfortune.Shameless showcases sexuality, race, gender, and class in a way television has never seen before.

Etkin, Jaimie. "'Shameless': Poverty Gets The TV Treatment, But What Message Does It Send?" The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 05 Sept. 2012. Web. 27 Feb.2014.

"Photo Gallery." IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 28 Feb. 2014.

Rochlin, Margy. "The Family That Frays Together." The New York Times. The New York Times, 01 Jan. 2011. Web. 27 Feb. 2014.

"Shameless US Opening Credits." YouTube. YouTube, 10 May 2011. Web. 28 Feb. 2014.

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An alcoholic father, a bipolar drug addict mother, and living in an impoverished neighborhood on the south side of Chicago is not the ideal way for six children to grow up, yet the Gallagher family manages.The Showtime series Shameless shows struggles that most comedy-drama television shows would not dare to