I was
looking forward to the return of fall television and the launch of some new network
shows featuring strong, professional women.
After watching the first episodes of some of this year’s women-centered
programming, I’m a little perplexed.
While I continue to applaud the diverse portrayals of ambitious,
accomplished women on the small screen, I was troubled (as I have been before),
by the way that certain predictable storylines undo such (potentially) positive
role models.
First,
enjoying these shows requires us to ignore the fact such fictional portrayals
often mask the social inequality that still exists among men and women (e.g. that
men still outnumber women in professional fields like law, medicine, and
politics). (Susan Douglas discusses this
pop culture phenomenon exquisitely in Enlightened Sexism). Second, enjoying these shows also requires
embracing the melodramatic mode that often works (inadvertently) to undermine
strong female characters through romantic storylines and gratuitous sex.
As a
soap scholar I have always celebrated the genre’s ability to wrestle with
important women’s issues and explore female sexuality. The primetime variations of this genre have
continued this work, but not without missteps.
While daytime soaps often explore female sexuality by flipping the male gaze (not necessarily an unproblematic practice), sex in primetime television
returns very much to the normative practices of objectifying the female
body. And when such sexual scenes
involve strong, accomplished women, romantic affairs and physical trysts often
result in their domination, downfall, or mental/emotional unraveling. (For more on this, see my previous posts on Homeland, The Good Wife & Scandal). I can already see
this happening in the new televisual season.
ABC
has been advertising its “T.G.I.T. (Thank God it’s Thursday)” Line Up for
months. I had been looking forward to this
block of women-centered programming which includes Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal,
and the much-hyped new show, How to Get
Away with Murder. While I will
continue watching all three, none of the debuts really dazzled me in terms of
their potential feminist value.
After
a well done season finale in which one of the strongest female characters on
television, Cristina Yang, left the show, the return of Grey’s was less than spectacular. (For more on Cristina’s exit, see this post). The cliffhanger in which the marriage between
the show’s star couple, Meredith Grey and Derek Shepherd, hung in the balance
was resolved rather quickly and anti-climactically. When viewers last left the show, Meredith was
refusing to be a trailing spouse, forfeiting her home and career to follow
Derek to D.C. It was an important
inclusion in the show – allowing audiences to reflect on how often wives are
forced to let their ambitions be overshadowed by that of their husbands’. Instead of allowing the super couple to
struggle through living apart, thereby exploring the very real challenges that
many professional couples are faced with, the show instead had Derek quit his important
job (working with the President of the United States!) to stay in Seattle with
his wife and children after emotional scenes concerning families separated by
medical trauma, emergency, and death inspired his renewed family devotion. While it’s nice to see a male character
choosing family over career and love over ambition, I wish this development had
happened later in the season. Moreover,
the not-so-subtle foreshadowing of the final scene indicates that this decision
is going to have negative consequences – most likely that Derek will resent
Meredith for his decision. While this is
not an unproductive storyline to have, it has the potential to fall into the
traps of the feminist backlash type storylines that commonly resurface in
popular culture concerning the ways that families (and men) suffer when
mothers/wives prioritize their careers. (And speaking of traps: from the looks of it, the entire season of Grey’s could turn into a series of
catfights between Meredith and her soon-to-be-discovered sister. Sigh.)
Scandal’s premier, which aired after Grey’s, also concerned me. The show picks up with Olivia Pope hiding out
on a secluded island with Jake Ballard trying to live problem free in “the sun.” This, of course, doesn’t last. But before their island honeymoon is
interrupted the first major scene of the show is a beachside sexual encounter initiated
by Jake. To be clear, I’m no prude and I’m
fine with a nice regular dose of skin-on-skin contact on the screen. And I do think it’s productive to show women
enjoying sex (and Olivia did seem to
be enjoying herself). However, this
opening scene bothered me once it was paired with a fight between the two
characters later in the episode. I was
once a fan of Jake – before he got all uber-dark and twisty and murderous –
because logically he was the better option over Fitz (the married president who
always turned Olivia into a quivery school girl). Despite logically liking their partnership,
it never had the sexual chemistry as the perpetual will they-won’t storyline of
Fitz and Olivia. (And because of my own
personal baggage, I do love me a story where the girl chases the wrong guy for
way too long). So, having once liked
Jake, I could understand his frustration when Olivia announced that she wouldn’t
be leaving DC and his rant about how she would always be under the shadow of
the White House was justified. Well,
most of it. In the midst of this rant
there was a problematic moment wherein he says that she’ll always run back to
Fitz despite the fact that he, Jake, understands her better and “can touch her
in places he can’t even begin to reach.”
The overtly sexual undertone of this message and the sexual bravado,
coupled with the fact that her facial expression of shock and offense looked
too similar to her sexually aroused facial expression that opened up the
episode, made me pause. Here was a
brilliant, smart, strong, powerful woman who, again, cannot escape sexual denigration
by the men in her life.
The other storyline centering on a main female character dealt with Mellie Grant, the first lady, as she mourned the death of her son. She was depicted as mentally disheveled (unable to even put on clothes) and dependent on alcohol (more so than usual). While it is important to portray the very real struggles that parents face when children die, this again struck me as another scene in which a strong, independent woman was reduced to a shadow of her original self. And while she wasn’t depicted as having any sex during this episode, the topic did come up – as a punch line – when she warned Fitz not to run to her bed after seeing Olivia again as a way to rid his guilt. Then she said, if he did try to climb into her pants that he should know that she’s “given up waxing. It’s 1976 down there.” While, I admit the line made me smirk, I wondered again: was it necessary?
To be
fair, the overarching focus of the episode had a much more positive focus on
women’s issues. The case that sparks
Olivia’s re-entry into the political spotlight concerned a sexually abusive
senator who preyed on young interns.
This case was also tied to a larger political bill that Fitz was trying
to pass for equal pay for women in the work force. So, that was all well and good… if not
contradictory when analyzed against the other scenes.
Next
on ABC’s line up was the debut of How to
Get Away with Murder. I was looking
forward to seeing Viola Davis star in the main role as Annalise Keating, a hot
shot criminal law professor. During the
weeks of publicity (in which not much really was really revealed about the true
premise of the show), I was simply hungry for another representation of a
strong, accomplished African American woman on primetime television. And then it aired. To be clear, I actually did like the show and
it appeals to me… but not on the level that I had anticipated. Like Scandal,
it is a very sudsy melodrama which isn’t what I expected. Also, because of its cast of characters (most
of whom are young law students), it felt directed toward a younger
audience. Moreover, its fast-paced,
flashback-centered opening was a bit too reminiscent of the teeny bopper film, I Know What You Did Last Summer, for my
tastes. Within minutes viewers realize
that the title of the program is way more literal than we might have
expected: it is actually the tale of how
a group of law students will attempt to get away with murder.
Ignoring
the storyline for a moment, it was the sexualization of Keating that bothered
me. Midway through the episode there is
a scene in which one of the law students walks into her office and witnesses
her receiving oral sex. When the student
later realizes that she is married, Keating shares an out-of-character sob
story with the young man (one which I assume we are meant to accept as manipulative
rather than heartfelt). This encounter
cannot escape from being central to the episode as later during a murder trial,
Keating hangs this exchange over the head of a witness on the stand: the man she was having the affair with was a
detective on the police force and through her line of cross examination she
forces him to discredit the evidence mounting against her client, ultimately
leading to her release (despite the fact that she was guilty). Being adulterous and strategically using sex
does not necessarily undermine Keating’s status as a strong, professional
woman. However, the revelation at the
end of the episode that she is well aware that her husband is cheating on her
as well – and seems upset by it – does start to unravel this tough façade.
I’m
not sure what my problem with these opening episodes really is. Women can have sex; they can cheat; they can
choose the wrong man and narratives that explore these realities are not
necessarily to be criticized. None of these
narrative inclusions should mean that these female characters cannot also be
worthy of respect as intelligent, ambitious, career-driven women. But something about how these narratives unfolded makes me think that these storylines
of adultery, unrequited love, and romantic failures are meant to undermine
their strength. With each shot of a pair
of hurt female eyes, or an orgasmic facial expression, or flash of exposed skin
I started to wonder why these scenes were necessary and how they might (inadvertently
or purposely) undo the characterization of their female leads.
I’ll
still watch ABC’s T.G.I.T. line up and hopefully the sexualization of the
female characters will stop being a primary focus of the programs. However, in the meantime, I’ll be more
excited to tune into the next installation of a new show that seemed to avoid
this misstep, CBS’s Madam Secretary. (For my thoughts on this new program, tune
into the next blog post!)
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