Women, Professional Ambition, and ‘Grey’s Anatomy’

It is the overwhelming drive for excellence that makes the women on the show so real. It sometimes feels that this kind of ambition is not allowed to exist on TV. Sure, women can have high-powered careers and be very successful. But this is different. This is a show that not just portrays ambitious women, but is actively about professionally ambitious women and how they relate to each other and society.

"Grey's Anatomy" Poster
Grey’s Anatomy poster

 

This guest post by Erin K. O’Neill appears as part of our theme week on Women and Work/Labor Issues.

Let’s talk about women and professional ambition.

But first, let’s talk about our first impression of Meredith Grey.

Grey’s Anatomy opens with a montage of surgery with a voice over talking about how it’s all called “The Game.” And then, it smashes into Meredith Grey, wrapped in a blanket, sneaking away from a man she very clearly had sex with the night before. And what does she tell him?

“Look, I’m gonna go upstairs and take a shower, OK? And when I get back down here, you won’t be here.”

She’s late for her first day of work and has the small problem of having to kick a man out of her house.

And herein lies the fascinating and symbiotic relationship between the soapy plotlines and genuine examination of female professional ambition in Grey’s Anatomy. There’s lots of sex, lots of absolutely crazy medical cases and an unlikely amount of death, and a bunch of personal relationships that get so improbable that they could break the laws of physics. And yet the show somehow manages to stay grounded in one thing: Meredith, Cristina, Izzie, Bailey, Ellis, Callie, Addison, Lexie, Teddy, April, Erica, Arizona, Jo and just about every other female character on the show are all hell-bent on being great surgeons.

And not just great surgeons. The greatest surgeons.

Cristina and the "heart box"
Cristina and the “heart box”

 

It is the overwhelming drive for excellence that makes the women on the show so real. It sometimes feels that this kind of ambition is not allowed to exist on TV. Sure, women can have high-powered careers and be very successful. But this is different. This is a show that not just portrays ambitious women, but is actively about professionally ambitious women and how they relate to each other and society.

“It’s like candy! But with blood! Which is so much better.”

There is a constant emphasis on winning. Winning the chance to do the best surgery, to get to treat the most interesting or dangerous injury. Everything from diagnosing rare diseases to eating a pile of hotdogs is an intense competition. Being the best, of anything and everything, is built into the fabric of the show’s narrative.

Cristina Yang is the obvious exemplar of this. She eats the giant pile of hot dogs the fastest. She hip checks Izzie on the way to a surgery so she gets there first. She graduated first in her class from Stanford’s medical school. She’s aggressive, abrasive, hostile, and she packs tequila in her bug-out bag. She is obsessive. She is driven.

And no one calls her less of a woman for that.

Cristina Yang
Cristina Yang

 

There are few shows that would let a female character, much less a married woman, have an abortion because her life plan is not to be a mother, but to be the best cardiothoracic surgeon in the world. Cristina knows she has no desire to have children, and while this eventually breaks up her marriage, she is conscious of doing the right thing by her own desires as well as her partner’s.

“You will be the surgeon of your generation,” Dr. Thomas (the former Mr. Feeney!) tells Cristina. “I knew it as soon as I met you. People will try to diminish you as they did me, but they will fail.”

“You are my person.”

Meredith Grey and Cristina Yang are best friends: the “Twisted Sisters.” They prioritize their friendship and each other over all other relationships — which is certainly saying something, considering that much of the non-career-related shenanigans that drive the emotional component to the show. Meredith was the first person Cristina told when she was pregnant, both times, and Meredith told Cristina about her post-it wedding to McDreamy before anyone else. Cristina needed Meredith to literally come back to life after drowning so she could tell her about her engagement. They ditch their romantic partners to motivate and support each other.

Their relationship is the most important relationship in the show because both women define themselves as surgeons first. The romantic entanglements, as distracting as they may seem, are secondary to their respective identities. For all the “pick me, choose me, love me” going on, the prominence and importance of Meredith and Cristina’s indicates that their professional ambitions are valid, and worthy life choices that deserve validation and realization.

“Happy Thanksgiving.”

There’s a great episode in season two, “Thanks for the Memories,” wherein Dr. Miranda Bailey — the no-nonsense, hard-core, and most-skilled resident on staff — runs circles around a visiting attending surgeon who believes the hot-shot resident with a stellar rep and called The Nazi is a man. Skillfully playing this assumption against him, Bailey scores herself all the fun, juicy trauma surgeries for herself while relegating the sexist attending to sutures in the ER.

Miranda Bailey
Miranda Bailey

 

This episode deliberately acknowledges and then knocks down the stereotypes that can keep women from succeeding and excelling in the workplace.

“Pretty good is not enough. I want to be great.”

Meredith’s mother, Dr. Ellis Grey, was one of the greatest general surgeons of all time until she gets Alzheimer’s. Dr. Addison Montgomery Shepherd is a world-class neonatal surgeon, who in her first appearance describes herself as one of few surgeons who can separate fetal blood vessels. Dr. Callie Torres gets tapped to give a TED talk. Dr. Miranda Bailey almost single-handedly rallies support and opens a free clinic at the hospital.

Here’s the really cool thing about Grey’s Anatomy: these are women who succeed. They’re smart, and driven, and willing to suture bananas until they get the sutures right. And they grow and succeed. They pass their exams. They study and learn complicated procedures. They fail, a lot. It’s 10 seasons later, and the women who entered as interns are now attendings and fellows who do cutting-edge research and achieving the excellence that they have striven for.

They mentor and teach each other — the show made a point in the early seasons of having Bailey, Callie and Addison, among others, in positions of power and mentorship. And, as seasons go on, the students become teachers themselves and start the cycle over again. Later in the series, when Meredith and Derek adopt Zola, Callie tells Meredith not to feel guilty for going to work and being away from her child, since it’s good for Zola to see her mother work and be successful. And Bailey, who was Meredith’s supervising resident when Meredith, Cristina and the gang were interns, gives Meredith a list of her babysitters. This is how women support each other in the workplace.

Meredith & Cristina coo over Zola
Meredith and Cristina coo over Zola

 

“We screw boys like whores on tequila.”

Grey’s Anatomy has its detractors. And sure, it’s soapy and not all that realistic about how a hospital actually works. But it takes ambition seriously, making the professional ambition of its female characters the driving narrative force and is massively successful and at one point even the center of the zeitgeist. Even though the show is more well-known for its love triangles and melodramatic disasters and tragedies, it is deserving of consideration for its advancement of the idea that women can choose to be devoted and defined by their professional success.

 


Erin K. O’Neill is an award-winning writer, photographer, visual editor, and web editor currently located in Schenectady, New York. A devotee of literature, photography, existentialism, and all things Australian, Erin also watches too much television on DVD and Netflix. Follow her on Twitter, @ekoneill.

In ‘Clue,’ the Real Mystery Is the Bechdel Test

On any dark and stormy night in the fall, it is a wonderful thing to curl up with a mug of mulled cider and watch Clue. The murder mystery based on the eponymous board game may have been a huge flop when it was released in 1985, but it has gained a passionate cult following in the last 28 years, probably due to its infinitely quotable dialogue and gleeful disregard for the pile of bodies amassed as the movie progresses – as well as being shown on cable about once every two hours.

Movie poster for Clue
Movie poster for Clue

 

This guest post by Erin K. O’Neill appears as part of our theme week on Cult Films and B Movies.

Six strangers gather in a New England mansion for a mysterious dinner party. It is revealed that their host is blackmailing them all, but then the tale darkens. First the host is murdered, and then the cook and the maid – and to make a long story short…

Too late!

On any dark and stormy night in the fall, it is a wonderful thing to curl up with a mug of mulled cider and watch Clue. The murder mystery based on the eponymous board game may have been a huge flop when it was released in 1985, but it has gained a passionate cult following in the last 28 years, probably due to its infinitely quotable dialogue and gleeful disregard for the pile of bodies amassed as the movie progresses – as well as being shown on cable about once every two hours.

Mrs. Peacock
Mrs. Peacock

 

I seriously love Clue. It’s my favorite board game and one of my favorite movies, and has been since one of my friends sat me down and made me watch it one Halloween a long time ago. It’s bawdy and brash and downright hilarious, especially if you have a taste for farcical whodunits.

But: Does it pass the Bechdel Test?

  • It has to have at least two named women in it,
  • who talk to each other,
  • about something besides a man.

 

In order to help you understand whether or not Clue passes the Bechdel Test, I shall need to take you through the criteria of the test, step by step.

1. Does the movie have two named women in it?

There are five women characters who have names in Clue.

  • Mrs. Peacock, the hysterical senator’s wife.
  • Mrs. White, the widow of a nuclear physicist.
  • Miss Scarlett, Madam of a Washington D.C. brothel.
  • Yvette, the maid and Miss Scarlett’s former employee.
  • Mrs. Ho, the cook. While being listed in the credits as “The Cook,” in one of the first scenes in the movie Wadsworth calls her by her name.

 

In fact, in the entire movie only one female character doesn’t have a name, and that’s the Singing Telegram Girl.

And so, Clue passes the first step in the Bechdel Test.

2. Do these women talk to each other?

Absolutely. Clue is an ensemble movie with a mile-a-minute dialogue – and more one-liners than I care to count. So, here are a few of my favorite exchanges:


Miss Scarlet: Maybe there is life after death.

Mrs. White: Life after death is as improbable as sex after marriage!


Mrs. White: Maybe he wasn’t dead.

Professor Plum: He was!

Mrs. White: We should’ve made sure.

Mrs. Peacock: How? By cutting his head off, I suppose.

Mrs. White: That was uncalled for!


Miss Scarlet: What was he like?

Mrs. White: He was always a rather stupidly optimistic man. I mean, I’m afraid it came as a great shock to him when he died, but, he was found dead at home. His head had been cut off, and so had his, uh… you *know.*

[Colonel Mustard, Professor Plum, and Mr. Green cross legs]

Mrs. White: I had been out all evening at the movies.

Miss Scarlet: Do you miss him?

Mrs. White: Well, it’s a matter of life after death. Now that he’s dead, I have a life.


And so, Clue passes the second step in the Bechdel Test.

Miss Scarlett
Miss Scarlett

 

3. Do the women talk to each other about something besides a man?

The third leg of the Bechdel Test is often the one movies fail – while there are often women characters, how often do they not speak of men? And Clue has some integral issues with the plot and structure that would make it difficult to pass this leg of the test.

For one, the movie is an ensemble with a male butler at the center. Wadsworth, throughout the film, controls the action and guides the other players through the plot – he holds all the cards and asks all the questions. Furthermore, it’s a murder mystery where the first and most crucial victim, Mr. Boddy, is a man. Much of the dialogue, even if it’s about murder, is about a man.

And finally, Mrs. Peacock, Mrs. White and Miss Scarlett are all being blackmailed for actions that entirely have to do with men: Mrs. Peacock for accepting bribes for her husband’s senate vote; Mrs. White for allegedly killing her husband (and possibly at least one of her previous husbands too); and Miss Scarlett for running a house of ill repute that caters to men. This means that even when the women are discussing their histories and their motivations, the topic of conversation is men.

Flames-Side-Of-Face

In the dinner scene, Mrs. Peacock tries to start conversation by asking the other women about their husbands and asking the men about their careers. It’s a telling moment, which could perhaps be forgiven by the film’s setting in 1954, which reveals how narrow topics of conversation for women can be. Even in 1954, they could have discussed Abstract Expressionism, or thematically, the McCarthy hearings on the House Committee of Un-American Activities. After all, communism is just a red herring.

I’ve seen Clue, well, let’s just say a lot. And, I had to rewatch the film three times but also scour a copy of the shooting script to find any dialogue where two women talk about something besides a man. As far as I can tell, it happened twice:


Miss Scarlett: Would you like to see these Yvette? They might shock you.

Yvette: No, thank you. I am a lady.

Miss Scarlett: And how do you know what sort of pictures they are if you’re such a lady?


Mrs. Peacock: Uh, is there a little girl’s room in the hall?

Yvette: Oui oui, Madame.

[points]

Mrs. Peacock: No, I just want to powder my nose.


Yep. The second instance is a pun on peeing.

Yvette
Yvette

 

Are these two, three-line exchanges enough to pass the Bechdel Test? There appears to be much debate about this leg of the test. Some critics claim that in order to pass, the women must speak to each other for more than 60 seconds, or that there must be some depth to the conversations. Since the original comic makes no such distinction and states that the two women must simply talk to each other about non-men related topics, I would argue that their two bits of dialogue meet the criteria.

And so, Clue passes the third step in the Bechdel Test, by the skin of its teeth.

 


Erin K. O’Neill is an award-winning writer, photographer, and visual editor currently located in her hometown of Ann Arbor, Michigan. A devotee of literature, photography, existentialism, and all things Australian, Erin also watches too much television on DVD and Netflix. Follow her on Twitter, @ekoneill.

 

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Week: Buffy Kicks Ass

Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar) in Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Guest post written by Erin K. O’Neill originally published at FemThreads. Cross-posted with permission.
“We saved the world, I say we party. I mean, I got all pretty.” ~ Buffy Summers

“Yes, date. And shop and hang out and go to school and save the world from unspeakable demons. You know, I wanna do girlie stuff.” ~ Buffy Summers

Let us now discuss the epic feminist awesomeness that is Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is exactly what it sounds like: A girl, named Buffy Summers, slays vampires and demons and wages war against evil supernatural forces. The major complicating factor? She’s a blonde, fashion-and-boy-obsessed California high school student who becomes a social outcast because of her secret identity and nighttime activities.

But first, a short personal history lesson:

One fall night in sixth grade, my B.F.F. Marcella came over after swim practice. She made a big stink about watching Buffy that night, since it was the second season premiere. I was reluctant to watch, as up to that point fantasy/horror hybrids were really not my thing (I was still in a lengthy L.M. Montgomery phase). However, Marcella sat my ass down and made me watch it. It was love at first (I’m so sorry) … bite.

In middle school Marcella and I used Buffy to cement our friendship. It held through attending separate high schools and my yearlong absence while I was an exchange student in Australia. We religiously analyzed last night’s Buffy episode every Wednesday at lunch. I had a buff-colored kitten named Buffy, and Marcella had a black kitten named Angel (after Buffy’s vampire-with-a-soul boyfriend). Marcella got all the DVDs as soon as they came out, and we would often soothe our teenage angst (break-ups, placing badly in the state water polo tournament, rejection by our first-choice colleges, etc.) with mochas and Buffy marathons. It became a common language of cultural and fashion references that were always fodder for conversation (and often girlish shrieking). When our other commonalities fell away as we grew up and away from each other,
Buffy kept us together.

But I digress.

Buffy created by Joss Whedon

The coolest thing about Buffy is that creator Joss Whedon conceptualized the show as a deliberate inversion of horror movie clichés. In traditional horror, when the girl wanders into a dark ally the audience expects her to meet a horrible fate. On Buffy, the girl hunts the monster in that ally, and then fights and defeats it. Whedon purposely created the show as a way to subvert and redefine the audience’s expectations about women.

The show layered this feminist perspective upon a strong tradition of high school and coming-of-age-stories in American pop culture. “In Buffy‘s world, by contrast, the problems teenagers face become literal monsters,” Rhonda Wilcox wrote in an essay in the Journal of Popular Film and Television. “Internet  predators are demons; drink-doctoring frat boys have sold their souls for success in the business world; a girl who has sex with even the nicest-seeming male discovers that he afterwards becomes a monster.”

There is a lot of scholarly research and criticism of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. There’s a Wikipedia page dedicated to “Buffy Studies.” There’s even an academic journal called Slayage: The Journal of the Whedon Studies Association. No, I’m not kidding. The show has become a bit of a zeitgeist for feminist criticism, in particular for scholars interested in Third Wave Feminism.

And then, of course, Buffy kicked a lot of ass. A very serious amount of ass. Over the course of the show’s seven television seasons, she averted multiple apocalypses. She punned and killed all very large monsters and vampires that she came across. She added clever insult to injury. She never apologized for not being a dumb, weak girl. And it was very physical — in the canon of the show, a Slayer is given extra-human powers of strength, speed and agility. She was a fashionable girl’s girl, and she slayed creatures that go bump in the night. It was Girl Power at its late-1990s peak and taken to an excellent extreme.

Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar)

Buffy deals with homework, dating and a single mother who’s just a bit clueless. Despite being labeled a loser, she navigates the social hierarchy of high school with her friends who assist in her fight against the undead. She goes through the many painful stages of sexual initiation and maturity. She fights the good fight of college admission, and later the decision to drop out of school when her mother dies and she must take care of a younger sister. She makes mistakes, and fails sometimes. While Buffy’s circumstances were different, they embodied situations and emotions I often felt as an adolescent trying to make my own way.

Buffy was not just a warrior, but a leader. Less than half way through the series, she quit taking orders from the Watcher’s Council, an ancient group of British people who identify and train the Slayer, and decides to go it alone with her friends. While Buffy defers research to her Watcher (who was fired from the Council) and friends Willow and Xander, she is the member of the darkness-battling team that makes, coordinates and executes the final plan. She essentially becomes the general of a guerrilla army, which becomes a more and more literal role as the series progresses.

Buffy is a hero. She has a destiny. She fought and died (twice). She saved the world a lot. And yet, the show wasn’t really about Buffy’s sacred duty to fight things that go bump in the night. It was, at it’s core, about how to deal with and survive the pressures of being a young woman in American society.

Buffy

And, hot damn, the girl looked good doing it. In the tradition of WB teen show characters dressing like they had unlimited budgets and stylists, Buffy had the BEST clothes. Well, for 1997-1999, she had the BEST clothes. If there was ever a fashion icon Marcella and I strove to emulate, it was Buffy. Her very short skirts, leather pants, spaghetti strap tank tops and platform boots were the holy grail of sartorial achievement in middle school (mostly because we had to fight our mothers to be allowed to leave the house dressed in them). Buffy rocked super-feminine styles tempered by leather, denim and practical pieces. While most of her wardrobe is horrifying in retrospect, there are still a few items I’d wear and rock the shit out of today.

In the first season finale, Buffy accessorizes a white satin and chiffon prom dress with a black leather jacket and a crossbow. Fashion doesn’t get more bad-ass than that.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a concept that could and did go terribly wrong. Its first incarnation, a 1992 movie of the same name, is awful. Yet the film showed signs of brilliance nonetheless. The TV show rectified all the problems of the movie, by making the fictional universe and characters deeper, wider, darker and much more interesting. The show wouldn’t have been such a phenomenon if it were crap. It really is excellent television on all levels. The writing was clever and intelligent without being preachy, the characters were real, and the action was fantastic. It is really fun to watch. Joss Whedon is a singular talent—he really can do no wrong. He loves super-powered women, and that shows in all aspects of his storytelling.

Looking back, I honestly believe that Buffy had a profound effect on my own development as a feminist thinker. At the time, I was just watching a cool show with fun dialogue, tragic romance and drool-worthy shoes. But I internalized a lot of the subtext and it helped shaped how I view modern womanhood: A girl can kick ass, and look pretty doing it.


Erin K. O’Neill is an award-winning writer, photographer, visual editor, and digital marketing professional currently located in her hometown of Ann Arbor, Michigan. A devotee of literature, photography, existentialism, and all things Australian, Erin also watches too much television on DVD and Netflix. Follow her on Twitter, @ekoneill.