Scarlett Harris – Page 2

Body Image on ‘Total Divas’

As you can see from the image above, there’s nothing wrong with the way either of the women in the sketches look. And as reality shows are wont to do, everything is tied up in a nice little bow by episode’s end, with Eva realizing she has issues that she needs to work on. “I’m a normal girl who has her own insecurities,” she says.

This is a guest post by Scarlett Harris.

Sunday night’s episode of Total Divas centered around Eva Marie’s recovery from breast augmentation after her previous implants started leaking, her subsequent Muscle & Fitness Hers magazine shoot, and her body image issues.

The irony here is that Muscle & Fitness Hers is a magazine that I assume is promoting the “strong not skinny” ideal that permeates the health and fitness industry. As we saw on Sunday, Eva Marie’s mindset is anything but. After her surgery, she’d been unable to exercise so when she found out the magazine wanted her to shoot for them, the pressure was on to get back into shape. Throughout the show, Eva has made stray comments about her body, saying she’s too fat or looks ugly, and in this episode, she sees her visage on the side of a WWE trailer and says the same. This all comes to a head when Eva and Ariane are shopping and Eva nearly collapses in the change room because she hasn’t eaten for a day.

Ariane is concerned for her friend and worried about the message Eva’s poor body image is sending to their fans. “We’re WWE Divas. That means we’re empowering women who are role models and WWE wouldn’t even think about putting her on, like, three trailers if she wasn’t TheBomb.com [one of Ariane’s myriad catchphrases],” she says.

Putting aside Ariane’s correlation between being hot = being empowered, she takes Eva to a sketch artist similar to the one used by Dove in their infamous viral campaign featuring women describing how ugly they are vs. how beautiful strangers think they are. Because all that matters is how other people think you look, right?

The sketch artist’s assistant’s description of Eva results in a more accurate drawing whereas the way she describes herself produces a sketch of a more “normal”-looking woman. As you can see from the image above, there’s nothing wrong with the way either of the women in the sketches look. And as reality shows are wont to do, everything is tied up in a nice little bow by episode’s end, with Eva realizing she has issues that she needs to work on. “I’m a normal girl who has her own insecurities,” she says.

The thing is, the Divas aren’t normal women. Like models, they work in an industry that trades primarily on how they look. Sure, they need their bodies to be strong but if they don’t look good while taking a bulldog or delivering a dropkick, fuhgedaboutit.

And as Nattie says on the episode, “It’s part of our job to look great and feel great.”

Total Divas’ other main storyline this week was that of Rosa’s infatuation with Paige, resulting in an awkward kiss. We’ve seen Rosa struggle with her own insecurities throughout the season and she continuously says she just wants the other Divas to like her. Rosa is recovering from a bad breakup, a stint in rehab for alcoholism and, upon her return to the WWE and her Total Divas debut, she underwent breast augmentation herself. On Sunday night she also revealed that she uses injectables such as Botox in her face.

I don’t want to perpetuate the harmful stereotype that those with body image issues turn to surgery, or that surgery perpetuates those issues, because there are plenty of people who love and hate themselves and their bodies who have and haven’t turned to surgery as a remedy. But it is telling that both Eva and Rosa struggle with their self worth and the way they look, have both had substance abuse problems and have both had cosmetic surgery.

On the other hand, many of the Total Divas (and WWE Divas who aren’t involved with the show) have also had surgery but seem to have pretty healthy self-esteem. (Or, more accurately, any body image woes they do have aren’t aired on E! to further the show’s storylines.) To reiterate Nattie’s sentiment, there’s a certain ideal Divas have to subscribe to. I also work sporadically in television, so I can relate. However I don’t think the correlation the Total Divas make between being role models and looking hot is the healthiest mindset to have. Eva touches on this somewhat in the trademark reality TV voiceover:

“I think it’s the pressure of being a role model and having so much on your shoulders. I think there’s a massive amount of pressure on any woman. All of us are striving for some type of perfection.”

Until being a Total Diva—nay, a women’s wrestler—is more about what they can do in the ring that what they look like, that perfection is going to remain outward rather than turning inward.

Scarlett Harris is a Melbourne, Australia-based freelance writer and blogger at The Scarlett Woman, where she writes about femin- and other -isms. You can follow her on Twitter.

The Choice to Be a Total Diva

So while Nikki is a successful wrestler (she’s the current Divas Champion in real time), actress (she’s been in outwardly scripted productions as well as “scripted reality” TV), real estate agent and businesswoman in general, she apparently can’t be trusted to make choices that are best for her personal life at the age of 31.

This is a guest post by Scarlett Harris.

For those unfamiliar with the E! reality show Total Divas, it follows the lives of eight female professional wrestlers—or Divas as they are better known—under the employ of World Wrestling Entertainment as they navigate through their personal lives, work, travel and health.

The first season delved into the machinations of the daily lives of twins Nikki and Brie Bella, veteran and wrestling family royalty Nattie, tag team partners Trinity and Ariane, and rookies Eva Marie and JoJo. By season end JoJo had decided to leave the show (but still ring announces on the WWE Network’s developmental program, NXT) for reasons that are unclear, but her absence was felt long before.

Bad girl Summer Rae replaced her in season two, also taking the title of the show’s villainess from Eva Marie who became perceived by the other Divas as one of them. And by season three, Rosa Mendes had joined the ranks, fresh from a bad breakup, cosmetic surgery and a stay in rehab for alcoholism.

Last Sunday marked the mid-season return of Total Divas and with it the departure of Summer Rae and Trinity, who was barely getting airtime before it was announced last year that newbie Diva Paige and Alicia Fox would be coming on board. Again, just because these Divas aren’t on Total Divas doesn’t mean they’re not continuing on with the WWE: Trinity (known in WWE as Naomi) is in a storyline with her husband, Jimmy Uso, while Summer Rae is now hosting the Total Divas aftershow on WWE.com.

Plenty of Divas make their mark on WWE programming without being involved in the reality show. For example, Paige won the Divas Championship on her very first day on the “main roster,” which was long before she signed on to the show, and the Slammy award (kind of like a Grammy but for wrestling) for Diva of the Year 2014 went to AJ Lee, the longest reigning Divas champion who, to the best of my knowledge, has never appeared in even a backstage shot on Total Divas.

It’s great that Total Divas is promoting women as athletes in a male dominated sport (or sports entertainment, rather), a portrayal that is rarely seen on reality television, but the women on the show are hardly the be all and end all of women in wrestling.

A.J. Lee has said that she “could” be on Total Divas, “but I wouldn’t do it. I’m just happy being who I am on TV two days a week and on live events and then going into my private life, and into my little hole in the middle of nowhere and having no one talk to me about my private life.”

The choice to be a Total Diva is vastly different from being a regular Diva.

The mid-season return of Total Divas saw the fallout between Nikki Bella and her partner, WWE Superstar John Cena, and their trial separation, the wheels of which were put in motion by her sister Brie and the rest of her family at the October finale.

Here’s the gist of the drama: before meeting John, Nikki was sure she was going to be a wife and mother. John’s been married before and doesn’t want to go down that road again. He also doesn’t want children. Nikki sacrificed her dreams to be with the man of them and she seemed happy (as happy as can be gleaned from a reality show, anyway) which her family can’t understand. Brie and the rest of Nikki’s family butted in and sat John down with an ultimatum: if he’s not going to give their sister what they believe she wants, let her go.

And so he did.

The thing that bugged me about this storyline—sorry, development in Nikki’s life—is that Nikki is a grown woman: if she decides to be with a man who won’t give her marriage and children, then that’s her choice. No one else is in the position to decide what makes her happy now, and what she’ll regret later. I get the same crap when I tell people I don’t want kids: but what if you regret it later? So what? That’s my regret to have.

Nikki pretty much echoed these sentiments when she found out that John “letting her go” was actually the doing of her family.

“You told my boyfriend what I want without me being there? You had no right to tell anyone how I feel. Who the hell do you think you are to make my decisions for me?”

Speaking of marriage and kids, fellow Total Diva Eva Marie is facing the repercussions of having lied to her husband about wanting children. Eva has been plagued by reproductive health issues which saw her coming to terms with the possibility of not being able to conceive. In the second episode of the mid-season return, Eva is told that a medical procedure could cure her infertility but she’s scared of pregnancy and is okay with it just being her and her husband Jonathan for the rest of their lives. Jonathan has always been clear about his intention to have a lot of children, so he’s pissed that Eva hid this potentially life-changing choice from him. As the episode draws to a close the couples’ dilemma is tied up in a nice little bow as reality show storylines are wont to do: Jonathan tells Eva that when she eventually decides to have children she’ll make the best mother, and they agree not to discuss children again for the time being while they focus on their careers. Because all women want to be mothers eventually: they just don’t know it yet. And all women who are apprehensive about motherhood will love their children and make great moms once they inevitably make that choice.

Despite his insistence that Eva will one day want children, Jonathan brings up a good point: in not telling him that she didn’t want kids before they got married, Eva took away his choice not to marry her because of this. He says would have married her regardless because he’s madly in love with her, but he would have liked to have had that choice. Presumably Eva would also like the choice whether or not to have kids.

So whether it’s having the independence from your family and your partner to make the choices that are best for you or being confident enough in your athletic abilities to opt out of a reality show many of your peers are involved in a the potential detriment to your career, being a Total Diva—and, indeed, a regular Diva—is all about choice. Isn’t that why women, be they wrestlers or no, are called divas in the first place?

Scarlett Harris is a Melbourne, Australia-based freelance writer and blogger at The Scarlett Woman, where she writes about femin- and other -isms. You can follow her on Twitter.

Lena Dunham, Slenderman, and the Terror of ‘Girls’

This is a guest post by Scarlett Harris.

An episode of Law & Order: SVU from earlier this month fictionalized yet another “ripped from the headlines” story–this time the Slenderman murders in which two pre-teen girls stabbed their friend in an attempt to summon the mythic Slenderman.

For those not familiar with Slenderman, he is a tall, thin character in a black suit with a featureless face spawned from a “creepypasta” (online, easily shareable fiction) meme from 2009, making him one of the first urban legends of the modern age. In the May 2014 attempted murder, the perpetrators gave the reason for their attack as wanting to become “proxies” or “acolytes” for Slenderman.

Many a think piece (this one by Rebecca Traister is perhaps the most tempered) and news story were spawned in the wake of the crime, puzzled by young women being so obsessively violent toward one another. You’ll notice that similar arguments are rarely made when boys behave badly toward other boys.

Also in the news of late are the allegations that Lena Dunham molested her younger sister Grace after writing in her recently released memoir Not That Kind of Girl that she would bribe her sister for her affections—“anything a sexual predator might do to woo a suburban girl”—masturbate in the bed she shared with her, and inspected her infant vagina (it later turned out Grace had stuffed pebbles up there) because that was “within the spectrum of things I did.”

I don’t really have a strong opinion about these allegations; I think it’s clear that Lena didn’t molest her sister, who doesn’t identify as a victim. I also think, as Roxane Gay, amongst others, wrote, that Dunham has boundary issues and isn’t always the best at acknowledging her white privilege and where she may have fucked up.

But I think what scared people the most about Dunham’s unabashed confessions is that it prescribes a curiosity and sexuality to children that adults would like to forget. Radhika Sanghani, writing in Daily Life, interviewed child psychologist Dr. Rachel Andrews, about the wider reaction to possible sexual experimentation by young girls. Andrews says, “It’s ‘just one of those things that boys do.’ But you might see a lot of girls who might have their hands down their pants and that be more questioned as to whether it’s normal. In fact it’s quite common. You might notice girls in a high chair rhythmically rubbing against the front of it.”

I remember as a 5-year-old I would mash the smooth plastic between my Barbies and Kens’ legs together and incessantly sing the song “Let’s Talk About Sex” (OK, the chorus; I wasn’t as adept as remembering rap lyrics as I am now!) with my male bestie during quiet time at school. And as many a female writer, tweeter and Tumblr(er?) has pointed out in the wake of all this, exploring our own and others’ bodies is a natural part of childhood. Doctors and nurses or mommies and daddies, anyone?

As we grow older, we start to understand social codes that tell us we should nip this curiosity in the bud and instead be ashamed of our bodies and hide them away. Even in the presence of a monogamous significant other (because sharing it with more than one person is also frowned upon), our bodies should be shrouded by bras, strategically placed sheets and minimal lighting, as Hollywood teaches us. Even in the scarily progressive (for the time) Sex & the City, which showed women frankly talking to each other about sex, Carrie and Charlotte shielded their bodies much of the time with underwear and bedding. In Dunham’s Girls, some of the characters show frightening sides of their sexualities whilst the actresses who chose to remain clothed mirror this by showing equally frightening sides of their personalities. Whilst, like Not That Kind of Girl, the show has some privilege problems to work through, Girls has been revolutionary because it’s not afraid to portray young women as many of them are: people that can sometimes be scary in their cluelessness, narcissism and humanity.

By contrast, we all know there’s nothing more terrifying than women who’ve got their shit together, especially those who don’t fit the conventional mold like the Dunhams. For example, Dunham’s mother’s reaction to Lena finding pebbles in Grace’s vagina was a rational one. She didn’t freak out or get angry or shame her daughters, which no doubt contributed to Dunham’s unabashed comfort in sharing her body and her thoughts with the world. As Dr. Andrews continues, “To have a big reaction about [children exploring their bodies], certainly a child could then go on to think there’s something wrong with them and what they’re doing… It can have an adverse effect.”

In order to keep producing these girls that terrify the status quo, more adults need to take that position and not freak out when they catch their children—and particularly their girls—doing things they apparently shouldn’t. It’s only once we start adding adult meaning to children’s actions that they couldn’t possibly fathom that they start to take a sinister shape. It’s more likely that Dunham’s childhood actions were ones of curiosity than predation. And in today’s internet age, satisfying that curiosity has never been easier, as seen with the Slenderman attempted murder. In addition to understanding that children will start to search for things online that’d make your grandma blush, we also need to discuss them rationally, without shame and guide them to make informed decisions. Otherwise we keep producing literally terrifying girls to match our literally terrifying boys.

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

She’s Possessed, Baby, Possessed!

When Phoebe is taken over by the deadly sin lust in “Sin Francisco,” she sexually assaults her professor and has sex with a policeman on the job, while Piper dances on her bar during her high school reunion when she’s possessed by an evil spirit. And almost all the evil women in the show are sexualized: the succubus, shapeshifter Kaia, the Stillman sisters in “The Power of Three Blondes,” the seer Kyra, etc.

This guest post by Scarlett Harris appears as part of our theme week on Demon and Spirit Possession.

It seemed like one Halliwell sister or another was possessed by demonic forces every week on Charmed.

There was Phoebe and the Woogeyman, the Banshee and the ghosts of Lulu and Grams, as well as Cole’s demonic spawn; Piper was possessed by the evil spirit of Terra in “Coyote Piper,” as well as the Valkyries and Hindu goddess Shakti (who ever said possession had to be evil?); Paige was overcome by her boyfriend Richard’s dead fiancée Olivia’s ghost (phew!), the Evil Enchantress from her childhood fairytale fantasies, and by a witch doctor’s voodoo magic; while Prue gets turned into a fairy, an empath and embodies the deadly sin, pride. Not to mention all manner of innocents who get taken over—mostly—by evil.

It also seemed like whenever a possession occurred, the sisters’ clothing went the way of Prue in season 3’s “Look Who’s Barking”: to the dogs. While the Charmed Ones’ sartorial choices were minimal at the best of times (perhaps a side effect of living in one of the most sexually progressive cities in the world, San Francisco) this is not necessarily done with the male gaze in mind.

Being a show that focused on women’s lives, Charmed was screened on the WB network to a primarily young female audience, many of them raised by second-wave mothers. Stereotypes tell us that these young women were probably brought up to believe in free love and the burning of the bra, both of which the Halliwell sisters certainly subscribed to. And in the ’90s, “girl power” and “having it all” were the terms du jour which Charmed played in to. If you believe it shouldn’t matter what you look like to be able to do your job, Charmed offered that up in spades: the Charmed Ones could kick (mostly male) bad guys’ butts and look like they were heading to the club doing it. (Oftentimes they were, as Piper owned the club, P3.)

The episode “Blinded by the Whitelighter” explicitly addresses this lack of practicality in the Halliwell Manor’s presumably shared wardrobe: Natalie, Leo’s whitelighter colleague, puts the sisters through boot camp, which includes a demon-fighting makeunder with appropriate support for both their ankles and their breasts.

But back to possession. Charmed is not the first piece of pop culture to sexualize possession. Jennifer’s Body, Ghostbusters, and the modern remake of The Exorcist come to mind, whilst io9 rounds up another seven films that do much the same. This is probably because sexuality, specifically a woman in charge of her sexuality, is deemed evil or, at the very least, uncouth. We see it when it comes to famous women, such as Rihanna, Miley Cyrus, and even Beyoncé’s recent self-titled musical ode to married sex, and Charmed is no exception. When Phoebe is taken over by the deadly sin lust in “Sin Francisco,” she sexually assaults her professor and has sex with a policeman on the job, while Piper dances on her bar during her high school reunion when she’s possessed by an evil spirit. And almost all the evil women in the show are sexualized: the succubus, shapeshifter Kaia, the Stillman sisters in “The Power of Three Blondes,” the seer Kyra, etc. We seldom see the same—both in Charmed and pop culture at large—when men are on the receiving end of possession. It’s more likely to be framed in humorous or serious ways, such as when Leo succumbs to the sin of sloth or Cole’s numerous evil turns. Even when the spirits that possess the sisters aren’t evil per se, the Halliwells are still scantily clad; take, for example, Phoebe as a mermaid, genie, fairytale character, Lady Godiva, Mata Hari… so pretty much Phoebe in general! The show does take pains, though, to show the Charmed Ones being sexy and sexual in their normal lives, not just as the means to an end of an evil plan (in “The Devil’s Music,” for example) or becoming part of that evil plan themselves. It seldom shames them for their desires, either.

While Charmed doesn’t always get it right when it comes to sex, gender politics and morality, it makes an effort to show the sisters four in all elements of their lives, including sex. Maybe the myriad “sexy possessions” the Charmed Ones succumb to are part of a wider “protest statement” of the objectification of women? We can dream.

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

Morello’s Fractured Relationship with Romance in ‘Orange Is the New Black’

Morello’s abovementioned childlike room, her harping on about how her and Christopher’s romance is “meant to be,” like something out of ‘Notting Hill,’ ‘Pretty Woman’ or ‘Cinderella,’ and her psychotic break that sees her stealing the prison van to break into Christopher’s marital home, shows just how damaging society’s “wedding industrial complex and… [its] need to infantalise grown women,” as Nicky puts it, can be. It’s also an all-too-common one drummed into Western women everywhere they turn.

This guest post by Scarlett Harris originally appeared on The Scarlett Woman and is cross-posted with permission.

One of the most explosive backstories on this season of Orange is the New Black has been Lorna Morello’s.

The Italian-American, played by Australian actress Yael Stone, is presumably in prison for credit card fraud, as the opening segments of her life before Litchfield in episode four of the second season that aired last night on Showcase would indicate. We see a Jersey Shore-esque Morello returning to her chaotic familial home after seeing Twilight at the cinema for the “14^th time.” She retreats from her accusatory sister, ignorant father, wayward nieces and nephews and sick mother to her bedroom which is adorned with posters of West Side Story (the classic tale of Romeo and Juliet in 1950s New York, with a healthy serving of racism, which Morello is inclined to dish out), male celebrities, and wedding collages. She pauses to caress the glossy face of one of them before calling a mail-order luxury clothing company to request a refund for the patchwork Prada platforms she’s currently wearing but claims she never received.

Many of the women of OITNB have been busted for financial fraud—Sophia and Gloria come to mind—so it seems logical that Morello would be in for a similar crime. But as the episode progresses, it is revealed that Morello’s inner demons are much more extensive. During a trip to the post office to retrieve parcels of designer goods she’ll no doubt attempt to get reimbursed for, she “literally crashes into” the infamous Chris-tuh-phuh, as Morello pronounces it. Christopher promptly asks her out for a coffee after their meet-cute, and the rest is history, if the future Litchfield inmate is to be believed.

The juxtaposition between the following flashback scenes—Morello getting ready for a weekend away with Christopher and her trial on charges of stalking, harassment, violating a restraining order and credit card fraud—illustrates the fractured reality she exists in. Despite Christopher electing not to pursue Lorna after their first date, Morello still believes they’re together years later.

Stone plays Morello so sympathetically the audience feels sorry for her when we—or at least her fellow inmates—should approach with caution. The consensus at Litchfield seems to be that Morello’s fantastical romance with Christopher may not be etched in truth and word slowly starts to get around that her former “fiancé” is marrying another woman. When you’re bonding with Crazy Eyes (whom the show is taking pains in its second season not to fetishise and to address by her given name, Suzanne) about unrequited love, it’s clear that something’s not quite right.

Morello’s abovementioned childlike room, her harping on about how her and Christopher’s romance is “meant to be,” like something out of Notting Hill, Pretty Woman, or Cinderella, and her psychotic break that sees her stealing the prison van to break into Christopher’s marital home, shows just how damaging society’s “wedding industrial complex and… [its] need to infantalise grown women,” as Nicky puts it, can be. It’s also an all-too-common one drummed into Western women everywhere they turn.

In a recent Buzzfeed longread, Anne Helen Peterson dissects the films based on Nicholas Sparks’ novels and their contribution to a Taylor Swiftian world where men perform romance and women have it thrust upon them:

“… Many women (and some men) use Sparks’ narratives to replace the lack of emotional intimacy and satisfaction in their own lives and, as a result, cultivate unrealistic ideals about what a relationship—and love—should resemble…

“The Sparks narrative offers a life—and a love story nested within it—that extracts its protagonist from [the concerns of everyday life] and consolidates the demands of life into one, simple task: Open yourself to love, and love in return.”

In a way Morello is like the mirror image of the Santa Barbara shooter, Elliot Rodger: the same but opposite. Rodger took his anger at his lack of attention from women—spurred on by porn and men’s rights forums—out on the female population in general in the most violent way, whereas Morello continues her stereotypically feminine obsession with romance and fixates on one man, dangerously crafting an alternate life with him. In Morello’s fictional existence no one died, but that’s not to say she didn’t try to kill anyone. (In the courtroom she is accused of strapping a homemade bomb to Christopher’s fiancé’s car.) Think that’s too heavy handed a tar with the same brush? They are both criminals with mental health issues, after all.

In one of the closing scenes of the season, Morello simplistically attempts to explain to the cancer-stricken Miss Rosa the plot of one of her favourite movies, Toy Story (again with the juvenile interests–though, to be fair, Toy Story has universal appeal). Her warped grasp of the children’s classic leads Rosa to exclaim, “You have one fucked up view of the world, kid!”

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

I Scream, You Scream, We All ‘Scream’ for Feminism!

The ‘Scream’ franchise, after all, is about the women. It could be argued that most horror movies are about the women; female victims make for easy targets and garner more of a reaction from the audience. But ‘Scream’ was one of the first mainstream horrors to advocate for equal-opportunity killing: where the men are as fair game as the girls, and two out of the seven killers have been women. More than that, they’ve been the masterminds of the whole operation; using the clueless and fame-hungry men as pawns in their bloody chess game.

Neve Campbell as Syndey in Scream — Neve Campbell as Sidney in *Scream 4*

This guest post by Scarlett Harris originally appeared on The Scarlett Woman and is cross-posted with permission.

Scream 4 marked the most recent installment of the horror franchise, which ended in much the same similar way as the past three chapters.

The killer comes back from the dead, gun-wielding Gale Weathers fires a bullet, and central scream queen Sidney Prescott gets the last laugh, with fellow original Woodsboro survivor Dewey fumbling around on the sidelines.

Fifteen years after the original, it is still unbelievable as to how Dewey is on the police force, Gale is still a ball-busting rogue sleuth, albeit with a lot more Botox than the last time we saw her, and Sidney has finally wiped that weepy-eyed look off her face and is kicking ass and taking names.

In the first installment, Sidney is an ineffectual twit who berates horror movie starlets for “running up the stairs when they should be going out the front door” when, only moments later, she does exactly the same thing!

But as I watched each movie, I slowly started to root for Sid. Not only was she dealing with the fallout of her mother’s death and the wrongful allegation against Cotton Weary for the crime in the first film, but she was also dealing with a rat of a boyfriend, Billy, friends, high school and trying not to crumble under the pressure of it all. So I’ll cut her a break.

In the second film, Sidney undergoes remarkable growth due, in part, to going off to college, but the audience can see in the way Sidney carries herself that she believes the murders are over. Oh, how wrong she was! I especially love the final scene in Scream 2, with Sidney outsmarting (one of) the killer(s), Mrs. Loomis, with the help of Cotton. Gale’s there, too, holding on til the bitter end.

The Scream franchise, after all, is about the women. It could be argued that most horror movies are about the women; female victims make for easy targets and garner more of a reaction from the audience. But Scream was one of the first mainstream horrors to advocate for equal-opportunity killing: where the men are as fair game as the girls, and two out of the seven killers have been women. More than that, they’ve been the masterminds of the whole operation; using the clueless and fame-hungry men as pawns in their bloody chess game.

Traditional horror operates on the premise that “she alone looks death in the face.” Not Scream, though.

Ashley Smith in “Final Girl(s) Power: Scream”, writes of not only Sidney, but Gale and Dewey, staring death in the face:

“The success of the narrative is predicated now on not an individual woman, extraordinary and significantly boyish, but on the cooperation of two women who together stab, shoot and electrocute the two killers into oblivion. This moment is also notable because it is one of the many instances in Scream that utilizes very self-referential language, not only does it rework the figure of the Final Girl, it talks about itself reworking the figure of the Final Girl. This moment is an example of how the film explicitly works on behalf of the female spectator. Sydney/Campbell is speaking for and speaking as one of the girls in the horror audience who want to see active female characters fighting for each other, and significantly not even bound by a sentimentalised friendship.”

Sidney and Gale start out as sworn enemies (as murdered bestie Tatum Riley says after Sidney punches Gale: “‘I’ll send you a copy.’ Bam! Bitch went down! Sid: super bitch! You’re so cool!”), but I suppose bonding over the murders of pretty much everyone you know will solidify your connection, whether or not it’s one of mutual affection for each other, or mutual hatred for the killer(s).

And then there’s Dewey. He’s a funny character and David Arquette plays him to perfection, but the sum of his survival involves him always arriving to the party 10 seconds late and missing all the action. Sure, he’s been stabbed a few times, but he’s more of the token surviving male than a fully well-rounded character. As Smith writes, “the text allows for powerful and active female figures [that] it compensates [for] with weak, ineffective male ones.”

Before Scream, to survive as a “final girl” you had to be a virgin. This works well for high school victims, as a lot of high school students are virgins. And hey, this is the movies, so so what if it doesn’t reflect real life?

Rose McGowen as Tatum in Scream — Rose McGowen as Tatum in *Scream*

The first Scream begins with Sidney as a virgin, but in the height of the killings, she throws caution her virginity to the wind and has sex with Billy. In any other horror film, this would mean she dies. (Casey Becker, Drew Barrymore’s character, and her boyfriend, Steve, die in the opening scene, as does Tatum, girlfriend of Stu, later on in the movie in the doggy-door scene, above. You might imagine these kids to be non-virgins, as they’re in seemingly committed, loving relationships, but this is never directly addressed.) But Scream, being the “meta-text” that it is, takes a page out of Buffy’s book, and the non-virgin fights to live another day.

Drew Barrymore as Casey in Scream — Drew Barrymore as Casey in *Scream*

But the exemplar of a strong female character in Scream is Gale. She’s not only a ball-busting, high-powered tabloid journalist who fights to see an innocent man go free but, as I mentioned above, she’s always the last one standing, alongside reluctant partner-in-crime Sidney.

In Scream 4, she’s a struggling stay-at-home novelist with writer’s block, so when Sidney—and the subsequent murders—return to Woodsboro, she jumps at the chance to help with the investigations. Dewey, and his lovesick underling Deputy Judy, don’t want her interfering with the case, so Gale goes rogue.

It is Gale who uncovers most of the developments in the case, including who the killer is. And, according to Melissa Lafsky at The Awl, she’s breaking a lot of other ground, too :

“She [Courteney Cox] slashes her way out of the 40-something female stereotype, and takes over this movie with a flick of her scorn-ready… brow. Let’s face it: Few film archetypes are more brutal than the ‘older woman in a horror movie’—either you’re the psycho nutcase… or you’re the pathetic victim… And no matter what, you’re ALWAYS an obsessive mother.

Courtney Cox as Gale Weathers in Scream 4 — Courtney Cox as Gale Weathers in *Scream 4*

“Cox pulls off a pretty impressive coup, upstaging not only the cute flouncing teens, but also her 15-years-younger self. Her character—now successful, childless(!), and utterly bored with the ‘middle-aged wife’ role—shrugs off all orders to ‘stay out of it’ and leaps back into the murderous fray, husbands, younger blondes and kitchen knives be damned. She takes nothing for granted, and thinks not a second about sneaking into dark corners to catch homicidal fruitcakes (and bitch is 47!!!). While Arquette and Campbell slide into their ’90s cliché groove, Cox reinvents and one-ups, kicking this meta-fest to life and providing the only sexy thing onscreen, gelatinous lips and all. Gale Weathers is shrewd, aggressive, cunning, but never heartless; despite it all, she still loves that stupefied ass clown Dewey. And she does it all while sporting a better ass than the 20-somethings. And… she doesn’t even have to die for it!”

You go, Gale!

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

Physical and Mental Health in ‘Orange is the New Black’

It’s not all doom and gloom, though. Sophia leads the inmates in an episode-long exploration of “which hole” pee comes out of and the importance of knowing your body. This season really attempts to get at life in America’s underfunded and overcrowded minimum security prison system. While there’s still a ways to go in achieving a realistic portrayal of the dire reality many incarcerated women face, it’s the only piece of pop culture striving to do so.

Orange is the New Black on Netflix — *Orange is the New Black* on Netflix

This guest post by Scarlett Harris originally appeared on The Scarlett Woman and is cross-posted with permission.

Whereas last year’s inaugural season of Netflix’ women’s prison effort, Orange is the New Black, introduced us to the myriad characters in Litchfield Penitentiary through the incarceration of the WASPy Piper Chapman, this year is all about the more diverse women that wear orange (well, mostly beige).

Specifically, we see the challenges of staying physically and mentally healthy in America’s prison industrial complex.

Last season we did see some of these issues come to light; transgender inmate Sophia Burset, played by the incomparable Laverne Cox, had her hormone medication limited due to concerns about the drug’s side effects, while Suzanne “Crazy Eyes” Warren’s mental illness was a comedic calling card for the show.

The incomparable Laverne Cox as Sophia Burset

This year Suzanne’s backstory gets more airtime, as well as an explosive trajectory for Lorna Morello, which reveals that though both women probably need psychological counseling, they’re not going to get it at the indebted Litchfield. Instead, their issues fall through the cracks so much so that only Nicky is privy to exactly what Morello did to land her in prison.

Season two has been applauded for giving more airtime to the minor characters who also happen to be from racial minorities: Gloria, the Hispanic cook who took over the kitchen from Red and is serving time for welfare fraud, and her Latina cohorts; Vee, Taystee and Poussey’s familial-love triangle cum drug ring; and Rosa, the bank robber with terminal ovarian cancer.

There’s also been an influx of older women this season, whom feminist writer Sady Doyle describes as a “knitting circle” with “an alarming tendency to shiv people.” This includes dementia-ridden Jimmy, who wanders the grounds (and even inadvertently escapes!) looking for her presumably long-dead husband, Jack. Due to her deteriorating mental state, Jimmy is given “compassionate leave” which is revealed to be not-so-compassionate when you take into account that she has no family to look after her and is without the mental faculties to secure herself a home or care. Inmate Frieda predicts she’ll be out on the streets and “dead within a week.”

OITNB Elderly Inmate — Jimmy is released on “compassionate leave”

Jimmy’s release is apparently due to the above mentioned “budget cuts,” which seem to be happening all too regularly at Litchfield. Reporter Andrew Nance contacts Piper’s ex-fiance, writer Larry, and later Piper herself, to see if he can get the inside scoop on the missing millions from Litchfield.

There was talk of the building of a new gym, but that money—along with the gym—is nowhere to be found. The inmates’ bathrooms are leaking raw sewage and they have no heating in the Eastern winter. The prison’s dire financial state comes to a festering head in the penultimate episode of the season as a storm rips through Litchfield, leaving the prison flooded and without power, a backup generator, or whatever functioning plumbing they had left.

These appalling conditions contribute to newcomer Brooke Soso, Yoga Jones, Sister Jane and some girls from Pensatucky’s former laundry crew going on a hunger strike. Sister Jane’s past as an activist comes to light, and let’s just say she’s not as selfless as she makes herself out to be. Having said that, though, she berates prison administrator Caputo for releasing Jimmy with no accountability:

“The elderly are the fastest growing population in prison and they have special needs. So-called ‘compassionate release’ in lieu of care is completely unacceptable. You can’t dump sick old ladies on the street. It’s unconscionable, inhumane and illegal.”

Surely Rosa would be a better candidate for compassionate release as she has weeks to live?

Leaning In to ‘Grey’s Anatomy’

Across its 10-season run, ‘Grey’s’ has dealt with parenting, childlessness, abortion, romantic relationships—both heterosexual and otherwise–illness, loss, friendship, and career mostly through the eyes of its female protagonist, Meredith Grey, and her colleagues, friends and family: Cristina, Izzie, Lexie, Callie, Arizona, April, Addison, Bailey and so on. This season, though, seemed to really tap into the oft-mentioned feminist issue of “having it all” (meaning kids and career) and what happens when a woman shuns that path.

This guest post by Scarlett Harris originally appeared on The Scarlett Woman and is cross-posted with permission.

Grey’s Anatomy is one of the more feminist shows currently on the air. Hell, it’s created by Shonda Rhimes (she of Scandal and Grey’s spin-off, Private Practice, fame), a big champion of woman-centric storytelling on TV.

Across its 10-season run, Grey’s has dealt with parenting, childlessness, abortion, romantic relationships—both heterosexual and otherwise–illness, loss, friendship and career mostly through the eyes of its female protagonist, Meredith Grey, and her colleagues, friends and family: Cristina, Izzie, Lexie, Callie, Arizona, April, Addison, Bailey and so on. This season, though, seemed to really tap into the oft-mentioned feminist issue of “having it all” (meaning kids and career) and what happens when a woman shuns that path.

Early on this season tensions were brewing between Meredith and Cristina when Meredith gave birth to her second child, Bailey, named after Dr. Miranda Bailey who helped deliver him, and leaned out of the surgery game. As Meredith’s life became increasingly family oriented, Cristina felt alienated from “her person,” with whom she used to compete for surgeries and get drunk on tequila at Joe’s bar. This is not to suggest that just because Cristina doesn’t want children (a character consistency since season one) she’s not involved in that part of Meredith’s life: Cristina is often shown caring for and engaging with Meredith’s daughter Zola. But this story arc illustrates that having two children is a lot different than parenting just one (cue Elizabeth Banks-style outrage over mothers of one child being less than mothers of more) and Meredith’s redirected attention certainly takes its toll on her friendship with Cristina.

This comes to a head in episode six of this season when Meredith chooses to continue her mother’s portal vein research using 3D printers (which Cristina later co-ops for one of her groundbreaking medical coups). This is partly because of Cristina’s recriminations in the previous episode, “I Bet It Stung,” that Meredith doesn’t do as many surgeries or as much research as Cristina because she chose to lean in to her children. There is much talk about “choosing valid choices” but ultimately Meredith identifies an impasse between the two friends and surgeons because Cristina doesn’t “have time for people who want things” that she doesn’t want.

Business continues much this way until April’s wedding, in the episode “Get Up, Stand Up,” in which Meredith and Cristina are both featured as bridesmaids. During a dress fitting, Cristina takes issue with Meredith calling her “a horrible person, over and over… because I don’t want a baby.” Harkening back to their very first day on the job, Meredith accuses Cristina of sleeping her way to the top, while Cristina retorts that in her struggle to maintain work/life balance, Meredith’s “become the thing we laughed at.” By episode’s end, Meredith acknowledges her envy of Cristina’s surgical trial successes:

“I’m so jealous of you I want to set things on fire. You did what I tried to do and I couldn’t… I don’t want to compete with you… but I do.”

Come the show’s mid-season return, Meredith and Cristina’s friendship is back on track, with them bonding over Meredith’s anger at her husband Derek reneging on their agreement to focus more on Meredith’s career upon her realisation that she doesn’t want it to slip by the wayside in the wake of motherhood. They do this while drinking wine and looking after the kids at Mere’s place while Derek’s out of town.

Derek’s absence throughout the season, in Washington D.C. on business at the behest of the President (I know!), is juxtaposed with Meredith’s desire to be an attentive mother, which she didn’t have growing up and was the cause of many of her ills, whilst balancing her first love of medicine. In last season’s “Beautiful Doom,” Meredith worries about leaving Zola in the care of others while she operates. Callie, a working mother herself, assures Meredith that “it’s good for Zola to see you work. It’s good for her to see you achieve. That’s how she becomes you.” The season finale sees Meredith decide to stay in Seattle despite Derek accepting a job in Washington D.C. She doesn’t want to become her father, who was a “trailing spouse” to her aforementioned mother.

As far as Cristina’s concerned, though, her ex-husband Owen’s desire for a family is what’s kept them in flux from on-again to off-again for the better part of the past three seasons. In the Sliding Doors-esque episode “Do You Know?” Cristina is given the option of two life paths: one in which she has children, whilst in the other she continues her focus on her career; both involve Owen, and both see Cristina becoming miserable. The married-with-children scenario elicits a certain empathetic desperation as it’s made clear Cristina’s only succumbing to it for her lover. And when Owen meets maternal-fetal surgeon, Emma, whom Cristina described as “picket fence; a dozen kids; fresh-baked goods,” it seems he’s found his happy ending. But Owen’s desire for Cristina, despite his better judgment, causes him to cheat on and subsequently end things with Emma who is befuddled at how her boyfriend went from house hunting to breaking up with her in the space of a day. Owen asserts it’s because Emma wanted to stay home with their kids when they had them and he wanted someone who is “as passionate about her work as I am.” Make up your mind, Owen!

While Owen’s indecisiveness is annoying, it’s refreshing to see a woman who doesn’t want children framed as desirable over the traditional portrait of womanhood. This is not to mention Cristina’s hardheaded drive. On the other hand, Emma represents the losing battle women face in the fight to “have it all” perpetually highlighted by the concern-trolling media: you’d better want to be a mother, but you’ve also got to be driven in your career; you have to be around to raise your children, but you’d also better be leaning in in the workplace.

Grey’s has always been a staunchly pro-choice show. Upon April and Jackson’s shotgun wedding, Jackson’s mother brings up the issue of April’s faith when it comes to raising their future children who will be on the board of the Harper Avery Foundation, but no pressure! Catherine Avery asks whether April believes in limiting reproductive rights, and whether she’ll raise her children with those views. If so, will that colour their judgment in providing funding to hospitals that perform abortions, like Seattle Grace/Seattle Grace Mercy West/Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital/whatever it’s called now?! And what about stem cell research?

Grey’s certainly doesn’t sweep these issues under the rug because it’s convenient for a storyline or for the show to remain politically unbiased. Rhimes has spoken about Cristina’s unintended pregnancy in a season one/two crossover storyline in which she was scheduled for an abortion but miscarried before she could have the procedure due to an ectopic pregnancy:

“… [T]he network freaked out a little bit. No one told me I couldn’t do it, but they could not point to an instance in which anyone had. And I sort of panicked a little bit in that moment and thought maybe this isn’t the right time for the character, we barely know her… I didn’t want it to become like what the show was about… And [Cristina’s miscarriage] bugged me. It bugged me for years.”

Come 2010/2011’s seventh season, Cristina again finds herself with an unwanted pregnancy to Owen. Rhimes said:

“I felt like we had earned all of the credentials with the audience. The audience knew these characters. The audience loved these characters. The audience stood by these characters. You know, we were in a very different place even politically, socially. Nobody blinked at the studio or the network when I wrote the storyline this time. Nobody even brought it up except to say, that was a really well written episode.”

With no signs of slowing down, but with perhaps one of TV’s most feminist characters departing, Grey’s Anatomy is sure to continue presenting women, work and the myriad choices in between in a positive and realistic way.

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

Enjoyment Isn’t an Item on ‘The To Do List’

The sex in ‘The To Do List’—which comes about for Plaza’s character Brandy Klark after she realizes she has no sexual experience going into college—was utterly joyless; it was as if Brandy was going through the motions. This is hardly surprising considering the premise of the film is to check off a smorgasbord of sex acts over summer vacation in order to be appropriately sexually educated as she becomes tertiary educated.

"The To Do List" poster — *The To Do List* poster

This guest post by Scarlett Harris appears as part of our theme week on Representations of Female Sexual Desire.

I was moved to watch The To Do List after seeing Emily Nussbaum tweet about it over the Christmas break. It was a stinking hot Saturday afternoon in my corner of the world, so I thought I’d watch along with her as she tweeted her disillusion with the Aubrey Plaza vehicle.

Nussbaum’s main complaint was that the sex in The To Do List—which comes about for Plaza’s character Brandy Klark after she realizes she has no sexual experience going into college—was utterly joyless; it was as if Brandy was going through the motions.

This is hardly surprising considering the premise of the film is to check off a smorgasbord of sex acts over summer vacation in order to be appropriately sexually educated as she becomes tertiary educated.

"The To Do List" list — *The To Do List*

It’s not a wholly ineffective idea: Brandy understands studying and academic excellence better than she does social mores, so making a project out of a desire to know what to do come college (pardon the pun) prepares her for the next chapters in her life: more academic aptitude and more sex.

Previously on Bitch Flicks, Leigh Kolb wrote in praise of The To Do List, asserting that in the film, “Brandy’s desire is always paramount,” but I don’t think this is the case. While Brady’s parents—well, at least her mum, played to scrunchie-wearing perfection by Connie Britton—and sister, Amber (Rachel Bilson) are portrayed as pretty sexually progressive, their dialogue doesn’t seem to connote “the joy of sex,” so to speak. For example, upon giving Brandy a tube of lube, Mrs. Klark tells her daughter, “As you move forward on your sexual journey, promise me one thing.” “To have fun?” Brandy asks. “No, to use lube,” Mrs. Klark replied. Here, enjoyment seems an afterthought.

A joyless kiss in "The To Do List" — A joyless kiss in *The To Do List*

Brandy’s sexually active sister, Amber, doesn’t seem to enjoy the copious amounts of sex she’s had, either. Though she does tell Brandy to “have fun getting your cherry popped” in the penultimate scene of the movie, it’s said with a heavy dose of sarcasm.

It’s important to note that part of the reason Brandy decides to cultivate a “sex manual,” as the objects of her attractions are wont to call it, is due to peer pressure. She’s called a virgin during her valedictorian speech, and her friends insinuate that Brandy can’t go to college as inexperienced as she is. The tipping point in Brandy’s decision to do her… erm… The To Do List ultimately lies in her lust for shirtless guitar player/lifeguard Rusty (Scott Porter), but even that turns out to be about what other people will think of her landing a college guy. At the end of the movie, she tells Rusty, “Am I going to regret losing my virginity to you? No, you are going to be an awesome story to tell my friends.”

So while The To Do List appears as part of the recent cannon of sex positive “chick flicks,” which includes For a Good Time, Call…, not everything is as it seems. The To Do List is more about peer pressure and the sexual experiences you should be having at that age than it is about actual young female desire.

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

Rape, Lies, and Gossip on ‘Gossip Girl’

Her banishment by Blair when she finds out what transpired between Jenny and her on-again, off-again lover is typical of the punish-the-woman mentality ‘Gossip Girl’ is so fond of. Instead of shaming her partner for taking advantage of a teenage girl, Blair blames Jenny for ruining her proposal. And when Jenny returns the following season to help Chuck take down Blair (keep up, people!), she should really be seeking revenge on her rapist, wouldn’t you say?

This guest post by Scarlett Harris appears as part of our theme week on Rape Revenge Fantasies.

There are multiple rapes that occur in the “scandalous lives of Manhattan’s elite” of Gossip Girl lore. In the pilot episode alone, there are two instances of rape.

Newbie to Upper East Side society, Jenny Humphrey, is sexually assaulted on the rooftop whilst a high school dance takes place below. Her assailant, the reprehensible Chuck Bass, who has wormed his way into the zeitgeist as the ultimate bad boy, had earlier forced himself onto Jenny’s brother Dan’s date, Serena van der Woodsen. Whilst Chuck’s entitlement is highlighted here, the way Gossip Girl later paints him as a wolf in sheep’s clothing sheep in wolf’s clothing worthy of a happy ending with the show’s just-as-culpable heroine, Blair Waldorf, is careless. There are plenty of other ways the consequence-free lifestyle of Serena, Blair, et al. could be portrayed that wouldn’t reward misogyny.

But that seems to be Gossip Girl’s calling card: Chuck later goes on to rape Blair by posing as someone else in the season two episode “The Dark Night.” He cuts her face when he smashes a window in rage. He pimps her out to his uncle for a piece of real estate. Said uncle tries to force himself on his dead brother’s widow, Lily. And, in probably the most blurred (story)line involving sex and consent in the CW series, Jenny, years after her violent debut into Manhattan society, shows up on Chuck’s doorstep, dejected and lonely, and the two find objectionable comfort in each other’s sex organs. Cathryn writes about this more extensively than I ever could here.

Chuck’s (not-so-distant) rapist past serves as a plot point to show how far he’s allegedly come as a reformed bad boy. Jenny’s rape and subsequent ousting from Manhattan at the hands of Blair, however, positions her storyline as a cautionary tale of what gossip, money, and lack of boundaries can turn a person into. Granted, Jenny caused a lot of trouble for her former friends and family, but rape is never a fitting punishment. Her banishment by Blair when she finds out what transpired between Jenny and her on-again, off-again lover is typical of the punish-the-woman mentality Gossip Girl is so fond of. Instead of shaming her partner for taking advantage of a teenage girl, Blair blames Jenny for ruining her proposal. And when Jenny returns the following season to help Chuck take down Blair (keep up, people!), she should really be seeking revenge on her rapist, wouldn’t you say?

So while Jenny is a metaphor for the toxicity of Manhattan society and the good girl gone bad, her fellow Chuck-rape-almost-victim, Serena, is the opposite: the bad girl striving to make amends.

The parallels between the two blondes closest to “the ultimate insider” and *spoiler alert* the man revealed to be Gossip Girl, Dan Humphrey, are apparent in the first few seasons. In the pilot, Serena returns from boarding school after being embroiled too deeply in the debauchery of the Upper East Side as Jenny is just being introduced to it. They are both romantically interested in Chuck’s bestie, Nate Archibald.

By season three the actress who portrays Jenny, Taylor Momsen, was the quintessential bad girl, sporting thick eyeliner and a negligee as outerwear, and fronting a rock band. Think a modern-day Courtney Love. Meanwhile, golden girl Blake Lively (Serena) was covering magazines, starring in The Town and filming Green Lantern, and dating such high-profile men as Leondardo DiCaprio. Gossip Girl mirrored this metatextually by showing Jenny reading a copy of Nylon magazine with Lively on the cover, breaking the fourth wall.

Speaking of art imitating life, season two threw shades of Steubenville. Dan is embroiled in a sex scandal when it’s claimed that he had been sleeping with his teacher. The allegations turned out to be fabricated by Blair, who was then expelled from school and had her acceptance to Yale revoked. Dan’s stepmother, Lily, is sympathetic to Dan’s relationship with Serena being put in jeopardy and his female teacher being branded a sexual predator, but wonders, “Should Blair lose Yale over this? It’s her future.” This is reminiscent of the utmost concern shown to teen Steubenville rapists Trent Mays and Ma’lik Richmond and their bright sporting futures after being found guilty of the crime whilst the welfare of the anonymous victim who’ll be dealing with her assault for the rest of her life went by the wayside.

Whereas Steubenville occurred in real life and the myriad assaults and questionable sexual and gender politics of Gossip Girl take place in a fictional world far removed from many of our own, they both help to colour the way we treat victims of sexual assault. And unfortunately, this is nothing new.

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

The Power of Work/Life Balance in ‘Charmed’

Phoebe and Paige’s evolution through their working lives is particularly poignant to the millennial ‘Charmed’ audience; many people I know grew up watching the three (or is it four?) sisters flitting from job to job in their quest to find purpose and fulfillment. And we don’t even have daily demon attacks to contend with!

This guest post by Scarlett Harris appears as part of our theme week on Women and Work/Labor Issues.

Despite all the midriff tops and high heels worn while fighting supernatural beings, and despite the damaged household items, buildings and cars which seem to miraculously be fixed by the next episode, if not before, Charmed is a lesson in work/life balance.

Throughout the eight seasons, which culminated in 2006, the Halliwell sisters struggle to balance demon fighting with romance, employment, study, and family.

Oldest sister Prue (Shannen Doherty) was killed off at the end of season three but not before she ditched her demon-dwelling auction house job at Buckland’s for freelance photography and bowed out of the dating game to focus on magic. As the head of a household whose mother died young, Prue was a maternal figure to her sisters, always concerned with putting family first, at the detriment to her love life and, ultimately, her actual life.

In “Which Prue Is It, Anyway?” from season one, Prue casts a spell to produce two carbon copies of herself, which carry out tasks such as dealing with her ex-boyfriend and cop on her case, Andy, while another one works on a spell with Piper and Phoebe, and yet another goes to Buckland’s to finish up some work. Talk about being a Superwoman!

Prue, Prue, Prue — Prue, Prue, and more Prue

Piper (played by Holly Marie Combs), who turns out to be the most level-headed and conventionally “normal” of the three sisters, gets fed up with being walked over in her season one job as manager of Quake restaurant and quits to open her own club, P3. She then gets seriously involved with whitelighter Leo, whom she marries in season three, and has two children with him, Wyatt and Chris. They then separate, Piper dates other people, they get back together again… Apart from the anguish of knowing their firstborn, Wyatt, grows up to be evil, Piper’s depiction as a frazzled “working mum” with a supernatural side really is the most realistic of the four Halliwell/Matthews sisters.

Which brings us to Phoebe (Alyssa Milano), the youngest of the original Charmed Ones until Paige comes along in season four. She enters the show as a free-spirit with a flawed perception of the future, or so we are led to believe by Prue, who’s had her issues with Phoebe in the past. In the first season alone she works as a hotel psychic, Prue’s assistant at Buckland’s and a real estate agent. After she casts a smart spell in “The Painted World” early on in season two, Phoebe decides to expand her knowledge for good and goes back to college. After graduating in season three (I wish I graduated college that quickly!), she goes on to write a successful advice column for The Bay Mirror newspaper, which fellow independent woman Elise edits.

We can’t forget Phoebe’s tumultuous personal life–her intense connection with Cole/Balthazar turn her into the queen of the underworld and the prospective mother of his demon spawn, she moves to China with millionaire boss Jason, becoming an aunty to Wyatt and Chris and, later, a mother to her own kids and taking a sabbatical from the newspaper because she’s feeling disconnected from her work. After Prue’s death, Phoebe takes on her longing for a less magical life which becomes somewhat of a reality for her in passing on the Charmed Ones’ knowledge to rookie witch Billie (a post-8 Simple Rules but pre-Big Bang Theory Kaley Cuoco) and the next generation of Halliwell witches.

Phoebe's column becomes famous — Phoebe’s column becomes famous

Half-sister Paige Matthews, played by Rose McGowan, enters Piper and Phoebe’s life as a social worker at the beginning of season four. She is unreceptive to being magical at first, and spends most of the first season trying to maintain a “normal life,” with a job, a boyfriend, and a new family who happens to be supernatural. (She, like Prue, later leaves the paid workforce to focus on witch duties full-time.) Throughout her televised tenure as a Charmed One, Paige dabbles in temp work with a magical twist, becomes a whitelighter and the principal of magic school, then marries and has kids.

Phoebe and Paige’s evolution through their working lives is particularly poignant to the millennial Charmed audience; many people I know grew up watching the three (or is it four?) sisters flitting from job to job in their quest to find purpose and fulfillment. And we don’t even have daily demon attacks to contend with! The support of their family is key in allowing the Halliwell’s to shun traditional careers in favor of part-time- and self-employment and working from home, much like Gen Y is able to save for house deposits and overseas gap years while living with their long-suffering parents.

After all, that is what Charmed is all about: family—sisters who just happen to be witches, and everything that goes along with both of those roles. While the manifestation of three fully groomed and immaculately dressed sister witches each morning in the Halliwell manor, who spend their days flitting about town vanquishing demons, protecting the innocent, working their day jobs, caring for their family, going on dates, maintaining a home, studying, managing their own businesses, etc., is extremely unrealistic, the sheer magnitude of what the Charmed Ones have to go through each day is somewhat of a metaphor for what working women—especially those with an extended family who all happen to live under the one roof—go through on a day-to-day basis. And sometimes, they manage to take it in stride, just as the Charmed Ones do.

Scarlett Harris is a Melbourne, Australia-based freelance writer and blogger at The Early Bird Catches the Worm (soon to be undergoing a revamp; stay tuned!).