Everybody’s Got Mommy & Daddy Issues on TV (Part II): ABC’s Revenge

In continuing with the theme of the last blog, I couldn’t help but think of ABC’s Revenge when trying to catalog contemporary television shows that could be classified as working through mommy/daddy issues.  This primetime soap is centered on the premise of “father worship” as it’s the story of a daughter who spends the majority of her young adult years trying to avenge the wrongful persecution and death of a father she believes could do no wrong.  As discussed in a previous essay, the Machiavellian-like narrative (with loose post-9/11 themes) concerns a rich and powerful family, the Graysons, who run in powerful political and corporate circles, and, occasionally, consort with illegal underground organizations that rule over both.  The main character, Emily Thorne, a.k.a. Amanda Clarke (Emily VanCamp), arrives in the Hamptons to position herself among the elite, and this family, in the hopes of avenging her father’s death.  Her father, David Clarke, had been the lover of the matriarch of the main family – Victoria Grayson – and ultimately the unwitting fall guy for a terrorist attack against an American flight. 

            

Although I thoroughly enjoyed the show in the first two seasons, suspension of disbelief became slightly harder to muster up as the incredulous plotlines proliferated throughout the duration of Emily’s revenge plans in later seasons.  However, there have always been enticing plots.  Emily’s epic battles against Victoria (Madeleine Stowe) have always been high quality drama and her co-conspiring banter with her bff, Nolan Ross (Gabriel Mann), has been excellent comic relief.   The “will they, won’t they” romantic subplot between her and her childhood best friend, Jack Porter (Nick Weschler) has always provided tender, sorrowful moments.  And Emily’s relationship with Daniel Grayson (Joshua Bowman), the spoiled rich son of the power family, at various points was fascinating as it was often hard to tell (at least in the beginning) where her real feelings for Daniel ended and the where her manipulative plans to enter his family began.  When the show actually found her marrying the son after a faked pregnancy, in the efforts to carry out an elaborate scheme in which she would frame his mother for her murder, I was sitting at the edge of my seat.  And when that plot ended with Daniel learning (most of) the truth about her and shooting her in a drunken rage, sending her almost to the real iteration of the death she was trying to stage, I was impressed with the melodramatic arch of this show.  And when that plot twist ended in the Emily’s inability to have children, I almost teared up along with the main character who had already lost all her other family because of the cruel Graysons.  And, not many episodes later, when the show found her finally ready to move on and to abandon revenge to embrace the happiness she had found with her once fiancé, Aiden, only to find him strangled to death in her beach house (compliments of Victoria), I again found myself wanting to weep along with the main character.   I think Revenge has given viewers the most tortured character on television since, perhaps, 24’s Jack Bauer.

            

But beneath all the far-fetched plots and high-paced action, has always been the story of a distraught daughter.  The show has well utilized flashback episodes of Amanda Clarke as a child living an almost idyllic life with her single father:  scenes of father-daughter play on the beach, heartfelt conversations on their porch swing, talks of the forever-nature of their love (one symbolically recorded in various spots in the form of a double infinity mark:  on their porch rail, on the wooden box that houses all the secret proof that would launch Emily’s revenge plans, and eventually on her own wrist as a tattoo that would serve to remind her of her oath to avenge her father’s wrongs).   VanCamp has played the wounded daughter well.  And this year she got to play this role in a new way year when the show gave viewers a new twist to this damaged daughter storyline, bringing David Clarke back from the dead.

At this point, I must admit, I almost stopped watching the show.  Sure, I was anxious for the reunion of this father-daughter duo, but since his unfathomable return also accompanied his illogical reunion with Victoria Grayson, I found my patience with the program growing thin.  And although I let episodes sit for a weeks on my DVR, I eventually returned to the show and was glad that I did.  It was heartbreaking to see that David’s return from the dead wouldn’t bring about the end of Emily’s troubles or quests for revenge or her seeming-battle-to-the-death with Victoria.  (By the way, if read with some creativity, Victoria – who arguably exists as an evil stepmother type figure for Emily – and Emily’s relationship could be seen as a variation on the Electra complex).

            

The mid-season finale of the show again highlighted its dedication to playing out father issues but – in this case – not just Emily’s.  A good amount of the episode was devoted to Daniel Grayson who had recently learned that he was to be a father to the child Margaux, his former girlfriend, was carrying.  When Margaux first informs him that she wants him to have nothing to do with the baby because of his recent infidelity and past unethical behavior which paralleled that of his father’s, Daniel was sent down memory lane remembering the times that he had tried unsuccessfully to break free of his father’s corrupting influence.  The episode is framed with a voiceover of Daniel reading a letter he wrote to his father around just this very theme and for a few minutes it appears that Daniel is so distraught that he may commit suicide.  However, then Margaux calls and asks him to come home, declaring that she and the baby need him.  For a brief moment, it appears Daniel could get his happily ever after away from his father’s legacy.  But, sadly, he was not the product of just one horrible parent, but two. [Spoiler Alert]

            

The remainder of the episode had been devoted to drama unfolding from yet another of Victoria’s plots to destroy Emily.  Victoria had put an assassin, Kate, posing as an FBI agent, on the scent of Emily which culminated in a violent fight at Emily’s mansion – one that sent Emily falling through a balcony rail onto the marble foyer floor one story below.  Daniel, who had been contemplating his life history on the beach just feet away, heard the commotion and headed into Emily’s house to investigate.  When he sees Emily on the floor he moves toward her.  Emily immediately tells Daniel to run, but he doesn’t, and he is met with two bullets to the chest from Kate’s gun before Jack enters the scene to her down.  (Not unimportantly, the shots from these exchanges can be heard one house over where Victoria, who put these events in action, is sipping wine with David). 

As Emily tries to comfort the dying Daniel, telling him that he’ll be alright, he smiles feebly and quips that she is lying to him until the very end.  In a reprise of a conversation from just a few episodes prior – when Daniel had asked Emily if any part of their relationship and her feelings for him were real – Emily leans over Daniel with tears in her eyes and tells him that “it wasn’t all pretend,” referring to their relationship, to which he responds, “I know,” just before he dies. 

While children do not usually bear the scars of their parents’ actions in quite so dramatic a fashion as they do on Revenge, this primetime soap provides viewers with a deliciously sad and hyperbolic example of the ways that sons and daughters do get caught up living lives that are plagued by the issues they inherit from their mothers and fathers.  And while a lot of the subplots cause me to roll my eyes, I look forward to the return of this show in a few weeks… and I especially can’t wait to see the scene in which Victoria realizes that her own actions led to her son’s death.

            

Everybody’s Got Mommy & Daddy Issues on TV (Part I): Blacklist’s Narrative Tease(s)

It’s a shame that Freud isn’t around to watch contemporary television because the narratives we spin for the small screen are swimming in tropes from psychoanalytic theory, such as father worship/murder/rescue.  If it’s true that we’re all awash in our own individual mommy-and-daddy issues, then television shows today are providing us with mirrors (hyperbolically) reflecting the various ways in which our childhood baggage and parental role models are affecting us.  What’s sometimes more interesting than the somewhat clichéd depiction of the wounded daughter or son, are the more nuanced depictions we now receive of the parents who are supposedly responsible for inflicting the (seemingly pre-requisite, plot-and-characterization-dependent) damage upon their children.  Case in point:  Blacklist’s Raymond Reddington (James Spader).

Spader’s portrayal of “Red” on NBC’s (rare) hit show is perhaps one of richest characters on television right now.  He joins the recent ranks of other complicated anti-heroes (e.g. Dexter) as a mix of both villain and hero – a man of strong conviction and an idiosyncratic sense of wrong and right who trespasses across all illegal territory and easily enacts violent crimes.  He is the shining star of this well done drama.  

His stellar acting aside, the show has other strengths worth noting.  The premise itself is nothing spectacular but it is executed well.  Blacklist is a crime-drama focused on a black ops division of the FBI that takes down high profile international criminals through the information provided by Red, a former government agent who spent the past decades as a high-profile criminal.  In some ways the program is quite episodic in that each episode, like most crime-dramas, is devoted to the backstory and capture of one particular criminal.  However the filmic aspects of the show and the fast-paced narrative help build suspense.  Not, however, as much suspense as the underlying personal storylines that linger beneath the program’s weekly focus on crime.

Blacklist succeeds because it provides quite a few narrative teases, almost all which center around Red’s character.  The most central concerns the relationship between Red and the other main character, Elizabeth Keen (Megan Boone).  The pilot episode finds Red surrendering himself to the FBI, insisting that he will only talk to a newly hired rookie FBI profiler:  Keen.  From the get-go audiences (as well as the other characters on screen) ask why, and this becomes the driving question of the show:  what is the real connection between the two characters? 

The show purposely leads viewers to believe that Red is Keen’s father, providing evidence that points toward that conclusion and then undermining it by a firm denial from Red (a well-versed liar) himself or other seemingly contradictory plot twists.  We see numerous connections between Red and Keen’s past, dialogue and visual clues on the screen that point toward their potential familial relations, and – most of all – the unmistakable father/daughter bond that these two characters cultivate.  Despite betraying each other on multiple occasions – and despite their statuses and experiences on different sides of the law – viewers see both of them sacrificing their own goals time and time again for each other.  Viewers also see Keen so desperately wanting Red to be her father (even if she doesn’t say so directly, or even admit it to herself). 

 

During this current season, the show cleverly provided a bit of misdirection concerning this plotline.  While some episodes further developed this narrative tease (e.g. introducing Red’s ex-wife and implying she could be Keen’s biological mother), the mid-season episodes purposefully caused viewers to temporarily abandon such hypothetical musings.  Various episodes focused on Red’s hunt for a girl viewers eventually presume is his actual daughter.  Then additional episodes focused on their growing relationship as Red met with this young woman under false pretenses to win her trust as she talked about her criminal father who she hadn’t seen in years.  But, of course, the girl turns out to be the long-lost daughter of another criminal and immediately the possibility of Red’s potential status as Keen’s father is resurrected.  It’s certainly a fun little tease… although I’m not sure how long it can last.

Thankfully the show provides us with others as well.  We still know little about the backstory of the man who posed as Keen’s husband for years (although we recently learnt that he has some connection to Red).  And we know very little about the covert, high power, international leadership group that Red supposedly holds power over.  And, perhaps most intriguing of all, we still know very little about Red’s own backstory – what caused him to turn from a legitimate government agent into a criminal, what caused him to lose his family.  (With its focus on the behind-the-scenes government tactics and power struggles, the show also joins the ranks of others in providing some subtle post-9/11 political commentary.)

While Red’s charisma, eccentricities, and wry, sophisticated humor draw me in to most episodes, it’s the moments when his façade drops away that stay with me the most.  In fact, it is the scenes in which both he and Keen are the most emotionally raw and vulnerable that haunt me long after the credits roll.

There are a lot of weepy main characters on television today and as armchair psychiatrists watching at home most of us could psychoanalyze them and easily blame their parents for some of their emotional hang-ups.  These characters, by themselves, are not often all that interesting.  Keen’s character doesn’t necessarily fall into this grouping although she falls into the “damaged daughter” category well enough.  But despite avoiding the stereotypical characterizations that can come with this label, like many female government-agent/police type characters, Keen is also not a fully developed character as of yet.  What makes her interesting, quite frankly, is Red’s interest in her, in the potential backstory he provides for her.  I hope that as the show continues to do this “will they, won’t they (be related)” dance, that it doesn’t get old because the onscreen (platonic/familial) chemistry between two characters is terrific and I hope to see it play out for years to come.

Laughing Our Way through Parenthood: The New Wave of Humorous Blogs, Books, and Other Comical Parenting Products

      

With the Internet almost always at our fingertips, never before has it been easier to get lost in the wave of (often contradictory) parenting advice that circulates amongst us.  Although parents of prior generations surely were subjected to their share of (often unsolicited) advice on the do’s and don’ts of raising children, today’s generation is exposed to an unprecedented quantity of such “wisdom” from experts, pseudo-experts, and laypersons alike.  Moreover, we were a generation reared during the self-help wave that subtly instructed us over the years to seek out such texts and, perhaps, to rely on the information contained within them more so than our own intuition. 

The latter issue is hard to combat.  With so many sources telling young parents all of the things they don’t know, but need to know, the voyage into parenthood is often a terrifying one.  The media landscape has not made it less so as it has amplified parental fears to promote consumerist and political agendas.  It has also fostered divides between parental populations by fabricating conflicts like “the mommy wars” (which supposedly pits working mothers against stay-at-home mothers). 

All of the detrimental effects of this new era of parenting has been well-documented elsewhere and we’ve heard most the consequences in sound bite phrases:  helicopter parents, tiger mothers, mommy guilt, competitive parenting, etc.  But, in the midst of all of this some fun coping strategies have arisen. 

Many parents have rejected the didactic messages of so-called expert parenting texts and have turned to the more informal advice contained within parenting websites, blogs, and books – many of which aim to amuse and entertain more than inform.  Along with these humor-infused columns and memoirs various parent directed parodies have become popular. 

One of the most famous was Adam’s Mansbach’s Go the Fuck to Sleep, a children’s book meant for parents featuring the story of a frustrated father strategically (and unsuccessfully) trying to coax his child to sleep.  The book became an Amazon.com bestseller before its 2011 release date after electronic copies of the book went viral.                          

The audio version of the text, in which Samuel L. Jackson narrates the story, also circulated online and contributed to its mass popularity.  

Manbach’s much anticipated sequel, You Have to Fucking Eat, was just released in 2014.

              

                 

Children’s book parodies such as these are popping up on actual book shelves and in other spaces online.  For example, a 2006 article on Brain, Child:  The Magazine for Thinking Mothers contained a parody of Laura Numeroff’s popular If You Give a Mouse a Cookie (and the various spin-off variations it spawned).  This piece by Katherine Almy, titled “If You Give a Mom a Nap,” follows the narrative pacing and rhythmic prose of Numeroff’s original text. 

If you give a mom a nap, she’ll wake up refreshed and in a good mood. She’ll probably let you bounce on the bed as she’s getting up. After you’ve bounced her out of bed, she’ll be ready to play hide-and-go-seek with you.

Playing hide-and-go-seek will make her hot, and she’ll want to go outside. She’ll be happy to trudge up and down the street with you while you zoom around on your toy fire truck. When you fall off your truck and skin your knee, she’ll pick you up very gently and kiss you tenderly on the boo-boo.

After she’s kissed your boo-boo, it’ll feel better and you’ll see the swing in the neighbor’s tree. Mom will joyfully push you on the swing for fifteen minutes…

Similar parodies exist, including “If You Give a Mom a Cup of Coffee and the Day Off.”

Another recent comical parenting book is Sopha King Tyerd’s 2014 Toddlers are Assholes:  It’s NotYour Fault.  This text follows in the fashion of texts like Sippy Cups are Not for Chardonnay, The Three Martini Playdate, and Even June Cleaver Would Forget the Juice Box, using a pseudo-self-help layout and address.  (For more on this genre of comedic self-help books, see this previous blog post).  The text opens with a chapter that defines toddlerhood behavior: 

A toddler is a cross between a sociopath, rabid animal, cocker spaniel, demon and an angel...  Toddler assholery is a normal part of human development.  It’s like puberty but focuses mainly on throwing food on the floor and taking swings at people who pay your way in life… There’s a reason toddlers are at their peak cuteness:  it’s because nature knows that toddlerhood is when you are most likely to take your child to a public park and leave them there with a note                                            that says, ‘I’m a little shit and they couldn’t take it anymore.’

A variation of the comical parenting advice book, stemming from a popular blog, was also released this year:  Bunmi Laditan’s The Honest Toddler:  A Child’s Guide to Parenting.  

While some of the comedic parenting texts include moments of real parenting advice, this text written from the perspective of a three year old, is purely for amusement.  The text opens with this address to the readers: 

Toddlers are misunderstood and the one in your life is probably disappointed in you.  Read this book if you want to get better at what should be your number one priority:  making your small child happy.  Don’t skip pages, this isn’t a bedtime story (yeah, we know), but a manual that will revolutionize your life.  You’re welcome in advance.

The text tackles similar topics as a normal a normal parenting book, but does so for laughs.  Take, for example, this section devoted to tantrums:

There’s a very dirty word that is commonly used to describe the mild outbursts of emotion that toddlers display from time to time.  That word is TANTRUM.  Not only is this descriptor condescending, it releases the party responsible (you) for said “tantrum.” …

Do you see how language created toddler bias?  From now on, we’ll be throwing the word “tantrum” in the metaphorical outside trash and replacing it with “loud response.”

Last week I shared a loud response in our local Linens ‘n Things.  Don’t be confused by the name of this retail outlet.  There are no Things.  Just Linens.  After forty-six hours of wandering this textile purgatory, I felt a volcano erupt in my middle back.  The last thing I remember is trying to rip an Egyptian-cotton duvet with my teeth and releasing my bowels on a couple of crushed-velvet throw pillows before running for my life.  My behavior was a response, not a random occurrence. 

Parents, if you wish to gain the respect of your toddler, the first thing you need to do is own your mistakes.  For instance, if my parents and I had been at the toy store eating delicious and nutritious ice-cream sundaes, like I’d asked, we could have spent the money that went toward those pee-pee pillows on the new toys I desperately need.  Do you see?

There are countless other examples of these humorous texts directed toward parents.  Their popularity and proliferation indicate that laughing our way through parenting is a coping strategy enjoyed by many.  I’d argue that these texts, whether intended or not, are counteracting the didactic nature of the never-ending advice pouring out of parenting manual, websites, blogs, and news columns.  By making light of the challenges of parenting they say:  we understand, we’ve been there.  While other texts seem to highlight parental missteps making readers fearful of parental failure, these instead rejoice in them.  Or, at least, they try to see the humor in such moments.  The days that make us feel like the worst parents on earth may, with some time and distance, also make for the most amusing retellings and reflections when our children are older. 

Further, these texts build a virtual community of sorts.  While advice-based texts can create divides between author and reader (one that creates a hierarchy in which the former is more knowledgeable and important than the latter), these comedic texts put author and reader on the same level as members of the same community of struggling parents.  Therefore, these texts are an important addition to parenting literature.  And, more importantly, they’re just ridiculously funny.

ABC’s Selfie as the Victim of The Recent Failed Televisual Rom-Sitcom Experiment

Every television season it’s fun to watch the new hot televisual trend and see if it’s going to be a success or a flop.  This year the experiment was the rom-sitcom:  the hybrid genre that results when you try to blend the characteristics of the romantic comedy with that of the sitcom. 

In theory this merger appealed to me.  As a fan of the serial format, I find myself much more invested in characters and relationships that evolve over the time allotted from a long-lasting series in comparison to a two-hour filmic installation.  And, as a forever-flawed feminist, I am also oddly drawn to romantic comedies despite their predictable plots, stock characters, stereotypical gender portrayals, and unflinching endorsement of heteronormativity.  I was curious to see how this systematic combination would work on the small screen.  It didn’t take me long to realize it wouldn’t.  It didn’t take the networks long either.  Take for example the early cancelations of NBC’s Manhattan Love Story and CBS’s A to Z.

Manhattan Love Story followed the typical romantic comedy formula:  a meet cute that leads to seeming opposites falling into an unlikely courtship.  Following in the tradition of romantic comedies (like almost any film staring Katherine Heigl), the show featured a crass, womanizing male protagonist and an uptight, naïve female protagonist.  Bad acting and writing aside, I decided early on that while I can often stomach such problematic recurring characters for the duration of a 90-minute Hollywood film,  the idea of tuning in to watch such characterizations play out endlessly week after week in 30 minute intervals was not appealing.   

A to Z had a slightly more enjoyable premise. The opening voice over announces:  “Andrew and Zelda date for eight months, three weeks, five days, and one hour. This television program is the comprehensive account of their relationship.”  On the surface the show seemed to have a set-up that could replace that of the recently vacated How I Met Your Mother:  viewers are presented with a known end point that they are watching to arrive at but do not know what that end point actually is:  dating that ends in a break up or a marriage.  Despite being mildly interested in the premise, like many other viewers apparently, I didn’t tune in past the pilot episode.

In the midst of all these shows, I found myself drawn to only one new sitcom that debuted this season:  ABC’s Selfie.  While others grouped the show with these others in the category of rom-sitcom because it included a potential romantic pairing between the two leads (but what sitcom doesn’t do this usually?), I felt it was simply a new workplace sitcom carrying out some interesting social commentary.    The show starred Karen Gillan as Eliza Dooley, a social media obsessed, narcissistic fame junkie who ultimately seeks guidance for self-improvement from her colleague, Henry Higgs (played by John Cho), a marketing image guru.  Although necessarily hyperbolic, the show provided some over-the-top social commentary on our cultural addiction with technology and social networking.  Although played for laughs, the show transformed the real findings of researchers into little vignettes to allow viewers to ponder the impact of these trends on our lives.  For example, the show included storylines about how identity performance plays out in online spaces and how those carefully constructed projections lead to feelings of inadequacy and jealousy when people compare their real lives to those constructions.  It explored how social networking has resulted in the devaluing of real face-to-face friendships, replacing such practices with that of collecting of online friends as accessories and evidence of social capital.  It addressed how social media is changing the ways in which we start, maintain, and end relationships.  And it hinted at the concerns of living in an era wherein all of our movements are forever recorded in the ever expansive cloud.  

While it’s silliest (and perhaps funniest) moments came in the form of replaying the very real social media missteps that many viewers have experienced in real life (for example when Henry becomes addicted to cyber stalking his ex-girlfriends through Facebook and accidentally ends up tagging himself in a picture of one who was breastfeeding her newborn), the most heartfelt moments came when the show addressed the ways in which our ever-connected lifestyles actually lead to more loneliness than ever before.  (An issue well covered in scholarly endeavors, such as Sherry Turkle’s Alone Together:  Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other).  However, what I really enjoyed about the show is that it didn’t rest on the reductive premise that loneliness stems from this cultural phenomenon alone.  The show systematically juxtaposes scenes that highlight Eliza’s lack of interpersonal skills with those that showcase Henry’s (usually) unfaltering success in social situations.  But then it reveals that both are equally lonely.  The social networking addict and the social networking abstainer both are lacking in meaningful friendships and romantic relationships, although they start to gain both through their encounters with one another.  My favorite moment from the series was the scene in which Henry – who is tasked with improving Eliza’s public image and poor social habits – abandons his goal of getting her to stop eating her lunch standing over the garbage can once she reveals that it was an old habit developed to make it seem like she was too busy to sit down and eat when really it was because as a young girl she had no friends to sit down and eat beside.  Learning this, Henry instead joins her to eat his own lunch standing beside her over a garbage can in his office.  I liked the inclusion of this theme of loneliness in the show as it showed that this emotion is a time honored experience common to human experience… and not just to humans participating in the social networking era.  This little motif added a little nuance to a show that could be read as beating us over the head with jokes about our technology addiction and social communication practices.

But maybe the jokes seemed too overdone and they over-powered what I thought to be great acting and pretty good chemistry between Gillan and Cho.  Or maybe Selfie’s downfall was being grouped with the aforementioned sitcoms as being just another of the over-done romantic comedy shows that debuted this Fall.  Perhaps if it has debuted without the others the series would not have found itself arriving at the same destination:  cancelation.

But, maybe it would have.  Maybe viewers aren’t interested in a show that gets them to think critically about their most common social practices.  Maybe some of the jokes hit too close to home.   

Things that Scare Me: A Halloween Letter to My Daughters

Dear Daughters,

There are many things that scare me and many of these will be metaphorically represented in the Halloween costumes that will cross our paths tonight as we trick-or-treat.  So as we prepare to slip into holiday garb and embark on a candy-collecting adventure, here are a few thoughts that are on my mind.

It scares me that we will in a society in which one in four women will be victims of domestic violence in their lifetimes (and that one in five women will be sexually assaulted). It scares me more that we live in a society in which people can find such abuse funny (and even costume worthy):

                                                         

It scares me we live in a world where 30 percent of clothing and toy options for girls contribute to the their sexualization.  It scares me even more the ways in which even the more innocuous children’s products can be turned sexual: 

It scares me that we live in a culture in which strong female role models are short lived.  It scares me even more that the celebrities that receive the most attention are the ones that we should be ignoring:

                      

                                   

It scares me that even in the 21^st century, we invite children to prescribe to incredibly gendered roles.  It scares me more that these early life lessons will linger years later and have long-lasting impacts.

                  

 

             It scares me that in our country women still only make 70 percent of what their male colleagues in similar fields do.  It scares me more that when women break through these barriers their success finds them branded as aggressive witches/bitches:

                    

It scares me that tonight I will hold your hands as you cross streets, encounter strangers, and approach foreign thresholds, but that I will not always be there as your companion, your guide, and your protector.  It scares me that with each passing Halloween I will be watching you both move further into a world of uncertainty, challenges, and danger. 

But, for tonight at least, I can watch the two of you skip down cold streets blissfully unaware of the many things that scare me.  And I can enthusiastically point out any passing girl dressed as a doctor, athlete, or pirate, choosing to reveal in the things that give make me hope… rather than fear.

Love,

Your Mother

Women in the White House: The Fantasy/Wish-Fulfillment Provided by Television Shows like Madam Secretary

As I watch CBS’s new Fall drama, Madam Secretary, I am struck with an eerie sense of déjà vu.  It takes me back in time to ABC’s short-lived (2005-2006) drama, Commander in Chief.  On air during the early speculations that Hillary Clinton would be the Democratic nominee for the 2008 Presidential Election, this show seemed to be setting the stage for the possibility that finally a woman could land in one of the most powerful leadership roles in our country. And, not long after the show went off the air, the 2008 election unfolded and, indeed, provided the country with a potential Clinton presidency and, later, the possibility that the country could have its first female vice president once Sarah Palin became the unlikely running mate for Republican nominee John McCain. 

Despite having a great cast (Geena Davis played Mackenzie Allen, the first female president and Donald Sutherland played her political rival and Speaker of the House, Nathan Templeton), Commander in Chief received its fair share of criticism.  The largest complaint was that the show focused more on Allen’s home life and her gender rather than her presidency and political aptitude.  Ironically, in this way the show actually predicted the upcoming election cycles in a different way – setting the groundwork for the type of rhetoric that surrounded actual front running female candidates (e.g. media commentary on physical appearance, familial life, and other gendered topics). 

Nine years later, as I watch Madam Secretary I cannot help but draw parallels between this new show and its predecessor:  the most striking of which is, of course, the connection to Hillary Clinton.  Debuting during yet another period of speculation over whether we could see a Clinton presidency – and not long after Clinton herself held the political position this program is focused on – Madam Secretary stars Téa Leoni as Elizabeth McCord, the U.S. Secretary of State.  Like Davis’s character, McCord lands her position of power after the sudden death of a male politician leaves the post vacant.   Arguably, the program is making no attempt to dissuade viewers from associating the fictional McCord with the very real Clinton.  With a pilot episode that focused on the media’s obsession with her fashion sense and a later episode titled “Another Benghazi,” the connections are not difficult to make.  Further, when in a recent episode media pundits questioned how McCord’s effectiveness as a parent might predict her effectiveness as a president, I found myself thinking of  recent media speculation concerning whether Clinton’s impending status as a grandmother could alter her political aspirations and abilities. 

There are also parallels between the two fictional shows.  McCord is faced with a political rival of sorts, Russell Jackson, the President’s Chief of Staff (played by Zeljko Ivanek), who shares similar traits with Sutherland’s Templeton.  And as a melodrama – a political melodrama but a melodrama nonetheless – the family focus that brought about criticism for Commander in Chief is again present in Madam Secretary.  And instead of embracing this aspect of the show as an attempt to show the multifaceted life of a political figure, I am betting that eventually this show too will come under attack for this aspect of its storyline.  But, although its early, I have to say I have relatively high hopes for CBS’s new darling.  The show has carefully integrated a conspiracy theory subplot (capitalizing off the success of House of Cards, perhaps?) that adds a bit of drama to it and allows it to feel a bit less episodic as the show tackles its political problem of the week.  McCord’s family and colleagues are interesting and the writing and acting is great across the board from the supporting character to the main cast.  There is potential here.

The downside?  This show participates in the larger trend of contemporary television programming that misrepresents the actual career prospects and realities for women in this country.  Yes, Hillary Clinton really was the Secretary of State so such power positions are, in fact, possible.  But consider this statistic:  even when Nancy Pelosi was at the helm in 2009, only 17 percent of Congress was female.  Yet, despite this fact, popular culture is presenting a slew of powerful, female forces of nature dominating the White House on the small screen at a rate that doesn’t mirror reality:  24’s Allison Taylor (the first female president of the United States); Scandal’s Olivia Pope (the political fixer and personal “advisor” to the president), and the forthcoming State of Affairs (which will star Katherine Heigl as Charleston Tucker, a CIA Analyst leading up the President’s Homeland Security Taskforce).  Is it television’s job to act as a perfect reflection of reality?  Of course not.  Is such a misrepresentation potentially problematic?  Sure.  Is there a potential upside to this type of fantasy and wish fulfillment?  Possibly.

I grew up in the 1980s and while no one ever told me that I couldn’t grow up to be the president, I don’t think anyone ever directly said that I could.  The thought also never crossed my mind.  There isn’t a single popular culture narrative that I can remember from my childhood that would have hinted that that could be a potential career path or dream.  (Of course, to be fair, my childhood career dreams of being an actress, soap opera writer, novelist, or teacher probably indicate that a political career would not have been on my radar even if such representations had been abundant.  And, well, there was Margaret Thatcher I suppose if I was looking for that kind of non-fiction role model!).  So while I may think that these portrayals of females dominating the White House continue to mask the realities of the U.S. political landscape, I suppose there is something to be said about the fact that these fictionalizations even exist today and for the potential impact they may have for a new generation of youth who will grow up exposed to them (as well as to the real elections involving actual women unfolding before their eyes).  As always, I find myself conflicted when it comes to the value of such programming and I find myself forming the safe conclusion that these shows simply reflect the ambiguous relationship that our contemporary culture has with powerful women and feminism more broadly. 

Sex Undoes Her: What the Fall Premiers of How to Get Away with Murder, Scandal, & Grey’s Anatomy Reveal about the Effects of Sexualizing Strong Female Characters

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!)