Category: On Television

Guest Writer Wednesday: I Want to Establish The Ron Swanson Scholarship In Women’s Studies

This is a cross-post from Worst Professor Ever.
I’m so excited about last night’s episode of Parks and Recreation. In the first place, it was written by a woman (Chelsea Peretti, who’s also written for The Sarah Silverman Program) and directed by another woman (Nicole Holofcener, who’s done actual movies and stuff).  And the feminist cognoscenti have already recognized Leslie Knope as an even greater feminist icon than Liz Lemon.

(Not to toot my own horn, but I was on the forefront of Parks and Recreation gender criticism, showing my gender students “The Hunting Trip” episode as early as 2010, then subjecting them to Boskin’s theory of how playing stereotypes disingenuously is actually good for deflating them — watch as Leslie covers for a co-worker with stereotypical “feminine” excuses.)
Nick Offerman, the man who plays Ron Effing Swanson.
NBC Photo: Mitchell Heath, from the Hollywood Reporter interview.

Lately Leslie’s’ political career has been occupying our attention* but if you were watching my Twitter stream last night, you’ll see that I was seriously geeking out, in real time, about Ron Swanson. I was ecstatic when he said to the camera, “I believe in the value of education.” I was thrilled when he pushed Andy to take challenging classes, rather than going for an easy A. And I just about lost it when it became apparent that while Andy was shopping around for classes, Ron was shopping around for lady professors — and liked the women’s studies professor best, declaring that he would propose to her if she weren’t so opposed to marriage. Yay, Ron!
The beauty of Ron’s character is that he’s manly enough to go for powerful women, as has been clearly established in previous episodes. And his interest in the women’s studies professor (who was talking about the oppressive nature of society) is completely believable given his libertarian beliefs. It doesn’t hurt that the actor who plays Swanson is unabashedly manly himself (read the interview with Nick Offerman) and that he’s married to Megan Mullaly, who is hella funny. I love that the character, the writing, and the directing came together so organically to create such greatness last night.
At the end of the episode, Andy decides to take the women’s studies class but can’t pay for it, so Ron makes Andy the recipient of the very first Ron Swanson Scholarship.
It’s decided, then: if I ever get rich, I am going to establish a Ron Swanson scholarship, for real. And it’s going to be in women’s studies, and it’s going to go to the candidate, male or female, who most represents the values that Ron Swanson stands for.
I think I’ll call it the Ron Effing Swanson Fellowship.
Who’s with me?
*Okay, regarding Leslie and Ben in this episode, I admit I initially had reaction similar to Alyssa Rosenberg’s, with the added concern that we’d fallen down the rom-com rabbit hole. But then I thought, Well hell, what would Don Draper have done? Or any other male character? The same thing, probably, except the other person wouldn’t be his boss. So I decided the writers couldn’t win, generically speaking.

Amanda Krauss is a former professor and current writer/speaker/humor theorist. From 2005-2010 she taught courses on gender, culture, and the history of comedy at Vanderbilt University, and in 2010 was invited to present a course entitled “Humor, Ancient to Modern” at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute. While she is focusing on her current blog (Worst Professor Ever, which satirically chronicles issues of education and lifelong learning) some of her theoretical archives can be found at risatrix.com. She previously contributed Rom-Coms Don’t Suck to Bitch Flicks. 


Afghan Women Fight to Not Have Their Rights Bargained Away in ‘Peace Unveiled’ in ‘Women, War & Peace’ Series

This is a guest post by Megan Kearns. She also contributed reviews of Part 1 and Part 2 of Women, War & Peace.

For the past year, revolutions swept across North Africa and the Middle East. Despite their vocal presence, the media didn’t initially display women’s involvement in the protests. The same could be said in Afghanistan. It appeared the strides women made might be lost as women were shut out of the peace process. But just as they did in the Arab Spring, women strive to play a vital role in the reconstruction of Afghanistan.
In the documentary Peace Unveiled, the third installment of Women, War & Peace, written by Abigail E. Disney and directed by Gini Reticker (and WWP series co-creators), we witness 3 tenacious female activists, Parliamentarian Shinkai Karokhail, Hasina Safi and Shahida Hussein, struggling for their voices to be heard in Afghanistan’s treacherous peace negotiations. Following the 2010 surge of U.S. troops, the Afghan government arranged peace negotiations with the toppled Taliban. The women valiantly fight to protect their gains and not have their rights bargained away.
Hasina Safi, one of the 3,000 members of the Afghan Women’s Network (AWN), a non-partisan NGO working to empower women, visits villages to monitor the programs she coordinates for illiterate women. Classes for women could not be held openly with the Taliban in power. Almost 90% of Afghan women cannot read or write. Through classes, many women are just learning Islam encourages women’s education.
But working women like Safi risk their lives. They receive death threats via horrific letters in the night, telling them they must stop working or else their children will be killed and their homes burned. Safi admits:

When I go out of the house in the morning, I say goodbye to my children and my family because I say that I never know if I’m coming alive back home or not.

 

While women have made massive strides in Afghanistan, a peace deal between the Afghan government and the Taliban, supported by President Karzai, “threatens to trade away their hard-earned freedoms.”
Shinkai Karokhail, a founding member of the Afghan Women Educational Center (AWEC), a non-profit seeking gender equality and ending violence against women and children, was elected to parliament in 2005. Karokhail doesn’t want to see women’s rights erode. She warns:

I am hopeful that my sisters understand the importance of this process…I hope that the Afghan government and, especially, the president, whom women helped elect, do not make a deal that leads Afghan women into miserable lives again.

Women’s lives have drastically improved since the toppling of the Taliban in 2001. In 2004, Afghanistan’s new constitution guaranteed greater equity for women, including the right to vote and 25% of parliamentary seats. Now, women work, girls attend school, have increased healthcare access and can choose not to wear the burqa. Sadly, that doesn’t mean women are empowered everywhere throughout the country.

 

In heavily-populated Kandahar, “the birthplace of the Taliban,” the city is plagued with administrative corruption and armed men terrorizing citizens. “Prominent working women are being assassinated. No one knows who’s doing the killing.” Women must wear the burqa to go into the streets. It’s amazing to think that a new constitution protects women’s rights, yet means nothing here.
Shahida Hussein, a women’s rights activist in Kandahar, stands as a beacon of hope amongst the tumult. Women turn to her with their legal and property problems. Hussein serves as a mediator between them and the courts. Yet she worries:

Women go out with great fear & trepidation. Will there be a suicide attack? Will American tanks or NATO forces fire on people?

Despite the supposed protection of U.S. troops, women aren’t safe here. In fact, Afghanistan remains one of the most dangerous countries in the world for women. An anonymous woman wearing a burqa tells Hussein:

When I go out I’m terrified. We are powerless. What kind of government is this? Neither the Americans nor the government rule here. The Americans are on one street and the Taliban on another. They can see each other!

After the end of the Soviet occupation in 1988, civil war erupted in Afghanistan. The U.S. supplied arms to the Mujahideen (guerilla fighters), fueling the turmoil that ripped the country apart. Homes were destroyed, people raped, burned and massacred. The Taliban emerged from this chaos, coming to power in 1996. Karokhail said:

During the time of the Taliban, women endured the worst era. They were imprisoned in their homes, every form of activity in their lives was taken away.

For 5 years, the Taliban ruthlessly oppressed women. They were forced to wear the burqa; if women showed even a hand, they were beaten. “Banned from public life,” they weren’t allowed to work and couldn’t go to a doctor without a male relative, even if in mortal danger. Those years “haunt women who are trying to modernize their country.”
Women strive to be heard; worried the Taliban’s demands will undermine their rights. Yet President Karzai and the government continually shut them out of peace negotiations. No Afghan women were invited to the London Conference for the Afghan peace talks. Male politicians tell the women they must now “surrender their rights” in order to achieve peace with the Taliban. Instead, the women don’t listen, choosing to mobilize so they can be included in Karzai’s peace jirga, or council.
President Karzai promised women only 50 out of 1600 seats at the jirga. But Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pressures Karzai to secure women 20% of the delegate seats. Safi, Hussein and Karokhail all attend to advocate for women’s rights.
On June 2, 2010, the day of the peace jirga, the women take part in the first public debate amongst Afghan citizens to help end the war. Despite attacks from the Taliban, the jirga continues. Karokhail knows the symbolical significance of women’s attendance in negotiations. She asserts:

It was the first time that Afghan women came together with Afghan men and discuss peace. Maybe it was even very symbolical but it was like breaking something, like break the culture and impose the presence of women.

 

Amidst peace negotiations, a Parliamentary election looms. Karokhail was the only woman running for Parliament in Kabul. Unsure she should even enter politics, thinking she couldn’t accomplish much, Karokhail’s friends convinced her that this “is the most important time” to run. Facing campaign fraud and candidates assassinated, Karokhail bravely persists in her re-election campaign. She knows that in order to win, she needs the respect of the men. Karokhail declares:

Most of these men also make decisions for their wives to whom they should vote. You have to convince them to support women.

But as research in India has shown, once you get women into political office, both men and women are more likely to support more women serving in office. It’s vital to have more elected officials like Karokhail, staunch advocates for women’s rights.
When another peace conference is held in Kabul with over 70 nations in attendance, Safi and AWN representatives meet with Ambassador Karl Eikenberry to garner women a seat. As a result of their meeting, a women’s representative will have 3 minutes to address the conference with their concerns.
Secretary Clinton addresses the Kabul Conference, insisting on the importance of including women in Afghanistan’s peace process. She asserts:

The women in Afghanistan are rightly worried that in the very legitimate search for peace, their rights will be sacrificed…None of us can allow that to happen. No peace that sacrifices women’s rights is a peace we can afford to support.

Palwasha Hassan, an AWN Representative and Karokhail’s sister, spoke as a representative for the women. She insists that “for peace to take hold, everyone in society must be protected.” Hassan became “the first woman ever to address the world from an Afghan stage.” She passionately declares:

Critically, women’s rights & achievements must not be compromised in any peace negotiations or accords…Women’s experiences of both war and peace-building must be recognized in the peace process.

But her words go unheard. When the conference concludes, no one “stipulates that women must take part in reshaping the nation.” Disappointed and disheartened at the lack of support for women, Hussein laments:

Girls in Kandahar have had acid thrown in their faces. Girls have been assassinated. They have been kept at home by their fathers. Schools are being burned. In the rural districts, there are no schools at all.

…What astonishes me, what my final issue is that the world community came, saying, “We will work for the people of Afghanistan, especially for the women.” It’s worse than being a dead person in Kandahar. We don’t have a life anymore.

Following the Kabul Conference, President Karzai forms a Peace Council to reconcile with the Taliban. Secretary Clinton sends U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues Melanne Verveer to ensure women participate in negotiations. Ambassador Verveer worries Karzai doesn’t want to include women in negotiations. But she hopes to secure women at least one-third of the seats on the peace council.
When President Karzai finally announces the Peace Council representatives, the government shuts women out again. Equality remains elusive.
Despite barriers and set-backs, Safi remains resilient. She asserts:

I don’t want to go back. I want to make it easy for my daughters. We will struggle; we will struggle till our last breath. We cannot do anything alone. We are a part of the world. We have to be identified to the world. The world has to support us in this.

Women provide a unique perspective when included in the decision-making process. Yet across the globe, with gender parity in politics a rarity, women are continually relegated to the sidelines of most peace negotiations. Until women and men can participate equally, their rights protected, no peace can exist. Governments must learn that if they ever hope to attain lasting peace, they need to start listening to the voices of their entire population.
Afghan women face an uncertain future as they fight to hold onto their rights. After 9/11, I remember the rallying cries of U.S. politicians claiming we liberated the women of Afghanistan from the Taliban’s totalitarian regime. But all of the women’s freedoms they’ve garnered for themselves threaten to be taken away. The international community must ensure that never happens.
Watch the full episode of Peace Unveiled online or on PBS.
—–

Megan Kearns is a blogger, freelance writer and activist. She blogs at The Opinioness of the World, a feminist vegan site. Her work has also appeared at Arts & Opinion, Fem2pt0, Italianieuropei, Open Letters Monthly, and A Safe World for Women. She earned her B.A. in Anthropology and Sociology and a Graduate Certificate in Women and Politics and Public Policy. Megan lives in Boston with more books than she will probably ever read in her lifetime.

Megan contributed reviews of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, Something Borrowed, !Women Art Revolution, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Kids Are All Right (for 2011 Best Picture Nominee Review Series), The Reader (for 2009 Best Picture Nominee Review Series), Man Men (for Mad Men Week), Game of Thrones and The Killing (for Emmy Week 2011), Alien/Aliens (for Women in Horror Week 2011), and I Came to Testify in the  Women, War & Peace series. She was the first writer featured as a Monthly Guest Contributor. 

 

Emmy Week 2011: Why Steely Homicide Detective Sarah Linden Is So Refreshing

Mireille Enos as Sarah Linden in The Killing
Guest post by Megan Kearns.
Who killed Rosie Larsen? This is the pivotal question that motivates The Killing. While a murder mystery, the true catalyst of the show resides in the nuanced characters, particularly steely homicide detective Sarah Linden.
Often I lament the gender inequity in films and TV shows, bemoaning their flagrant displays of sexism. Many gendered problems could be solved if movies and series employed more female writers, directors or producers.  Too often, when you have a staff of all white males, that’s what you see on-screen: all white male characters.  That’s what’s so exhilarating about The Killing. Not only does the show boast a predominantly female crew, numerous female characters exist individual and distinct from one another. We see the plot told from a female perspective.
Based on the Danish TV series Forbrydelsen (The Crime), the gritty series premieres with Linden, played superbly by Emmy-nominated Mireille Enos, jogging in the woods. It’s her last day in the Seattle police department as she’s moving with her son, Jack, to marry her fiancé in California. But she gets pulled back in to her work in homicide by the murder of teenager Rosie Larsen.
Unlike many other crime shows, the plot continually shifts from the murder investigation to Detective Linden’s home life to how Rosie’s family handles their grief to a local mayoral campaign. Through the unfolding case, we see how grief affects each of the characters differently. Raising themes of misogyny, racism and xenophobia, the show uniquely focuses on how a tragedy affects a family and ultimately how those ripples affect a community.
Linden’s stoic and quiet reserve yields a driven detective. She pensively surveys crime scenes, taking it all in, absorbing every detail. When questioning witnesses, she isn’t typically brash or bold, preferring a subtle approach. When her partner Stephen Holder (Joel Kinnaman) brags about finding the potential crime scene “the cage,” Linden warns him, “Assumptions are your enemy.” Holder acts impulsively, while Linden remains cool and clear-headed. Yet we learn she possesses a tendency to compulsively obsess over cases, letting them consume and unhinge her life, even to the point of jeopardizing custody of her son. 
While I revere clever dialogue in a film or TV show, an adept actor reveals a character’s inner thoughts and emotions through their body language and facial expressions; never having to utter a word. Enos does this superbly, a testament to her acting abilities. She revealed in an AMC interview that her character’s silence is what she enjoys most:

It’s kind of my favorite part of this role — how much of this story is told just through Sarah thinking and letting the audience sit with her in her thoughts.

Seeing the case unfold from Linden’s perspective is a welcome change. When asked if there’s a difference stylistically in the shows that are run by women, Emmy-nominated Veena Sud, executive producer, writer and showrunner of The Killing, said: 

The female leads are very human and very real and very flawed, yet are good cops. Maybe that’s the difference: women are interested in creating real female leads.

I’m thrilled to see a fully formed, realistic female role. The role isn’t groundbreaking, following in the footsteps of the stellar Helen Mirren in Prime Suspect, The Closer, Saving Grace, Cold Case, Rizzoli & Isles, Cagney & Lacey. All of these shows’ characters face difficulties: sexism, hostile work environments, alcoholism, strained personal relationships due to their demanding careers. But Linden is unique in that she’s a single mother. 

Throughout the series, we witness Linden struggling to juggle her consuming career with her role as a mom. In one scene, Linden has to leave a crime scene to fetch Jack from school after he’s kicked out for smoking. In another scene, Linden looks crushed when Jack complains that she cares more about the murdered victims than him. In another episode, she talks about how she yearns for him to be happy again, hoping the remedy lies in a “better life” in California. We alternately see her disciplining and guiding him, all with a rough tenderness. 
In the fantastic episode, “The Missing,” we see Linden’s insecurities about how her troubled childhood might affect her parenting abilities when her son goes missing. Actor Enos drew on her own experiences as a mother to enhance her character’s role, particularly her character’s empathy for Mitch Larsen, Rosie’s grief-stricken mother, played by the perpetually badass Michelle Forbes, in a devastating performance.
Single mothers are common in TV shows: Gilmore Girls, Murphy Brown, Sex and the City, New Adventures of Old Christine. While many laud the sacrifices single mothers make, they simultaneously face criticism in our society. Asshats Bill O’Reilly and Mike Huckabee condemned celebs Jennifer Anniston, for saying women don’t need a man to be a parent (damn right they don’t), and Natalie Portman, for getting pregnant out of wedlock (oh gasp, the horror!). Several months ago, two single African-American moms were arrested for sending their children to school districts they didn’t live in to have a better education. 
Many single mothers are blamed at best, vilified at worst. So it’s refreshing to watch a TV show, particularly a crime drama, where the lead character is an accomplished single mom striving to keep her son out of trouble all while maintaining her demanding career.   
Linden’s unyielding dedication to her job strains her romantic relationship as well. Initially, her fiancé Rick doesn’t make her choose between her job and their relationship. Exasperated, he waits for her to wrap up the case as she’s supposed to have already joined him in California. SPOILER!! -> As their relationship begins to crumble, Rick eventually returns to California without her after Linden chooses to stay in Seattle. <-END SPOILER!! It kind of pissed me off because men never seem forced to make this choice. It’s always the woman expected to follow a man, uprooting her life. 
For those of us who lament the lack of female actors, writers and directors and stories told from women’s perspectives, here’s a show containing all those traits. Many reviewers spewed vitriol after the season 1 finale, outraged that we didn’t find out who killed Rosie Larsen. But they’re missing the whole point. Yes, it’s a whodunit. But that’s not the crux of the show; it’s merely the vehicle in which to reveal the characters’ compelling stories. The Killing depicts subtle portrayals of real, flawed women (and men), haunted by their past pain. While interesting male characters exist, the show doesn’t merely revolve around them. Rather it orbits a determined and resolute woman, unrelenting in her pursuit of justice. 
Megan Kearns is a blogger, freelance writer and activist. A feminist vegan, Megan blogs at The Opinioness of the World, where she writes about gender in pop culture, sexism in the media, reproductive justice and living vegan. Her work has also appeared at Arts & Opinion, Italianieuropei, Open Letters Monthly, and A Safe World for Women. She earned her B.A. in Anthropology and Sociology and a Graduate Certificate in Women and Politics and Public Policy. Megan lives in Boston with her diva cat and more books than she will probably ever read in her lifetime. 

Megan contributed reviews of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, Something Borrowed, !Women Art Revolution, The Kids Are All Right (for our 2011 Best Picture Nominee Review Series), The Reader (for our 2009 Best Picture Nominee Review Series), and Game of Thrones (for our Emmy Week 2011). She was the first writer featured as a Monthly Guest Contributor. 

Emmy Week 2011: Liz Lemon: The "Every Woman" of Prime Time

Tina Fey as “Liz Lemon” in 30 Rock
Liz Lemon, the protagonist created and portrayed by Tina Fey on NBC’s 30 Rock, is one of television’s most recognizable and loved characters for her outlandish antics and so-real-it-hurts single-line commentaries on women and society.

On the surface, Liz charms the audience with her awkward girl-next-door looks, geeky-smart plastic-framed glasses that she apparently doesn’t need to improve her vision, inappropriate behavior in the workplace and her penchant for drawing the unlucky hand in love. Yet getting to know Liz on a deeper level inspires a sense that this is a woman who, while filled with self-loathing and assorted neuroses, has a heart for people and justice and a knack for making the ridiculous hilarious.

Not surprisingly, Fey has once again been nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for her work this year on 30 Rock. Fey has received the nomination each of the five seasons 30 Rock has aired, winning the Outstanding Lead Actress Emmy once in 2008.

What is most endearing about Liz is that she is less “Murphy Brown” and more “Lucille Ball.” Liz is perfectly imperfect and knows this. She continually apologizes for her shortcomings as a human being. She doesn’t have anything figured out and struggles to get through the day knowing that she doesn’t “have it all” and that she probably never will. Had the character of Liz been a strong, successful career woman in the male-dominated business of television, she would have been less able to connect with the audience. Surely Liz has risen through the ranks to be head writer at a successful sketch comedy show, yet her incompetence at work along with her vocal dissatisfaction with her loveless personal life, and even her lack of financial savvy by leaving $12,000 in her checking account rather than investing, make her easier to like and relate to. Even as we see her stretching toward the top, there’s no mistaking the fact that Liz will never break through the shatterproof Plexiglas ceiling.

Online media is filled with Web sites and articles on both Tina Fey and Liz Lemon attempting to analyze where one leaves off and the other begins to determine how much of Liz is really Fey. Frankly, if the character of Liz was too closely based on Fey, we may have stopped tuning in the first season.

What Fey was able to do was take the physical and mental quirks of her own and then add to that an excessive dose of dysfunctional human qualities that make Liz such a train wreck and, thus, a joy to watch. The weekly deconstruction of her psyche takes viewers on yet another downward spiral that ultimately makes viewers feel good about themselves. Sure, we may not subscribe to an organized religion, but are we as bad as Liz who claims she believes whatever Oprah tells her to believe? Maybe we won’t admit to feeling the same way, but most of us do know women who place Oprah on an altar and do-read-buy whatever Oprah says is a must. Additionally, we may not yell at incompetent people we encounter each day as Liz would, but our connection with her is strengthened because we want to berate them and call them jerks, but social boundaries keep us in check. With Liz, we can enjoy the fantasy of venting out loud without the societal consequences.

In any discussion of Liz Lemon, the question of feminism arises. In the pilot episode, Jack Donaghy quickly and accurately characterizes Liz as a third-wave feminist. One thing Jack is, and that is a master at marketing and knowing markets. He can size up people instantly. Jack’s insights into Liz are better than her own. Through Jack, the parts of Liz that she couldn’t put into words are brought to life. Remember “porn for women”? Jack realized from his encounters with Liz that women want someone to listen to them, and he quickly developed an entire cable selection of hunky men who, for a price, would listen and talk to women on their TV screens for as long as they desired. Liz purchased immediately.

Frankly, any woman today qualifies as a third-wave feminist because that is the underlying tenet of the concept: there are as many definitions of feminism as there are women. No longer is feminism defined as one cohesive line of thinking. During the so-called first wave, women were united in the fight for voting rights. The second-wave feminists were determined to see civil rights and social rights uniformly recognized for all people regardless of gender. Without a uniform cause and agenda today, this third wave of feminism lacks any agreed upon definition or boundaries of thought which is exactly the point: there is no one “woman’s point-of-view.”

Yet how does Liz live out this idea of third-wave feminism? How was this so obvious to Jack?

Feminism defined by Liz is contradictory in that she is a strong career woman and that she is a complete person outside of having a man to validate her existence. Yet Liz has a strong desire to be in a relationship, and she is irrationally angry with women who have husbands or children. Her job as head of TGS with Tracy Jordan (formerly called The Girlie Show) is certainly testament to her abilities in a male-dominated industry, yet her staff of men and her boss, Jack, causes her to continually apologize for being tough or demanding.

Liz’s self-image is played out in her wardrobe, which is androgynous at best. In one episode, Jack comments that she is dressing as if she shops at Kmart. Clothing choices tell a great deal about how a woman feels about herself. For Liz, she has been stripped of all femininity and sees herself as trying to fit in with the masculine world in which she works and socializes, in spite of being mistaken for a Lesbian.

Liz Lemon is entertaining because in most regards, she’s worse off than we are. She may have a better job than most of us, but her staff ridicules her, and her boss is continually undermining her efforts to be a strong leader. Liz barely gets respect from her closest female friend Jenna, but even she is too wrapped up in her own neuroses to give much time to Liz’s problems. Compared to Liz, all of us are better off than she is. In every respect of her life, Liz comes up short: her wardrobe is wrong for her career, she’s single and hates it, and her friendships are sub par with the exception of Jack, who knows her best. While he most likely wouldn’t donate a kidney to Liz even if she desperately needed it, we get the impression he would make arrangements for her to have the best dialysis money could buy, and he would probably keep her company during treatments. Many of us would consider ourselves fortunate to have a friend like Jack.

Liz is the modern-day “every woman” who realizes her flaws, hates herself for them, yet owns her misery and wears it daily like a pair of comfortable Kmart sweatpants. No one loves Liz Lemon for being perfect. What makes Liz draw in an audience is her dysfunction in every aspect of her life. How she reacts to her life is always unexpected yet entirely appreciated.

Lisa Mathews is a relocated Los Angeles native and former newspaper reporter currently pursuing a graduate degree in political science. 

Emmy Week 2011: Here There Be Sexism?: ‘Game of Thrones’ and Gender

I recognize that there’s a difference between displaying sexism because it’s the time period and condoning said sexism. But this IS a fantasy, not history, meaning the writers can imagine any world they wish to create. So why imagine a misogynistic one?

Written by Megan Kearns, cross-posted from The Opinioness of the World

 

When I watched the premiere of Game of Thrones, I almost choked on all the rampant misogyny. I kept watching, lured by the premise and intrigued by the complex plots, curious if things for women would improve. Throughout the first season, which just aired its finale last night, women are raped, beaten, burned and trafficked. I suppose you could chalk it up to the barbarism of medieval times. And I’m sure many will claim that as the show’s defense…or that the men face just as brutal and severe a life. I also recognize that there’s a difference between displaying sexism because it’s the time period and condoning said sexism. But this IS a fantasy, not history, meaning the writers can imagine any world they wish to create. So why imagine a misogynistic one?

 

Based on the best-selling A Song of Fire and Ice series penned by fantasy author George R.R. Martin (who interjected a hefty amount of research into the books, including warfare, swordsmanship and medieval life), Game of Thrones takes place in a medieval land, where kings, queens, lords, ladies, warriors, knights, servants, priests, priestesses and prostitutes all play a role in a political battle of wills. Becoming an overnight sensation, the show dubbed “The Sopranos in Middle Earth,” (or fantasy for people who aren’t really into fantasy) packs every episode with political intrigue, compelling characters, subtle acting, rich dialogue and suspenseful plot twists. These are the reasons I love this complex show. But it’s hard for me to ignore all the sexism. Luckily, a multitude of strong, ferocious women DO inhabit this bleak fantasy world.

One of the most complicated characters, Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke), the meek, docile sister of her creepy pervo pimping brother, accused of having a “gentle heart,” becomes queen, the Khaleesi of the Dothraki. Watching her transformation into a caring yet steely, powerful queen (from standing up for herself against her douchebag brother Viserys Targaryen to defending women healers in a battle and rallying her people), has been one of the most enjoyable parts of the show for me. While she’s one of my fave characters, massive misogynistic problems still exist with her role. Viserys asks his sister:

Viserys: So tell me, sweet sister, how do we go home?

Daenerys: I don’t know.

Viserys: We go home with an army. With Khal Drogo’s army. I would let his whole tribe fuck you–all 40,000 men and their horses too if that’s what it took.

Oh, rape and sexual exploitation all in one. How fucking lovely. Daenerys falls in love with her husband, who her brother sold her off to, the warrior king Khal Drogo (Jason Momoa). Newsflash, no woman would fall in love with the man her bought and raped her. Doreah, one of Daenerys’ handmaidens, teaches her how to seduce Khal Drogo and gain his respect with her sensuality. Oh, that’s how women earn respect?? Silly me, I forgot about good old stiletto feminism.

 

 

Played spectacularly (if a bit underutilized) by Lena Headey (whom I loved, loved, LOVED in The Sarah Connor Chronicles and was the only redeeming thing about 300), Queen Cersei Lannister is the shrewd, manipulative Queen of the 7 Kingdoms, obsessed with power. A cunning and scheming survivor, she orchestrates political machinations. In the book (which I haven’t read), she’s annoyed by the constraints of her gender which don’t allow her greater political power. She also utters the line to Lord Eddard Stark (Sean Bean) that becomes the title of the show (and first book in the series):

“In the game of thrones, you win or you die. There is no middle ground.”

Lady Catelyn Stark (Michelle Fairley), is the wise and graceful wife to Lord Eddard Stark, mother of the Stark brood. Yet she’s not afraid to speak her mind and help her son strategize and negotiate in battle. Wherever she goes, particularly in the region of the North, she’s revered and respected. She is the one, almost single-handedly, who’s brokered and negotiated every deal which brings all of the clans of the North together, unifying them in war.

Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner), daughter of Catelyn and Eddard, differs from many of the depicted women for she only cares about dancing and getting married (at 13?!) as she simpers and worships douchebag Prince Joffrey (Jack Gleeson). But we eventually begin to see a different side of Sansa after she witnesses a horrific tragedy, brought upon by her poor judgment.

My fave gender-bending character, Arya Stark (Maisie Williams), Sansa’s little sister, is a sword-wielding badass…at the age of 11. A feisty tomboy, Arya is spunky, resourceful and outspoken. One of my fave scenes consists of Arya and her father Eddard Stark when she asks him about becoming a leader. He tells her about the man she’ll marry some day and how she’ll give birth to sons who’ll become lords. Refusing to be defined by gender roles or by her relationship to a man, she retorts, “That’s not me.” My only problem is that Arya is still a child, not yet a woman. Too often, films and TV shows are uncomfortable with authoritative women, depicting female empowerment through teens and young girls instead.

One of the rare times the show passes the Bechdel test (and of course it’s debatable if it actually does pass it in this scene as it’s spurred by the illness of Daenerys’ husband Khal Drogo) is in the season finale when Mirri Maz Duur (Mia Soteriou), the enslaved sorceress/healer and Daenerys speak. Daenerys, furious at Mirri Maz, proclaims that she saved her. But Mirri Maz replies that by the time she was “saved,” she’d already been raped by three Dothraki men, her temple burned down, and townspeople she befriended slain. So she questions what exactly Daenerys saved her from? I thought this was an interesting scene depicting the power of perspective. It disappoints me though that when two women talk with one another on-screen, which doesn’t happen very often, the plot usually pits them against one another, a common trope in films and TV shows.

In addition to Mirri Maz, there are other secondary female characters who we don’t know much about (yet): Ros, Armeca and Shae (sex workers); Jhiqui, Irri and Doreah (Daenerys’ handmaidens); Osha (a wilding – person living north of the Wall – and slave of Winterfell); and Septa Mordane (a priestess who sacrifices her life to protect Sansa).

Many of the women navigate the sexist landscape by playing their parts yet asserting themselves when they can by speaking their minds. Although they are quickly put in their place, with a fist or harsh words, if they speak too boldly, reminding them of where they exist on the social ladder. SPOILERS!! –> When Cersei’s son Joffrey becomes king, it seems that she’s finally going to be able to rule, with her son a mere figurehead. But after he flagrantly disobeys her command, calling her (and Sansa) “soft-hearted,” it’s clear who’s in charge here. Despite all of Catelyn’s strategies and bartering, when it comes down to who will lead the army against King’s Landing, all of the clan leaders proclaim her son Robb Stark the “King of the North,” rather than Catelyn the “Queen of the North.” Arya has to go into hiding, as a boy, to evade the wrath of the king. UBER SPOILER!! -> In the penultimate scene in the finale, we see Daenerys burning a funeral pyre. She frees the Dothraki slaves, proclaiming to them and the Dothraki who’ve remained by her side that they will be her new khalasar (band of people) if they swear allegiance to her. A pivotal scene as she becomes the first female ruler of the Dothraki, marking the first time a woman asserts her power and leadership in such an overt manner. In the final scene, after entering the fiery flames, we see Daenerys survive, only to emerge with the three dragon eggs hatched, the three dragons skittering over her body, resting on her hip, ankle and shoulder. While I was thrilled she survived, my elation quickly soured as I realized the actual implication here: that a woman could not be a powerful ruler on her own merit, she had to have supernatural blood course through her veins with monster minions bolstering her power.

I know I’m being hard on the show. Despite its gender problem (and race problem – very few people of color are characters, except for the Dothraki who are depicted as “primitive” and “savage,” a common racist trope) it is absolutely fantastic and amazing. By the 4th episode I was hooked, eager to see what would happen next. But a show so meticulously made of such stellar caliber shouldn’t suffer from so much sexism. I shouldn’t have to overlook excessive misogyny in order to watch TV. The show seems to remain incredibly faithful to its source material. Interestingly, George R.R. Martin wrote the first book, entitled Game of Thrones, from the perspective of 9 different characters (Will of the Night’s Watch, Lord Eddard Stark, Lady Catelyn Stark, Jon Snow, Arya Stark, Sansa Stark, Bran Stark, Tyrion Lannister, Daenerys Targaryen), half from the vantage of the female characters. As delighted as I am with myriad strong heroines, a show devoid of female writers (save for Jane Espenson who co-wrote one episode), directors or producers, can’t help but feel like a testosterone extravaganza.

It would be one thing if the show made a commentary on the sexism that pervades society, a la Mad Men. But that doesn’t appear to be what’s happening here. The women are subjected to misogyny and patriarchy (hmmm…sounds like modern times!). But none of them challenges it, even subversively. When the one female character acts authoritatively, asserting her will and seizing power, she’s diminished by her supernatural powers. Even the women who are bold and strong on the show, except perhaps Daenerys, are tethered to a short leash, ultimately deferential to the more powerful men surrounding them. For a TV show borne of fantasy, it’s time we imagined better. 

Megan Kearns is a blogger, freelance writer and activist. A feminist vegan, Megan blogs at The Opinioness of the World, where she writes about gender in pop culture, sexism in the media, reproductive justice and living vegan. Her work has also appeared at Arts & Opinion, Italianieuropei, Open Letters Monthly, and A Safe World for Women. She earned her B.A. in Anthropology and Sociology and a Graduate Certificate in Women and Politics and Public Policy. Megan lives in Boston with her diva cat and more books than she will probably ever read in her lifetime. She contributed reviews of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, Something Borrowed, !Women Art Revolution, The Kids Are All Right (for our 2011 Best Picture Nominee Review Series) and The Reader (for our 2009 Best Picture Nominee Review Series). She was the first writer featured as a Monthly Guest Contributor. 

 

Emmy Week 2011: Leslie Knope

Amy Poehler as Leslie Knope

“It’s a great time to be a woman in politics… Get on board and buckle up, ‘cos my ride’s gonna be a big one.”
In the Parks and Recreation pilot, Leslie Knope made clear the extent of her political ambitions. But it was also clear that she was deluded. The Deputy Director of a tiny government department in the fictional small town of Pawnee, Indiana, she earnestly compared herself to Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin. She forged ahead with a plan to build a park in a lot abandoned by a developer, against the advice of her senior colleagues, and when investigating a dangerous pit in the middle of that lot, she fell in. “She’s a little doofy,” Rashida Jones’ Ann spelled out, just in case we hadn’t got the message.
There were few clues back then that Leslie would become one of the most endearing sitcom characters of all time, let alone a feminist icon. In fact, the character TV critics drew the most comparisons with was Michael Scott from The Office. This was understandable, given that, like The Office, Parks and Rec was created by Greg Daniels and Michael Schur, is filmed in a “mockumentary” style, and in season one, had a dry humor that encouraged us to laugh at, not with, its characters. It got a lukewarm reception, perhaps because no one wanted yet another cynical sitcom.
Thank goodness then, that in season two the Leslie we know and love emerged. Still an idealist, but with a strong practical streak and the ability to get things done. No longer mooning over a long-ago office-mate tryst, but having an actual love life. She’s not optimistic because she doesn’t know better, but because she chooses to be, as a survival mechanism. Instead of considering her an affable fool, her now-best friend Ann tells her she’s, “Cool, sexy, funny, and smart.”
She’s also competent: she not only gets that park built, she re-instates Pawnee’s harvest festival, bringing in thousands of dollars in tourism and new business, and saving her department in the process. We start to see that maybe her earlier pronouncements were prescient: why *shouldn’t* Leslie Knope be the first female president?
Yet (for what the term is worth) she’s no Mary Sue: Leslie has flaws, including an obscenely messy house, a horrific dating history (“A guy invited me to a beautiful picnic with wine and flowers and when I tried to sit down, he said ‘Don’t eat anything, Rebecca’s coming.’ And then he broke up with me.”) and a dorky past, which only make her more appealing. It’s a credit to both the writers and Amy Poehler’s acting skill that Leslie is a believable character, not just a caricature. Which is why the comparison of Leslie to Liz Lemon is so ridiculous.
On one level, it’s understandable, of course. In real life, Amy Poehler and Tina Fey are friends, former SNL cast mates and movie co-stars, and both identify as feminists. They’re also in the same age and race demographic and both play female leads on NBC sitcoms. When Parks and Rec started, some articles even implied that Amy Poehler’s success was a threat to Tina Fey’s, as if there could only be one funny woman on a network at a time.
Tina Fey as Liz Lemon
But where Leslie Knope leads her department with skill and good humour despite the petty bureaucracy she often has to negotiate, Liz Lemon is a stress-eating, approval-seeking, baby-stealing mess who dates men who hate her, wears plastic bags as underwear, and is waiting for her real life (the one where she’s married and therefore happy) to start. Tina Fey is charming enough to be entertaining while she portrays this nightmare of modern womanhood, and no doubt she makes a lot of Slanket-wearing insomniacs feel better about themselves. But Fey isn’t just the star of this show, she’s also its showrunner, and it’s not clear what message she’s trying to convey by turning one of the few overtly feminist characters on TV into a self-interested workaholic who always looks to her male boss for guidance. Like Community’s insufferable do-gooder Brita Perry, Lemon’s altruistic and sisterly impulses are often shown to be misguided, undermining not just the character, but feminism as a whole. Perhaps Fey is only trying to puncture the self-righteousness of the movement, but it seems like a weak target when there’s so much misogyny she could be mocking.
Unlike Liz Lemon, Leslie doesn’t just pay lip service to feminist ideals, or spout them in support of her own work goals, she sees political activism on behalf of the women of Pawnee as part of her mandate, and has set up a camp for underprivileged teen girls. And who else, when reluctantly roped in to judge a beauty pageant, would bring her own laminated scorecard with categories including “Knowledge of herstory” and “The Naomi Wolf factor”? (One of the most stealthy and brilliant moments in feminist TV history.) While both Liz and Leslie look to their male bosses for validation, Liz is unable to function without Jack’s help, whereas Leslie is capable of managing the department without Ron’s input, and usually does.
30 Rock frequently employs farce to make us laugh, but Parks and Rec is more lovable because it avoids the obvious and the outsized, creating funny moments by building on what we know about these characters and their relationships. From the second season onward, its lack of cynicism has been refreshing. Tina Fey is great at what she does, but doesn’t have much scope, and doesn’t do vulnerable well. Leslie Knope is unquestionably Amy Poehler’s best role, and it’s because she’s restrained her silly side and concentrated on creating a character we can relate to.
Leslie (Poehler) and Ann (Jones)
One of the most overt ways Leslie’s feminism is displayed is in her friendship with Ann, one of her most significant relationships.  The two women clearly care about and admire each other and are there for each other’s freak-outs. I realized about halfway through season two that I was often clenched when I watched them together, willing them not to fall out. I was sad and shocked to recognize that there’s an undercurrent of bitchiness in so many on-screen female friendships that I’ve started to expect it as standard. Portraying two women who like each other might be the most radical thing a sitcom can do.
I don’t think there’s been such a feminist TV character since the ‘80s, when, at different ends of the class and race spectrum, women like Clair Huxtable and Roseanne Conner challenged sexist expectations through the use of confrontation and sarcasm. The ‘90s saw some backpedalling among feminist characters: Seinfeld’s Elaine Benes struck blows for equality by openly discussing periods and birth control and dumping a man who was anti-abortion, but she mostly showed contempt for her female friends and still bought into outdated gender expectations, like that a man should make the first move on a date. Murphy Brown was a strong, intelligent woman, and in her decision to be a single mother, became the inadvertent enemy of conservative America. But she ended up laughing off her early feminist activism as mere youthful over-exuberance.
Meanwhile, the Friends women valued their independence — Monica was the strongest proponent of the idea that Rachel should cut up her father-funded credit cards — but embodied a very Cosmo, “it’s all up to the individual” post-feminist vision which presents issues of female empowerment (like standing up to sexist bosses and self-defence when your bestie’s boyfriend gets handsy) as individual struggles, rather than the symptoms of the kyriarchy they really are. But these women were paragons of feminist ideals compared to most sitcom women of the ‘90s and ‘00s, who re-created retrograde gender roles with husbands they disdained, nagging all the way, as on King of Queens, Still Standing, Everybody Loves Raymond, and many others.
Sexist tropes these downtrodden wives may have been, but at least they had voices. They’ve since given way to anemic characters like the women of How I Met Your Mother, where Alyson Hannigan’s baby-voiced Lily sighs about the importance of everyone getting married and supports her husband in his dream of becoming an environmental lawyer, while her own ambition to be an artist is played for laughs. Worse, her friend Robin, a news presenter who loves hockey and beer, has her “unfeminine” interests explained by the back-story that her father wanted her to be a boy. HIMYM further plays on gender (and sometimes racial) stereotyping and employs sexist, sexually charged humor as Barney discusses his frequent conquests, saying debasing things which the audience is expected to forgive because Neil Patrick Harris is gay in real life and to complain would mean we didn’t understand post-feminist irony. The same claims can be made by Two and a Half Men, where the (un)importance of autonomous female characters is telegraphed by the title, and The Big Bang Theory, where pretty blonde Penny is just a stereotypically sexy comic foil for a group of clever boys.
It’s notable then, that not only is Leslie Knope an intelligent and capable character, but that these are qualities  admired by her colleagues, friends, and boyfriends. “Flu Season,” the episode for which Poehler is Emmy-nominated, is one of Amy’s, and Leslie’s, finest moments. Charged with making a presentation to local businesses to sell them on the idea of the harvest festival, Leslie refuses to pass the responsibility to her colleague (and soon-to-be love interest) Ben, even though she’s been badly hit by a flu virus. “It’s not that I don’t trust Ben,” she explains. “It’s that I don’t have faith in Ben. And also I’m starting to forget who Ben is.” She escapes from hospital, stealing flu meds from other patients on the way, makes a convincing presentation despite being dizzy and barely able to see her notes, and then collapses into a chair. “That was amazing…” says Ben, his face conveying his admiration. “That was Leslie Knope.”
He’s right: Leslie Knope *is* amazing. Over the course of three seasons, she’s gone from a small-time, small-town government employee with delusions of grandeur to someone it’s easy to believe could make a big splash on the larger political stage one day. I hope she does, and I hope we get to see it.
What’s more, the popularity of her character signals an important change, a backlash against the backlash: the mainstream acceptance of a heroine who lives by feminist values and encourages others to do the same. But she’s just one woman, and a white, able-bodied, cisgender, middle class woman at that. We’re still in need of more diversity: in politics, and more importantly, on TV.

Diane Shipley is a freelance journalist and inveterate blogger with a special interest in social justice as it pertains to TV, books, and actual real life. Her website is www.dianeshipley.com, she tweets as @dianeshipley and she wants Amy Poehler for a BFF.

Emmy Week 2011: Glee!

Not since E! has any one thing on television been so damn exclamatory. Glee! celebrated its everyman song-and-dance style before its slushy flying face-offs ever aired. After a Journey-style breakthrough and myriad episodes featuring pop music gone oh so right, the show ended its first Emmy award-winning season and began a second. Can the plotlines featuring teen pregnancy, teen love, and a bitter gym teacher make it with a little Britney Spears mixed in? The answer is: yes. However, following the line of Britney logic, all its women have had to suffer in the meantime: bitches be crazy (e.g. writing underdeveloped characters who become caricatures of themselves, ending in a mockery of those whose very geekiness Glee attempted to celebrate).

In the beginning Glee made a brand out of celebrating the insecurities, joy, and passions of a group of social outcasts. Quickly, however, Glee called into question its treatment of women, prompting the New York Post to ask “Does Glee! Hate women?” In season one alone a woman is shown to be conniving enough to fake a pregnancy to “keep her man” and another, this time a teenager, grappled with pregnancy until, poof, the storyline magically disappeared. Luckily Madonna’s “Papa Don’t Preach” was able to get into the mix first, or I would have been pissed.

Besides the stereotypical portrayals of women-as-girls-as-GQ-cover-models-being-schoolgirls that this show offers, Glee goes further by, perhaps unintentionally, mocking its characters. Vitriolic gym teacher Sue Sylvester (who eerily resembles my elementary school gym teacher) relies on her bitter use of the pretty girls and exploitation of the token special needs child as a means to succeed to her ultimate end. As their most fully fleshed-out character (and perhaps most accomplished actor) Jane Lynch does a great job being angry but does nothing for the stereotype of the angry lesbian gym teacher taunting kids to make herself feel better. Coach Beiset’s introduction furthered this by presenting this gem of a storyline: no man wanted to kiss her so what was a woman to do but become an angry, middle-aged football coach: the better to scream at you, my dears.

Mixed in with the older women who suffer to fall in and keep love and affection, the teens of Glee keep the teenage dreams coming faster than Katy Perry’s hits. Puck, the number one misogynist/baby daddy/Neil Diamond Crooner and the show’s resident sometimes Gothic sometimes snarky, always shown eating or wrestling, Lauren, are just one of many unconventional couples Glee has drummed up. Lauren’s morbid obesity might once have proven to be a means for character slander, as Puck himself proclaimed when he said to then pregnant Quinn “I’m not breaking up with you. I’m just saying please stop super-sizing because I don’t dig on fat chicks.” Now, however, it is the stuff of fetishistic pop preening. First, Puck serenades his new love interest with a rendition of “Fat Bottom Girls” and, shock, she finds it offensive. To make it better he sings the original number “Big Ass Heart” because it is okay for the organ that pumps our blood and, symbolically, falls us in love to have a “big ass” even though a heart has never won a pie eating contest or needed two seats in an airplane. We get it–there’s a size difference here.

Having a character on TV who does not fit into the mold of being a perfect Westernized ideal of beauty would, in someone else’s hands, be refreshing. Glee, however, focuses on the extremes of women, enjoying the overt and campy hyperbolization of its characters which, in essence, detracts from actual storylines and only serves to render the women flat and one-dimensional: Jewish starlet, slut, dumb blonde, conniving cheerleader, sassy black woman, an Asian, and, now, a full-fleshed female. Glee has a recipe with every ingredient, but stirred together it’s one big lump of heterogeneous stereotypes. I’m not saying this couple should not exist; I am simply implying that it may have been beneficial to give her a love interest that does not appear to be ten seconds from dumping pigs blood over her head at prom.

Two other prominent female characters central to Glee’s narrative arc are slutty Santana and dumb blonde Britney. These two rarely have lines, and, when they do, it is solely to enforce these two personas. What they do have, however, is a girl on girl on glee make out session. Of course Glee would need to have two of its beautiful, popular women fall in love and make out, why not? Glee loves Katy Perry and she kissed a girl and, damn it, she liked it. The issue is not girls kissing girls; it is the exploration of lesbianism in a trite and frivolous manner.

The trials and tribulations girls in high school are facing today are by no means easy. From eating disorders to bullying, the very struggle of learning who you are as a woman, inside, out, sexually, emotionally, is a process. Women today are barraged with images of who they should be, how they should act, and whom they should kiss. Glee, in an attempt to make it okay to be whomever you are, has simply created an hour of sing-along to the pain and pleasure of all the versions of themselves  that girls see when they look in the mirror. We are all sexy and scared, stupid and skinny, fat and fabulous–but fleshing out these various facets to frivolous plotlines and self-mocking monologues is akin to giving every girl a Barbie with adjective occupations. Women deserve more than this style of characterization.

Cali Loria is a thug with unbelievable scrabble skills. She is mother to a King and a lover of film, food, and feminism.

Mad Men and the Role of Nostalgia

The cast of Mad Men — aren’t they lovely?
There are two significant moments in Mad Men when nostalgia is overtly discussed. The first comes in season one, episode thirteen (“The Wheel”). Don/Dick has just learned that his brother committed suicide, and he brings his feelings about his own past—particularly his strong desire to construct a past that erases the Whitmans—to sell a product. In a pitch to Kodak, for a campaign to sell a storage device that holds slides and allows you to click through them, he says, 

Technology is a glittering lure, but there’s the rare occasion when the public can be engaged on a level beyond flash, if they have a sentimental bond with the product. My first job, I was in house at a fur company with this old pro copywriter–a Greek, named Teddy. Teddy told me the most important idea in advertising is “new.” It creates an itch. You simply put your product in there   as a kind of calamine lotion. But he also talked about a deeper bond with the product: nostalgia.  It’s delicate, but potent. Teddy told me that in Greek, “nostalgia” literally means “the pain from an old wound.” It’s a twinge in your heart far more powerful than memory alone. This device isn’t a spaceship, it’s a time machine. It goes backwards, and forwards… it takes us to a place where we ache to go again. It’s not called the wheel, it’s called the carousel. It lets us travel the way a child travels – around and around, and back home again, to a place where we know are loved. 

It’s a lovely pitch (which sends Harry, who was recently kicked out of his home for cheating, out of the room in tears) and an effective one: Don seals the deal. (Watch the clip here.)
In season four, episode six (“Waldorf Stories”), Don–drunk on booze and ego after his CLIO award win–recycles his “nostalgia pitch” for Life Cereal and the proposed “Eat Life by the bowlful” campaign. 

But I keep thinking about, you know, nostalgia. How you remember something in the past and it feels good, but it’s a little bit painful. Like when you were a kid. 

One can surmise, if at all familiar with Don’s state of mind and lifestyle at this point, that this pitch doesn’t go as well. The meeting is a mess, and Don inadvertently pitches someone else’s idea as his own. (I couldn’t find this clip available online.)
These are two brilliant, meta moments in a show that is, in some ways, all about nostalgia. If we think of the show itself as a product, it works on both levels described in Don’s eloquent pitch. For viewers who didn’t live through the sixties, the show provides a uniquely detailed window on an era we never experienced and may only vaguely know, and the culture has produced plenty of “calamine lotion” for this group. For those who lived through the sixties, the show itself can be the Kodak carousel–taking viewers to that place they may ache to go again: their own past. 
Surfaces are everything in Mad Men. In response to Mad Men’s critical and popular success, Brooks Brothers and Banana Republic have launched “Mad Men” clothing collections, so you can dress like Don or Betty. If you’re a woman with curves, you can buy the “Mad Men-inspired” bra to “banish those unsightly bulges” (not that the model pictured has bulges anywhere). You can style your hair like the characters of Mad Men and go retro. You can serve Mad Men-inspired cocktails or have an entire Mad Men-themed party (if you’re a guest, you can buy the host a Mad Men-inspired gift). If it’s the interiors that excite you, Woman’s Day magazine–which finds “the show’s visuals even more spectacular than its storylines”–will help you out with its “Mad Men-Inspired Home Decor,” and if you have money to burn, you can buy CB2’s Draper Sofa. If you’re the bookish type, here’s a Mad Men-Inspired Summer Reading List. If you really can’t get enough of the era, tune in this fall to The Playboy Club or Pan-Am.
The above barely scratches the surface of the cultural and commercial impact of Mad Men. You could virtually live your life as a Mad Men character. But why?
A major theme in Mad Men is gender, and it is one of the few shows on television that overtly critiques institutionalized sexism—and we can even, justly, call the show feminist. Here’s what I fear may also be happening: in a culture that claims to be post-feminist, post-ironic, and even post-racial, in which social justice movements lack unity, and even many educated people believe women have achieved “enough” equality (enough, at least, to no longer fight for our basic rights like access to health care and equal pay), aren’t people also maybe a little bit, even unconsciously, nostalgic for a time of clearer definitions? While I would never argue that anyone would want to return to gender and/or racial dynamics of the early 1960s, shouldn’t we attribute at least some of the show’s success to the conservative desire to ‘return to a simpler time?’ Is it not possible that we have an unconscious (or even subconscious) desire to return to a place where we can clearly point to a behavior and call it like it is: Sexist. Racist. Homophobic. Wrong.
In a culture where third-wave conflicts with second wave, where there is a conservative-led war on women’s access to health care and bodily autonomy that the liberal party largely ignores, in which the celebrity status of a couple of female politicians (who happen to hold extremely regressive positions on issues affecting women) passes as achievement of gender equality, in which women have suffered greatly in a recession dubbed the “Mancession” by media, wouldn’t it be nice if things were a bit clearer? Doesn’t our society wish we could call it in real life like we call it on that show? And don’t we also enjoy that feeling of superiority–that we’re oh-so enlightened compared to the barbarous behavior of those characters–when in reality things haven’t changed as much as we’d like to think? 
In a show that quietly argues that sexism and misogyny severely harm women and men, what do we make of all the damn cultural imitation? Where and how do we draw the line between admiring and desiring the surfaces (the clothes, the decor, the general air of coolness), and wanting what’s underneath?

Mad Women: The Secretaries in Mad Men

This cross-post originally appeared at Fem Threads.
Allison didn’t last long, but managed to
throw something at Don on the way out.
Ed. Note: This post is part of FemThread’s “Mad Women” series. We also write about Joan, Peggy and Betty. Enjoy! –TC
It was a code of Don’s from the very first episode of Season One: Don’t get involved with your secretary. Your daughter’s schoolteacher, clients’ wives, clients themselves (hello, Rachel Mencken!)—these are all fine flings to have, but not the woman posted outside your office. Peggy Olson learned this right away. Jane Siegel was on every other Sterling Cooper male’s radar, yet Don baldly told Ken Cosgrove that he’d never so much as look at a new secretary until they’d managed to last a month on the job.
And then we got to Season Four.
It almost felt as though Matthew Weiner has been building to this story arc since S1E1. We had Peggy, the off-limits secretary who rose to copywriter and Draper protégé, fighting for respect at every turn. At the complete opposite end of the spectrum we had Jane, the seemingly off-limits secretary who flirted her way into the hearts of the boys, out of the good graces of Joan, and finally into the heart (well, sort of) and home of Roger Sterling.
In the characters of Allison and Megan, we see flashes of both Peggy and Jane—Secretary 2.0. Allison was shut out of the Jane path by Don—although Allison’s affection for Don was genuine and idealistic until after the Christmas party fiasco; she was never as calculatingly feminine as Jane. Following the humiliation of being treated essentially as an office prostitute by Don, Allison does her best to cope, remaining in touch with her own complicated feelings and emotions only to have them shot down by Peggy, who’s channeling her inner Draper. Realizing the damage she’s doing to herself staying in Don’s SCDP, Allison seizes control of her life and makes the move to the “women’s magazine.”
Jane seemed like she always wanted to end up here.
I’m not sure this decision got the attention it deserved. Peggy and Faye have thus far been the poster children for the women’s movement, while Allison was written as a bit of a weepy yes-sir type. For her, of all people, to break out of the mold and stand up to Don and his asshattery (hurling the most succinct condemnation ever at him in the process: “I don’t say this easily, but you’re not a good person!”) is quite something. Plus, she got to throw an ashtray and break things on her way out. Nice!
The departure of budding feminist Allison eventually (rest in peace, Miss Blankenship) brings us to Megan, the Montreal beauty with the unfortunate teeth (although truth be told, I never noticed anything awry with her teeth until a male friend of mine pointed it out). Megan, who is taking the Jane route while apparently wanting more to do with the Peggy route. Megan, who hasn’t yet seen Don at his worst (as Peggy and Allison have), and loves the man she thinks he is and could be—and yes, I do think she’s in love with him (at least, the version of him that she’s familiar with). She seemed to genuinely enjoy being part of his life on the California trip, but from that slight look of panic in her eyes when Don proposed, she also knew (unlike Don) that vacation is vacation and that once the trip ended things should have gone back to normal. After all, Megan had already flatly stated before their first tryst that she separates work and personal life.
What does the future have in store for Megan?
Only Season Five will tell.
How could she say no, though? She’ll have financial security and, doubtless, job security as well–I don’t think Megan will be a stay-at-home wife. She’ll be with a man she thinks she loves, and that she’s been interested in for an eternity. If it weren’t so utterly warped (poor Faye!), this story could be a fairy tale.
And for his part, Don Draper will be with a woman who’s great with kids (she likes being around children! How strange for a Mad Men character…), fluent in French, attentive to everything (the Clio thanks her), humble (self-deprecating to a fault, actually), young, attractive…frankly, Megan might be too good for Don. The power dynamic between the two is a bit uncomfortable to watch, and I’m not sure what will happen should Megan discover Don cheating on her (as you know he will).
But then, there’s always the chance that Megan is in fact the most calculating of all the aforementioned women, playing a part to the hilt to get exactly what she wants—in which case she’d be the female Don Draper. Season Five just got a lot more interesting.







Ivy Ashe is thrilled to have moved on to the world of blogging after spending the past several months finishing a master’s thesis. When not working as a photojournalist for the Martha’s Vineyard Gazette, she spends an inordinate amount of time mapping out road trips she will probably never take and keeping track of Boston sports teams. Ivy is currently on a quest to own a pair of pants in every color in the Crayola No. 24 box.

"Limit Your Exposure": Homosexuality in the Mad Men Universe



This post contains spoilers about the first four seasons of Mad Men.

1960s America saw its share of emerging social and political movements—the civil rights movement, second wave feminism and anti-Vietnam activism, just to name a few. And in June 1969, the modern gay liberation movement was born. The Stonewall riots resulted in gay people rushing out of the closets and into the streets in the hopes of gaining equal rights. For the first time, gay men and lesbians were able to express their attractions openly, build communities and mobilize activist efforts. None of the recent advances in LGBT equality would have happened over the last four decades were it not for the bravery and chutzpah of the Stonewall Inn’s patrons on that fateful summer evening in 1969.

Unfortunately, in the world of AMC’s Mad Men, it is still the first half of the decade. There was no gay liberation movement between 1960 and 1965, the years during which the first four seasons of the series take place. On the contrary, homosexuality was still considered a deviance by mainstream society and an illness by the medical community. There was certainly no such thing as gay pride—the great majority of closet doors were locked tightly. This makes it harder for Mad Men to address the experiences of gay people than to address those of women and people of color, as it’s a challenge for such a dialogue-driven character drama to address a topic that was rarely discussed openly. But that doesn’t mean that the effort isn’t made.

Despite the complete lack of visibility of gay people in the early 1960s, there is a surprisingly high amount of explicitly queer characters on Mad Men. Only one—Salvatore Romano, Sterling Cooper’s Art Director—is substantially developed, but a half dozen gay characters have passed through the Mad Men universe over the course of four seasons. All of the characters are unique, with distinct personalities and significantly different approaches to navigating same-sex desire in a hostile climate. And while Mad Men steers clear of making profound statements about the nature of gay identity in the 1960s, the characterizations it does present do have a few interesting things to say about gender identity and the ability to out oneself.

To discuss the depiction of homosexuality on Mad Men, one first needs to look at Salvatore. To the 21st century viewer, Sal reads undeniably as gay, yet no one at Sterling Cooper seems to notice this. Certainly, he isn’t out, nor does he intend to be. In season 1, he is a bachelor; in seasons 2 and 3, he is married to Kitty, a sweet and completely naïve woman who is either unaware or in denial of her husband’s internal struggles. Though Sal is an outwardly confident, charismatic and good-looking man, one who attracts the attention of men and women alike, he constantly lives in fear of his identity and the possibility that someone might discover it.

Salvatore and the bellboy

For the most part, the only people who catch on to Sal’s secret are other gay men. He is sexually propositioned by men on three separate occasions: by Elliott, a representative from Sterling Cooper client Belle Jolie Cosmetics; by an unnamed hotel bellboy in Baltimore; and by Lee Garner Jr., the owner of Lucky Strike, Sterling Cooper’s most lucrative account. Only in the case of the unnamed bellboy does Sal decide to give in to his desires. In that instance, he is with a man who he doesn’t know in a professional context, in a city he is only visiting for one night. The stakes are minimal, and his arousal is palpable, so when the bellboy leans in for a kiss in the privacy of Sal’s hotel room, he gives in. The scene is short—Sal is only granted a steamy make-out session and a crotch grab before the hotel fire alarm goes off— but it serves an important purpose. It is the only moment in the series when the audience is able to see Sal authentically satisfied. As the bellboy removes Sal’s clothing, a leak from an exploded pen is visible on Sal’s shirt—as blatant a symbol of unabashed excitement and premature ejaculation as one is likely to get past network censors. As the bellboy kisses and caresses his body, Sal emits heavy, hiccuped breaths and repeated moans of “Oh, God” and “Oh, Jesus.” The intense degree of passion he exhibits makes it clear to the viewer that this is his first sexual experience with a man. Though we never see Sal in an intimate situation with a man again, this scene represents a clear turning point in Sal’s comfort with his own identity.

A layer of complexity is added to Sal’s tryst when Don Draper, evacuating the hotel after the alarm blasts, runs down the fire escape, makes eye contact with Sal and notices the bellboy putting his clothes back on. Sal quickly looks away, ashamed and perhaps even scared of losing his job. Don doesn’t fire Sal on the spot, nor does he even directly broach the topic with him. Instead, he proposes a new campaign for London Fog raincoats that uses the slogan, “Limit Your Exposure.” When Don says this to Sal, his message is clear. And, ultimately, it becomes his undoing.

Lee Garner, Jr. propositions Sal

Sal’s interactions with Elliott and Lee are less fruitful than his night in Baltimore. In both instances, as soon as Sal realizes that he is being propositioned, his body tenses, a look of terror and sadness crosses his face and he declines the gesture. With Elliott, there are no consequences—Sal merely excuses himself from the bar where they had been sitting together. With Lee, though, the rejection costs Sal his job at Sterling Cooper. Lee’s proposition to Sal is abrupt, almost threatening; when Sal bristles at being grabbed around his chest, Lee just smiles and says, “I know what I know.” Still, Sal rejects the overture; embarrassed by the rejection, Lee sees to it that Sal is fired. He meets with Don to try to win back his job, appealing to the fact that Don knows his secret. But it doesn’t work because, in Don’s mind, Sal has violated the only piece of wisdom he was able to give him.

After Don fires Sal, we see him talking to Kitty from a phone booth, telling her not to wait up for him. We are to infer that Sal is going to go off on a night of cruising in the park, and this ultimately reads as more troubling than liberating. We know Sal has only had one sexual experience with a man before, and he certainly doesn’t have the language for discussing his sexual desires, let alone his identity. He is taking Don’s advice to limit his exposure, but at what cost? This is the last time we see Salvatore, and it’s an unsatisfying ending for such a beloved, complex character.

Joan and Carol

Though Sal is the gay character with which the audience spends the most time, the two (briefly appearing) lesbian characters are just as nuanced as he. Those characters are Carol, Joan Holloway’s roommate in season 1, and Joyce, Peggy Olsen’s friend at Life Magazine in season 4. Unlike the gay male characters, who, with one exception [i], only voluntarily come out to other gay men, Carol and Joyce both come out to straight women. Carol confesses her love for Joan in a beautiful monologue before they go out on the town for a night to meet men. As they dress and put on jewelry and make up, Carol confides in Joan, “I did everything I could to be near you, all with the hope that one day you’d notice me…Just think of me as a boy.” Joan pretends not to understand what Carol is talking about, and she gently brushes her words off. As hurtful as that may be for Carol, it’s certainly not as negative a response as it could have been, given the era. And it’s clear by Joan’s soft, attentive facial expressions and the look of compassion in her eyes that, even if she doesn’t acknowledge it, she appreciates what Carol is telling her. It may confuse her, but it doesn’t scare her, and she won’t let it change her relationship with Carol, someone who has been her friend for years. Though sad, there is a bit of sweetness in Joan’s rejection of Carol.

Joyce and Peggy

Joyce and Peggy have a similar, if far less dramatic, exchange. After meeting in the elevator of the building where they work (Joyce works for Life Magazine), Joyce visits Peggy at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce and invites her out to a party. At the party, Joyce kisses Peggy on the side of her face. Peggy giggles and backs away, leading her to tell Joyce that she has a boyfriend. Joyce responds, “He doesn’t own your vagina,” but Peggy counters, “No, but he’s renting it.” Joyce laughs—she takes this as a perfectly reasonable response, even if she did have designs on Peggy. Although Peggy rejects Joyce, it is not (or, at least, not directly) because she’s a woman. Peggy might very well be willing to reciprocate Joyce’s interest, but not while she’s in a relationship.

Both Carol and Joyce are able to say things to their straight love interests that Salvatore can’t say to his. In season 2, Sal develops a crush on Ken Cosgrove, going so far as to invite him for dinner in his home. Though he spends dinner hanging on to Ken’s every word and completely ignoring Kitty, Sal never dreams of explicitly coming out to Ken (or coming on to him). By contrast, Joyce is a blatant flirt. In addition to crushing on Peggy, she loiters by secretary Megan’s desk, chatting her up just like any of the men in the office would do. And during the season 4 finale, she visits Peggy’s office with another friend—a beautiful model named Carolyn. Though they aren’t a couple, Joyce and Carolyn have a definite butch/femme dynamic, as evidenced by the way they sit together and the way Joyce chivalrously puts her arm around her. It doesn’t matter to Joyce if it’s obvious what she’s doing— she is self-confident enough to own her sexuality, even if it isn’t socially acceptable for her to do so. Joyce hasn’t been a part of Mad Men for very long, and I certainly hope she’s back in season 5, continuing to make straight women blush wherever she goes.

It remains to be seen how far into the 1960s Mad Men will travel. Perhaps it will go all the way through 1969. Perhaps we will see a Stonewall episode, in which Peggy and Joyce are caught up in the riots, and Peggy sees Sal with another man somewhere in the crowd. Perhaps we’ll see less gay content, and homosexuality will take a backseat to other social issues, particularly as the Vietnam War heats up. But if the first four seasons are any indication, we’ll continue to see gay characters pop up every now and again, and while their full political and social histories may not be documented, we will continue to see the ways in which they limit—or, in some cases, enhance—their exposure.

[i] That character is Kurt, a member of Sterling Cooper’s art department during season 2. The scene in which he comes out in front of the likes of Ken Cosgrove and Harry Crane is rather funny, but due to space constraints I won’t get into it here.

Carrie Nelson has previously written about Precious, Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire and The Social Network for Bitch Flicks. She is a Founder and Editor of Gender Across Borders and works as a grant writer for an LGBT nonprofit organization in NYC. Her favorite Mad Men character is Sally Draper.

Mad Men and Sexual Harassment

This cross-post originally appeared at The Sociological Cinema

Click here for video

Summary:  Cultural Anthropologist, William M. O’Barr (2010), notes of the popular television show, Mad Men, “[It] is a world of heterosexual, white, male privilege.” O’Barr further observes that “Gender displays recur. The social structure of the office—men in professional positions, women as their assistants—rings true of pre-Feminist Movement America in the 1960s. Every woman is either a Jackie or a Marilyn and every man wants them both—or at least most of the men. The admen direct the lives of women, not just those in the agency, but those in the entire society. It is a world in which men are dominant and women are subordinate and sexualized.” O’Barr draws on a number of clips to make his argument, but one in particular (Season 1, Episode 12, “Nixon Vs Kennedy”) struck me as a useful supplement to a discussion on sexual harassment. The clip features an adman chasing and wrestling a woman to the ground during an office party. Pinning the woman to the floor, he demands to see the color of her panties. The scene is a relatively unambiguous example of sexual harassment, but students might object that the woman who was tackled seems to be participating and even laughing. Here, it might be helpful to note the two women in the clip who were uncomfortably observing the incident and to encourage students to think about sexual harassment as a form of gender discrimination, which creates an unequal work environment for all women. Irrespective of the tackled woman’s outward expression, the incident clearly reinforced for everyone the ideas that women in the ad office are first and foremost valued for their capacity to sexually titillate, and they can be made to submit to the demands of their male colleagues.

Submitted By: Lester Andrist

Mad Men Week: Mad Motherhood

I used to think that I would be the type of mother like Claire Huxtable from The Cosby Show. Calm and together. Beautiful and smart. Making time for a fulfilling career and still having an impromptu musical number complete with costumes in order to illustrate an important life lesson. If my life were a musical I would feel more like Miss Hannagan from Annie. Everything around me is little…

I would like to think that I will never be like Betty Draper from Mad Men. We look at her through our take on modern feminism and feel bad for her. Poor bored Betty. Thank God that we have all been liberated from only having such choices. Betty Draper going to therapy because she can’t talk to anyone about how trapped she feels. How alone. How bored and guilty she feels about the role she has no choice about in her own life. Everything from the way the birth is treated to daily choices within the home. The constant undercurrent is that of limited choices. This is not an antiquated idea. As a mother, I know how it feels some days to count the hours until bedtime. Or to not be able to wait until my husband takes two steps in the door before I am telling him about the terrors our offspring have been that day. Yes, like Betty Draper I relish having a glass of red wine at the end of the day and talking to my friends. Other mothers and caregivers in the trenches with me.

Is that why we feel bad for Betty Draper? Because we know someone like her? Our own mothers? A sister? A friend? Or does she hit a little too close to home for some of us? It is the judgment of her that I have to wrestle with. Poor Pampered Betty Draper. A housewife with a maid and nothing to fill her days but shopping. High class problems indeed. Instead of dumping our kids in front of the black and white TV with three channels, we now have the Wii in monster 65-inch color, surround-sound, high definition. Is spending hours on Etsy so much different than at the department store? Hiding from our children. Hiding from who we are. Betty being so afraid of her own sexuality that her daughter ends up in therapy for “playing with herself.” I am sure all of us have had to confront some issue with our children that we have never anticipated. “Did you really just wipe boogers on the wall?” “Is that a fish stick under your pillow?” “No, I don’t know why trees don’t talk back.”

Parts of my life are not that different from what I can imagine for a 1950s or 60s housewife. Yes I am from the Midwest. Yes I got married at 20. Yes I was pregnant at said event. I still do laundry almost every day. I still wash dishes. For the most part, I have stayed home with my children. But I like being with my kids. I like who they are. I enjoy just being with them and seeing them discover how to navigate this world. The difference now is that so does my husband. He makes more dinners than I do. It is the expectations that are different. Not the reality. I think he would fear for his life if he came home and demanded his dinner. Our house will NEVER be as clean as the Drapers’. We don’t have a maid. We can’t afford it. The choices we have made allow me to stay home. Would we be more financially secure if we had two incomes, of course. Are there mothers out there who do not have this option, absolutely. But more and more I realize that it is other women who are our greatest obstacles. No matter what a woman’s choice is, it should be supported as valid by other women. Too frequently it is not. Working mothers think that stay-at-home-mothers are lazy or spoiled, and stay-at-home-mothers think that working moms are selfish or should be riddled with guilt.

Women are our own worst enemies. Inside our own heads and out. We hear our mothers, our friends. We feel judged as mothers from the time we discover we are pregnant. Keep the baby, or not? Home birth? Water birth? C-section? You will be judged. Breastfeed? Co-sleep? Crib? You will be judged. Vaccinate? Circumcise? You will be judged. Cloth diapers or disposable, home school, or public. You will be judged. Having these choices to begin with is what we should be thankful for. I get it. But that is only half of the equation. Having choices has to be balanced with having the freedom to get to be happy with the consequences of that choice. As Don Draper put it, “If you don’t like what is being said, then change the conversation.”

Look at Peggy. Was it her choice to have a baby? Was it her choice to give it up? Was she allowed to be, if not happy, at least at peace with her decision? She was pushing so hard against the idea of being a woman that she ignored the ultimate difference between men and women: our ability to give birth. Her birth experience was glossed over and not unlike Betty’s out-of-consciousness birth, we are left amazed. We have all known someone whose birth did not go as planned. A home birth that was transferred, or a vaginal birth that had to be a c-section. Women carry around those scars, physical and emotional, for the rest of their lives.

Then Joan. We all want to be more like Joan. She is much easier to take. More modern. Career woman. Waiting until her 30s to get married. Even her physical appearance is more realistic than teeny Betty Draper. But even with all of those curves, she has chosen to be childless. With all of that sex, and two “procedures,” she is still living on her own terms. Fertile. Ready for anything. Her femininity a blatant contrast to all of the men around her.

The female characters of Mad Men bring up feelings for everyone who sees them … either we envy or pity them. Or both. But until we realize that either emotion has validity and is mirroring something about our own mothering, history is bound to repeat itself. Women need to strive to respect one another and support one another. Only then can we feel less isolated like all of the women in the show. Then we can show our children that we are the mothers they want us to be.


Olivia London-Webb writes for herself as therapy. When not writing she likes to cook, drink, stare at art, and chase her children.