Private Practice – Bitch Flicks

This guest post written by Madison Zehmer appears as part of our theme week on Unpopular Opinions.

[Trigger warning: discussion of rape, trauma, and PTSD]

Shonda Rhimes, the creator of Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal, and How to Get Away with Murder, is known for putting her characters in unpredictable, shocking, and even tragic situations. Over the course of Grey’s Anatomy’s 13 seasons, the surgeons of Grey-Sloan Memorial Hospital have faced a bomb explosion, a shooting, a plane crash, and multiple car crashes. Major characters, including Derek Shepherd, Mark Sloan, George O’Malley, and Lexie Grey, have been killed, and others have experienced serious physical and mental health problems as a result of the tragedies they have endured.

Because Rhimes and the writers of Grey’s Anatomy choose to put their characters in situations that in real life would yield enormous consequences, the writers arguably have a responsibility to portray the character’s responses to these events as realistically and honestly as possible. The writers also have to be careful not to exploit serious issues, such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), for the sole purpose of entertainment. Dr. Arizona Robbins’ (Jessica Capshaw) leg injury, amputation, and subsequent PTSD in seasons 9 and 10 of Grey’s Anatomy was depicted for shock value and entertainment. As a result, the narrative surrounding Arizona’s recovery is insufficient and flawed, ignoring the extent of the real mental health challenges she faces, ultimately blaming Arizona for her inability to completely recover mentally and emotionally from the trauma she experiences.

The plane crash at the end of season 8 of Grey’s Anatomy leaves two surgeons dead and the other four wounded. Arizona, a bubbly, lesbian, pediatric surgeon, suffers a serious injury to her left thigh. When the surviving surgeons are rescued after 4 days in the woods, the doctors that treat the survivors in the immediate aftermath recommend that Arizona undergo an amputation of the majority of her left leg. She refuses and goes back to Seattle, where her wife, orthopedic surgeon Dr. Callie Torres (Sara Ramirez), attempts to treat the infection in the wound without resorting to amputation. When Arizona began to go into septic shock while Callie is operating on Dr. Derek Shepherd’s injured hand, Callie reluctantly gives Dr. Alex Karev permission to amputate Arizona’s leg, knowing that Arizona would die without the procedure.

Over the course of a couple of weeks, Arizona’s life changes dramatically. Before the plane accident, she is an able-bodied, characteristically joyful mom and surgeon in a relatively happy marriage. The wreck, serious infection, and amputation greatly restrict her ability to function the way she had before the accident; the aspects of her life that she deems to be most important no longer seem to be guaranteed. Arizona begins to question whether she will be able to perform surgeries and adequately take care of her child in the future. As she is extremely angry at Callie because she believes Callie amputated her leg, she resists her wife’s efforts to help her and to motivate her.

In the wake of the accident, Arizona develops a flat affect and stops communicating with her friends and her wife. This is especially striking, because prior to the accident she was the token “happy” character on Grey’s Anatomy, known for her enthusiasm and cheer in less than ideal situations. In addition to a blunted affect, Arizona experiences multiple symptoms of PTSD after the accident, including outbursts of anger, nightmares, panic attacks, and impulsive behavior.

Because of the brain’s plasticity, traumatic events often cause connections in the brain to “rewire,” which can cause the dysregulation of Cortisol (often called the “stress hormone”) and other hormones and neurotransmitters and the reduction of hippocampal volume, among other neurological changes. PTSD is a mental disorder that is helped by medical treatment (medication, counselling, therapy), just like other disorders or illnesses.

Although Arizona clearly suffers from many of the symptoms of PTSD, she does not receive any psychiatric treatment or therapy. Since her wife and the majority of her friends are medical doctors, it is surprising that they do not suggest that she pursue treatment and that none of the plane crash survivors receive therapy. As Grey’s Anatomy has set a precedent of characters going to therapy (Meredith in season 3, Owen and Cristina in season 6), it is concerning that the writers chose to ignore that aspect of Arizona’s (and Cristina’s, Meredith’s, and Derek’s) recovery.

Additionally, Callie’s and Arizona’s exchange in the first episode of season 9 is unsettling, demonstrating the attitude towards Arizona’s mental health that the show seems to take. Callie walks into their bedroom to find Arizona lying in a hospital bed, faced away from the door. Callie yells at Arizona to, “Get the hell out of bed and snap out of this!” Arizona turns to face Callie and replies as she pulls back a blanket to reveal her amputated leg, “Snap out of this?” Although it’s not inherently problematic for the series to show this exchange, it’s troublesome that they chose to perpetuate the idea that Arizona should have just “gotten over” her trauma without therapy. It’s also problematic that the writers used this scene to reveal the fact that Arizona had lost her leg, suggesting that the choice to put her character through this ordeal was for shock value.

In season 4, episode 7 of the Grey’s Anatomy spinoff Private Practice, Dr. Charlotte King is raped in her office by a patient. Although there are significant problems with this storyline (the rapist is a mentally unstable man who is a stranger to Charlotte, which perpetuates false stereotypes about rape and stigma surrounding mental illness), the Private Practice writers do a significantly better job in regards to the careful depiction of PTSD. KaDee Strickland, the actress who played Charlotte, Rhimes, and the writers consulted the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network (RAINN) to realistically depict the aftermath of Charlotte’s rape with care and sensitivity. Strickland agreed to the storyline only after being assured that the aftermath would be handled realistically and the trauma would not be forgotten in a couple of episodes. The impact of the trauma on Charlotte is clear and visible, if not always explicitly stated, for the rest of the show’s duration. In addition, Private Practice and RAINN released a PSA for rape survivors. Charlotte’s recovery is depicted with care and discernment, demonstrating that the writers are aware of the responsibility they have to ensure that the storyline does not exploit trauma for shock value or for entertainment.

If the Grey’s Anatomy writers had treated Arizona’s storyline in seasons 9 and 10 with the same sense of sensitivity and responsibility in approaching PTSD that the Private Practice writers treated Charlotte’s storyline, they would have been able to portray a significant issue often overlooked in media in a realistic and respectable way. However, Arizona’s amputation seems to serve as a plot device to create shock and tension in Callie’s and Arizona’s relationship.

Before the accident, Arizona already has a difficult time expressing her emotions. Her PTSD and resentment for Callie in the wake of the accident amplifies her tendency to keep her problems to herself. After she suffers from a miscarriage (only shown in flashback scenes) that also seems to exploit Arizona’s grief and feeling of a loss of control for shock value, Arizona ultimately ends up cheating on Callie with a visiting surgeon in the season finale of season 9.

It’s wrong for Arizona to cheat on Callie. However, the way Arizona is depicted in an extremely negative light for the beginning of season 10 paints Arizona as some sort of cold-hearted villain and Callie as the helpless victim. This is a gross over-simplification of the complicated problems in their relationship and the factors leading up to the infidelity, including Arizona’s amputation and PTSD (of which impulsive behavior is a symptom), Callie’s repeated insistence that Arizona “get over” the accident. Arizona and Callie end up getting back together for a short time and going to couple’s therapy (which – again – highlights that Arizona did not receive therapy in the wake of the plane crash) before ultimately deciding to divorce. Now in season 13, Arizona’s personality is very similar to her personality before the crash. Although this is probably ideal for many fans, the show now tends to overlook the fact that Arizona has a disability, erasing part of her identity, only bringing it up back again when it can add to the drama of the show.

The depiction of trauma in media can be very powerful and informative when done correctly. However, when trauma is exploited to shock the audience and create drama, the film or television series often ends up perpetuating dangerous ideas surrounding trauma. Arizona’s recovery from an amputation in the wake of a plane crash could have depicted PTSD honestly and explored issues people with disabilities face, but the storyline mostly just serves to advance the drama that Grey’s Anatomy is known for.

See also at Bitch Flicks:

Interracial Relationships on Grey’s Anatomy

A Love Letter to Dr. Callie Torres on Grey’s Anatomy

Being the Sun: Women and Power in Grey’s Anatomy Season 11

Madison Zehmer is a first-year student at Wake Forest University, where she studies psychology on the pre-med track. She enjoys writing in her spare time. You can find her at Twitter @maddieemz, where she mostly talks about politics and her love for cats.

This guest post by Scarlett Harris is part of our theme week on Bad Mothers.

If ever there were a TV universe replete with bad mothers, it’s Shondaland.

Of course, not all Shondaland shows exist in the same fictional world, which allows bad mothers such as Ellis Grey on Grey’s Anatomy to be reincarnated as a reprehensible Vice President of the United States on Scandal. (But don’t let the different fictional worlds fool you: Grey’s Anatomy spinoff Private Practice consistently used actors from the former to play different characters in the latter.)

It’s fascinating that all four of Shonda Rhimes’ protagonists have strained relationships with their mothers when Rhimes herself (from what we commoners can see) couldn’t be any further from that trope, having adopted three daughters as a single (and seemingly awesome) mum.

The first, and most obvious, of these Mommy Dearest connections is Meredith Grey and her aforementioned mother, Ellis. Throughout 11 seasons of Grey’s, we see Meredith’s internal struggle with the distant mother she simultaneously strives to live up to while resenting her for putting her career above her daughter and her early onset of Alzheimer’s which resulted in her death in season three. Ellis continued to haunt Meredith from beyond the grave when it was revealed that Meredith had yet another sister, Maggie, who Ellis put up for adoption when Meredith was a child.

With the sustained appearance of Meredith’s copious family members and the adoption (shout out to Shonda!)/birth of her own three children, the struggle to be a good mother and, thus, a good person is at the forefront of Grey’s Anatomy, whether it’s always palpable or not.

The somewhat forgotten Shondaland creation, Private Practice, also featured a strained mother-daughter relationship between Addison Montgomery and her mother, Bizzy, who committed suicide when her partner died. Of course Rhimes painted a more nuanced picture than this, but I imagine it’s pretty hard to forgive your mother for committing suicide and leaving you to fend for yourself, no matter your age. (Ellis also tried to kill herself when Meredith was a girl, right around the time she found out she was pregnant to Richard Webber with Maggie.)

Scandal, perhaps the crown jewel in the Shondaland empire, has a truly evil mother (and father!) in Maya Lewis/Marie Wallace, an alleged terrorist and murderer. Proving some people are never meant to be parents, last week’s season four finale showed Olivia continuing to be used as a pawn in her parent’s power games, with Maya/Marie choosing freedom over helping her daughter and Rowan/Eli thwarting Olivia’s attempts at revenge at every bloody turn.

Mellie is another Capitol Hill resident that struggles in her motherhood. Sometimes portrayed as ruthless and vindictive, it is Mellie who expresses sensitivity when daughter Karen has a compromising video taken of her and who wallows in grief after son Jerry is murdered. Mellie is perhaps a less rigid characterisation of motherhood than Maya/Marie as she is permitted to express a range of emotions that I imagine one would experience as a mother.

Finally, we see the mother of Annalise Keating rear her head towards the end of this year’s first season of How to Get Away with Murder. In what I think is arguably the most fascinating dynamic since Meredith and Ellis, Annalise’s mother Ophelia (played by Cicely Tyson) first comes across as rigid, unfeeling and old school, guilting her daughter (formerly Anna Mae) into remembering her humble beginnings and the sacrifices Ophelia made for her. Annalise resents Ophelia (someone write a thinkpiece unpacking that naming choice!) for not protecting her from being molested by her uncle and, while Ophelia is combing her daughter’s hair, she reveals that she did indeed seek revenge by burning their house down with Annalise’s uncle inside. Talk about protecting your children!

Like her fondness for mistresses, you have to wonder whether Rhimes is dealing with some mommy issues of her own when she writes bad mothers so often. (Even her debut screenwriting gig featured a bad mother.) What Rhimes really excels at, though, is writing real, nuanced people who happen to be mothers. On the season 11 finale of Grey’s Anatomy, Maggie finds out her adoptive parents are divorcing while Amelia, the black sheep of her family, is still struggling with the death of her brother. Meredith, already a mother to three, takes Maggie and Amelia by the hands in a rare demonstration of something other than contempt, with the final scene being the sisters three dancing at Richard and Catherine’s wedding.

While we all have mothers in some incarnation, Shondaland’s shows work to combat the stereotype that if you don’t have a functional family unit, replete with a doting, competent mother, you’re alone in the world.

Scarlett Harris is a Melbourne, Australia-based writer, broadcaster and blogger at The Scarlett Woman, where she muses about feminism, social issues and pop culture. You can follow her on Twitter here.

Tag: Private Practice

‘Grey’s Anatomy’: Dr. Arizona Robbins, PTSD, and the Exploitation of Trauma for Shock Value

Bad Mothers Are the Law of Shondaland