Weekly Feminist Film Question: Who Are Your Favorite TV Moms?

No other type of character seems to tug at our nostalgic heartstrings like TV moms. So we asked you to tell us: who are your favorite moms on television? While the answers crossed boundaries of socio-economic status, race and TV genre, the female characters named embody many similar traits — warm, intelligent, loving, educated, stern, classy, hard-working, sarcastic, ambitious, tough, funny. Our faves remind us of our own moms or for some of us, the moms we wish we had.

Oh and spoiler alert! Clair Huxtable tops almost everyone’s list as favorite TV mom. But you probably already knew that…she is pretty fabulous after all!
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Morticia Addams (Carolyn Jones) — The Addams Family

Dr. Miranda Bailey (Chandra Wilson) — Grey’s Anatomy

Vivian Banks (Janet Hubert-Whitten) — The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air

Lucille Bluth (Jessica Walter) — Arrested Development

Jamie Buchman (Helen Hunt) — Mad About You

Roseanne Conner (Roseanne Barr) — Roseanne

Dr. Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden) — Star Trek: The Next Generation

Florida Evans (Esther Rolle) — Good Times

Ruth Fisher (Frances Conroy) — Six Feet Under

Lorelai Gilmore (Lauren Graham) — Gilmore Girls

Ellen Harvelle (Samantha Ferris) — Supernatural

Clair Huxtable, Esq. (Phylicia Rashad) — The Cosby Show

Elyse Keaton (Meredith Baxter-Birney) — Family Ties

Grace Kelly (Brett Butler) — Grace Under Fire

Kate McArdle (Susan Saint James) and Allie Lowell (Jane Curtin) — Kate and Allie

Marge Simpson (Julie Kavner) — The Simpsons

Dr. Lilith Sternin (Bebe Neuwirth) — Cheers, Frasier 

Hilda Suarez (Ana Ortiz) — Ugly Betty

Joyce Summers (Kristine Sutherland) — Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Tami Taylor (Connie Britton) — Friday Night Lights

Callie Torres (Sara Ramirez) — Grey’s Anatomy

Skyler White (Anna Gunn) — Breaking Bad 

Did your fave TV moms make the list? Let us know in the comments!
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Each week we tweet a new question and then post your answers on our site by the weekend! To participate, just follow us on Twitter at @BitchFlicks and use the Twitter hashtag #feministfilm.

"Pregnancy Brain" in Sitcoms

Alyson Hannigan as Lily Aldrin in “How I Met Your Mother”
Pregnancy brain. Momnesia. Preggo ladies be cray-cray. Call it what you want, but the idea that pregnant women lose their minds while their hormones go whack is a popular stereotype based on questionable evidence. Some mothers recall feeling forgetful during their pregnancy, while others don’t. (Wow, you’d think different women have different experiences with pregnancy, or something.)
Regardless of how true pregnancy brain is or isn’t, or how different women react to the changes in their bodies, sitcom writers have taken this idea and run with it. Last year, Lily Aldrin experienced an episode’s worth of pregnancy brain on How I Met Your Mother, and this year, Gloria Delgado-Pritchett struggled with her own pregnancy brain problems on Modern Family. The setups were similar: the women had short-term memory problems as a result of their pregnancy hormones. The results, however, were a little different.
On How I Met Your Mother, the characters first notice something different about Lily when she agreed to move to the suburbs, after years of insisting that she would never move to the suburbs and wanted to stay in New York. Marshall, suburban-born and raised, is thrilled that Lily has changed her mind, but Robin warns him that Lily only wants to move because of pregnancy brain. Marshall doubts that pregnancy brain is even a “thing,” and Robin insists that it is: “Her brain is marinating in a cocktail of hormones, mood swings, and jacked-up nesting instincts.” Then Marshall and Robin recall a few incidents of Lily acting strangely: putting her keys and wallet in the freezer and ice cubes in her purse, texting Robin to ask for directions back from the bathroom, and saying “fungus” instead of “fetus” and “metal factory” instead of “mental faculty.” Robin cautions Marshall against letting Lily make any major life choices while pregnant.
This is all just in the first five minutes of the episode, by the way. The point is clear: Lily, while pregnant, is completely incapable of making any decisions for herself and has a more impaired short-term memory than Dory from Finding Nemo. Robin doesn’t think “that moron” can do anything. (Sidebar: why is Robin “I never want kids and have no interest in ever being pregnant” Scherbatsky suddenly an expert in pregnancy brain, anyway?)
Fortunately, Lily has a man by her side! (Hannigan and Jason Segel)
A year later on Modern Family, Gloria experiences similar symptoms of pregnesia, at a much later stage at her pregnancy than Lily’s. She puts soap in the fridge and butter in the shower. Jay calls his daughter Claire to “babysit the stupid pregnant lady” (Gloria’s words), but he claims that Gloria called Claire and forgot, and she initially believes him. She drives with Claire to Costco and laments over her pregnesia: “I have two brains in my body and I’ve never been so dumb.” Claire tells her not to be too hard on herself: “You have another human being growing inside of you competing for resources.” Claire herself struggled with forgetfulness when pregnant with her daughter Alex (but not so much with her daughter Haley or son Luke). The women exchange a nice moment until Gloria tries to get out of a moving car.
The setup here is slightly different: Gloria is forgetful and scattered, but self-aware enough to know when people are pandering to her. Still, she’s not at her best.
Back on How I Met Your Mother, the plot continues with Lily acting even more ridiculous. She tries to make waffles using a laptop, and Marshall takes advantage of her lapse in judgment by convincing her to buy things for the apartment that she doesn’t really want. Soon, though, she turns the tables on him. She tricks him into thinking that she called a broker to sell her grandparents’ house in the suburbs. Instead, she’s led him to the suburbs on Halloween so they can hand out candy to trick-or-treaters. She’s trying to manipulate him with cute children to convince him to move to the suburbs. It looks like the silly pregnant lady has more “metal factories” than meets the eye.
Meanwhile, on Modern Family, Claire and Gloria go shopping at Costco. Claire has to run to a different part of the store to find a sweater to wear, because Gloria’s been standing in the frozen food aisle for half an hour and can’t remember what she wanted to buy. When the two women finally go to the parking lot after their shop, Gloria accidentally almost closes the door of the minivan on Claire’s head – after all that time, she forgot the eggs. Claire lectures Gloria: “You are purposely turning your brain off!” Then Claire is interrupted by a store’s security guard: she forgot to return the sweater she wore while Gloria stood in the frozen food aisle, and accidentally stole the sweater. Claire tries to plead her case, but the security guard takes her back inside the building.
Sofia Vergara as Gloria Delgado-Pritchett on “Modern Family”
In the third act of the Marshall/Lily plot on HIMYM, Lily has convinced Marshall to move to the suburbs. Then a few trick-or-treaters come to her door, and she hands them a stapler, scissors, and a bottle of pinot noir. She doesn’t realize what she’s done until Marshall points it out to her, and then she cries because she’s going to miss the stapler. Lily admits that she can’t make any big decisions right now, at least not until she’s done being affected by hormones.
On Modern Family, Claire argues with an overly vigilant store detective. Gloria stands, panicked, and announces that her water broke. Claire and the store detective rush her to the car. As Claire drives, Gloria reveals that she dumped a water bottle on the floor and pretended to go into labor in order to help Claire: “I couldn’t sit there and watch you suffer just because you turned your brain off.” Claire apologizes for pandering to Gloria and doubting her abilities.
Two sitcom episodes, less than a year apart from each other, both dealing with forgetful pregnant women who don’t know how to manage their lives without help, but the message of each episode is very different. The How I Met Your Mother episode is sexist and cliched, while the Modern Family episode attempts to treat the pregnant character with humanity, and mostly succeeds.
Look at the way the other characters talk about Lily and Gloria. Lily is “marinating in a cocktail of hormones,” a “moron,” and acting like the “drunk girl at the bar” – descriptors that would be perfect for a pregnant character on a darker or more satirical comedy, but seem out of place and mean-spirited on a feel-good show like How I Met Your Mother. Claire, on the other hand, initially sympathizes with Gloria, pointing out that pregnancy is draining and of course her memory would be on the fritz.
Lily is also treated like an infant during this pregnancy. She’s not just forgetful – she can’t make any major decisions while these hormones are affecting her brain. SHE IS NOT TO BE TRUSTED. Gloria, meanwhile, is forgetful and scattered, but she hasn’t completely lost her mind, and cleverly saves Claire from the repercussions of her own brain fart.

 

More similar than you might think (Vergara and Julie Bowen)
But I think the biggest reason that the Modern Family storyline mostly succeeds and the How I Met Your Mother episode doesn’t is because the first show remembers to show the female perspective on a woman’s issue (imagine that). The episode of How I Met Your Mother isn’t about how Lily deals with pregnancy brain; it’s about how Marshall deals with Lily’s pregnancy brain. Let’s empathize with the poor, long-suffering husband while he deals with the changes in his wife’s body (yawn). Modern Family at least shows us pregnancy-related forgetfulness from the perspective of the female characters. I liked seeing two women bond over their different pregnancies, and I especially liked that Claire didn’t have the exact same experience with every pregnancy.
I don’t know if pregnancy brain is a real thing or not. I’m skeptical, but I’ve had at least two currently pregnant or formerly pregnant friends tell me that they were constantly forgetful during their pregnancies. My impression is that it’s true for some women and not true for others. Both shows exaggerate the concept for for comic effect, but How I Met Your Mother reduces the pregnant woman to an infant and Modern Family remembers that Gloria is still an adult. I know which episode I prefer.
Final thought: if walking into a room with a specific purpose, and then immediately forgetting said purpose for being in that room, is a sign of pregnancy brain, I have been pregnant for the last twenty-eight years. I do this at least twice a day. Maybe pregnant women and scatterbrained artist-writer types are cut from the same cloth.
Lady T is a writer with two novels, a play, and a collection of comedy sketches in progress. She hopes to one day be published and finish one of her projects (not in that order). You can find more of her writing at www.theresabasile.com.

"Pregnancy Brain" in Sitcoms

Alyson Hannigan as Lily Aldrin in “How I Met Your Mother”
Pregnancy brain. Momnesia. Preggo ladies be cray-cray. Call it what you want, but the idea that pregnant women lose their minds while their hormones go whack is a popular stereotype based on questionable evidence. Some mothers recall feeling forgetful during their pregnancy, while others don’t. (Wow, you’d think different women have different experiences with pregnancy, or something.)
Regardless of how true pregnancy brain is or isn’t, or how different women react to the changes in their bodies, sitcom writers have taken this idea and run with it. Last year, Lily Aldrin experienced an episode’s worth of pregnancy brain on How I Met Your Mother, and this year, Gloria Delgado-Pritchett struggled with her own pregnancy brain problems on Modern Family. The setups were similar: the women had short-term memory problems as a result of their pregnancy hormones. The results, however, were a little different.
On How I Met Your Mother, the characters first notice something different about Lily when she agreed to move to the suburbs, after years of insisting that she would never move to the suburbs and wanted to stay in New York. Marshall, suburban-born and raised, is thrilled that Lily has changed her mind, but Robin warns him that Lily only wants to move because of pregnancy brain. Marshall doubts that pregnancy brain is even a “thing,” and Robin insists that it is: “Her brain is marinating in a cocktail of hormones, mood swings, and jacked-up nesting instincts.” Then Marshall and Robin recall a few incidents of Lily acting strangely: putting her keys and wallet in the freezer and ice cubes in her purse, texting Robin to ask for directions back from the bathroom, and saying “fungus” instead of “fetus” and “metal factory” instead of “mental faculty.” Robin cautions Marshall against letting Lily make any major life choices while pregnant.
This is all just in the first five minutes of the episode, by the way. The point is clear: Lily, while pregnant, is completely incapable of making any decisions for herself and has a more impaired short-term memory than Dory from Finding Nemo. Robin doesn’t think “that moron” can do anything. (Sidebar: why is Robin “I never want kids and have no interest in ever being pregnant” Scherbatsky suddenly an expert in pregnancy brain, anyway?)
Fortunately, Lily has a man by her side! (Hannigan and Jason Segel)
A year later on Modern Family, Gloria experiences similar symptoms of pregnesia, at a much later stage at her pregnancy than Lily’s. She puts soap in the fridge and butter in the shower. Jay calls his daughter Claire to “babysit the stupid pregnant lady” (Gloria’s words), but he claims that Gloria called Claire and forgot, and she initially believes him. She drives with Claire to Costco and laments over her pregnesia: “I have two brains in my body and I’ve never been so dumb.” Claire tells her not to be too hard on herself: “You have another human being growing inside of you competing for resources.” Claire herself struggled with forgetfulness when pregnant with her daughter Alex (but not so much with her daughter Haley or son Luke). The women exchange a nice moment until Gloria tries to get out of a moving car.
The setup here is slightly different: Gloria is forgetful and scattered, but self-aware enough to know when people are pandering to her. Still, she’s not at her best.
Back on How I Met Your Mother, the plot continues with Lily acting even more ridiculous. She tries to make waffles using a laptop, and Marshall takes advantage of her lapse in judgment by convincing her to buy things for the apartment that she doesn’t really want. Soon, though, she turns the tables on him. She tricks him into thinking that she called a broker to sell her grandparents’ house in the suburbs. Instead, she’s led him to the suburbs on Halloween so they can hand out candy to trick-or-treaters. She’s trying to manipulate him with cute children to convince him to move to the suburbs. It looks like the silly pregnant lady has more “metal factories” than meets the eye.
Meanwhile, on Modern Family, Claire and Gloria go shopping at Costco. Claire has to run to a different part of the store to find a sweater to wear, because Gloria’s been standing in the frozen food aisle for half an hour and can’t remember what she wanted to buy. When the two women finally go to the parking lot after their shop, Gloria accidentally almost closes the door of the minivan on Claire’s head – after all that time, she forgot the eggs. Claire lectures Gloria: “You are purposely turning your brain off!” Then Claire is interrupted by a store’s security guard: she forgot to return the sweater she wore while Gloria stood in the frozen food aisle, and accidentally stole the sweater. Claire tries to plead her case, but the security guard takes her back inside the building.
Sofia Vergara as Gloria Delgado-Pritchett on “Modern Family”
In the third act of the Marshall/Lily plot on HIMYM, Lily has convinced Marshall to move to the suburbs. Then a few trick-or-treaters come to her door, and she hands them a stapler, scissors, and a bottle of pinot noir. She doesn’t realize what she’s done until Marshall points it out to her, and then she cries because she’s going to miss the stapler. Lily admits that she can’t make any big decisions right now, at least not until she’s done being affected by hormones.
On Modern Family, Claire argues with an overly vigilant store detective. Gloria stands, panicked, and announces that her water broke. Claire and the store detective rush her to the car. As Claire drives, Gloria reveals that she dumped a water bottle on the floor and pretended to go into labor in order to help Claire: “I couldn’t sit there and watch you suffer just because you turned your brain off.” Claire apologizes for pandering to Gloria and doubting her abilities.
Two sitcom episodes, less than a year apart from each other, both dealing with forgetful pregnant women who don’t know how to manage their lives without help, but the message of each episode is very different. The How I Met Your Mother episode is sexist and cliched, while the Modern Family episode attempts to treat the pregnant character with humanity, and mostly succeeds.
Look at the way the other characters talk about Lily and Gloria. Lily is “marinating in a cocktail of hormones,” a “moron,” and acting like the “drunk girl at the bar” – descriptors that would be perfect for a pregnant character on a darker or more satirical comedy, but seem out of place and mean-spirited on a feel-good show like How I Met Your Mother. Claire, on the other hand, initially sympathizes with Gloria, pointing out that pregnancy is draining and of course her memory would be on the fritz.
Lily is also treated like an infant during this pregnancy. She’s not just forgetful – she can’t make any major decisions while these hormones are affecting her brain. SHE IS NOT TO BE TRUSTED. Gloria, meanwhile, is forgetful and scattered, but she hasn’t completely lost her mind, and cleverly saves Claire from the repercussions of her own brain fart.

 

More similar than you might think (Vergara and Julie Bowen)
But I think the biggest reason that the Modern Family storyline mostly succeeds and the How I Met Your Mother episode doesn’t is because the first show remembers to show the female perspective on a woman’s issue (imagine that). The episode of How I Met Your Mother isn’t about how Lily deals with pregnancy brain; it’s about how Marshall deals with Lily’s pregnancy brain. Let’s empathize with the poor, long-suffering husband while he deals with the changes in his wife’s body (yawn). Modern Family at least shows us pregnancy-related forgetfulness from the perspective of the female characters. I liked seeing two women bond over their different pregnancies, and I especially liked that Claire didn’t have the exact same experience with every pregnancy.
I don’t know if pregnancy brain is a real thing or not. I’m skeptical, but I’ve had at least two currently pregnant or formerly pregnant friends tell me that they were constantly forgetful during their pregnancies. My impression is that it’s true for some women and not true for others. Both shows exaggerate the concept for for comic effect, but How I Met Your Mother reduces the pregnant woman to an infant and Modern Family remembers that Gloria is still an adult. I know which episode I prefer.
Final thought: if walking into a room with a specific purpose, and then immediately forgetting said purpose for being in that room, is a sign of pregnancy brain, I have been pregnant for the last twenty-eight years. I do this at least twice a day. Maybe pregnant women and scatterbrained artist-writer types are cut from the same cloth.
Lady T is an aspiring writer and comedian with two novels, a play, and a collection of comedy sketches in progress. She hopes to one day be published and finish one of her projects (not in that order). You can find more of her writing at The Funny Feminist, where she picks apart entertainment and reviews movies she hasn’t seen.

Why I Love ‘Wonderfalls’

If you want to be taken seriously as a television fan (and who doesn’t hold that as their highest life goal?), you have to know how to talk the talk. You have to have an opinion on when exactly The Office jumped the shark.You have to be able to namedrop characters from The Wire, even if you’ve never seen it (cough). You have to loudly lament, at the slightest provocation, the untimely cancellation of some of your most beloved shows: Firefly, Arrested Development, Freaks and Geeks.
And, if you really want to prove your credentials, you should have a little list of rather less well-known shows whose early demise you can bewail with even greater fervor. Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace. Terriers. Wonderfalls.
I have lots of squishy feelings about Wonderfalls. Hailing from the mind of Bryan Fuller, which also graced us with the late, longed-for Pushing Daisies and Dead Like Me, Wonderfalls aired all of four episodes prior to its ignominious termination. (It can’t have helped that one of its executive producers was Tim “Touch of Death” Minear.) The remaining nine episodes saw the light of day in a nifty little DVD set which you should own.
In this gif, the part of Wonderfalls is played by Daria. Wait, that’s kind of confusing.
With every passing show of his that is born into this world, shimmers momently like a beautiful dragonfly, and is mercilessly slaughtered by evil network execs, I become more convinced that Bryan Fuller is a cruelly underrated genius whose mind is a gorgeous happyland full of puppies and rainbows and sparkly cupcakes of loveliness. If I can whip the nerds up into a Whedonesque frenzy over the name of Bryan Fuller, then maybe we can keep his next project on the air longer than five minutes. To that end, I offer five reasons why Wonderfalls is supergreat and awesome and should be watched and loved by all television-minded lifeforms.
Inside Bryan Fuller’s brain. Artist‘s rendition.
1. Jaye Tyler
Jaye is one of the best female characters I’ve ever seen on a TV show, and one of my favorite TV characters full stop. She’s a disaffected twenty-something philosophy grad living in a trailer park and working in a Niagara Falls gift shop, where the souvenirs start talking to her and guiding her to help others – which, as a curmudgeonly cynic to the bone, is the last thing Jaye wants.
Not that Jaye knows what she wants: “There is no ‘like me.’ I’m not ‘like’ anything, and if I were it certainly wouldn’t be me.” In the episode “Karma Chameleon,” Jaye is taken as an exemplar of Gen Y: directionless, shrouded in a facade of ennui and many protective layers of irony, feeling suffocated by the weight of her successful family’s expectations.Considering in how many fields of life women are still considered a special interest group who can be represented by men but can’t represent them, I find it very awesome that this show’s schlubby everyperson character, who undergoes a slow but sure transformation from acerbic jerk to somewhat caring human being, is a young woman.
2. Female Friendship
Jaye and Mahandra

I love Mahandra. I love her so, so much. (I love everything about this show to a superlative degree; it’s possible you’ve noticed.) Mahandra is Jaye’s best friend, her witty, sometimes scathing voice of reason, and the lone character of color in the main cast. Although much of the series’ overarching plot concerns the budding relationship between Jaye and heartbroken hottie bartender Eric, it’s the friendship between Jaye and Mahandra that I find most memorable and delightful.
It would be remiss of me not to mention Jaye’s relationship with big sister Sharon, which is very strained at the beginning of the series but develops into an appropriately sisterly bond of mutual irritation but rock-solid support – largely thanks to Jaye’s inadvertently facilitating the meet-cute between Sharon and her girlfriend.
3. Feminist Sensibilities
Watching disturbing rom-com cliches get subverted is something I very much enjoy, and Wonderfalls has a great example in the episode “Pink Flamingos,” where Jay and Mahandra attend their high-school reunion and encounter mean girl Gretchen. Of course, Gretchen turns out to be a sad sack trapped in a loveless marriage; of course, she winds up in the bathroom trying to scrub a drink stain out of her dress; of course, the boy who had always admired her from afar takes this chance to tell her about the feelings he still has for her, which massages her ego – and then she tells him he’s creepy and threatens him with mace. It’s brilliant.
(The evil-cheating-manipulative-wife trope employed elsewhere in the show leaves a little something to be desired, but I’m trying to accentuate the positive here.)
And I’m supposed to believe Jewel Staite is evil and manipulative??
4. Metaphysics and Philosophy
It’s a show about a woman who follows the cryptic directives of talking figurines, to the betterment of her life and those of the people around her. That premise was always going to raise interesting philosophical and theological questions, and it’s enriched by Jaye’s philosophy degree and her older brother’s studies in comparative religion. I mourn the fact that Wonderfallsnever got a chance to explore all the fascinating possibilities raised here. It’s a cruel world.
5. That Awesome Theme Song
Okay, this one is nothing more than a personal bias. XTC is one of my all-time favorite bands, and the last place I expect to hear a song from their main man Andy Partridge is on an American TV show in 2004. I love this theme song A LOT. It’s catchy, quirky, and – to me at least – irresistibly loveable. Like XTC, and like Wonderfalls itself.
 
  
Max Thornton blogs at Gay Christian Geek, and is slowly learning to twitter at @RainicornMax.

Indifferent To Suffering, Insensitive To Joy: ‘Network’s’ Dangerous Career Woman

Women In Politics Week: Indifferent To Suffering, Insensitive To Joy: ‘Network’s’ Dangerous Career Woman
By Myrna Waldron
Network DVD Art
For a while, I think people got the impression that I don’t like films if they’re not explicitly feminist. The reality is, most films are not feminist, but it doesn’t necessarily diminish their respective quality – Back to the FutureCasablanca and The Third Man are amongst my favourite films of all time, but I could not describe them as remotely feminist. Amongst that list of favourite films is the 1976 black comedy/satire Network, which is a scarily prescient skewering of the television industry. It won four Academy Awards, three for acting – Best Actress Faye Dunaway, Best Actor Peter Finch (which was awarded posthumously) and Best Supporting Actress Beatrice Straight. The fourth award was for its screenplay penned by Paddy Chayefsky.

The film’s “heroine,” Diana Christensen, played by Faye Dunaway, is very much a product of the 70s. She has directly benefitted from the second wave feminism movement, breaking the glass ceiling and becoming the sole female television executive at UBS, the fictional network depicted in this film. But…she is not a feminist character. Yes, she is strongly written, sexually confident, and an obvious success in her field, but she is also obsessive, emotionless, cynical and dangerous. In short, a ball-breaking career woman. She has achieved much based on the sheer power of her ambitions, but it is clear that her single-minded ambitions are meant to contrast negatively to the more idealistic and grounded outlooks of the male “heroes,” Howard Beale (Peter Finch) and Max Schumacher (William Holden).

Diana is the Vice President of UBS’s programming division, but eventually worms her way into taking Max Schumacher’s job, which was to be in charge of the news division. The news division gets lousy ratings and haemorrhages money, so they make the decision to fire their news anchor, Howard Beale. This instead causes Beale’s mind to snap, and he begins ranting about planning to commit suicide on air (which was based on a real-life event) and how he has “run out of bullshit.” The ratings spike, prompting the obsessive Diana to seize on the newscast and turn it into a combination variety show and talk show. The integrity of the news and the political system that it influences mean nothing to Diana – she is singularly obsessed with getting ratings and making money for UBS.

Diana Christensen
In her work to get better ratings for the network, she offers a deal to Laureen Hobbs, a leader of the Communist Party, to get video footage of a radical leftist terrorist group known as the Ecumenical Liberation Army (a parody of the terrorist group which kidnapped Patty Hearst). Both women are deeply cynical and sarcastic, and introduce themselves to each other as what they are stereotyped to be: “Hi, I’m Diana Christensen, a racist lackey of the imperialist ruling circles.” “I’m Laureen Hobbs, a bad-ass commie nigger.” (Hobbs is African-American) “Sounds like the basis of a firm friendship.” Diana does not care at all about the political ramifications of allowing the Communist Party an entire hour of weekly propaganda, or of glorifying the violent tactics of domestic terrorists. She even openly encourages Hobbs to put whatever content she likes in the show just so she can get the terrorists’ crime footage. Meanwhile, she has added several other kitschy segments to The Howard Beale Show, including a psychic who predicts the week’s news every Friday.

This same psychic tells Diana that she will be having an emotional affair with a craggy middle-aged gentleman. She interprets this man to be Max Schumacher, with whom she starts an affair. She knows that he has been married for 25 years and has children, and doesn’t care at all, she, in fact, was the one who initially approached him. Her cynicism and selfishness extend to her personal life as well. The affair abruptly ends when she steals Schumacher’s job and exploits the mentally ill Beale for ratings. They reconnect after an executive’s funeral – her attraction to Schumacher being the only thing besides television that she shows remote joy in (Schumacher is emotionally obsessed and infatuated with Diana). But even that joy is short lived, for she continually blathers about her job even while having sex.  To go along with how she has elbowed herself in to a social caste normally populated by men, she even describes herself as being sexually masculine: “I can’t tell you how many man have told me what a lousy lay I am. I apparently have a masculine temperament. I arouse quickly, consummate prematurely, and can’t wait to get my clothes back on and get out of that bedroom. I seem to be inept at everything except my work.”

Howard Beale’s Rant
Diana’s tenure as the producer of The Howard Beale show has significant political ramifications. Beale’s famous rant, in which he encourages his audience to scream, “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it any more!” fosters an atmosphere of discontent with the status quo and outrage that their individualism is insidiously being taken away from them. It becomes a catchphrase, and Beale begins making daily rants, and eventually even believes himself as a kind of political prophet with the unique ability to communicate via the television. The angrier the audience gets, the more the ratings increase, and the more Diana likes it. The show eventually becomes the #1 most watched program in America, and Diana unabashedly takes all the credit for its success.

UBS is owned by a media conglomerate called the CCA (Communications Company of America), and the corporate influence of the conglomerate gradually takes over how the network is run. Frank Hackett (Robert Duvall), Diana & Max’s direct supervisor, eventually becomes CEO after the original CEO dies of a heart condition. This marks the end of UBS’s journalistic credibility, for Hackett is a blatant corporate shill. Unfortunately for Beale, he makes an enemy of the CCA when he learns that the conglomerate is to be bought out by Saudi Arabians, and thus goes on a rant about how much of American property and commerce is owned by the Saudis. He demands that his audience send telegrams to the White House demanding that they put a stop to Saudi money taking over American culture. UBS is not a wealthy network, and absolutely depends on this merger to survive. The CEO of CCA, Arthur Jensen (Ned Beatty) demands to see Beale, and goes on a thunderous rant about how there is no such thing as nations or individuals – that money is the only thing that matters, the only reality in the modern world.

He scares Howard Beale into promoting his own viewpoints, which are directly opposite to the previous subjects of Beale’s rants. The ratings begin to fall because the audience resents being told that they are only cogs in a great moneymaking machine, not the worthy individuals Beale originally told them they were. Laureen Hobbs, by this point, has been sucked in too by the temptations of the corporate system, and becomes so obsessed with earning enough money to continue her show she has, instead of being a Communist, become a classical Capitalist. Furious at how Howard Beale’s flagging ratings are damaging her show, she rants to Diana that Beale should be fired. Diana has already been planning to end Beale’s show.

Diana celebrating The Howard Beale Show’s success
Meanwhile, Diana’s cynicism and lack of emotional depth have taken a toll on her relationship with Max Schumacher. She defines their relationship, yet again, in relation to television: “It’s time to reevaluate our relationship, Max. I don’t like the way this script of ours is turning out. It’s turning into a seedy little drama. Middle-aged man leaves wife and family for young heartless woman, goes to pot.” Instead, Max turns the tables on her. Noting that she, unlike him, has grown up only knowing the artificiality of television, he realizes that she is completely unable to form or articulate genuine emotion. That television has destroyed her, destroyed Laureen Hobbs, and will destroy him too if he continues to have a relationship with her. He tells her that she is “…Indifferent to suffering, insensitive to joy. All of life is reduced to the common rubble of banality.” The man who left his wife of 25 years is apparently morally above a young woman who, by his own admission, is not to blame for the artificiality of her emotions. Instead, Diana’s single-minded ambition damns her.

Losing Max seems to spark a final unforgivable act of cynicism – Diana completely disregards the right to human life and orders Howard Beale’s assassination. Since Beale is now espousing the moral and political beliefs of Mr. Jensen, Jensen wants the show to continue, but the UBS executives are unable to ignore or forgive Beale’s flagging ratings. Instead of risking the wrath of CCA by firing Beale or allowing him to retire, they hire the Ecumenical Liberation Army to shoot him to death onscreen. Money is the only reality. The cynical, emotionless career woman says, “I don’t see that we have any options. Let’s kill the son of a bitch.” They can then dredge up one last ratings spike out of Beale. The footage of Beale being shot to death is broadcast over and over, next to other newscasts and commercials – in the end, even the murder of a mentally ill man is as meaningless as everything else when it comes to television.

Diana Christensen is a tremendously complicated character. It is hard to hate her, but the audience is meant to be repelled by the sheer scope of her ambition and obsession. It is quite revealing that Laureen Hobbs, the other major female character in the story, becomes just as cynical and hypocritical as Diana and abandons everything else for the sake of the mighty rating. Is it true that the generations that have grown up only knowing a world with television have become emotionally stunted? Does Chayefsky think all ambitious career women are as single-minded and emotionally/sexually stunted as Diana, or is she just a mere satirical exaggeration? What is apparent is how eerily this movie predicted the future – a fourth major television network that abandons all pretence of delivering objective news, instead relying on stunt footage, pundits, propaganda, cheap ratings ploys and answers to a dangerously powerful media conglomerate? Sounds familiar. Diana is not remotely a feminist character, but her creation has definitely been influenced by the second wave feminist movement. One thing, however, is clear from Network’s script: Beware the ambitious career woman.

Myrna Waldron is a feminist writer/blogger with a particular emphasis on all things nerdy. She lives in Toronto and has studied English and Film at York University. Myrna has a particular interest in the animation medium, having written extensively on American, Canadian and Japanese animation. She also has a passion for Sci-Fi & Fantasy literature, pop culture literature such as cartoons/comics, and the gaming subculture. She maintains a personal collection of blog posts, rants, essays and musings at The Soapboxing Geek, and tweets with reckless pottymouthed abandon at @SoapboxingGeek.

Why We Need Leslie Knope and What Her Election on ‘Parks and Rec’ Means for Women and Girls

Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) in Parks and Recreation
Written by Megan Kearns
When I grow up, I want to be Leslie Knope. It’s no secret I love Parks and Recreation. A female-fronted series with a hilarious ensemble cast that’s the most feminist show on TV? C’mon, how could I not? It’s easy to write off Parks and Rec as a quirky and brilliant comedy. Yet it’s so much more than that. It broke ground revealing the highs and lows of political office and showing an intelligent, upbeat, passionate woman can not only run for office but win.
Inspired by The Wire’s portrayal of politics (another reason to love it even more!), it depicts local government in the small town Pawnee, revolving around the indomitable Leslie Knope. Amy Poehler (who happens to be one of my fave feminist celebs) anchors the show with her fantastic portrayal of the waffles-loving leader.With Leslie Knope’s win, women and girls see that women can become leaders. She helps normalize the image of female politicians, showing us that it’s not strange — rather it’s routine — for a woman to strive for political office. She allows us to dream of impacting change through politics. She tells us that it’s okay for women to be powerful.
Not only do we see a female politician. We see a FEMINIST female politician. And I can’t think of a more overtly feminist character on TV. Period.
Always striving to empower women and girls, Leslie started Camp Athena, a program for teen girls and the gender-bending Pawnee Goddesses, an originally all-girls (and later co-ed) girl scouts-esque group. When judging a beauty pageant, Leslie brilliantly brought “her own laminated scorecard with categories including “Knowledge of herstory” and “The Naomi Wolf factor.” She started “Galentine’s Day” for her lady friends to celebrate each other and how they don’t need men. Forever dreaming of running for office, Leslie idolizes strong women leaders posting pictures of Hillary Rodham Clinton, Madeline Albright, Condoleezza Rice, Janet Reno, and Nancy Pelosi. Leslie aspires to become the first female president of the United States. Did I mention she constructed a Geraldine Ferraro action figure? From a popsicle stick?? Priceless.
Parks and Rec continues the lady power by revolving around a female friendship. Creators Greg Daniels and Michael Schur conceived the show to focus on Leslie and Ann Perkins’ friendship. Fitting as Amy Poehler and Rashida Jones are real-life friends. In an age where you see women catty and backbiting towards one another or the Smurfette principle with only one woman in the cast, it’s great to see several women who not only get along but support one another’s goals.
But Parks and Rec skyrocketed into the feminist stratosphere when it featured Leslie’s decision to run for city council, her campaign and her win.
In “I’m Leslie Knope,” Leslie declares, “I’ve been dreaming of running for public office my whole life.” While other girls played with Barbies, Leslie had her trusty Geraldine Ferraro action figure (I cannot express just how much I love this). Leslie makes campaign speeches in her sleep and declares her campaign slogan “Knope We Can’t Not,” a hilarious riffs on President Obama’s slogan. We see Leslie participate in the usual campaign tasks such as field and GOTV (get out the vote), fundraising and debating. And her position on Egyptian debt relief.
Leslie chooses her career over a man…twice. In season 2, when she’s dating Louis C.K., he asks Leslie to move with him but she decides to stay in Pawnee for her career. Then in season 4’s premiere, Leslie must choose whether or not to break up with adorbs Ben in order to pursue her dream of running for office. And she chooses her career. We so rarely see this on TV. It’s so refreshing for a woman to put her work and herself first instead of a man.
During Leslie’s debates, not only is abortion mentioned (“I think we should all just have a good time”…thanks Bobby Newport!) but a commentary on sexism in politics arises too. Brandy, a city council candidate and former porn star, looks eerily similar to Leslie from her hairstyle to her clothes. She continuously compares herself to Leslie. Then the moderator even says they really are the same. It’s a funny commentary on how some people lump women candidates together as a monolithic force. You know, that we women are all the same because of our gender.
Leslie had to contend with her campaign manager leaving after she came forward with her relationship with Ben Wyatt, dirty spin tactics and even a smear campaign as she was accused of killing puppies (???) when the animal shelter closed due to her negotiation reallocating funds for the Parks Department. Each of these issues is dealt with humorously (duh). What’s surprising is that in a strange way — with its illustration of the hurdles women face and can overcome — Parks and Rec’s portrayal of Leslie Knope’s campaign might just be the most honest depiction of a campaign ever.
When Leslie responds to the lewd photos sent to all the female city hall workers, she tells reporter Perd Hapley, “When men in government behave this way, they betray the public’s trust. Maybe it’s time for more women to be in charge.”
Yes, yes it is time.
President Allison Taylor in 24, President Mac Allen in Commander in Chief, President Laura Roslin in Battlestar Galactica — we’ve never had a female president yet TV shows have imagined its reality. Currently, Julia Louis-Dreyfus plays Vice President Selena Meyer in the female-fronted political satire Veep. While we’ve seen a handful of women as elected leaders on-screen, we’ve never seen a female candidate’s political campaign from start to finish. Until now. This season, audiences witnessed the campaigns of Modern Family’s Claire Dunphy and Parks and Rec’s Leslie Knope, both running for city council.
I was thrilled we had not one but two women running for office! Claire’s campaign for city council mostly took a back seat, only appearing in 3 episodes. And she lost. Although it was great to see her run at all. But Leslie’s campaign remained the crux of the 4th season.Hopefully, when we see more women leaders run for elected office on-screen, we’ll see more women running for off-screen.
For several years, I worked at a women’s center at Harvard University, coordinating a political training program for female grad students. Female political candidates face unique challenges and obstacles. Some women are reticent to run because they worry about fundraising (many women have no problem asking for money as activists yet have trouble when it comes to asking for money for themselves) and facing sexism in the media and the ridiculous scrutiny on their appearance. Women often have to be asked to run for office whereas men just run. Women often perceive that they need more training, more experience, regardless of their actual qualifications.
But I think there’s another reason women don’t run.
You can’t be what you can’t see. If little girls don’t see any female politicians in the media — in books, film and TV — it becomes that much harder for them to envision themselves as leaders or even knowing that politics is a potential path. If no politicians look like you — although having Hillary Clinton run for president and Sarah Palin as a Vice Presidential candidate certainly helped — it’s extremely difficult to imagine you can lead.
We need even more women to run for office, advocating for greater equity. Women must fight harder to prove themselves and their worth, due to their small numbers and societal expectations. Female politicians often submit more legislation and tend to advocate more for abortion, education and healthcare. They see the world from a different vantage point than men. When women sit at the table of the decision-making process, a greater diversity of voices and perspectives are heard.
Women overwhelmingly won this record-breaking election. With 20 women in the Senate and at least 77 women in the House, a historic number of women will serve in Congress. It will be the most diverse Congress in history. Additionally, with President Obama’s re-election, gay marriage passed in 4 states, and an anti-abortion amendment failing in Florida — all these successes struck a massive blow to the GOP’s onslaught of attacks against women, gay rights and reproductive rights.And I think feminist humor played a small yet vital role in the 2012 elections, spreading awareness about inequality.
As we’ve already seen in her brief term as City Councillor, Leslie has advocated for clean parks, passed a soda tax and fought back against abstinence-only education. As Diane Shipley points out in her must-read Bitch Flicks article on Leslie Knope:
“Leslie Knope *is* amazing. Over the course of three seasons, she’s gone from a small-time, small-town government employee with delusions of grandeur to someone it’s easy to believe could make a big splash on the larger political stage one day. I hope she does, and I hope we get to see it. What’s more, the popularity of her character signals an important change, a backlash against the backlash: the mainstream acceptance of a heroine who lives by feminist values and encourages others to do the same.”
Looking at the two comedies featuring women in political office on right now, Veep satirizes government, mocking politicians and their staff’s incompetency. While Julia Louis-Dreyfus and the rest of the ensemble are hilarious, I sometimes cringe as I want to see a woman in a position of power succeed. But with Leslie, you never doubt for one moment she can’t do exactly what she sets out to accomplish. And you never doubt she will stand up for women everywhere.
We need to see more depictions of women politicians. With Parks and Rec, not only do we see that women can and do run for office, but they can win. Leslie shows us that women can confidently follow their dreams and turn them into reality. As my friend and fellow writer Molly McCaffrey said to me:
“Watching Leslie win felt like a victory for not only women but people who care about the world.”
Now if only we had more Leslie Knopes in the world. With women and girls watching, we just might.

Megan Kearns is a Bitch Flicks Staff Writer, a freelance writer and a feminist vegan blogger. She tweets at @OpinionessWorld.

Women in Politics Week: "The Women of Qumar": Feminism and Imperialism in ‘The West Wing’

CJ Cregg (Allison Janney) in The West Wing

Guest post written by Pauline Holdsworth.
 
CJ: They beat women, Nancy. They hate women. The only reason they keep Qumari women alive is to make more Qumari men. 

Nancy: What do you want me to do? 

CJ: How about suggesting that we sell the guns at them, suggesting that we shoot the guns at them? And by the way, not to change the subject, but how are we supposed to have any moral credibility when we talk about gun control and making sure that guns don’t get into the hands of the wrong people? God, Nancy, what the hell are we defining as the right people? 

Nancy: This is the real world, and we can’t isolate our enemies. 

CJ: I know about the real world, and I’m not suggesting we isolate them. 

Nancy: You’re suggesting we eliminate them. 

CJ: I have a briefing.

Nancy: You’re suggesting –

CJ: I’m not suggesting anything. I don’t suggest foreign policy around here. 
 Nancy: You’re suggesting it right now. 

CJ: It’s the 21st century, Nancy, the world’s gotten smaller. I don’t know how we can tolerate this kind of suffering anymore, particularly when all it does is continue the cycle of anti-American hatred. But that’s not the point either. 

Nancy: What’s the point?

CJ: The point is that apartheid was an East Hampton clambake compared to what we laughingly refer to as the life these women lead. And if we had sold M1A1s to South Africa 15 years ago, you’d have set the building on fire. Thank God we never needed to refuel at Johannesburg.

Nancy: It’s a big world, CJ. And everybody has guns. And I’m doing the best I can. 

CJ: (tearfully) They’re beating the women, Nancy. — “The Women of Qumar,” Season 3, Episode 9, The West Wing

“The Women of Qumar” originally aired on November 28th, 2001, approximately two months after the first American airstrikes in Afghanistan. That timing is crucial to consider when looking at how this episode presents an imagined Middle East. Though The West Wing is often billed as optimistic counter-history and as an antidote for the policies and politics of the Bush administration, the show’s Qumari plot line is much more of a fictional transcription of current events than it is a progressive alternative. Most importantly, in creating Qumar as a fictional country meant to evoke the worst American fears and prejudices about life in the Middle East, Aaron Sorkin effectively packages and sells many of the motivations behind the current war in Afghanistan in the guise of progressive entertainment.

Nancy McNally (Anna Deavere Smith) CJ Cregg (Allison Janney) in The West Wing
A kind of “I speak for all women” conviction is displayed by Press Secretary C.J. Cregg in this episode, whose conversation with National Security Advisor Nancy McNally (Anna Deavere Smith) suggests her belief that all other female members of the administration share her perspective. Her suggestion that all-out militarism is an appropriate reaction to the gender-based oppression experienced by the women of Qumar is troubling on several levels. First, it contributes to a “savior” narrative which glosses over the very real existence of gender-based violence and oppression in North America and paints Middle-Easterners as explicitly violent, backwards, and misogynistic. Second, since Qumar is a fictional amalgamation of various imagined versions of Islamic countries in the Middle East, it’s implicit in C.J.’s argument that Islam is a chief factor in these women’s oppression — a loaded assertion which makes troubling assumptions about the experiences of Islamic women, particularly with regards to personal agency and faith.

It’s also worth noting how convinced C.J. is that the United States will one day be at war with Qumar. “This isn’t the point, but we will. Of course we will. Of course we’ll be fighting a war with Qumar one day and you know it,” she tells Nancy. And by the end of the fourth season, the United States and Qumar will be at the brink of military conflict, but it won’t be because America has stepped in to nobly rescue the women of Qumar from their religion and culture — it will be the end result of a series of events set in motion by President Bartlet’s authorization of the extrajudicial assassination of the Qumari defense minister, Abdul Shareef. 

“The Women of Qumar” won Allison Janney an Emmy, and contains what is perhaps her most impassioned speech on women’s issues. It’s framed as a look at C.J.’s personal, emotional side and seems largely intended as character development — but as the Qumari plot line becomes more and more important throughout the next two seasons, C.J.’s initial framing of the issues becomes more integral to the show’s moral stance on militarism and foreign policy. Her outbursts in this episode seem intended to garner emotional support and lend legitimacy to the Bartlet administration’s foreign policy, which tends to favor intervention and unilateral strikes and which often betrays a belief in the inherent moral superiority of the United States as a kind of self-appointed global police. Rather than presenting C.J.’s perspective as a morally ambiguous mobilization of feminist rhetoric in the service of imperialism and militarism abroad, her speech in this episode is glorified as a noteworthy example of her personal feminist politics. 
In “Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourse,” Chandra Talpade Mohanty writes, “I would like to suggest that the feminist writings I analyze here discursively colonize the material and historical heterogeneities of the lives of women in the third world, thereby producing/re-presenting a composite, singular “Third World Woman” — an image which appears arbitrarily constructed, but nevertheless carries with it the authorizing signature of Western humanist discourse.” In “The Women of Qumar,” this amalgamating force is literally employed as a plot device, one which creates an archetypal Third World Woman and then invents an amalgamated nation around her.

One of the most troubling moments in C. J.’s conversation with Nancy is her statement, “Apartheid was an East Hampton clambake compared to what we laughingly refer to as the life these women lead” – a statement that paints this amalgamated, fictional country (which refers back to viewers’ hazy imaginings of the Middle East as a whole) as a region so backwards, so violent, and so primitive that no women’s life there could possibly be worth living. In addition to erasing the diversity of Middle Eastern women’s experiences, C.J.’s words here suggest that she considers herself, as a white feminist, to be an authority on deciding whether or not the lives of racialized women are “real” lives. Given that many of these women would experience drastically increased violence and displacement as a result of an American investigation, her implicit suggestion here that the current “worth” of the lives of the women of Qumar is something for Americans to decide and for Americans to wager with is particularly problematic.

The Middle East appears so frequently in popular culture as a simplistic amalgamation of stereotypes that the practice has earned a name on TV Tropes. The site writes that this trope, “Qurac”, has three main iterations — an Arabian Nights version, a version featuring a tin-pot dictator, and “Jihadistan”. In all three, Middle Easterners are depicted as fanatical, violent, and greedy. The West Wing employs this practice again by inventing “Equatorial Kundu,” a “generic” African country experiencing civil war. In both cases, the insertion of fictional countries into real-world geography allows the writers to include what they consider to be “typical” Middle Eastern and African storylines, without being held accountable for perpetuating harmful stereotypes by any one real-world country or government.

CJ Cregg (Allison Janney) in The West Wing
The use of mainstream feminist rhetoric to justify and legitimize war hits painfully close to home, since The West Wing’s Qumari plot line was airing alongside the mobilization of this rhetoric in real time to advocate for an American presence in the Middle East. This rhetoric, which framed the war as an effort to liberate Middle Eastern women from the oppression of veil and Taliban alike, continues to thrive today — in the third presidential debate, both President Obama and Governor Romney displayed more enthusiasm for women’s issues when they fit into a narrative of militarism abroad than when they tied in to domestic issues. It’s worth noting that when asked directly about the gender pay gap and other women’s issues in the second debate, both candidates shied away from the question to refocus their energies on the economy — but though no questions about women’s issues were raised during the foreign policy debate, both were happy to offer unsolicited analysis of the U.S.’s responsibility to “protect” women’s rights abroad via drone strikes and continued American presence. 
In the political context in which these episodes aired, the mobilization of imperialist feminism is not just a monolithic and over-simplified representation of feminist politics, but also a troubling repackaging of war in an otherwise-progressive show. 
More broadly, Aaron Sorkin has been criticized throughout his career for his tendency to “[create] one-dimensional female characters in male-dominated settings,” as Ruth Spencer wrote in The Guardian. Though The West Wing brought us Allison Janney’s fantastic portrayal of C. J. Cregg, it’s also rife with women who waver between being genuinely-realized characters and caricatures of strong women in politics — for example, Amy Gardner and Abigail Bartlet. When it comes to representing feminist politics, The West Wing tends to funnel women’s issues through one character and one character only in any given episode — and given that character is more often than not Amy Gardner, the show’s representation of feminist advocacy in politics becomes limited. 
In addition to C. J.’s speech, “The Women of Qumar” is also notable for the introduction of Amy Gardner, played by Mary-Louise Parker, who would frequently act as the face of the show’s feminism throughout the rest of its run. When Amy is introduced, she’s arguing with Josh about legalizing sex work, a conversation in which she dismisses Josh’s concerns about “creat[ing] more criminals in a criminal environment” and disregards questions of women’s ability to unionize, access social services, health care benefits, and exert a degree of control and regulation within their industry. Amy often seems to be convinced that she speaks for American women as a whole and knows what’s best for them, a conviction which is rarely problematized by a show which by and large neglects to present contrasting feminisms or delve into any women’s concerns beyond the discourse of white mainstream feminism. Though she and Josh often fight over women’s issues, their conversations more often devolve into flirting than they do into substantive engagement with the issues at hand. In “The Women of Qumar,” Josh’s suggestion that her desire to police sex work is at odds with a belief that the government should stay away from women’s bodies is a compelling and worthwhile discussion, but one which is, disappointingly, left to fall by the wayside in favor of their interpersonal chemistry. 
The issues raised here point to a larger issue with the way feminist politics are represented in the show — a tendency to engage with feminism on a surface level and a failure to adequately inhabit its complexities and contradictions. And by privileging a certain brand of white mainstream feminism and by failing to place that feminism in any sort of critical context, The West Wing’s foray into political feminism is, for the most part, a missed opportunity.
——
Pauline Holdsworth is a fourth-year English student at the University of Toronto, where she is the Editor-in-Chief of The Strand. She also covers women’s issues for Campus Progress. You can follow her on Twitter at @holdswo.

Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

Megan‘s Picks:

First Time Lionsgate Has Two Films Make Over $125 Million In The Same Year They Do It With Female Leads by Jill Pantozzi via The Mary Sue

Amber Riley Breaks Down in Tears as She Opens Up About Body Image by Jorge Rivas via Colorlines

Breaking Dawn Part 2: And They Lived Happily Twi-After by Natalie Wilson via Ms. Magazine Blog

Movie Critic Recounts that One Time His Misogynistic Editor Asked Him to Stop Reviewing Movies With Strong Female Leads by Doug Barry via Jezebel

Infographic: Diversity in Hollywood by Amy S. Choi via Feministing

THR‘s Actress Roundtable: 7 Stars on Nightmare Directors, Brutal Auditions and Fights with Paparazzi via The Hollywood Reporter

Backlot Bitch: Oh Boy, Girl Problems in Film Criticism by Monica Castillo via Bitch Media 

The BBC Is Telling the Story of the War of the Roses from the Women’s Perspective, and It Looks Amazing by Rebecca Pahle via The Mary Sue

Is Feminism Having a TV Moment? by Nisha Chittal via Ms. Magazine Blog

The Man With the Iron Fist Is Proof Lucy Liu Needs Her Own Grindhouse Action Franchise by Alex Cranz via FemPop

Bollywood Will Remain a Hero-Centric Business: Bipasha Basu by IANS via The Express Tribune 

Everything You Need to Know About the Media’s Coverage of the Petraeus Sex Scandal (Hint: It’s Sexist) by Kelsey Wallace via Bitch Media 

Sexism Watch: The Hollywood Reporter Writers’ Roundtable 2012 by Marian Evans via Women and Hollywood

WMC Award Winners Assess Media Progress by Marianne Schnall via Women’s Media Center

Geena Davis to Ms: “It’s All About Feminism!” by Anita Little via Ms. Magazine Blog 

The Walking Dead Has Become a White Patriarchy by Lorraine Berry via Salon

What have you been reading? Tell us in the comments!

Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

Stephanie‘s Picks:

Women in the Media: Female TV and Film Characters Still Sidelined and Sexualized, Study Finds by Nina Bahadur via Huffington Post

Hollywood’s New Feminists, Why the Old One Went Away and What’s Coming Next? by Sasha Stone via Awards Daily

Fighting, Flirting, Feminism: The Bond Girl Evolution by Lily Rothman via Time

V Magazine Attempts “Girl Power” Issue by Melanie via The Feminist Guide to Hollywood

A Crowdfunding Primer: Feminist Media Producers Engage a Community of Backers by Ariel Dougherty via On the Issues

Sing It, Sister [on Keira Knightley] by Melissa McEwan via Shakesville

Sexism Watch: Popular Media Is Dominated by Men by Melissa Silverstein via Women and Hollywood

Amber‘s Picks:

How Mean Girls Explains the Petraeus Scandal by Ann Friedman via New York Magazine

Infographic: How White Is the New Fall 2012 TV Season? by Jorge Rivas via Colorlines

Heroines of Cinema: Ten $100 Million Hits Starring Women over 50 by Matthew Hammet Knott via Indiewire

Five Abolition Movies I’d Like to See by Aphra Behn via Shakesville

In the Works: ‘Bridget Jones’ to Return with Baby in Third Book and Movie by Beth Hanna via Thompson on Hollywood

Skyfall: A Post-Election Conservative Wet Dream by Soraya Chemaly via Women and Hollywood

Megan‘s Picks:

Girls Impact the World Film Festival — A Forum for Social Change by Amanda Quraishi via Women’s Media Center

Who’s Getting Heard — The New TV Season via Women, Action & the Media (WAM)

Nothing Says Native American Heritage Month Like White Girls in Headdresses by Sasha Houston Brown via Racialicious

Lady Liquor: Gendering Codependency in When a Man Loves a Woman by Christen McCurdy via Bitch Media

How Skyfall Reasserted the Patriarchy in Bond by Alex Cranz via FemPop

Geena Davis on Gender by Jenny Peters via Variety

Backlot Bitch: In Defense of Wreck-It Ralph by Monica Castillo via Bitch Media

Justice Sotomayor Gives Sesame Street Some Career Advice via Feministing

What have you been reading this week? Tell us in the comments!


Women Doctors: Professionally Competent, Messy Personal Lives

Mindy Kaling as Dr. Mindy Lahiri in The Mindy Project
Originally published at The Funny Feminist.
You know what I’d like to see more of on television? Stories about women who are successful in their professional lives, but whose personal lives are a complete mess. I especially want to see more of these stories about female doctors.
Take Emily Owens, M.D., for example. Starring Mamie Gummer, Emily Owens, M.D. tells the story of a medical intern who discovers that life in a hospital is just like high school. In the first episode, she confesses to her old high school crush that she likes him only to be shot down, and realizes that her high school nemesis is interested in her high school crush, but she also diagnoses a condition and performs a life-saving procedure during her first day on the job.
Or let’s look at Mindy Kaling’s new sitcom. The Mindy Project, recently picked up for a full season, tells the story of Mindy Lahiri, a gynecologist whose dating life is a mess. In the first episode of the show, she rudely interrupts an ex-boyfriend’s wedding and drives a bicycle into a pool, but by the end of the pilot, she’s heroically delivering a baby to a patient who doesn’t have health insurance – even interrupting a date to do it.
Or let’s go back in time a few years to a show called Grey’s Anatomy, the drama that won’t die (even when most of its characters do). Ellen Pompeo plays Meredith Grey, an intern who accidentally sleeps with her boss the night before her first day. (By “accidentally sleep with,” I mean that the sex was intentional, but she did not know the man was her boss.) She struggles with a patient, but gets a sexy love interest and a guy crushing on her forlornly from the minute he meets her. She’s also the intern who makes the miraculous discovery of what’s wrong with her patient, and figures out how to help a fellow intern’s patient.
Am I mess or a rock star intern? I can’t remember! | Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo) in Grey’s Anatomy
Now, pretend you’ve been living under a pop culture rock for the last few years and know nothing about these three shows or the actresses who play these characters. Based just on the descriptions, would you be able to tell which program was the satire/comedy and which two programs took the “professionally skilled, personal mess” trope seriously?
…Okay, so maybe the bicycle in the pool was the giveaway. Fair enough. The point remains that television continues to have a problem with professional women. Showrunners don’t seem to know how to write professional women characters without turning them into neurotic messes who can control nothing about their personal lives, and lately, female doctors are getting the brunt of that particular cliche.
I like comparing these female doctor characters to a character like House on House, M.D. or Dr. Perry Cox on Scrubs (who has been compared to House by other characters on Scrubs, amusingly enough). These men are professional geniuses whose personal lives are also fraught with drama, but we’d never call them neurotic. They’re curmudgeonly assholes who bark perfectly crafted sarcasm at their professional inferiors, colleagues, and bosses. Their personal lives are messes because they’re misanthropic, or because they’re masking years of built-up pain. Women doctors have messy personal lives because they overanalyze and are neurotic and always pick the wrong men.
I don’t know if showrunners write women doctors this way because they lack imagination, or because they’ve internalized sexist stereotypes, or because they don’t know how else to make a professionally competent women sympathetic to an audience. “We’ve got a woman doctor here, because women can be doctors now, but women who are TOO put-together will be a turnoff, so we’ll make her a mess outside of work! INSTANT EMPATHY!”
Fortunately, Mindy Kaling is aware of this cliche, and the episodes of The Mindy Project following the pilot have veered away from “professionally competent, personally messy” plots.Show-Mindy is often portrayed as less neurotic and more of a jerk, and Kaling is more interested in making the character funny than making her likable. Show-Mindy is several steps in the right direction, and I hope we start seeing more characters like her, soon.
But not too soon, because I want there to still be a market for my own pilot about a professionally competent, neurotic female doctor. Doctor Love tells the story of Hilarie Love, a young physician who can’t seem to get her personal life together. In the pilot episode, Hilarie goes on her first date since high school, where her prom date stood her up to go have sex with the cheerleader. Unfortunately, she winds up wearing an outfit where none of the clothes match, and gets so nervous that she throws up on her date in the middle of a restaurant, and almost accidentally kills him when she stands up and knocks the table on him. Then she gets called into work, and performs a miraculous, life-saving surgery (even though she’s not a surgeon) on a young blind boy who’s been shot, removing the bullet with her bare hands and donating her own blood to rejuvenate the child. This catches the attention of a handsome attending physician who finds her competent and pretty, and is still intrigued by Hilarie even after she throws up on him, too.
What do you think? Do we have a hit?
Oh, I get it. It’s butterflies in the…er, ribcage. | Mamie Gummer in Emily Owens, M.D.
Lady T is a writer with two novels, a play, and a collection of comedy sketches in progress. She hopes to one day be published and finish one of her projects (not in that order). You can find more of her writing at www.theresabasile.com.

Women Doctors: Professionally Competent, Messy Personal Lives

Mindy Kaling as Dr. Mindy Lahiri in The Mindy Project
Originally published at The Funny Feminist.
You know what I’d like to see more of on television? Stories about women who are successful in their professional lives, but whose personal lives are a complete mess. I especially want to see more of these stories about female doctors.
Take Emily Owens, M.D., for example. Starring Mamie Gummer, Emily Owens, M.D. tells the story of a medical intern who discovers that life in a hospital is just like high school. In the first episode, she confesses to her old high school crush that she likes him only to be shot down, and realizes that her high school nemesis is interested in her high school crush, but she also diagnoses a condition and performs a life-saving procedure during her first day on the job.
Or let’s look at Mindy Kaling’s new sitcom. The Mindy Project, recently picked up for a full season, tells the story of Mindy Lahiri, a gynecologist whose dating life is a mess. In the first episode of the show, she rudely interrupts an ex-boyfriend’s wedding and drives a bicycle into a pool, but by the end of the pilot, she’s heroically delivering a baby to a patient who doesn’t have health insurance – even interrupting a date to do it.
Or let’s go back in time a few years to a show called Grey’s Anatomy, the drama that won’t die (even when most of its characters do). Ellen Pompeo plays Meredith Grey, an intern who accidentally sleeps with her boss the night before her first day. (By “accidentally sleep with,” I mean that the sex was intentional, but she did not know the man was her boss.) She struggles with a patient, but gets a sexy love interest and a guy crushing on her forlornly from the minute he meets her. She’s also the intern who makes the miraculous discovery of what’s wrong with her patient, and figures out how to help a fellow intern’s patient.
Am I mess or a rock star intern? I can’t remember! | Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo) in Grey’s Anatomy
Now, pretend you’ve been living under a pop culture rock for the last few years and know nothing about these three shows or the actresses who play these characters. Based just on the descriptions, would you be able to tell which program was the satire/comedy and which two programs took the “professionally skilled, personal mess” trope seriously?
…Okay, so maybe the bicycle in the pool was the giveaway. Fair enough. The point remains that television continues to have a problem with professional women. Showrunners don’t seem to know how to write professional women characters without turning them into neurotic messes who can control nothing about their personal lives, and lately, female doctors are getting the brunt of that particular cliche.
I like comparing these female doctor characters to a character like House on House, M.D. or Dr. Perry Cox on Scrubs (who has been compared to House by other characters on Scrubs, amusingly enough). These men are professional geniuses whose personal lives are also fraught with drama, but we’d never call them neurotic. They’re curmudgeonly assholes who bark perfectly crafted sarcasm at their professional inferiors, colleagues, and bosses. Their personal lives are messes because they’re misanthropic, or because they’re masking years of built-up pain. Women doctors have messy personal lives because they overanalyze and are neurotic and always pick the wrong men.
I don’t know if showrunners write women doctors this way because they lack imagination, or because they’ve internalized sexist stereotypes, or because they don’t know how else to make a professionally competent women sympathetic to an audience. “We’ve got a woman doctor here, because women can be doctors now, but women who are TOO put-together will be a turnoff, so we’ll make her a mess outside of work! INSTANT EMPATHY!”
Fortunately, Mindy Kaling is aware of this cliche, and the episodes of The Mindy Project following the pilot have veered away from “professionally competent, personally messy” plots.Show-Mindy is often portrayed as less neurotic and more of a jerk, and Kaling is more interested in making the character funny than making her likable. Show-Mindy is several steps in the right direction, and I hope we start seeing more characters like her, soon.
But not too soon, because I want there to still be a market for my own pilot about a professionally competent, neurotic female doctor. Doctor Love tells the story of Hilarie Love, a young physician who can’t seem to get her personal life together. In the pilot episode, Hilarie goes on her first date since high school, where her prom date stood her up to go have sex with the cheerleader. Unfortunately, she winds up wearing an outfit where none of the clothes match, and gets so nervous that she throws up on her date in the middle of a restaurant, and almost accidentally kills him when she stands up and knocks the table on him. Then she gets called into work, and performs a miraculous, life-saving surgery (even though she’s not a surgeon) on a young blind boy who’s been shot, removing the bullet with her bare hands and donating her own blood to rejuvenate the child. This catches the attention of a handsome attending physician who finds her competent and pretty, and is still intrigued by Hilarie even after she throws up on him, too.
What do you think? Do we have a hit?
Oh, I get it. It’s butterflies in the…er, ribcage. | Mamie Gummer in Emily Owens, M.D.
Lady T is an aspiring writer and comedian with two novels, a play, and a collection of comedy sketches in progress. She hopes to one day be published and finish one of her projects (not in that order). You can find more of her writing at The Funny Feminist, where she picks apart entertainment and reviews movies she hasn’t seen.

‘Boardwalk Empire’: Margaret Thompson, Margaret Sanger, and the Cultural Commentary of Historical Fiction

In 1923, Margaret Sanger opened the first legal birth control clinic in America.
Almost 90 years later, HBO’s Boardwalk Empire is reminding audiences of those early struggles for women’s reproductive health and education, which don’t seem as foreign as they should.
In the premiere episode of season 3, Margaret (Schroeder) Thompson hears a radio story about Carrie Duncan, a woman who is about to take off as the first aviator to attempt a cross-continental flight.
Later in the episode, she takes a private tour of the Enoch and Margaret Thompson Pediatric Annex in St. Theresa’s Hospital, as she and her husband (“Nucky”) are its benefactors. As she tours the halls, a pregnant woman comes in and collapses, and she’s obviously miscarrying. The doctors whisk her away and Dr. Mason later tells Margaret that the loss could have been prevented, but the woman (her name is later revealed as Edwina Shearer) drank raw milk that was infected with E.coli. He goes on to explain that pregnant women are not given any instruction about nutrition or hygiene. Margaret, horrified, wants to use her benefactor status to change this.
Edwina Shearer has a miscarriage in the first episode of season 3.
At her and Nucky’s New Year’s celebration–they are ringing in 1923–she approaches Dr. Landau (St. Theresa’s medical director) about the inadequate prenatal care at the hospital. He is insulted and condescending, and Nucky chastises her.
However, as her determination and tenacity in the last two seasons has proven, Margaret will not stand down.
At the end of the episode, Margaret gets up at dawn to witness Duncan fly over the coast. She smiles as she sees Duncan’s plane.
Margaret watches Carrie Duncan fly overhead.
While Margaret’s feminist activism is a sub-plot–in fact, it doesn’t even appear in every episode–the establishment of a prenatal education program (and evolving views on birth control) is an important, sobering reminder of our history and provides context for much of what propels current conversations on reproduction and women’s health.
Margaret manages to open the St. Theresa’s Women’s Clinic after going above the director’s head to appeal directly to the bishop (although he warns her that “delicate topics would have to be avoided”). Margaret has become a power player in season 3. Certainly it’s worth noting that the hospital’s namesake could either be found in St. Therese of Lisieux, who went directly to the Pope to beg to become a nun after priests and bishops had turned her away, or St. Teresa of Avila, who was forced into the convent by her father and then became a reformer and was posthumously declared a Doctor of the Church.
Margaret, also, has been dually wedged into circumstances by her own stubborn motivations and by the men in her life. In previous seasons, she has deftly navigated her world to provide better circumstances for her children and her community, but this season she is securing her place as more than just an activist–she is a leader.
In episode 4, she and Dr. Mason set up the women’s clinic and are met with resistance by the nuns. As they discuss the mission statement, a nun says, “This is rather infelicitous language, isn’t it?” “Vagina?” Margaret asks. The doctor says that it’s a medical term, and the nun replies, “I’ve never enjoyed the sound of it.” Dr. Mason says, “I’ve never liked brussels sprouts, but I don’t deny they exist.”
Dr. Mason, left, and Margaret prep for their evening women’s health class (they are holding boxes of Kotex, and the nun in the background disapproves).
“The entire area is problematic,” the nun scoffs, adding that she doesn’t approve of the term “pregnant.”
“You are at odds with ‘menstruation’?” Margaret asks.
The nun finally storms off after seeing brown packages that Margaret tells her are Kotex–a relatively new product–which are gifts for the women in the class. “Let’s hope our evening students aren’t quite so sensitive,” Margaret quips.
As she passes out fliers for the new class on the boardwalk, she runs in to Mrs. Shearer–the woman who inspired the clinic. She seems uncomfortable, and her husband interjects, “When she’s feeling better, we’ll try again.”
Margaret passes out flyers on the boardwalk.
At the end of the episode, Margaret is reading the newspaper. Wreckage of Carrie Duncan’s plane was found, and the headline reads “Aviatrix Presumed Killed During Ill-Fated Journey.” Duncan’s trip, which clearly was inspirational to Margaret, was unsuccessful. 
This moment in American history–the 1920s–was a promising time for women. The 19th amendment granted women the right to vote in 1920, and Margaret Sanger was making headway (and finding loopholes) to help women plan their reproduction.
However, there were no figurative cross-country flights completed during this era. It would be decades before the Pill was legalized and first-trimester abortion de-criminalized. Still in 2012, contraception is a divisive issue in America.
But women kept fighting, as does Margaret.
In the beginning of the next episode, she’s looking over a class flyer with a friend. “Do you wish for more knowledge? sounds mystical,” her friend teased.
Margaret responds, “I can’t very well say Let’s talk about your vagina.”
Later in the episode, Dr. Mason is wrapping up their evening women’s education class (a crucifix looms above him), and one of the few women in the class says, “I wish someone would have told me all of this when I was 13–I wouldn’t have thought I was dying!”
The need for comprehensive education was clear, and for the few women who came to the first classes, Margaret and Dr. Mason were making a difference.
When Dr. Mason is called into an emergency surgery during their next class, Margaret steps to the front of the room and smiles. “We have our book, we have our chart, we have ourselves–what else is needed?”
She’s gotten the permission she needed to open the clinic and fly under the radar of the conservative leadership, and she is comfortable taking the lead.
At the beginning of episode 6, Margaret opens the mail and pulls out a copy of the Birth Control Review (along with a letter signed by Margaret Sanger).
Margaret receives a copy of Margaret Sanger’s Birth Control Review in the mail,.
This isn’t the first time that Sanger has appeared in Boardwalk Empire. In season 1, the episode “Family Limitation” (named after a brochure of the same name that Sanger produced in the early 1900s) showed Margaret douching with Lysol to prevent another pregnancy (a method that was touted as a method of birth control). Season 1–with its focus on temperance leagues, suffrage and reproductive issues–offered a preview to the show’s complex sub-plots that focus on women’s issues.
Throughout the series, men’s reactions to birth control and family planning have been venemous (Nucky referred to Margaret as a “common whore” when he discovered she’d been trying to prevent pregnancy, and Mr. Shearer insists that he and his wife will continue to procreate). Dr. Mason is the exception thus far in his progressive attitudes about women’s health.
In episode 8, Mrs. Shearer comes to Margaret, pleading. “My husband won’t keep off me,” she says, and wants to know how to not get pregnant.
She says, “I don’t need a pamphlet, or some man to tell me what I already know.”
She hesitates, and says, “I wasn’t–I stored the milk, I waited. It wasn’t an accident, you understand? I drank it on purpose to lose the baby–I won’t go through that again.”
The E.coli was self-inflicted, because she refused to have another child. This example of self-induced abortion was nothing new or rare for the time, and it was one of the reasons Sanger pushed for education and birth control.
Without judgment, Margaret simply asks, “What do you need?”
“One of those Dutch caps, that go up here,” she answers (indicating a diaphragm).
When Margaret says that those need to come from a doctor, Mrs. Shearer says, “Doctors only listen to ladies like you.”
Wealthy women of privilege generally have always had access to family planning. Mrs. Shearer knows that, and finally trusts Margaret enough to be a connection between working class exclusion and upper class privilege.
Margaret waits for Dr. Mason outside of the hospital, and tells him directly, “I need your help with something and it’s rather delicate… I would like to ask you to help me obtain a diaphragm.” He understands that that is what Mrs. Shearer wanted. “Actually,” Margaret adds, “I suppose I need two–one for her, and one for me.” (Margaret’s need for a diaphragm isn’t because of her relationship with Nucky; Nucky has had a mistress in the city, and Margaret picks up her affair with his driver, Owen.)
The issues surrounding the female characters of Boardwalk Empire are instrumental in the male characters’ lives (the late Angela Darmondy and her lesbian relationship, Gillian Darmondy’s brothel the Artemis Club, Chalky White’s daughter’s resistance to marriage, Assistant Attorney General Esther Randolph–based off Mabel Walker Willebrandt, Nucky’s late lover Billie Kent’s desire for independence and of course, Margaret), and they also serve as history lessons for the audience.
Boardwalk Empire is, essentially, a boys club. So is American history. While Nucky’s world of politics, power, alcohol smuggling and bloody violence is central to the entire plot of the show, the women’s stories underneath the surface are integral to their stories and to the audience.
In 2012 America, a female legislator was punished for using the word “vagina” in a debate about reproductive choice. Religious groups are fighting the Affordable Care Act’s provision that contraception be covered by insurance as preventative medicine. States are attempting to close women’s health clinics that don’t even provide abortion, but provide women’s health services. Abstinence-only education is pushed nationwide. The same resistance that Margaret faces in Boardwalk Empire is the same resistance faced by activists and leaders in today’s fights to prioritize reproductive education, health and choice. 
By showing these struggles in an award-winning, critically acclaimed HBO drama, audiences are able to hold a mirror up to the failures of not only prohibition, but also limiting women’s reproductive choices. Boardwalk Empire serves as a reminder that when women’s options are limited, they will fight back–even if it means risking their lives. With only three episodes left in season 3, we can hope that Margaret will remain steadfast in her fight for women’s reproductive education and choice.



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