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“And That’s the Truth”: The Talent and Comedic Timeliness of Lily Tomlin

I owe a great debt to Tomlin for helping me discover comedy, for helping shape my sense of humor, and for helping me define a sense of identity that might not have ever emerged without her. How can anyone argue that women aren’t funny, when my sole entire reason for making people laugh was inspired by a (funny) woman?

This is a guest post by Kyle Sanders.

At this year’s annual Golden Globes, Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin presented the award for Best Actor in a Comedy or Musical Series. While it was nice to see the stars of one of the best comedies ever made, 9 to 5, it was also exciting to see these two talented actresses reunite on stage in what was of course a quick promotion for their soon-to-debut Netflix series, Grace and Frankie. But what was most notable was the tongue-in-cheek banter they had on stage, discussing how “nice” it was to finally put at rest the “negative stereotype” that men aren’t funny. Of course, it is not exactly true that men have never been funny, but for some reason it has always been heavily debated whether or not women are funny. What I found most ironic was the fact that Tomlin led this conversation, because of all the talented comics out there—male or female—I have always regarded her as my greatest (and funniest) comedic muse.

It is no secret within my social circle that I am absolutely bananas over Lily Tomlin, and from an early age to boot. While I was in grade school, I was introduced to Tomlin from a Laugh-In reunion special that aired in the early ’90s and upon being exposed to her widely popular Ernestine the telephone operator and Edith Ann characters, I found Tomlin’s comedic creations imitable. From that moment, I was hooked. Back before the days of IMDb, I would spend hours in a video rental store, searching through the “Comedy” section for her name or her face on a VHS sleeve (remember those?). It wasn’t before long that I found a “best of” compilation of a little sketch comedy show called Saturday Night Live that featured two of Tomlin’s hosting stints. This newfound discovery of nostalgic humor led me to my first love of comedy. To put it simply: I owe my adoration of sketch comedy and my obsession with SNL to Lily Tomlin. Because of Tomlin, I found the courage to move to the land of improv, Chicago, in the hopes of performing sketch comedy and turn it into a career. Ya hear that? A woman—a FUNNY woman—inspired me to find a career in making people laugh.

And why not? Lily Tomlin is one our most premier comediennes as of all time. Hell, The Laugh Factory includes an artist’s rendering of her among many of the greatest comedians who ever lived. Why we are even still debating this “women are/aren’t funny” theory is beyond my own belief, because as an aspiring comedic performer, I have always touted Tomlin as one of the greats.

First and foremost, Tomlin revolutionized comedy for women. Before Tomlin, most female comics were self-deprecating (Phyllis Diller) or performed material regarding marriage and children (Joan Rivers). Tomlin’s turn in the spotlight did away with joke-telling and produced sketch comedy acts involving a variety of characters inspired by people she had known while growing up in the diverse, blue-collar environment of Detroit. Tomlin’s act embraced the counterculture of the 1960s, during the time of the civil rights movement and the sexual revolution. Gender dynamics were changing, and Tomlin was at the forefront of the women’s lib movement in comedy. She performed material that focused on the working class and the poor, material that required an edgy intelligence that did not go for punch lines or cheap laughs. She certainly didn’t limit her comedy to material about her looks or motherhood or married life—though her sketches didn’t shy away from such matters either. Tomlin was not a standup-comic, but a cerebral comedic performer.

Tomlin’s talent for creating eccentric, offbeat characters landed her a spot on NBC’s Laugh-In, and her prolific career took off overnight. Some of her most beloved characters came about on this variety show, including Ernestine, a snorting, nasally-voiced telephone operator who controlled the phone lines with her sharp tongue and smart-alecky insults. She also gave us Edith Ann, a philosophizing seven-year-old who sat in an oversized rocking chair spouting off words of wisdom while sticking out her tongue. Tomlin’s knack for producing dozens of three dimensional characters would eventually provide her enough material for her own television specials, of which landed her several Emmy awards. These specials reflected the changing times involving racial and gender politics, material that did not involve a lot of punch lines or pratfalls but certainly served as intelligent yet controversial material that not even Louis CK or Chris Rock would have the balls to produce back in the day (and if anyone can track down these specials in DVD format, please let me know!). I would even say Tomlin should be given credit for introducing comedian Richard Pryor (whom collaborated with Tomlin on a few of these specials) to the mainstream when most producers were too scared to let Pryor have any air time. Tomlin was an underground comic almost too dangerous to showcase amid the still-shrewd comedy scene of the 1970s.

Throughout the ’80s, Tomlin starred in films that showcased multidimensional females that could lead to strong box office returns. She has always chosen roles that project a strong persona, never submissive to authority let alone a male figure. Tomlin’s characters are in essence Tomlin herself: offbeat, eccentric, but always strong and independent. Tomlin proved she could stand toe-to-toe with comedy legends like Art Carney in The Late Show. She had a physicality that could keep up with the comedic ferocity of Steve Martin in All of Me (and possess his body no less!). Tomlin’s strong sense of humor and femininity also proved successful alongside other actresses, sharing the screen as well as countless laughs. In 9 to 5, Tomlin’s Violet Newstead is one of three women who take down their “sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical” male boss, Franklin Hart. Violet delivers a speech of disgust towards Hart that’s one of Tomlin’s most pivotal moments in her acting career:

“Okay, okay, I’m gonna leave, but I’m gonna tell you one thing before I go: don’t you ever refer to me as ‘your girl’ again…I’m no girl, I’m a woman. Do you hear me? I’m not your wife or your mother—or even your mistress. I am your employee and as such I expect to be treated equally with a little dignity and a little respect!”

Violet’s demand for equality was a calling that every working woman heard loud and clear, and with the chemistry between Tomlin, Jane Fonda, and Dolly Parton, women AND men came to the movie theaters in droves, paving the way for comedic actresses in film that proved female-driven comedies could bring the masses to the box office. Without Tomlin’s collaborative talent in 9 to 5, there would be no Outrageous Fortune, no Big Business (another Tomlin film—this time paired up with the Divine Miss M, Bette Midler), no Baby Mama, Bridesmaids, or The Heat.

Even as an older actress in today’s Hollywood—when most “women of a certain age” are relayed to playing mothers—Tomlin has never been one to play a matriarch as paper thin. She portrayed Mary Schlicting, Ben Stiller’s mother in Flirting with Disaster, as a post-’60s hippie living in a ’90s world and still producing LSD. In Eastbound & Down, her Tammy Powers character was a bowling champion that could spout out more profanity than Danny McBride’s Kenny Powers while exchanging pharmaceutical drugs. In Admission, her Susannah character is a highly renowned feminist author who nearly kills Tina Fey’s date with a shot gun. In Web Therapy, her Putsy Hodge dons an array of costumes, from a fu Manchu beard to a prisoner jumpsuit, to the annoyance of her daughter Fiona, as played by Lisa Kudrow. These performances certainly don’t read as “motherly matriarch,” but as performed by Tomlin, they certainly scream “hilarious.”

With her new comedy, Grace and Frankie, Tomlin proves again how relevant and hilarious her talents still are in a series co-starring Jane Fonda involving two older women whose husbands come out as gay and have fallen in love with each other. For Netflix to add a comedy series (from Friends co-creator Marta Kauffman I might add) about two older women beginning anew, it proves that the old adage of women not being funny is untrue, and with Tomlin in tow, this comedy series will no doubt succeed in continuing to prove that theory wrong.

Late last year, Tomlin was awarded a Kennedy Center Honor for her contribution to the American arts. As one of Tomlin’s biggest fans, I had been petitioning for this recognition for years. Yet the moment was bittersweet, because while this was certainly good news for one of my favorite all-time idols, the fact was I would not be there to salute her at the event. One of my career goals in life was to speak on Tomlin’s behalf at the Kennedy Center. Tomlin and I have a few similarities: we both have southern roots planted in Kentucky, we both have an eye and ear for characterizations and impressions, and we both happen to be gay (in fact, Tomlin became the first outed lesbian to received the Kennedy Center honor in its entire history). I owe a great debt to Tomlin for helping me discover comedy, for helping shape my sense of humor, and for helping me define a sense of identity that might not have ever emerged without her. How can anyone argue that women aren’t funny, when my sole entire reason for making people laugh was inspired by a (funny) woman? Women may not have always been considered funny, but thanks to Tomlin’s efforts, women (as well as men) have reason to be funny.

Kyle Sanders lives in Chicago and plans to take improv classes at the Improv Olympic (as soon as his rent gets paid). In the meantime he occasionally contributes to NewsCastic: Chicago and GiGa Geek Magazine among other blogs that deem his thoughts worthy.

‘House of Cards’ Season 3: There’s Only One Seat in the Oval Office

“I’ve been in the passenger seat for decades. It’s time for me to get behind the wheel.”

Walking side by side in this season 3 promo still.

Written by Leigh Kolb.

Season 3 Spoilers Ahead!

Season 3 of House of Cards, released Feb. 27 on Netflix, ends abruptly, as we dangle on the edge.

As Claire gives her blood in Iowa–literally for the Red Cross for a nice photo op and figuratively for Frank’s career–she gets lightheaded, and tells their biographer that she thinks about jumping of a bridge. Before she passes out, she tells him that when Frank proposed, she’d told him that “every seven years, if it’s still good enough,” they’d stay married for another seven years before reassessing the marriage.

They’ve been married for 28 years. And it’s time to take stock of the partnership, which has been feeling less and less like a marriage of equals. There’s only one seat in the Oval Office, after all.

Season 3, at its core, is about a series of clashes. Not only are the Underwoods clashing, but so also are countries, special interests, and air and water temperatures. These clashes of powers and contrasts of ideologies can be violent, but season 3 is less shocking, less violent, less sexy, than seasons past. Frank and Claire Underwood were maneuvering and clawing their ways to the top, but now they’re there. Or at least, Frank’s there. Season 3 concerns the delicate and perhaps less passionate dance of staying at the top, when the only place you have to go is down.

Because of this, Frank and Claire seem decidedly less evil than they have in the first two seasons. All of the characters are complex and none is simply good or evil–the show has always been excellent that way, and that writing certainly lends itself to being decidedly feminist, as I’ve argued for the last two seasons. Frank even seems like a tragic hero sometimes, more disheveled, more pitiful than he was while he was violently rising the ranks. Of course, he opens the season by pissing on his father’s grave–so Frank is still Frank–but his desperation to hold onto power weakens him.

Claire accomplishes very little on her own in season 3. She needs Frank’s help to appoint her as UN ambassador when she can’t get the votes from Congress. Her role as First Lady repeatedly overshadows her own goals, and she eventually must resign her UN role because President ~~Putin~~ Petrov bullies Frank. She then must launch full-force into First Lady mode, dying her hair to please focus groups, kissing babies, shaking hands, living and working solely for Frank. This is not Claire Underwood. She knows that this is not who she is. By the end of the season, she’s acknowledged this, and is leaving the White House. “Claire!” Frank shouts as she announces that she’s leaving him, and the credits immediately roll.

As is suggested by the promo shots for season 3, Claire is becoming more and more an equal player in House of Cards (in season 1’s promos, she didn’t appear; in season 2’s, she sat behind Frank; in season 3’s, they are walking side by side, as they often do in the episodes). However, her role in the White House had to be for Frank, and it–and he–wasn’t enough. When Frank yells out for her to not leave at the end of the season, it’s because he also knows that he’s not enough. Without her, there will be no White House.

There are, as always, some incredible moments woven throughout this remarkably feminist political drama. Here are some of them:

Episode 1: They are sleeping in different bedrooms, and it’s clear that Claire is being left behind. She requests an appointment to be the UN ambassador, because the work of a First Lady is “not the same as contributing in a real way.” She says, “I’ve been in the passenger seat for decades. It’s time for me to get behind the wheel.”

Episode 2: Claire channels Hillary Clinton in during her nomination hearing, snapping that the “US military is irrelevant.” Of course, it’s taken completely out of context, just as Clinton’s “What difference does it make” statement was during the Benghazi hearings (the nods to current events in season 3 seem clearer than ever before). Claire is attempting to secure an incredibly important position in the UN, and at the same time, she has to pick two Easter Egg designs for the yearly Easter Egg Roll–a First Lady duty. The contrast between world power and decorative pleasantries is stark. “It’s too pink,” she says of one egg. “Girls like pink,” responds the woman with the eggs. Claire does not choose the pink egg.

Episode 3: Pussy Riot! Le Tigre! Russian President Petrov represents a time when “men were men.” He and Frank smoke Cubans and jockey for power while Ambassador Claire Underwood and Secretary of State Cathy Durant play beer pong and work toward peace. The masculine old guard often looks silly–the gifts, the games, the pride–but they too often still wield the power. By the end of the episode, Frank is lauding Pussy Riot and is flanked by Claire and Cathy (certainly not the last time he’s flanked by more powerful women in this season).

Episode 4: Solicitor General Heather Dunbar rises to power early on in the season. Frank asks her to consider his nomination for Supreme Court Justice, but she quickly realizes she wants to run for President instead. This episode deals with the US’s drone strike policies, and challenges the idea that killing innocent people to stop one guilty person is just. Meanwhile, a gay American activist is arrested and detained in Russia. In a bit of a heavy handed scene, Frank speaks with a priest in the church about justice and love, and ends up alone in the sanctuary, where he spits in Jesus’ face. The statue falls and breaks into a hundred pieces after he goes to wipe the spit off.

Episode 5: Dunbar starts campaigning, and takes the gay activist’s husband with her. She comes out strong on social issues that Frank has stayed moderate on. Frank’s dismantling of entitlement programs and his approach with America Works is Tea Party politics compared to the D next to his name. A powerful female reporter from The Telegraph replaces the former reporter whom Seth Grayson kicks out. He tries to silence one woman who asks challenging questions, and is faced instead with someone who is even more threatening. When Dunbar learns that Claire lied about her abortion on national TV, she says, “I would never do that to another woman,” in re: using the information against her. And in an incredibly powerful scene, Claire makes the Russian ambassador meet her in the woman’s bathroom while she puts on makeup, and then urinates with the door open. He’s uncomfortable, and she’s in control.

Episode 6: Claire goes with Frank to Russia to meet with Michael Corrigan, the imprisoned activist. They have a compelling conversation about marriage. Claire is unable to talk him into reading the prepared speech to be let free (he would have to apologize to President Petrov and Russia for parading nontraditional sexual ideas). Instead, he commits suicide while Claire sleeps in the cell, and he uses her scarf. She speaks out for him at the press conference–much to Frank and Petrov’s horror. “He had more courage than you’ll ever have,” she tells Frank. “I should have never made you ambassador,” Frank says. She responds, “I should never have made you president.”

Episode 7: Tibetan monks will work for weeks on intricate sand paintings, mandalas, and then ritualistically destroy it to symbolize the impermanence of the material world. A group of Tibetan monks are in the Underwoods’ White House as part of a cultural exchange. The gorgeous, time-consuming nature of their work, and the beautiful destruction of it, serves as a backdrop to Claire and Frank deciding to renew their vows. Claire changes her hair color to the dark shade it was when they first met. She’s being honored by GLAAD and other gay rights organizations. They must show the world that they are a team, but they are feeling less and less like one. Frank visits the FDR Memorial and reflects upon their similarities to the Roosevelts (his revamped “New Deal” and Claire’s human rights and United Nations activities). Claire rises again in this episode, and while they renew their vows and sleep in the same bed again, the monks poured all of that beautiful sand down a flowing river. Nothing lasts forever.

During episode 7, Claire and Frank sit at the breakfast table reading the newspaper, reminiscent of this scene from Citizen Kane. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Episode 8: A hurricane is brewing, and it’s being narrated by two voices: novelist Tom Yates, whom Frank has asked to be his biographer; and Kate Baldwin, the enterprising Telegraph reporter. The feminine and masculine (not necessarily female and male) are frequently clashing in House of Cards. These forces–whether they be stereotypical ideals of compassion and power or embodied in figures like Tom and Kate themselves–are often at their best when combined. Freddy is back in this episode, and delivers a powerful message to his grandson after meeting with Frank: “He lied to you. You’ll never be president,” he says. “It’s good to have dreams, as long as they’re not fantasies.”

Episode 9: The women are always on top in season 3’s sex scenes. The sex scenes are less exciting than season 2’s, but this positioning doesn’t go unnoticed. On the campaign trail, Dunbar is taking a decidedly feminist approach: raising the minimum wage, fighting for gay rights, and ending corporate greed. Frank, on the other hand, chants “You are entitled to nothing,” and toes the individualistic, masculine line. Remy is faced with racism–from an Iowa lobbyist and the police. Doug–whose story line is terrifying and constantly uncomfortable, except for a few warm moments with his brother–is working for Dunbar to get info for Frank.

Episode 10: Claire sits between Israel and Palestine–she’s a powerful force. She’s tricked by Petrov, however (who has always clearly been threatened by her or anyone/anything that threatens the traditional order), and her fake intel leads to a US troop’s death. When Petrov and Frank meet in the Jordan Valley (the House of Cards version of the Gaza Strip), it’s a masculine scene–guns, ammo, tanks, kevlar, camo. Petrov tells Frank that Claire must not be an ambassador anymore. Frank agrees. This, then, is the beginning of what was already an end in sight. By the end of the episode, Claire is looking at a history of headshots, agreeing to go blonde because “Iowa in particular likes the blonde.” In what has become a necessity for each season, ambiguous sexual tension takes place between Tom and Frank. Tom admits that he used to “turn tricks” with men for a living, and got addicted to hearing their stories. They hold hands for a moment–it’s an incredibly intimate scene–and then it’s over. As others have noted, it’s refreshing to see sexuality treated with such nuance.

Episode 11: Blonde Claire gives a campaign speech at a fancy little ladies’ luncheon, quite the opposite of negotiating peace talks as she had been just days before. Claire is so much like Hurricane Faith, which was poised to make a huge difference, but then did nothing. Frank can’t control the weather, but he’s trying to control Claire. Jackie Sharp is also running in the Democratic primary, but only to split the vote to eventually be Frank’s VP. She doesn’t want to do what Frank tells her to–calling Dunbar sexist or bringing Dunbar’s children into the debate–but she does when Dunbar won’t promise her Secretary of Defense. So Jackie pulls the sexism card and pulls the private school card during the debate, and Frank attacks her for it. Shortly after, Jackie suspends her campaign and endorses Dunbar. Seth calls her a “Judas Bitch,” and Remy resigns as Frank’s Chief of Staff. Players are choosing sides, and Frank must rely on Claire’s likability to get the numbers he needs for Iowa. She’s reading children a book at story time now instead of attempting to broker peace between Israel and Palestine.

Episode 12: Claire is told to be more and more in the spotlight, even answering Q&As. She’s “favorable” to voters, and there are moments where it looks as if she’s the one running for president, and she certainly feels the sting of that not being the case. “I’ll keep waving my pom-poms,” she says. She spends time with a young mother in Iowa on the campaign trail. The Underwood signs in the yard are her husband’s, though. “I wish you were running for president,” she tells Claire. The exhausted young mother talks about her unhappy marriage, and laments to Claire that if it weren’t for the baby they took out two mortgages to have via IVF, that she would leave. Moments later, Frank calls Claire to tell her that Dunbar knows about her journal and the truth about her abortions. “No, Francis. This can’t happen. Whatever you have to do, fix it.” Doug brings the journal to Frank and burns the page, promising that he’d just gotten close to Dunbar to prove his loyalty to Frank. He requests, and gets, the position of Chief of Staff. Claire is rightfully furious, considering her reproductive choices have been used as political pawns by other people. Frank has stopped seeing Claire as an equal; as soon as he was in the Oval Office, she was just the First Lady.

Episode 13: Doug’s subplot of using Gavin to find Rachel climaxes in the last episode, as he buys a trash-heap of a white van to drive to her and avenge the fact that she’d beaten him almost to death in season 2 (after she had assumed–probably rightfully so–that he was going to kill her). These awful scenes are made more tragic by the fact that Rachel has escaped her former life and is helping other abuse victims in the process. Doug comes close to love and compassion when his brother stays with him while he gets clean, but he doesn’t come close enough. Claire tries to get Frank to “fuck her,” to “be rough,” but he won’t. He sends her back to DC, and we hear the screams and clapping for him campaigning while she gets back to the White House alone. Frank wins Iowa without her there, but he knows that she must be by his side for him to be successful. When he gets back, she’s sitting in his chair in the Oval Office–where she, and probably he, knows she should be. “For all these years,” she says, “I thought we were in this together. This is not what I thought it would be. It’s your office. You make the decisions.” He snaps back that she can’t have it both ways–to be an equal partner, and for men to control her (bringing up the sex scene in a powerful way). She feels “weak” and “small” and can’t feel like that any longer.

“Without me, you are nothing,” Frank snaps at her. “It’s time for you to do your job. You will be the First Lady.”

She looks at the picture of the Tibetan mandala–capturing a moment that was destroyed–and she packs her bags, but not for the campaign trail. Claire Underwood was meant to be first, not First Lady.

Leigh Kolb is a composition, literature, and journalism instructor at a community college in rural Missouri.

Ruthless, Pragmatic Feminism in ‘House of Cards’

Claire is a horrible human being for many, many reasons–but her abortions aren’t included in those reasons. The show makes that clear.

This repost by Leigh Kolb appears as part of our theme week on Unlikable Women.

Season 2 spoilers ahead! Season 3 will be released on Netflix on Feb. 27, 2015.

Novelist Elmore Leonard said, “If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.” I think about that often when looking for or critiquing the dearth of feminist film and television. We often wring our hands over the Bechdel Test and the lack of “Strong Female Characters.”

Ideal feminist media would be like Leonard’s ideal writing–films and shows that don’t feel like they’re trying to be feminist. They just are. Complex women and women’s stories that aren’t just pieces of the whole, but are woven in seamlessly throughout the narrative–that’s what I want.

House of Cards delivers.

After Season 1 debuted on Netflix to critical and popular acclaim, Amanda Rodriguez and I both wrote about House of Cards and the wonderfully complex female characters (see: “The Complex, Unlikable Women of House of Cards” and “Claire Underwood: The Queen Bee in House of Cards“). The simultaneously awful and wonderful female characters whose stories were essential to the action in every single episode. Nothing ever felt forced, and the fact that these women were both sympathetic and loathsome was an absolute delight for those of us feminist viewers who are tired of “strong female characters” who pay lip service to some kind of surface-level inequality.

House of Cards’s feminism is remarkable, because it feels wholly unremarkable.

Season 2 debuted on Feb. 14, 2014, and although Netflix doesn’t reveal exact numbers, Variety reports that the viewership in the first few hours “soared,” with many subscribers watching multiple episodes at once.

And since the only Olympic-style sport we are interested in in our home is the long-form binge watch, we were finished with season 2 by Saturday night. Within the first two episodes, I was fairly certain this was the most feminist TV drama I’ve seen–because what we want (complexity, equality, and representation) is woven in seamlessly. House of Cards is not primarily about a man. It’s not primarily about a woman. It’s about people.

In the promo materials for season 1, we saw Frank Underwood sitting alone in Lincoln’s monument. Ostensibly, he’s the show’s protagonist. And in season 1, I suppose it did often feel that way.

However, the season 2 poster features Frank again sitting in Lincoln’s seat, but Claire is sitting on top of it also. From the first shot of season 2–Frank and Claire running together–we know that Frank isn’t really our sole protagonist at all anymore.

The first two episodes tie up many loose ends from season 1, and introduce new ones for season 2. In the first episode, Claire picks up her appointment with the fertility doctor not, as we learn, to become pregnant herself, but to find out more about the drug that Gillian is on so she can threaten to withhold her insurance from her, thus getting what she wants from Gillian. “I’m willing to let your child wither and die within you,” Claire says to Gillian. Frank pushes Zoe Barnes into the path of an ongoing train, and she is killed. Frank, who has taken his place as vice president, courts Jackie Sharp to be the House Majority Whip. Why? Her military record of having to order strikes and kill people (including women and children) shows Frank that she is a bastion of ruthless pragmatism, which is how he and Claire move forward; and with this, season 2 begins.

In the following episodes, Claire faces her rapist (who assaulted her in college, and now Frank must give him an award for his military service), and honestly tells Frank how she wants to “smash things” and how much she wants to talk about it. These scenes were excellent because she didn’t let Frank be the vengeful husband. She stopped him, and then kept her power by talking about the assault. It wasn’t presented as if her sexuality was Frank’s to protect; the experience was hers. She wants to let her husband in, but she doesn’t want him to avenge her honor. That’s her job.

When she goes on national television and admits to having an abortion, she says that it was to end the pregnancy that resulted from the sexual assault. She named her attacker, and a young woman called in to the show, saying that he had assaulted her as well. This kicks off a season-long story line about a military sexual assault bill that pits women against women and shows the politics of justice as being just that: politics.

Claire bares all–in her own way–on national television.

But here’s the rub: Claire had three abortions, not one, and none were from the rape. She is matter-of-fact with her doctor and press secretary that she had three abortions, and we learn that one was during the campaign with Frank, and two were when she was a teenager. One could see these story lines as using infertility, rape, and abortion as plot points.

And you know what? It’s fantastic. I love that these typically silent or exploited topics get so much air time in House of Cards, and that Claire is more human for having gone through so much, yet she uses it all for political and personal gain. (A recent study showed that when female characters consider or have an abortion in film or TV, they are disproportionally killed or at least punished.)

When done properly, I applaud these female-specific plot points. These events are plot points in women’s lives, and they should be used well on screen. House of Cards does just that.

Historically, men have wars and external, political struggles to define and provide fodder for their journeys (both fictional and non). We see this represented with Frank’s visit to the Confederate re-enactors and his war miniatures. Women’s struggles and choices–infertility, sexual assault, and abortion–are widespread and underrepresented. To have Claire live through and use these experiences is refreshing and brilliant (and appropriately villainous).

The season goes on to show the fallout that Claire receives from admitting to having an abortion (even though she publicly says she had one after a rape), including an attempted bomb attack by a man whose wife had had an abortion, and the angry, vitriolic protesters outside her home. (She tells Megan, the young sexual assault victim at one point, “They’re loud, but I think we need to be louder.”) What a great message.

Claire is a horrible human being for many, many reasons–but her abortions aren’t included in those reasons. The show makes that clear.

Jackie–Frank’s replacement and sometimes-ally sometimes-adversary–is a force. She, in her relationship with Remy, is the one who initially isn’t interested at all in a relationship. She gets tattooed to help deal with the pain of the deaths she was responsible for in the military. She’s powerful and political, and we see her as both the enemy and ally throughout the season.

Jackie, adding on to her poppy tattoo (symbolic in its remembrance of bloodshed in war, and therapeutic in its pain).

In addition to the complex shaping of women’s stories and the characters themselves, the way the show handles masculinity and sexuality seems revolutionary.

In season 1, it’s evident when Frank goes back to his alma mater that he had had a sexual relationship with a close male friend. There wasn’t much hoopla about this, it just was what it was. In season 2, Claire, Frank, and their bodyguard, Edward Meechum, have a threesome. The next day, Frank says to Meechum as he gets in the car, “It’s a beautiful day.” And that’s all there is to it. Meanwhile, Rachel has developed a relationship with Lisa, and it’s portrayed as a loving partnership (although the camera does linger on their sex scene while it artfully pans away from the aforementioned threesome).

There’s no moral focus or panic about people’s sexuality. It just–is what it is. No fanfare. And the fact that we get to see women having orgasms (in season 2, an especially steamy scene between Jackie and Remy) is a pleasant detour from the norm as well.

In what continues to be one of my favorite articles regarding feminist media, “I hate Strong Female Characters,” Sophia McDougall says,

“Nowadays the princesses all know kung fu, and yet they’re still the same princesses. They’re still love interests, still the one girl in a team of five boys, and they’re all kind of the same. They march on screen, punch someone to show how they don’t take no shit, throw around a couple of one-liners or forcibly kiss someone because getting consent is for wimps, and then with ladylike discretion they back out of the narrative’s way.”

The women of House of Cards are not “Strong Female Characters.” They are well-written characters with a great deal of power, which they wield alongside the men. They are integral parts of the narrative. When female complexity and power is written into the narrative, everything else–including passing the Bechdel Test–effortlessly falls into place.

This is ruthless pragmatism: feminist style, and it is excellent. In a sea of male anti-heroes on TV, it’s time that women share the stage. House of Cards shows its hand, and it’s a royal flush, with the queen right next to the king.

Leigh Kolb is a composition, literature, and journalism instructor at a community college in rural Missouri.

The Complex, Unlikable Women of ‘House of Cards’

These women are complex, if not likable, and that’s a good thing.

Daddy Issues, Menopause and Female Power — Daddy Issues, Menopause, and Female Power

This repost by Leigh Kolb appears as part of our theme week on Unlikable Women.

This article covers Season 1. See here for commentary on Season 2.

Frank Underwood (Kevin Spacey) is the vengeful House Majority Whip who lusts after power and is ambitious and unscrupulous in his attempts to get what he wants.

In fact, most of the characters fit that description.

We know that the anti-hero is in. Many of the protagonists in critically acclaimed dramas (Walter White, Nucky Thompson, Jax Teller, Dexter Morgan, Don Draper, the list goes on…) are not traditionally heroic and make decisions that are illegal and “immoral.”

Frank Underwood is a twenty-first century Iago, building his empire on a tenuous pile of cards. He looks at the camera and includes the audience in his thought process (much like Kenneth Branagh’s Iago in Othello). The Macbeth references also are clear, as Zoe Barnes (Kate Mara) scrubs a stain out of her carpet or as Claire Underwood (Robin Wright) is consistently associated with water.

Just as Frank conjures a centuries-old tradition of villainous pseudo-heroism, the women of House of Cards also represent the kind of ruthless ambition that we find so compelling in characters.

And as “The Women on House of Cards Are Just as Evil as the Men” points out:

“The show would be way less interesting if only the male characters were running around town sleeping with people they shouldn’t be sleeping with and bribing people they shouldn’t be bribing while their female partners and peers waited patiently at home.”

Zoe is a scrappy reporter when we first meet her, and she quickly transforms herself into a front-page journalist because she gets the right source.

In bed.

She draws him in with a photo, goes to his house in a push-up bra and a low-cut shirt, and gets tips of all kinds. In the first episode, the most powerful women have broken into power via cleavage, marriage and tokenism (the new White House Chief of Staff Linda Vasquez, who Frank helped promote because of her ethnicity and gender). It didn’t look so good at first, but like any good story, the characters unfold as the series goes on, revealing that Claire is ambitious at all costs, Zoe holds the cards in her relationship with Frank, and the women, at the end, are instrumental in upending and beginning to unravel Frank’s plans.

For Zoe, she is both empowered and disempowered by men who treat her like she is their child. When she shoots to stardom (via Frank) at The Washington Herald, Tom, her editor, is dismissive of her work and yet knows he needs to promote her and reward her because Margaret (his boss) wants her star-power, since Tom’s beloved hard-news print outlet is barely staying in business.

When Zoe and Tom get into a fight after she turns down the White House Correspondent gig, he accuses her of being arrogant.

Zoe: “You think when a woman asks to be respected she’s being arrogant?”
Tom: “Are you accusing me of sexism? No TV for a month.”

He’s limiting her TV appearances as punishment, but of course it sounds like he’s talking to a child and taking television away as a punishment. The line between father and boss is blurred.

Zoe’s understanding of respect is obviously convoluted as Frank constantly asks her about her parents, and her father, and if they know she lives like she does (in a shabby, dirty apartment). “Are you cared for,” he asks. “Do you have a man, who cares for you? An older man?”

When Frank visits Zoe on Father’s Day, he encourages her to call her father. While she’s still on the phone, she starts undressing him, he undresses her and goes down on her in the most graphic sex scene in the season. She’s breathless while she’s on the phone, and hangs up only after promising her father “I’m going to try and come, OK?” The line between father and lover is blurred.

Later in the season, Zoe establishes herself in a new lucrative job at Slugline, a woman-owned new media company where the reporters have free reign to post what and when they want and are not “tied to a desk.” Janine joins her after leaving The Washington Herald. Janine was her enemy at the Herald, and represents a somewhat older, jaded version of Zoe. When the two begin to work together, they make great strides. Zoe finishes her relationship with Frank and works with Janine to do real, legitimate reporting (which is quickly unraveling Frank’s web of lies). Zoe is poised to be the most successful and have the most journalistic integrity by letting go of the older men in her life (who represent a patriarchal power structure) and working with women and peer collaborators.

Meanwhile, Claire, who matches her husband in power and ambition, changes her company and re-evaluates her own life as the season progresses. She lays off half of the staff and her clean water nonprofit, including Evelyn, her office manager (after having her fire everyone). Evelyn desperately points out to Claire that she is in her late 50s, and she would have no job prospects. Claire doesn’t bend.

Shortly after, Claire goes to a coffee shop where an older woman is working the register, and can’t figure out how to ring her up. A young woman comes and shows her, as Claire looks at them, certainly thinking of Evelyn and her own possibilities.

She courts Gillian, a young, beautiful woman who has had individual success in clean water initiatives. Gillian resists the corporate atmosphere, and Claire says,

“I know what it is to be capable, beautiful and ambitious… I want to enable you, to clear the way for you.”

Gillian accepts.

And Claire starts getting hot flashes. “This is new to me,” she tells a female dinner party guest who sees her standing in front of the open refrigerator. Her coming menopause serves as a reminder that she is getting ready to enter a new phase of womanhood, which she doesn’t seem ready for.

Gillian, meanwhile, announces her pregnancy and Claire seems uncomfortable. Even though she tells Adam (her once and sometimes lover) when he asks why she and Frank didn’t have kids, “We just didn’t–it wasn’t some big conversation. I thought about it once or twice, but I don’t feel like there’s some void. We’re perfectly happy without.”

But by the end of the season, she’s visiting a doctor and having a consultation about her fertility. She doesn’t tell Frank, but the window of opportunity for her to have a baby isn’t closed yet.

Gillian goes against Claire’s orders, and Claire suggests she take some time off after Gillian snaps, “I threaten you, don’t I?” Gillian hires a lawyer and claims Claire fired her for being pregnant, trapping Claire in a potential legal battle that she cannot win. The youthful ambition she wanted to guide and empower didn’t want either.

No one is good (nor should they be, or the show wouldn’t work so well). Janine tells Zoe she “used to suck, screw and jerk anything that moved just to get a story.” And while she’s a working journalist, she obviously didn’t fuck her way to the top (nor did Zoe). They are on their way to the top, but it’s only because they’re working together.

Claire and Frank are in a surprisingly power-balanced relationship, and it only truly suffers when he puts his goals over hers. Claire elicits sympathy, disgust, anger and fear from the audience (sometimes all in one episode).

These women are complex, if not likable, and that’s a good thing. Zoe and Janine are close to the truth about Frank, Claire’s career and fertility hang in the balance and at any moment, the house of cards they’ve all helped build may come tumbling down.

Leigh Kolb is a composition, literature, and journalism instructor at a community college in rural Missouri.

Talking Horse Anchors Adult Comedy For Everyone: ‘Bojack Horseman’

Most surprising of all was the content. ‘Bojack Horseman’ is a late night style comedy that doesn’t shut anyone out. Though the series abounds with the typical crude humor, it’s threaded through with a surprising amount of feminism, nothing I’d expect at first glance.
There’s no shortage of fascinating female characters, both major and minor.

Bojack Horseman, my latest comedy binge-watch, was a real surprise. I’d heard nothing about it before it showed up on Netflix, but I gave it a try. I’m glad it I did, it was super fun time that left me wanting more. Thankfully, Netflix has already renewed it for a second season.

Theme song image from Bojack Horseman — Theme song image from *Bojack Horseman*

Everyone’s favorite magician, Will Arnett, stars as Bojack, a formerly famous 90s sitcom star, conceited womanizer, and literal man-horse struggling through a strange version of Hollywood that keeps our pop cultural touchstone and ads anthropomorphic animals. Cats chase dangling strings on the treadmill, birds at the window are paparazzi, and two dogs converse like stereotypical annoying TV women about how much they love chocolate even though it could kill them.

Arnett is joined by a great cast, a veritable who’s who of beloved comedic actors, among them Alison Brie, Kristen Schaal, Paul F. Tompkins, Patton Oswalt, and Amy Sedaris. Breaking Bad star Aaron Paul takes a comedic term and gives an unexpected, often scene-stealing performance as Bojack’s slacker roommate who’s obsessed with composing a rock opera.

Most surprising of all was the content. Bojack Horseman is a late night style comedy that doesn’t shut anyone out. Though the series abounds with the typical crude humor, it’s threaded through with a surprising amount of feminism, nothing I’d expect at first glance.

Bojack’s agent and girlfriend Princess Carolyn often has complicated schemes

There’s no shortage of fascinating female characters, both major and minor. First off, Princess Carolyn (Amy Sedaris, who should really be in more things) is, in addition to being a giant pink Persian cat, Bojack’s agent and on-again/off-again girlfriend. She’s is driven and goal-obsessed, and in her dynamic with Bojack maintains the unique skill of compartmentalizing, speaking to him either as agent or lover. With her Machiavellian schemes and air-tight manipulations, she might even be the closest thing the series has to a villain, besides Bojack’s colossal ego. Sadly, her role begins to peter out towards the end of the season, though her remaining plot line, about unknowingly dating Vincent Adultman, three kids stacked on top of each other in a trench coat, is worthy off-the-wall material.

Diane gives Naomi Watts tips on how to play a complex character

As a show set in a Hollywood, Bojack Horseman also makes several stirring points satirizing celebrity culture. Naomi Watts shows up for a episode to play a role in a movie based on Bojack’s life, ironically because she is tired of getting complicated, three-dimensional roles. When the role becomes much meatier, she gets frustrated and loses interest in the movie. Much seen but little remembered character actress Margo Martindale appears multiple times as a sort of actress for hire. Fed up with the limited roles normally offered to her as an older woman, she accepts roles offered to her by Bojack, which include posing as a bank robber and pulling off a real bank heist. Ultimately she turns to a life of crime and relishes her time in jail because she considers it the role of a lifetime.

Most fascinating are Sarah Lynn (Kristen Schaal) and Diane Nygen (Alison Brie), the most important women in Bojack’s life. Sarah Lynn was his TV daughter on the sitcom Horsin’ Around and today is a washed-up former pop princess, crucified by the media who have no use for her now that she’s turned 30. In flashbacks to her teenage years, we see her as a self-obsessed young woman attempting to rebel against the cutesy little girl image with songs that twist her TV nickname, prickly pear into a vaginal euphemism. All her music is about sex and she announces on a talk show that she plans to be sexy forever. But when she hits 30, she’s replaced by new it-girl Sextina Aquafina. Sextina says she grew up with Sarah Lynn’s music, but she is now irrelevant and has no reason to be famous anymore.

Bojack tries to fix his TV daughter, Sarah Lynn

Today, Sarah Lynn is like many of our former child stars. She’s dramatic and out of control, and spends her time popping pills, partying, and trying to kill herself when her boyfriend breaks up with her. Her relationship with Bojack is incredibly complicated, though she’s always looked at him as a father figure and he sees her as a surrogate daughter, they end up sleeping together when Bojack decides to try to “fix her.” Sarah Lynn rightfully calls him out on this, yelling at him for claiming to know how she feels and trying to be her savior. She tells him she has been exploited her whole life, first by her mother, a stage-mom, then by the scores of men who write her every day to tell her she is the first person they ever masturbated to. Bojack, she feels, has no right to try to be her father or her lover.

Young Sarah Lynn looked to Bojack as a father figure

Diane is a writer who meets Bojack when he hires her to ghostwrite his memoirs. Though she is meant to be desirable and is described as attractive, Diane is drawn with an average woman’s body and wears a boxy jacket and thick glasses. In fact, she looks a lot like Daria, a show she’d probably love. The main character and others, fall in love with her and most of the first season is a love triangle revolving around her. Although love triangles are a bit of a tired plot device, it was refreshing to see one involving such a realistic idea of a woman. Diane is no two dimensional dream girl. She’s a writer with a thriving career and intense interests and opinions. She’s sarcastic and well-informed, but she can also be self-centered and brutally ambitious, such as in plot line towards the end of the season where she attempts to publish an unflattering portrayal of Bojack without his permission. It’s crucial that Diane is never made to look like an evil seductress who manipulates Bojack. She’s just a person and even though she is eventually vindicated, it’s acknowledged that it was a terrible thing to do.

Bojack falls for his feminist ghostwriter, Diane — Bojack falls for his ghostwriter, a third wave feminist named Diane

Diane identifies as a third wave feminist, but is unsure what that means for her. In one scene, she enters into a long monologue about pop singer Sarah Lynn who she claims not to think much about. She’s conflicted, on one hand she appreciates how Sarah Lynn has reclaimed her sexuality but on the other, she questions whether it is truly possible to do so in a patriarchal society.

Diane is also an interesting conversation point for discussions of race in animation. The character is Vietnamese, yet she is voiced by a white actress. Though I loved Alison Brie in the role, this casting made me question whether there is a distinction between racebent casting in live action and animated programs. Unlike stereotypical animated characters, like Apu on The Simpsons, Diane does not have either a subtle or exaggerated Vietnamese accent, so there’d be no specific distinction between her and a Vietnamese actress in the role. But does it matter whether white actors lend their voices to animated POCs?

We must not forget that any media project, especially these days, has a meta-textual component, such as interviews, photo shoots, recommendations, and career opportunities for its stars and creators. Though Brie is excellent, this could have been a great opportunity for a Vietnamese actress to make a name for herself. I’m not sure what to think on the issue or whether it is indeed an issue, it just occurred to me as an interesting idea to consider. Kudos to the team behind Bojack for creating an Asian-American woman character to play such an integral part of the story regardless.

Diane is often frustrated with her happy-go-lucky boyfriend Mr. Peanut Butter

Though on multiple occasions the show mentions an in-world personality test, “Zoe or Zelda,” that reduces each person to one of two types, the women on the show are not so easily reduced to virgins or whores. Sensible Diane has a vibrant sex life with her dog-boyfriend Mr. Peanut Butter, while sex-pot Sarah Lynn has given a great deal of thought to her image and desires to control it. It’s great touches like these, and its intricate animal-person analogies that make Bojack Horseman worthy of a watch. Other than its covert feminism, the most unique thing about the program is its sequential story. Unlike most adult animated comedies, that tell one-off self-contained stories, the first season unfolds as a complete a well-paced story arc.

Of course, if you’re not into late night comedies, Bojack may not be the show for you. But I recommend giving it a chance. It starts slow, but only gets better.

_________________________________________________________________________________________

Elizabeth Kiy is a Canadian writer and journalist living in Toronto, Ontario.

‘Orange Is the New Black’: The Crime of Passion in Media

‘OITNB’ does not always blame the id. It also wonders whether larger societal forces are culpable too. Take, for instance, adorable Lorna (Yael Stone) a modern day zeitgeist for Bridezillas. As a compulsive shopper, she’s a victim of the consumer industrial complex that taught her happiness and fulfillment can be bought. When a cute man rejects her after one date, she realizes she can’t buy or scam her way into love so it triggers a fatal attraction in her. Pornstache’s adopted patriarchal mindset that women are merely pleasure objects leaves him jobless, in jail, and alone. Officer Healey’s misogyny leads him to procure a “traditional” wife via mail order, only to discover that true companionship can’t be bought or found through biased gender roles.

This is a guest post by Katrina Majkut.

Orange Is The New Black’s second season reveals more about the lives and crimes of its supporting characters. What lies at the heart of season two is not the misdeeds these women committed that account for their imprisonment, but the relationships surrounding them and their personal desires that ultimately contributed to it.

This is a recurring theme in Jenji Kohan’s work. Consider Kohan’s first breakthrough female character, Nancy Botwin in Weeds. Botwin, a dependent housewife, turns to drug dealing once she realizes her lifestyle choice left her financially destitute. Kohan, like many women before her – Simone de Beauvoir to Betty Friedan, iterates that the real crime is the one where women believe relationships are a means to an end.

The Atlantic’s Megan Garber argues that traditional Rom-Coms are a dying Hollywood genre because they don’t include contemporary online dating. I respectfully disagree; OITNB is arguably a new age Rom-Com (plus drama) that still operates on dial-up (Wi-Fi is too fancy for that prison). It merely takes the genre’s traditional trite heterosexual storylines, the romantic city backdrops, and the saccharine plots and puts them into solitary confinement. It then throws away the key.

OITNB reinvigorates this genre by exploring more dynamic and diverse relationships: platonic and romantic, internal and external. Unlike in Rom-Coms, sex is not a driving force in OITNB. It’s merely a perk and even then can lead to complications like Officer Bennett (Matt McGorry) and Dayanara’s (Dascha Polanco) pregnancy. And the show breaks new ground in this obsolete genre with its almost all-female cast. Rom-Coms want viewers to believe that problems will resolve themselves within a relationship; Kohan’s version suggests that’s where they start.

Piper (Taylor Shilling) lies at the heart of this theory. Season two reveals how much her relationship with Alex (Laura Prepon) has negatively impacted her life. However, Piper is not committing crimes in the name of her passion for Alex. In fact, we learn her poor decision-making stems from her relationship with her parents, their habit of obscuring the truth, and her father’s infidelity. Piper’s story makes a compelling argument that one’s nurturing is more influential over personal nature. Maria Ruiz (Jessica Pimental) supports this idea by begging her taciturn boyfriend to talk to their daughter so she grows into a well-adjusted child.

To what purpose Piper is driven to commit these crimes has yet to be revealed, but the question highlights OITNB’s most interesting angle on the new age Rom-Com genre – desire. Season two unveils that the characters’ relationships are merely conduits to attain more intangible, inherent passions like – power, safety, belonging, fortune, favor, excitement, loyalty, relevance, etc.

A bloody Piper on OITNB — A bloody Piper on *OITNB*

This is most evident with Season two newcomer, Vee (Lorraine Toussaint), who, rather than quietly ride her jail time out, is driven by a passion for power and sets out to take Red’s. She’s highly aware of her psychological needs… and others’, which is how she manages to manipulate several women into doing her bidding. She plays off these characters’ needs for family, connection and approval, like Taystee’s (Danielle Brooks), who despite her book smarts, turns to drug dealing in the pursuit of motherly love. Viewers quickly learn that one can only be as healthy and wise as the company one keeps.

That also includes the relationship people have with themselves. In OITNB’s subtle exploration of nature versus nurture, viewers are also shown a compelling argument that personal nature also influences decision-making. As nature drives needs, a person can easily become his or her own worst enemy. Take for instance formerly pro-choice Pennsatucky (Taryn Manning), who, eager for affection from an inattentive boyfriend, quickly switches sides when she realizes how to earn the esteem of the pro-lifers. She’s willing to permanently win their worship by taking the life of a clinic doctor. Sister Ingalls (Beth Fowler) continues to protest despite ones from the Catholic Church, because who is she without her activist conviction more so than without Jesus? Miss Rosa’s (Barbara Rosenblat) boyfriend introduced her to bank robbing, but it was after her first heist that she realized she had a knack for it.

OITNB does not always blame the id. It also wonders whether larger societal forces are culpable too. Take, for instance, adorable Lorna (Yael Stone) a modern day zeitgeist for Bridezillas. As a compulsive shopper, she’s a victim of the consumer industrial complex that taught her happiness and fulfillment can be bought. When a cute man rejects her after one date, she realizes she can’t buy or scam her way into love so it triggers a fatal attraction in her. Pornstache’s adopted patriarchal mindset that women are merely pleasure objects leaves him jobless, in jail, and alone. Officer Healey’s misogyny leads him to procure a “traditional” wife via mail order, only to discover that true companionship can’t be bought or found through biased gender roles.

Lorna & Suzanne "Crazy Eyes" in OITNB — Lorna and Suzanne “Crazy Eyes” in *OITNB*

None of these characters is committing crimes in the name of passion per se, but their unrequited desires are usually leading them toward a perpetual cycle of bad decisions, which, for most, result in crimes. With such skewed risk and reward results, viewers have to wonder if they’re aware of what drives their poor decisions.

The prison setting provides good insight into this. Stripped of life’s comforts, the prisoners are faced with meeting the basics of Maslow’s hierarchy. Meals and a roof are nominally provided, but their social and psychological needs remain elusive. It’s not that people in love do stupid things (though that can happen), but people are willing to assume certain risks if it means earning, winning, or attaining whatever it is that they are seeking. Whether the individual characters know these desires does not ensure their survival or success, which is perfectly captured in Vee’s final scene. Soso (Kimiko Glen) sums up the importance of well-rounded relationships: “We should be leaning on each other, finding support in our fellow prisoners. So we’re not isolated…. I need a friend.”

Viewers learn that community is necessary to survive inside prison, but more importantly outside too. Matriarch Red (Kate Mulgrew), who has struggled the most with family, power, and support, appears to be reaching this important arch. This becomes evident as she gathers with her estranged prison family to break bread and offer an olive branch. Her benevolence and selflessness is rubbing off on her family too, such as when Nicky seeks help with her sobriety, who then offers Lorna the recognition of love she’s always desired (even if it’s platonic). Red mirrors the sentiment Kohan is not so subtly reaching at – that failure is inevitable if we let unhealthy relationships and desires define us. Like jail, they can easily hold people back.

Kohan’s spin on female media dives much deeper into characters and relationships than the now-suffering traditional Rom-Com genre. Rom-Coms’ superficiality is its biggest crime, which ultimately led to its lack of popularity and box-office support. OITNB is a compelling game-changer by highlighting the true nature and depth of women’s desire and making their relationships secondary.

However, it’s important to bring up The Atlantic’s controversial article by Noah Berlatsky, “Orange Is the New Black’s Irresponsible Portrayal of Men,” who accuses OITNB from his seat of male privilege that “the problem is that the ways in which OITNB focuses on women rather than men seem to be linked to stereotypically gendered ideas about who can be a victim and who can’t.” It seems that OITNB has also shaken up the crime and punishment genre.

First, he couldn’t be more off the mark about people being overly generous in their sympathy toward female victims of violent crime. If he were right, rape on US campuses wouldn’t be such an egregious current event. His lack of sympathy for victims sounds eerily like victim blaming, but I digress. Secondly, neither OITNB, nor this article, is suggesting these women are victims of their own unfulfilled desires; many take pride in their crimes! The show is merely trying to get to the psychological root of the misdeeds and decisions and if the prisoners can learn from them.

What makes OITNB such compelling entertainment is the same substance that Berlatsky criticizes. The show redefines an entertainment genre and the traditional characterization of women and prisoners. Based on Berlatsky’s argument, for example, there wouldn’t be any dynamic movies featuring female CEOs because 95.2 percent of Fortune 500 CEO positions are filled by men and they’ve only ever been portrayed as Gordon Gekkos. So in Bertlatsky’s, world men deserve better portrayals first. That’s the thing he misunderstands about OITNB‘s psychoanalysis of desire–if we don’t understand what drives us, we run the risk of using our male privilege to ostracize and enrage minorities. ¿Comprende, Bertlatsky?

Media’s crime is portraying women or prisoners with limited scope and vapid storylines. Kohan’s desire to shake up two very stagnant media genres has left many feeling blindly robbed of a genre they once controlled, but for others it’s filling an empty gulf in entertainment. Season two begins to unravel the mysteries surrounding the inmates’ incarceration. It offers an intimate peek into how the nature of relationships is ultimately driven by personal desires. OITNB is honest in admitting that healthy, trustworthy, selfless, and supportive relationships are as elusive for everyone as that freedom all the inmates desire. But the real culprit is that passion, which without understanding, can get anyone in trouble in the first place.

Katrina Majkut (My’ kit) is the founder of www.TheFeministBride.com. It hopes to inspire a new generation of newlyweds who want unique and egalitarian wedding ideas to fit their modern lifestyles. It aims to empower couples to walk down the aisle as equals. As a writer, lecturer, and research-based artist, Majkut is dedicated to understanding and exploring social narratives and civil issues in Western marriage and wedding culture. She is represented by Carol Mann Agency in New York City. Please follow The Feminist Bride on Twitter @FeministBride and on Facebook.

Ruthless, Pragmatic Feminism in ‘House of Cards’

The women of ‘House of Cards’ are not “Strong Female Characters.” They are well-written characters with a great deal of power, which they wield alongside the men. They are integral parts of the narrative. When female complexity and power is written into the narrative, everything else–including passing the Bechdel Test–effortlessly falls into place.

Written by Leigh Kolb.

Season 2 spoilers ahead!

House of Cards delivers.

Last year, after season 1 debuted on Netflix to critical and popular acclaim, Amanda Rodriguez and I both wrote about House of Cards and the wonderfully complex female characters (see: “The Complex, Unlikable Women of House of Cards” and “Claire Underwood: The Queen Bee in House of Cards“). The simultaneously awful and wonderful female characters whose stories were essential to the action in every single episode. Nothing ever felt forced, and the fact that these women were both sympathetic and loathsome was an absolute delight for those of us feminist viewers who are tired of “strong female characters” who pay lip service to some kind of surface-level inequality.

House of Cards’s feminism is remarkable, because it feels wholly unremarkable.

Season 2 debuted on Feb. 14, and although Netflix doesn’t reveal exact numbers, Variety reports that the viewership in the first few hours “soared,” with many subscribers watching multiple episodes at once.

In the promo materials for season 1, we saw Frank Underwood sitting alone in Lincoln’s monument. Ostensibly, he’s the show’s protagonist. And in season 1, I suppose it did often feel that way.

Screen-Shot-2014-02-14-at-6.15.18-AM — Claire bares all–in her own way–on national television.

When done properly, I applaud these female-specific plot points. These events are plot points in women’s lives, and they should be used well on screen. House of Cards does just that.

Claire is a horrible human being for many, many reasons–but her abortions aren’t included in those reasons. The show makes that clear.

Screen-Shot-2014-02-14-at-5.24.03-AM — Jackie, adding on to her poppy tattoo (symbolic in its remembrance of bloodshed in war, and therapeutic in its pain).

In addition to the complex shaping of women’s stories and the characters themselves, the way the show handles masculinity and sexuality seems revolutionary.

In what continues to be one of my favorite articles regarding feminist media, “I hate Strong Female Characters,” Sophia McDougall says,

“Nowadays the princesses all know kung fu, and yet they’re still the same princesses. They’re still love interests, still the one girl in a team of five boys, and they’re all kind of the same. They march on screen, punch someone to show how they don’t take no shit, throw around a couple of one-liners or forcibly kiss someone because getting consent is for wimps, and then with ladylike discretion they back out of the narrative’s way.”

Leigh Kolb is a composition, literature and journalism instructor at a community college in rural Missouri.

‘What Maisie Knew’: (Muffled Quarreling)

‘What Maisie Knew’ might have made a pretty good romcom to watch on an airplane or catch cable on a Sunday morning while you sort your junk mail or something. But it has aspirations of seriousness, despite building to a far-fetched frilly bow tie of a resolution (which, was, admittedly, tempting to my id that totally loves watching romcoms on airplanes and Sunday mornings). Ultimately, ‘What Maisie Knew’ wants to have its Tastykake and deliver a strongly-worded lecture about the dangers of high fructose corn syrup and trans fats too.

Julianne Moore, Onata Aprile, and Alexander Skarsgård in 'What Maisie Knew' — Julianne Moore, Onata Aprile, and Alexander Skarsgård in *What Maisie Knew*

What Maisie Knew might have made a pretty good romcom to watch on an airplane or catch on cable on a Sunday morning while you sort your junk mail or something. But it has aspirations of seriousness, despite building to a far-fetched, frilly bow tie of a resolution (which, was, admittedly, tempting to my id that totally loves watching romcoms on airplanes and Sunday mornings). Ultimately, What Maisie Knew wants to have its Tastykake and deliver a strongly-worded lecture about the dangers of high fructose corn syrup and trans fats,+ too.

The excessively ominous title is just meant to indicate that this movie is told from the perspective of its six-year-old protagonist, Maisie Beale (Onata Aprile). I was worried for the entire first act that someone was going to be murdered or assaulted because of the title and the generally bleak tone of the film. But it’s not about a child witnessing a violent crime; it’s about a child witnessing the fallout of a bitter custody battle between her parents, neither of whom are all that interested in parenting her.

Maisie and her warring biological parents

Her mother, Susanna, is a self-centered past-her-prime rockstar (played by Julianne Moore), who seemingly wants Maisie around mainly because she’s a source of unconditional love. Her father (Steve Coogan) is a smug art dealer who wants to “rescue” Maisie from her “unfit” mother, but he can’t be bothered to actually care for her because he’s constantly on the phone with important clients and jets off to Europe on the regular.

So Dad marries Maisie’s nanny, Margo (Joanna Vanderham), who is conveniently over-the-moon for him even though he’s decades older and looks like Steve Coogan. Susanna revenge-marries a seemingly dim, young bartender named Lincoln (Alexander Skarsgård), not only to stick it to her ex and Margo, but to help her chances in court with the custody decision. There are countless scenes where Maisie is dumped by one of her four caregivers to be with another, only to be left waiting on a bench for hours because no one is there. Lincoln and Margo are clearly the only people giving Maisie the attention and love she needs even as she’s bounced between her generally disinterested and frequently absent parents.

So there’s a solid hour of watching Maisie suffering mild neglect and repeated appearances of the caption “(muffled quarreling)” as we watch Maisie play with her toys while the grownups fight in the next room. Then Maisie’s father takes an extended trip to Europe at the same time Maisie’s mother goes on tour, and her step-parents Margo and Lincoln find themselves awkwardly sharing custody of the girl. And spoiler alert, they fall in love.

And maybe it’s because I was so desperate for a break from the gloomy proceedings or because Vanderham and Skarsgård actually have chemistry or because under Margo and Lincoln’s loving and attentive care, Maisie went from sullen to bubbly, but I bought into this shift toward a more pleasant narrative.

Maisie's step-parents Lincoln and Margo flirting — Maisie’s step-parents Lincoln and Margo flirting

After an hour of harsh realism, I couldn’t help but notice all the holes in this happy ending. Margo essentially kidnaps Maisie and takes her to her cousin’s conveniently unoccupied beach house (and context clues suggest it is roundabout Virginia not Far Rockaway or something). Lincoln presumably quits his job to follow. Who knows how they have money for food or where Maisie’s going to go to school? Susanna gives them her out-of-character and hardly legally binding blessing and rolls away in her tour bus. Maisie’s dad is in England for the foreseeable future and has firmly rejected the idea of taking Maisie with him, so I guess we’re meant to think he just doesn’t care where she ends up. Maisie’s free to literally sail off into the sunset with Margo and Lincoln.

The audience knows this can’t and won’t last. Aside from the practicalities and the likelihood that Maisie’s biological parents may eventually want to take back their child abandonment, there’s the nagging concern that Margo and Lincoln are conflating their shared love of Maisie for love of each other. We already watched their marriages to Maisie’s parents quickly fall apart. Who’s to say these two will last much longer just because they’re closer in age and both good parents?

An implausible happy ending with a new and fragile happy family

I’d still give What Maisie Knew my qualified recommendation. Its fairly original framing is actually quite successful, in large part because Onata Aprile is such a gifted child actress that I didn’t even think to remark upon her talent until just now; she’s so natural her work never even reads as a performance. The adult actors are all game as well, even though their characters aren’t always the most pleasant. And while I don’t think the shift into romcom territory worked, I’m guessing that without it, the movie might have been too much of a downer. It’s only about an hour and a half long, and it’s streaming on Netflix, so you might want to give What Maisie Knew a go.

Robin Hitchcock is an American writer living in Cape Town, South Africa.

Bisexuality in ‘Orange is the New Black’

Written by Robin Hitchcock

Orange is the New Black

Orange is the New Black has more buzz than an apiary this summer, and with good reason: it’s funny, emotionally affecting, intensely watchable, and as a Netflix original series, suited to an immensely satisfying weekend binge-watch. But on top of all that, OitNB offers a lot to talk about beyond “Did you watch Orange is the New Black yet? It’s so great!”

It’s actually kind of a shame that Orange is the New Black is so revolutionary and fresh. The show has gotten a lot of attention and praise for the character Sophia, a black trans woman, portrayed by black trans woman Laverne Cox (and her twin bother M. Lamar in flashbacks, in some truly fortuitous casting). I wish that kind of representation didn’t seem so revolutionary and fresh, but honestly, it is still revolutionary and fresh merely for there to be a show mostly about women, much less one like OitNB that does its best to reflect womanhood as anything but monolithic and directly addresses race, class and sexuality.

Laverne Cox as Sophia

Of course, the central and point-of-view character, Piper Chapman, is a privileged white woman–a Smith graduate whose mother is telling everyone she’s volunteering in Africa as an alibi for her 15 months in Federal Prison. Orange is the New Black does its best to address, challenge, and sometimes mock Piper’s privilege (she compares her prison-issue shoes to TOMS), but it can be frustrating that she is the focus while the audience has to wait many episodes for the serious treatment and backstories of some of the most compelling characters of color.

And it is fitting that the most interesting thing about Piper is her bisexuality, which is the one dimension she isn’t at the top of the hierarchy. Again, it shouldn’t be so fresh and unusual to have a bisexual main character, but it is. And Orange is the New Black doesn’t just use Piper’s sexuality as a representation token or an opportunity for hot girl-on-girl prison action, but as an actual platform to explore the complexities of sexual identity.

Larry (Jason Biggs) and Piper (Taylor Schilling)

Piper enters prison engaged to a man, who had previously known nothing of Piper’s same-sex relationship with a drug trafficker ten years prior. Piper, her fiance Larry, and her future in-laws are all too happy to brush off that history as a long-passed phase. Larry only becomes nervous about Piper cheating on him in prison when he learns her ex-girlfriend Alex is also incarcerated there. She has to lecture him on the Kinsey Scale to point out that the presence of Alex isn’t going to “turn her gay.” When Piper (spoiler alert) does have sex with and fall for Alex again, it doesn’t make her fall out of love with Larry, defying the common portrayal of bisexuality involving some kind of toggle switch.

Piper and Alex (Laura Prepon)

Orange is the New Black also side-steps the trope of Piper only being “gay for” one person. In a flashback sequence Piper tells her best friend Polly, “I like hot girls. I like hot boys. What can I say? I’m shallow.” [That’s also an absurdly simplistic representation of bisexuality, but absurd simplicity is fairly honest to Piper’s character.]

Piper’s sexuality is as hard for Alex to accept as it is for Larry, though. When their relationship hits the rocks, Alex angrily says she broke her rule number one: “never fall in love with a straight girl.” Alex bonds with Nicky, another lesbian inmate who had been having sex with another “straight” girl engaged to a man. Seeing these characters express frustration with bisexual characters’ ability to “opt-out” and enjoy heterosexual privileges puts Orange is the New Black‘s simple “Kinsey scale”/”I like hot people” depiction of bisexuality back into a realistically complicated and often painful context of negotiating sexualities.

Discussing Piper’s rekindled affair with Alex, Larry says to her brother Cal, “Is she gay now?” Cal says, “I’m going to go ahead and guess that one of the issues here is your need to say that a person is exactly anything.”

His issue and everyone else’s, Cal.

Robin Hitchcock is an American writer living in Cape Town, and that is not a WASP-y cover story for a prison stint.

‘Arrested Development’s Mancession: Economic and Gender Meltdowns in Season 4

Arrested Development promo.

Written by Leigh Kolb
Spoilers ahead!

When Arrested Development first aired in 2003, the news cycle was heavy with stories of Enron-like corporate scandals and the escalating Iraq War. The first run of the series–from 2003 to 2006–relied heavily on inspiration from news stories about crooked corporations and wartime scandals to draw the Bluth family and their “riches-to-rags” story.

After a seven-year hiatus, during which rabid fans hoped, speculated and begged for more, the fourth season of Arrested Development debuted on Netflix on May 26, 2013.

During the hiatus, America has dealt with the housing bubble and economic collapse, high unemployment, sweeping legislation against reproductive rights and a lot of hand-wringing over the “Mancession” and the supposed “end of men” in American culture. There is plenty of comedy fodder buried in the depths of societal despair, and Mitch Hurwitz and company took full advantage.

In the first three seasons of the show, Michael Bluth was our good guy–the ethical, self-aware, hardworking man in a sea of familial dysfunction.

Michael considers his failings while a vulture watches on.

In the first episode of season 4, however, we first see Michael drunkenly ascend the stairs of the stair car (now emblazoned with the “Austero Bluth Company” logo) to try to settle a debt with Lucille 2. Sally Sitwell makes a snide comment about how she’s glad she didn’t marry him, and Michael attempts to seduce Lucille 2 for the money.

Michael is not the golden son we knew before. And while everyone in the Bluth family is, on some level, remarkably terrible, Michael’s fall from grace is especially jarring–and it’s supposed to be.

Lucille 2 is not interested in Michael’s desperate advances.

He’s living in George Michael’s dorm room and taking classes through the University of Phoenix. He’s clueless and desperate, lost after the housing market crashed and he loses control of his company. He tries to construct a new subdivision, but it doesn’t have the proper utilities. He can’t quite get anything right.

Arrested Development‘s new season is a comical, satirical look at the idea of the Mancession and the threat to traditional American masculine identity that writers and pundits have been analyzing and panicking about for the last few years. Jobs that have typically been held by men–construction and manufacturing, as well as finance–disappeared during the recession. Michael’s fall from grace echoes the fall from dominance that men in his position seem to have suffered during the recession.

The patriarch of the family, George Sr., is also a “victim” of emasculation in this season. Living in a commune-turned-corporate retreat with Oscar, a 21st century Roger Sterling and his female companions, George Sr. partakes in maca root that is downhill from a porta-potty. (A reddit commenter noted that the maca was probably affected by women who were on birth control pills using the toilet, which is a common anti-birth-control battle cry.) George Sr. is indeed feminized by his drug use, and a doctor confirms that he has the estrogen levels of a normal, healthy woman, and that he has almost no testosterone. He cries, feels weak, complains that he hates the way he looks and worries about looking fat (Lucille 2 responds by calling him a “drama queen”).

Her?

George Sr.’s continuous fall from power into obscurity is shown by his becoming more and more like a woman. While on another show this might be unbelievably offensive, it works on Arrested Development because we are laughing at the characters, and their dysfunction is highlighted by sexist remarks, cultural appropriation and casual racism.

Perhaps most noteworthy about Michael and George Sr.’s descents is that the two men have little to no control over what’s happening to them or around them. A hallmark of the recession’s effect on men, and the proceeding news that women are increasingly breadwinners and are out-pacing men in college and rising in the ranks in the workforce is just that: a desperate feeling of a lack of control. This is why pundits on Fox News engage in “man-panic” and try to say that science shows men are superior. This is why bloggers list all of the ways the “American man” is threatened by the changing economy.

The other men are involved in sub-plots dealing with masculinity and homosexuality. George Michael (who hates his name and tries to disconnect himself from his father) studies in Spain, growing a mustache and having an affair with a Spanish woman who he works as a nanny for. Gob’s episode is a spoof on the masculine-fueled Entourage, and he struggles with aging out of the youthful party scene. Gob and Tony Wonder, trying to enact revenge upon each other, fall in friendly love and blur the lines between friendship and romance. When George Michael says that his name is “George Maharis,” he chose the name of an actor who in 1974 was arrested for having sex with a male hairdresser named Perfecto Telles (the name of Maeby’s under-aged boyfriend).

For a brand of men for whom being emasculated is pretty terrifying, they are subjected to a great deal of it in season 4.

Buster, who grows from a “mother boy” to a “mother man,” has an affair with the wife of a politician (Herbert Love, a black Tea Party-inspired politician who is strongly against birth control coverage). He re-joins the Army and becomes a drone pilot, thinking he’s getting unlimited juice boxes and playing video games. His inability to kill a kitten, however, gets him discharged.

Arrested Development manages to parody everything–even drone strikes–and make it work.

Tony Wonder plays gay for his act, but he and Gob share an intimate relationship that evolves into a game of sexual chicken. Speaking of chickens, here’s a National Geographic post that analyzes the Bluths’ chicken dances. Amazing.

Hannah Rosin turned her Atlantic piece, “The End of Men,” into the book, The End of Men: And the Rise of Women. She examines the changing roles of men in society, and how women are taking charge at home and at work.The women of Arrested Development often have a sense of agency and control that women don’t always have in comedic sitcoms. Lady T, who looked at the main female characters through a feminist lens in her piece for Bitch Flicks, says,

“The Bluth-Funke women make up some of the most entertaining, well-rounded characters on television. They provide just as much laughs as the male characters on Arrested Development and help to dispel the ridiculous claims that ‘women aren’t funny.'”

Lucille (1 and 2), Lindsay, Maeby and even Ann are powerful figures in season 4 and figure prominently in plot lines involving the leading men. I think it’s safe to say that compared to the male characters, we feel less sympathy for the women, because they are, on the whole, less pitiful.

Lucille on The Real Asian Prison Housewives of the Orange County White Collar Prison System.

Lucille Bluth and Lindsay are both shallow and conniving as ever. Lindsay’s spiritual journey is laughable (“I read some of Eat, Pray, Love,” she says), but she does what she wants, just like Lucille, who manages to infiltrate a gang of Asian women in prison. In flashbacks, Kristen Wiig is amazing as a young Lucille.

“I’m surrounded by squalor and death and I still can’t be happy.”

Lucille Austero is running for office against Herbert Love, and has a powerful corporate position.

Maeby, attempting to finish high school and feeling insecure about the fact that she hasn’t and the fact that her career in film production is ending, pimps out her mother and runs an aggressive PR campaign for George Michael’s fake FakeBlock.

Maeby’s film career gets cut short, so she gets creative.

Ann had a child with Tony Wonder and is planning on marrying Gob, but he backs out, and she manages to get back at both of them.

In short, the women of Arrested Development continue to have a great deal of twisted power, just as they did in previous seasons.

George Michael and his father have been dating the same woman, Rebel, and the two come to blows at the end of the season. George Michael rejects his name and punches his father, and enters himself into the canon of men with daddy issues in film and media, including his own father and grandfather.

This third generation of Bluths–George Michael and Maeby–are products of the arrested development of their family and are fulfilling the roles that have been laid out for them, even as they try to rebel.

The way that Arrested Development tackles–no, skewers–current issues and societal woes makes it brilliant and surprisingly timeless. From corporate fraud to war scandals to economic crashes to gender norms, the same issues and problems arise time and time again. Society is, indeed, one big roofie circle.

You can catch Tobias on the evangelical television network.

Leigh Kolb is a composition, literature and journalism instructor at a community college in rural Missouri.

Claire Underwood: The Queen Bee in ‘House of Cards’

House of Cards poster

Written by Amanda Rodriguez

The first season of Netflix’s House of Cards set the tone for an amazing series, populated with nuanced characters, conflicting motivations, and a whole hell of a lot of awesome scheming. When the primary antihero, Frank Underwood, brilliantly portrayed by Kevin Spacey, addresses the camera, breaking the 4th wall, it’s reminiscent of the way in which Shakespeare’s Richard III addressed the audience, sharing the breadth of his intentions and the depths of his wiles. House of Cards paints a bleak world where everyone is compromised while the dictates of money and power seep into everything from our political system to our press and, finally, to our very homes. I’m particularly impressed with the multifaceted female characters.There’s Zoe Barnes, the young up-and-coming journalist who’ll do anything for a story, but she’s the kind of hungry reporter who’ll bite the hand that feeds her.

“Okay, so you think when a woman asks to be treated with respect, that’s arrogance?” – Zoe Barnes

Then there’s Linda Vasquez, the White House Chief of Staff, who is perhaps the only honest, plainspoken person in the entire series, and though her intelligence, strength, integrity, and lack of guile are admirable, they may make her easy prey for the likes of Frank Underwood.

“Tough as a two dollar steak.” – Frank Underwood of Linda Vasquez…too bad she’s not actually Latina

We also have Gillian Cole, the brilliant water rights activist whose conscience compels her to tell lies in order to smear her boss, Claire Underwood.

“I won’t let people like you fuck up the world my child has to live in [even] if I have to tell a few lies…” – Gillian Cole to Claire Underwood

Finally, there’s Janine Skorsky the seen-it-all jaded journalist who gets the chance at a career-making story through her dogged persistence and the help of Zoe Barnes, a fellow woman who happens to be a junior reporter.

Janine Skorsky in House of Cards

Though there are even more interesting female characters on the show, I’d like to focus on the queen bee; the show’s ultimate female antihero (antiheroine?), Claire Underwood portrayed by Robin Wright. She’s the wife of Congressman Frank Underwood and the Executive Director of the Clean Water Initiative (CWI). She is smart, infinitely capable, poised, and absolutely ruthless.

“No, I’m not going to ask for your blessing on every decision I make.” – Claire Underwood to Frank Underwood

One of the first meaningful interactions we get with Claire is when she fires 18 staff members in order to create a new water well building project while not taking donations from SanCorp, a source that would indebt her husband for political favors. She has Evelyn Baxter, her office manager, do the dirty work, and then Claire proceeds to fire Evelyn because she was vocal in her concerns about the mass layoffs. The impression this gives us of Claire is that she is cold, calculating, and completely intractable. More than a match for her husband, the master manipulator Frank, Claire is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve her goals, regardless of whether she must apply her cutthroat ambition to a philanthropic enterprise like well building.

“I love that woman. I love her more than sharks love blood.” – Frank Underwood of Claire Underwood

Though the layoffs at her job set Claire up as the restrained, soft-spoken, heartless “ice queen,” we later find that these sorts of sacrifices actually affect her deeply when she uses her status as Frank’s only completely trusted ally in order to sabotage his education bill for her own gains. After repeatedly asking for her husband’s help with finances and influence (because his political aspirations have grievously limited those things for her organization) and after repeatedly being rebuffed and ignored by him, Claire, as a favor to Frank, agrees to speak to a couple of representatives who are leaning against voting for his education bill. By intentionally not swaying these votes, Claire causes the bill to fail and therefore secures the necessary influence with the Sudanese government she needs to begin her well building project. When Frank confronts her, we see Claire’s most impassioned response of the entire season:

“[I did it] For myself. I can’t operate based on plans you haven’t shared with me…I don’t feel as though I’m standing beside you…I fired half of my staff for us. I have turned down donations for us. I drafted Peter’s bill for us. I diverted time and energy…for us…Be honest about how you’re using me just like you use everyone else. That was not part of the bargain.”

Claire asserts that Frank hasn’t behaved in keeping with their agreement, their partnership. She makes it clear that she will not allow him to take advantage of her and that if they’re not working as a unit, she will take matters into her own hands to meet her needs and objectives. Claire then proceeds to leave town to visit with a former lover of hers, thus also meeting the emotional needs that Frank has neglected. Her independence and her unwillingness to tolerate Frank’s complacency here are admirable.

The imperious Claire Underwood

The marriage between Claire and Frank is also unique. Claire recounts Frank’s marriage proposal:

“Claire, if all you want is happiness say no. I’m not going to give you a couple of kids and count the days until retirement. I promise you freedom from that, I promise you’ll never be bored…He was the only one who understood me. He didn’t put me on some pedestal, he knew that I didn’t want to be adored or coddled.”

They have a very open, autonomous, conspiratorial relationship wherein they sleep with other people and keep no secrets from each other. I do question the fact that Claire’s affair with Adam has genuine depth and substance, while Frank’s affair with Zoe is a blatant cliche replete with the middle-aged married man sleeping with the young ingenue, the power dynamics grossly skewed (though even that tryst ends up taking us into surprising places). The two affairs are in keeping with the notion that men can have casual sex and women cannot because they require an emotional connection.

I also question Claire’s rising desire to have children. Is this budding maternal instinct meant to humanize her? The idea that she had always wanted children but repressed her desires to accommodate Frank’s hatred of children is not at all in keeping with her character. Since when does she relegate her wants to the backseat, especially for decades? I do, however, appreciate the continued independence that she shows in this regard, seeking fertility treatments without Frank’s knowledge because he has failed her as a partner. Not only that, but the pregnancy itself could be a strategic play to thwart Gillian’s lawsuit for wrongful termination due to pregnancy discrimination; the logic being: how could one pregnant woman wrongfully fire another pregnant woman due to her pregnancy?

Claire Underwood in House of Cards

There’s no denying that despite her highly suspect morality, Claire Underwood is an extraordinarily powerful woman. Her power stems from a confidence in her capability, her intelligence, and her ambition. Claire has power because she knows she has power. She has power because she’s taken it and guards it fiercely. Is she a decent person? Absolutely not. Is she a feminist role model? Probably not. But representations of nuanced powerful female characters are in short supply in Hollywood. I’d love to see more women (on screen and off) with Claire’s sense of her own strength and self-worth. Let’s hope Netflix is onto something, and keep our fingers crossed that House of Cards Season 2 is just as rich with complex women as its first season was.

The Complex, Unlikable Women of ‘House of Cards’

Daddy Issues, Menopause and Female Power

Written by Leigh Kolb

Spoilers ahead

Netflix’s original production House of Cards premiered–all at once, for those of us who love binge-watching–on February 1. Frank Underwood (Kevin Spacey) is the vengeful House Majority Whip who lusts after power and is ambitious and unscrupulous in his attempts to get what he wants.

In fact, most of the characters fit that description.

Just as Frank conjures a centuries-old tradition of villainous pseudo-heroism, the women of House of Cards also represent the kind of ruthless ambition that we find so compelling in characters.

And as “The Women on House of Cards Are Just as Evil as the Men” points out:

“The show would be way less interesting if only the male characters were running around town sleeping with people they shouldn’t be sleeping with and bribing people they shouldn’t be bribing while their female partners and peers waited patiently at home.”

Zoe is a scrappy reporter when we first meet her, and she quickly transforms herself into a front-page journalist because she gets the right source.

In bed.

She draws him in with a photo, goes to his house in a push-up bra and a low-cut shirt, and gets tips of all kinds. In the first episode, the most powerful women have broken into power via cleavage, marriage and tokenism (the new White House Chief of Staff Linda Vasquez, who Frank helped promote because of her ethnicity and gender). It didn’t look so good at first, but like any good story, the characters unfold as the series goes on, revealing that Claire is ambitious at all costs, Zoe holds the cards in her relationship with Frank and the women, at the end, are instrumental in upending and beginning to unravel Frank’s plans.

Zoe Barnes

When Zoe and Tom get into a fight after she turns down the White House Correspondent gig, he accuses her of being arrogant.

Zoe: “You think when a woman asks to be respected she’s being arrogant?”
Tom: “Are you accusing me of sexism? No TV for a month.”

He’s limiting her TV appearances as punishment, but of course it sounds like he’s talking to a child and taking television away as a punishment. The line between father and boss is blurred.

Claire Underwood

She courts Gillian, a young, beautiful woman who has had individual success in clean water initiatives. Gillian resists the corporate atmosphere, and Claire says,

“I know what it is to be capable, beautiful and ambitious… I want to enable you, to clear the way for you.”

Gillian accepts.

These women are complex, if not likable, and that’s a good thing. Season 2 is already in development, and the women’s stories are poised to be central to what comes next. Zoe and Janine are close to the truth about Frank, Claire’s career and fertility hang in the balance and at any moment, the house of cards they’ve all helped build may come tumbling down.

—–

Leigh Kolb is a composition, literature and journalism instructor at a community college in rural Missouri.