Mad Men Week: Is Mad Men the Most Feminist Show on TV?

Written by Megan Kearns, cross-posted from The Opinioness of the World.

So I arrived very late to the Mad Men party. As a self-proclaimed TV connoisseur and a feminist, I’m picky about the shows I choose to let into my life. But due to the urgings of my boyfriend Jeff and my girlfriends Lauren and Sarah H., I finally succumbed to its siren song and watched, catching up on all 4 seasons. I want my TV shows to possess fully formed female characters, crackling dialogue and twisting plots…if they imbue social commentary, all the better. Much to my delight, (and if you’re already a fan, you know what I’m talking about) Mad Men bursts with all of these. The show about an ad agency in Manhattan in the 1960s is also incredibly meticulous and historically accurate with its cigarettes, mid-day cocktails and skirt-chasing. So what’s a feminist’s take on this show and its sexist themes?
In the Washington Post, Professor Stephanie Coontz passionately writes about feminism and the historical accuracy of Mad Men. She asserts,

Historians are notorious for savaging historical fiction. We’re quick to complain that writers project modern values onto their characters, get the surroundings wrong, cover up the seamy side of an era or exaggerate its evils — and usually, we’re right. But AMC’s hit show “Mad Men”…is a stunning exception. Every historian I know loves the show; it is, quite simply, one of the most historically accurate television series ever produced. And despite the rampant chauvinism of virtually all its male characters (and some of its female ones), it is also one of the most sympathetic to women…But in 1965, feminism wasn’t a cultural option for most women. It would be another year before the National Organization for Women, the group that gave so many women the legal tools to fight discrimination, would be founded. Newspapers still ran separate want ads with separate pay scales for female jobs, seeking “poised, attractive” secretaries and “peppy gal Fridays.”

Coontz calls Mad Men the most feminist show on TV…and I couldn’t agree more. Most shows either don’t have female characters or have them as love interests or sex symbols. Battlestar Galactica delighted me because it had a multitude of female characters. Mad Men does too. But I’ve rarely seen a show that tackled sexism in such an overt way. Murphy Brown and Roseanne did…but that was back in the 80s and 90s. Many shows today ignore that sexism still exists. Now of course Mad Men takes place in the 60s. Yet creator and writer Matthew Weiner told the NY Times that he pulls ideas from many situations that have happened to people in this decade.
Peggy Olson (Elizabeth Moss), the show’s most brazen feminist, diligently climbed her way up from working as Don’s secretary to the only female copywriter and then to head copywriter with the capacity to fire people. In season 1’s episode “Babylon,” sweet and ambitious Peggy comes up with the “Basket of Kisses” campaign for Belle Jolie lipsticks, as she rightly counters that “no one wants to be one of a hundred colors in a box,” the original campaign for the cosmetics. I love her, even as I sometimes want to shake her for bad decisions (like sleeping with Duck). In the beginning of season 2, we see that she gave up her baby. Peggy continually chooses to focus on her career rather than on getting married and settling down, bucking societal standards. In season 4’s episode “The Beautiful Girls,” Peggy discusses civil rights and feminism with Abe, a friend of a friend, at a bar. She poses,

“But I have to say, most of the things negroes can’t do, I can’t do either. And nobody seems to care…Half of the meetings take place over golf, tennis, and a bunch of clubs where I’m not allowed to be a member or even enter.”

Abe sarcastically responds that maybe we should have a “a civil rights march for women.” Peggy astutely voiced the frustrations many women faced; they simply were not (and still aren’t) treated equally.
Bombshell office manager Joan Harris (formerly Holloway), my fave character along with Pete Campbell (whom I simultaneously love/hate), is played by the phenomenal Christina Hendricks. When I first started watching, I was worried she would merely be eye candy. But I was pleasantly surprised as Joan is intelligent, assertive and articulate. She possesses an impressive lexicon and knowledge of history, as well as doling out fashion tips (not too much cleavage) and social mores (no crying in the break room!). But it was when Joan read TV scripts for Harry in season 2 in the episode “A Night to Remember,” when it was apparent that she excelled at a job beyond managing secretaries. Yet rather than offering her the position, they hire someone else, never giving her, a woman, a second thought. Her reaction to this news broke my heart. In season 4’s episode “The Summer Man,” when Joey and Joan clash, he dismisses Joan to Peggy, not recognizing her value in running the office. A raging chauvinist asshole, Joey issues an offensive insult to Joan, 
“What do you do around here besides walking around like you’re trying to get raped?”

Swell guy…not sure who’s worse, him or Joan’s husband McRapist. As Coontz writes, 

there wasn’t even a word for the sexual harassment the character Joan experiences.

Yet Joan is furious at Peggy when she fires him for his misogynistic remarks. Joan may not be a stereotypical feminist or self-righteous like Peggy. And yes she married a rapist. But she’s a feminist nonetheless; she just maneuvers the terrain differently. Rather than coming at the situation head-on (something I would want to do like Peggy), Joan realizes that will just reinforce the men in the office’s perceptions of women as difficult bitches. Sadly, she may just be right. 

Joan’s decision to not go through with her abortion this season stirred up controversy. In an article at RH Reality Check, Sarah Seltzer argues,

“Mad Men” is known for being excruciatingly period-specific. Joan was not at a modern-day abortion clinic and she was not privy to a modern-day abortion debate. She had followed a specific plan which involved breaking the law and risking arrest–which speaks to a strong determination to begin with. There were no protesters and no one to tell her what she did was immoral. Sure, by the standards of her time she was a “loose woman” but there was no pro-life movement calling women selfish babykillers…It’s realistic for her character, the time period, and the plot for Joan to have had the abortion. The show’s writers and the many viewers who think “she didn’t go through with it” are imagining a modern-day conception of abortion fueled by iffy anti-choice tropes found in movies like “Juno” or shows like “The Secret Life of the American Teenager.

I agree with Seltzer; too often abortion isn’t shown as an option that rational women decide. But there’s something to be said for storyline and character development, as Eleanor Barkhorn in The Atlantic counters, 

The real reason so many fictional characters choose to keep their babies may be much simpler than any of these theories: Babies advance plotlines, whereas abortions end them. As Ted Miller, a spokesperson for NARAL Pro-Choice America, said, “The history of abortion storylines has been mixed. The very personal circumstances are often lost in the pursuit of dramatic or sensationalized storylines.” An abortion can carry a single episode, or a few scenes in a film, while a baby provides fodder for seasons’ worth of material…Sure, Weiner could have found other ways to teach us more about the characters he’s created. But Joan’s decision on Mad Men—and Miranda’s on Sex and the City, and Juno’s in Juno, and so on—show that on screen, advancing the plot is more important than making a political statement.

Obviously Joan is not anti-abortion as she’s had two previous procedures. Barkhorn points out that some say screenwriters don’t want to show abortions as “they don’t want their heroines to appear unsympathetic.” While 1 in 3 women in the U.S. will have an abortion in her lifetime, it’s so rare for a film or TV show to depict that choice. Only a handful of shows have portrayed a character having an abortion including Maude, Private Practice and Friday Night Lights. Barkhorn also points to characters on Sex and the City (Samantha and Carrie) both of whom had abortions in their characters’ past. But when Miranda becomes pregnant and resigned to have an abortion, she backs out at the last moment. While some characters have gone through with abortions, it makes it seem that it’s a decision that young people choose, not successful adult women. 

Had Mad Men not shown the conversation with her doctor saying that she wanted to start a family, I would have had a much bigger problem with Joan’s decision to not go through with an abortion. Also, Irin Carmon at Jezebel raised the question as to whether or not Joan’s concern over not being able to conceive after multiple abortions was a reasonable worry in 1965. Turns out, it was. As it was illegal, it wasn’t regulated. Also, sharp implements were used, rather than the suction that is utilized now. There’s also the issue with her age as writer/creator Weiner points out. As a 34-year old woman, she knew her biological clock was ticking. Yet it would have been great for a bold show like Mad Men to show one of their main characters choosing an abortion.
Dr. Faye Miller (Cara Buono), a psychologist and marketing research analyst, is another strong independent woman on the show we’re introduced to in season 4. Peggy isn’t the only one who puts her work first. Dr. Faye has a conversation in which she tells Don that she chose to focus on her career rather than have children and she doesn’t feel her life is lacking. These are choices that were very real for women in the 60s but women still contend with today. It’s interesting to see just how far we haven’t come. When Dr. Faye says goodbye to Peggy when she leaves the firm in the episode “Blowing Smoke,” Peggy says to her, 

“You do your job so well. They respect you and you don’t have to play any games. I didn’t know that was possible.” 

To which Dr. Faye replies, “Is that what it looks like?” But obviously Faye did play games as she wore a faux wedding ring just so she wouldn’t have to contend with men’s sexual advances. 
But what about the women who do choose marriage and children over a career? Betty Draper (January Jones), now Betty Francis, is the archetypal housewife, and probably the most controversial of the show. In the beginning of the series, many viewers pitied her due to Don’s philandering ways. Besides possessing beauty, Betty is educated, earning a college degree in anthropology (although upper-class women were often expected to go to college with the intent of snaring a husband). Before she married Don, she had a modeling career, making her own money, and traveling around the world. In the episode “Shoot” in season 1, Betty gets a taste of her former independent life as she models again briefly. We also see how much she represses (or rather doesn’t when she starts shooting defenseless birds). Now she’s the character everyone loves to hate. She’s mired in misery, spewing bitterness at everyone around her, especially her children. And speaking of her children, her 10-year-old daughter Sally (Kiernan Shipka) has already exhibited her feisty, independent ways…perhaps a feminist in the making.
And of course no commentary on Mad Men would be complete without a mention of charismatic ladies’ man Don Draper (Jon Hamm), the flawed hero and reluctant conscience of the show. Despite the bed-hopping alcoholic’s missteps, he continually does the right thing, even if he doesn’t realize he’s doing so: promoting Peggy to copywriter (even if it is to spite Pete), opposing Betty’s corporal punishment of their children, standing up to big tobacco (even if it is a publicity stunt to garner attention for the firm). He also surrounds himself with intelligent, driven and complex women: Peggy, Anna Draper, Rachel Menken, Midge Daniels, Bobbie Barrett, Dr. Faye Miller, Megan and yes, even frustrating yet tragic Betty. And while we often see them through his broken, tortuous eyes, they certainly hold their own.

Despite the male protagonist and sexist scenes, the show continually passes the Bechdel test, a measure that a film or TV show portrays two women talking to each other and not talking about men. One example is in the season 4 finale “Tomorrowland,” when Betty and housekeeper Carla (sadly, the only character of color on the show) argue about Sally and what it means to be a good mother. But my favorite scene in that episode, and one of the most kick-ass of the whole series, shows Peggy and Joan discussing men marrying their secretaries and how they’re treated at work.

Peggy: “You know I just saved this company. I signed the first new business since Lucky Strike left. But it’s not as important as getting married…again.”  

Joan: “Well I was just made Director of Agency Operations, a title, no money of course. And if they poured champagne it must have been while I was pushing a mail cart.”

Peggy: “A pretty face comes along and everything goes out the window.”

Joan: “Well I learned a long time ago to not get all my satisfaction from this job.” 

Peggy: “That’s bullshit.” 

Then they giggle knowingly.

With their commentary on unequal treatment and pay at work, this conversation could just as easily have taken place in 2005 rather than 1965. In season 4’s episode “The Beautiful Girls” which echoes the theme of the 2nd season (my fave!) which told the stories from the women’s perspectives, at the very end, Joan, Peggy and Dr. Faye all end up in the elevator together. Three different women, different paths but all with the same goals: to be valued for their minds and their work and to achieve success in their careers.
Some aspects of society have obviously changed since the world of Mad Men. Coontz describes how in the 1960s the term sexual harassment wasn’t even coined yet; how Joan being raped by her boyfriend (now husband) Greg was not so uncommon as marital rape wasn’t defined by the courts yet; how Peggy giving up her child for adoption was something many women did; how Faye choosing her career over having children is what many women chose as companies could fire women for getting pregnant; how Betty slapping Sally or using television as a babysitter for Sally and Bobby were routine parenting techniques. Coontz writes, 

We should be glad that the writers are resisting the temptation to transform their female characters into contemporary heroines. They’re not, and they cannot be. That is the brilliance of the show’s script. “Mad Men’s” writers are not sexist. The time period was. 

With the backlash writer Aaron Sorkin rightly received for the sexist portrayal of women as fuck trophies and sex objects in the film The Social Network, it’s an interesting question as to whether the time period and events portrayed are sexist or if the writers’ depictions are sexist. A writer does choose what to show (and not show). This has been one of the valid criticisms of Mad Men, that there are so few people of color on the show. But with regards to sexism, the writers (7 of the 9 writers are women) continually convey the feelings, attitudes and perspectives of how the female characters contend with their sexist surroundings, which invalidates the notion that the writers are sexist. If they were, they would never depict complex, fully developed characters; they would never let us see the thoughts, hopes and fears of the women on the show. 
Some may try to write Mad Men off as chauvinistic but the show begs you to look deeper, analyzing every word, every gesture, to shatter the façade, crack the layers and see what’s actually going on behind the veneer of perfection. The show forces us to examine our flawed history, but also our flawed selves. We are still haunted by the specter of sexism. Women still don’t earn equal pay, and sexist ads clutter up magazines and billboards. Rarely does a show tackle institutional sexism so overtly. Even rarer is the show that not only features a variety of strong, independent women, but actually champions them. Mad Men depicts feminism in many different ways through myriad characters. Beyond being a visually stunning, flawlessly acted show, it should be a reminder, a warning to us that the past is not so distant. We shouldn’t congratulate ourselves on how far we’ve come yet; we still have far to go. In the meantime, I’m going to let the intoxication of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce linger… 
Megan Kearns is a blogger, freelance writer and activist. A feminist vegan, Megan blogs at The Opinioness of the World, where she writes about gender in pop culture, sexism in the media, reproductive justice and living vegan. Her work has also appeared at Arts & Opinion, Italianieuropei, Open Letters Monthly, and A Safe World for Women. She earned her B.A. in Anthropology and Sociology and a Graduate Certificate in Women and Politics and Public Policy. Megan lives in Boston with her diva cat and more books than she will probably ever read in her lifetime. She contributed reviews of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, Something Borrowed, !Women Art Revolution, The Kids Are All Right (for our 2011 Best Picture Nominee Review Series) and The Reader (for our 2009 Best Picture Nominee Series). She was the first writer featured as a Monthly Guest Contributor.

YouTube Break: Roseanne Barr Is Awesome

From the description at Democracy Now:

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Emmy Award-winning actress Roseanne Barr starred in the popular and groundbreaking show on television titled simply Roseanne, the first TV series to openly advocate for gay rights. Roseanne featured one of the first lesbian kisses on TV, in an episode when Roseanne kisses Mariel Hemingway. Roseanne was also the first sitcom to ever feature a gay marriage. The series tackled other controversial topics, as well: poverty, class, abortion and feminism. From her open support of unions in earlier shows to her tribute to Native Americans toward the end of the series, Roseanne never shied away from contentious issues. The writer Barbara Ehrenreich once praised Roseanne Barr for representing “the hopeless underclass of the female sex: polyester-clad, overweight occupants of the slow track; fast-food waitresses, factory workers, housewives, members of the invisible pink-collar army; the despised, the jilted, the underpaid.” We play excerpts from the groundbreaking sitcom and speak with Barr about her childhood in Utah, where she was raised half-Jewish and half-Mormon, and talk about how she “made it OK for women to talk about their actual lives on television.

Mad Men Week at Bitch Flicks – Call for Writers

Mad Men…it’s on.

Announcing…Mad Men Week at Bitch Flicks! Monday, August 29th – Friday, September 2nd!


We’ve alluded to it…and now it’s here. 
We invite readers to submit original and/or cross-posted (with permission) pieces on Mad Men, for a week-long focus on the AMC series. We hope to find various perspectives and differing opinions on the show, start new conversations, and continue discussions that have been going since the show’s debut. 

The details:

  • All pieces must be emailed by Friday, August 26th
  • If you intend to submit, please email a brief description of your piece as soon as possible.
  • Contact us at btchflcks(at)gmail(dot)com.

Need some ideas? Here are some themes you could write about (you can also propose your own):
Character analysis of Betty
Character analysis of Peggy
Character analysis of Joan
Character analysis of the (individual) men
The supporting women
Sexual assault in MM
Race in MM
Betty Draper and the Feminine Mystique
Sexual harassment in the agency
Motherhood in MM
Female bodies and the male gaze of MM
MM and Feminism
MM and Enlightened Sexism
Review/analysis of pivotal episode(s)
Favorite lines/moments
Fashion & the performance of the feminine
Critique of article you’ve read about the show
The possibilities are endless…

We look forward to reading your pieces for our first Theme Week here at Bitch Flicks!

From the Archive: The Power of Representation

Given the Obama administration’s embarrassing failure to discuss—hell, even mention—the War on Women, I thought Amber’s following post, which was first published here on February 16, 2009, would warrant rereading.  

This Is What a Feminist Looks Like?
Representing President Obama as a “Super-feminist” has ignited a debate over who the savior of feminism ought to be (see here for a good overview), and likely sold a lot of copies of Ms. magazine’s January edition. Praise for the new president’s political aspirations regarding women’s rights isn’t contended; it’s how the feminist magazine chose to portray Obama: tearing open his Clark Kent clothes to swoop in and rescue us. It’s the representation that has people peeved.

For our purposes here at BF, two articles were published last month—the weekend before the inauguration—about the impact the movies had on Obama’s election. Not that the movies got him elected, but how roles black American men play in the movies have a real effect on the people who see them, and how we can see, through the movies, our own cultural values reflected back on us.

If you ever question how important representation in film really is, I think these articles make the point well. While they specifically focus on male presidential aspirations (and on the unique history of black Americans), they also remind us how pop culture permeates our society and informs opinions and values.

The New York Times published “How the Movies Made a President,” written by A.O. Scott and Manhola Dargis, in their Film section. The article provides an overview of black male roles, from the “Black Everyman” of the ’60s to the “Black Messiah,” currently played and re-played by Will Smith.

Make no mistake: Hollywood’s historic refusal to embrace black artists and its insistence on racist caricatures and stereotypes linger to this day. Yet in the past 50 years — or, to be precise, in the 47 years since Mr. Obama was born — black men in the movies have traveled from the ghetto to the boardroom, from supporting roles in kitchens, liveries and social-problem movies to the rarefied summit of the Hollywood A-list. In those years the movies have helped images of black popular life emerge from behind what W. E. B. Du Bois called “a vast veil,” creating public spaces in which we could glimpse who we are and what we might become.

We hear from the likes of Elizabeth Banks and Katherine Heigl that the only roles really open to them—genuinely talented, lovely young actresses—are that of sidekick, buddy, and romantic object. It’s not that there haven’t been good, meaty roles for women; there have, for sure. But what movie roles do young girls imitate? What fictional figures can women look up to?

The Root’sHollywood’s Leading Man: From Sammy Davis Jr. to Dave Chappelle’s Black Bush, how pop culture tested the waters for a black president” offers a more nuanced and contrarian view of the power of pop culture (and reminds us of the egos of those who really believe their art makes a difference). The article surveys the satirical representations of a black president as representative of the racial divide in America, but cites the series 24 as a shift—although one not without its problems—and questions how television and cinema will change.

So now that we have a black president, how will we react to media portrayals? Will there be pressure among writers and producers to create black leaders who feel real and black-led administrations that feel plausible? Will we, as viewers, be able to enjoy over-the-top portrayals of black presidents, such as Terry Crews’ wig-wearing wrestler in Idiocracy, as merely fun entertainment, devoid of racial and social commentary?

Might we perhaps see a black actor playing the lead in a complex drama like The West Wing, or a romantic comedy along An American President, where the president gets to be a fully fleshed out human, and not a cardboard icon? And isn’t it about time that we saw a portrayal of an African-American president who just happens to be a woman, too?

I, too, would like to see that woman. And I think we’d all like to see her on the cover of Ms., wearing a t-shirt that reads “This is what a feminist looks like.” 

Kickstarter Helps Young Filmmakers Bypass Studio System

We received the following press release in our e-mail inbox. Please consider supporting Michek’s film. Fundraising officially ends Saturday, August 6, 2011.
 
Independent filmmaker Alyssa Michek uses kickstarter.com to fund It’s All In My Head, a short film about breaking-up told from the woman’s perspective.

Silver Spring, MD — Independent filmmaker Alyssa Michek must raise $5000 online to fund her short film “It’s All In My Head” in 30 days or less. The 25-year-old filmmaker is directing and producing her first professional short film. With experience directing student films, “It’s All In My Head” is her most ambitious yet, spanning five locations, shot on 16mm color film, with a professional cast and crew. Without a website like kickstarter.com Michek’s film would most likely never be made.

Kickstarter is a new way of funding creative projects “powered by a unique all-or-nothing funding method where projects must be fully-funded or no money changes hands.” Instead of pitching to a studio, creators pitch to the kickstarter community, then use their network of supporters and self-promote in order to fund creative projects. In the first week Michek raised almost $1,500 and with 15 days left to go she is almost halfway there.

To promote “It’s All In My Head,” Michek, a DC native, is offering DC area residents access to special events. For a pledge of $150 spend a day on set. For $200 be an extra in the film with an open bar. With a pledge of $250 the backer and a guest will be VIPs at the film premiere.

“I’m a feminist,” says Michek, “and I think female perspectives are often under-represented in mainstream films.” Her film will center a woman’s story and encourage male viewers to identify with her, as the only fully realized character. “I wanted to come at this with a female perspective, but also have it be universal.”

“It’s All In My Head” is a 20-minute short film exploring the break-up script and how our culture shapes our concept of love. The film follows Alex and Michelle through their break-up showing the highlights of their relationship in flashbacks with voice-over from Michelle commenting on the relationship. Michelle criticizes the typical break-up speech and its excuses. She imagines herself in classic films that have shaped her concept of love and dreams a happy ending interspersed with contemporary film references. When she comes back to reality she finds that life is not like the movies.

“I do think our expectations and our concept of relationships are very much shaped by pop culture” says Michek “and most movies create unreal expectations.” With her film she hopes to combat and comment on these expectations and the culture that creates them.

Fundraising for “It’s All In My Head” ends August 6, 2011. If Michek does not meet her goal, she gets nothing. If all goes as planned, the film will shoot at the end of August and beginning of September and should be finished by the end of the year. Those interested in supporting the project should visit http://kck.st/nEZV4W to learn more.

For more information about this project or to schedule an interview with Alyssa Michek, contact her at alyssamichek@gmail.com or at itsallinmyheadfilm@gmail.com.

Kickstarter site: http://kck.st/nEZV4W

YouTube Break: Reality Rehab With Dr. Jenn

Back in March, we featured Jennifer L. Pozner’s book, Reality Bites Back: The Troubling Truth About Guilty Pleasure TV, as a Quote of the Day. I just ran across something awesome: a satirical and hilarious video series called, Reality Rehab with Dr. Jenn, in which Pozner hosts a mock-reality-rehab show. Her main responsibility as host involves revealing and critiquing reality TV stereotypes by attempting to help those stock characters “learn how to be three-dimensional human beings again.” The featured stock characters include The Desperate Bachelorette, The Angry Black Woman, The “Real” Housewife, The Top Model, The Slutty Bitch, The Douchebag Dude, and The Gangsta Guy. I’m posting the trailer below, but definitely go to her site, and check out the entire series!



Bio from the Web site:

JENNIFER L. POZNER (“Dr Jenn”; Executive Producer) is the author of Reality Bites Back: The Troubling Truth About Guilty Pleasure TV, and the producer and cowriter of this Reality Rehab project. She is founder and Executive Director of Women In Media & News and editor of WIMN’s Voices. A widely published journalist who freelances for corporate and independent print and broadcast outlets, Jennifer is also a noted lecturer on women, media, politics and pop culture. Jennifer has appeared as a media commentator on NBC, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, ABC News Now, GRITtv, Democracy Now!, National Public Radio, and Comedy Central’s The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. She has served as an adviser for and has been featured in several documentary films, including I Was a Teenage Feminist and Miss Representation. Jenn is extremely indebted to and impressed by the entire Reality Rehab team, who worked entirely for free to pull this indy project together. This is her first time writing and producing a video project…she hopes you enjoy it! (Tell her what you think on Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube.)

Feminist Flashback: ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?’

Written by Megan Kearns.

When I was young, my mom raised me on classic films: Gone with the Wind, Casablanca, The Great Escape, Breakfast at Tiffany’s. I fondly remember watching Elizabeth Taylor on-screen. Hollywood royalty, we often think of her arresting beauty, numerous marriages, struggle with alcohol, philanthropy and perfume commercials. It’s easy to forget she was an amazing actor; a stellar artist who fluidly exuded strength, sensuality, vitality, passion and pain.Starring in over 50 films, Taylor often chose feminist roles.  In National Velvet, she plays a young girl disguising herself as a male jockey to compete. In Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, she’s a fiery survivor embracing her sexuality. And in the Texas saga Giant, she plays an educated and outspoken woman, challenging sexism. So after years of my mother urging me, I finally watched Taylor’s legendary performance in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Based on Edward Albee’s Tony Award-winning play (it also won the Pulitzer although it wasn’t awarded it due to its vulgarity and sexual themes), the 1966 film follows Martha (Elizabeth Taylor) and George (Richard Burton), a middle-aged married couple. He’s an assistant professor at a New England college and she’s his wife who happens to be the college president’s daughter. Through their vitriolic and bitter alcohol-fueled feuding, they lash out at each other. When a young couple, new professor Nick (George Segal) and his wife Honey (Sandy Dennis), visit their house after a late-night party, Martha and George continue their battle of wits, interchangeably attacking their guests and using them as ammunition, to further lash out at one another.
Director Mike Nichols wanted to have real-life married couple Taylor and Burton star in the film, a celebrity couple famous for their off-screen turbulent relationship. Known for its acerbic dialogue, Martha and George sling verbal barbs throughout the movie. Martha continually insults George calling him a “dumbbell,” saying he makes her want to “puke.” Critics often focus on Martha’s vicious verbal attacks but George equals her venom. He says she makes him “sick” and equates her voice to “animal noises.” Their guests Nick and Honey initially appear to be the quintessential couple, contrasting Martha and George in appearance, age and demeanor.  But as the night wears on and more alcohol is consumed, the problems both couples face come to the surface.
I’ve read that Who’s Afraid of a Virginia Woolf? is a feminist film.  But when I started watching, I initially thought, what the hell? There’s no way this is feminist as it’s mired in misogyny!  The film follows George’s perspective as there are scenes with just George and Martha, George and Nick, or George and Honey.  George is almost omnipresent. Also, there a few violent scenes in which George attempts to strangle Martha, pushes her, shoves her against a car and pretends to shoot her with a gun (an umbrella pops out instead of a bullet).  But when you begin to peel back the layers, you realize that while it might not be an overtly feminist film, feminist tendencies emerge nonetheless.
In the 1960s, the domesticity paradigm for women reigned.  In the beginning of the film, Martha tells George about a Bette Davis movie she’s trying to remember the name of.  She says, “She [Bette Davis] comes home from a hard day at the grocery store.”  George snidely and skeptically replies, “At the grocery store?” to which she retorts, “Yes, the grocery store. She’s a housewife, she buys things.”  Women were expected to be docile, obedient wives and mothers tending the home. Yet this revealing exchange shows the disdain for domestic duties women in the 60s faced.

Policing of sexuality also appears.  When Martha calls George a floozy in one scene, Honey jovially and drunkenly retorts,  

“He can’t be a floozy.  You’re a floozy!”

The film makes a subtle commentary of the double standard in sexual conduct between women and men.  Men could sleep with whomever they pleased while women who did the same were branded as “sluts.”

A role that earned Taylor her second Oscar, she considered the role of Martha her “personal best.”  A bravura performance, Taylor seamlessly sinks into the part; it’s difficult to ascertain where she begins and the character ends.  A college-educated woman, Martha perpetually humiliates her husband for his lack of ambition and professional failures:

Martha: I hope that was an empty bottle, George! You can’t afford to waste good liquor, not on your salary, not on an associate professor’s salary!

She pushed George to be the head of the History Department and the head of the university.  But why couldn’t she do those things herself?  In an exchange with Nick:

Nick: To you, everybody’s a flop. Your husband’s a flop, I’m a flop.
Martha: You’re all flops. I am the Earth Mother, and you are all flops.

In a time when women weren’t supposed to have jobs beyond wife and mother, perhaps Martha wanted her own career.  As she came from a wealthy family, Martha had money so she didn’t need George to succeed for fiscal security. It seems as if Martha lived vicariously through her husband and his capacity for success which would explain why his lack of ambition was such a blow.
While the play was written a year before the publication of feminist Betty Friedan’s ground-breaking The Feminine Mystique, the play explores the same issues Friedan railed against.  Friedan writes about the “feminine mystique,” where the highest value for women is embracing and maintaining their femininity, and the “problem that has no name,” the unhappiness women faced in the 50s and 60s and their yearning for fulfillment beyond being a housewife and a mother.  Friedan argues:
“They [women] learned that truly feminine women do not want careers, higher education, political rights – the independence and the opportunities that the old-fashioned feminists fought for…All they had to do was devote their lives from earliest girlhood to finding a husband and bearing children.” (58)

“Self-esteem in woman, as well as in man, can only be based on real capacity, competence, and achievement; on deserved respect from others rather than unwarranted adulation. Despite the glorification of “Occupation: housewife,” if that occupation does not demand, or permit, realization of women’s full abilities, it cannot provide adequate self-esteem, much less pave the way to a higher level of self-realization…But women in America are no encouraged, or expected, to use their full capacities. In the name of femininity, they are encouraged to evade human growth.” (435-437)

[Warning: Spoilers ahead!!] Motherhood, a reoccurring theme in the film, comprised one of the few ways society allowed fulfillment for women. Both women don’t have children, Martha is unable to and Honey, whose “hysterical pregnancy” led to her marriage with Nick, takes pills to eliminate any pregnancies as she’s scared to conceive. As women were supposed to be good wives and mothers, society viewed reproduction as one of their vital duties.  If a woman didn’t have children, ultimately she was a failure.  Friedan writes:

“Over and over again, stories in women’s magazines insist that woman can know fulfillment only at the moment of giving birth to a child…In the feminine mystique, there is no other way she can even dream about herself, except as her children’s mother, her husband’s wife.” (115)
As someone in their 30s who doesn’t have children (and isn’t even sure I ever want them), even in this day and age, people often act as if there’s something fundamentally wrong with you if you don’t have or want children. Martha invented the story of a son probably because she genuinely wanted one.  But I think she also did it to make it easier for her to fit into society. As a woman, I often feel I don’t fit the stereotypical mold of what a woman “should” be. Perhaps Martha, with her abrasive, obnoxious persona, wanted at least one component of her life to fit. While I genuinely believe Martha wanted a child, her yearning may be tempered by the fact that society views her as an inadequate woman. It’s as if she can handle being a non-conformist woman in every way possible except this one.
What makes Martha so interesting is that she’s not merely a bawdy, angry woman.  Taylor imbues the complicated character with fleeting moments of agony and vulnerability.  In a tender rather than simply rage-filled moment, Martha refutes George’s accusation that she’s a “monster.”  She asserts,

Martha: I’m loud and I’m vulgar, and I wear the pants in the house because somebody’s got to, but I am not a monster. I’m not.

George: You’re a spoiled, self-indulgent, willful, dirty-minded, liquor-ridden…
Martha: SNAP! It went SNAP! I’m not gonna try to get through to you any more. There was a second back there, yeah, there was a second, just a second when I could have gotten through to you, when maybe we could have cut through all this, this CRAP. But it’s past, and I’m not gonna try.
To me, this is such a pivotal scene.  Women are supposed to be, especially during that era, docile, proper and well-mannered; the epitome of femininity.  Blond, thin, meek Honey appears to be the perfect wife while bawdy, brash, raven-haired, curvy Martha stands as the complete opposite.  In the equally ground-breaking The Second Sex published in 1949, philosopher Simone de Beauvoir wrote about the treatment and oppression of women.  In her tome, she argues that society teaches us that passivity is “the essential characteristic of the ‘feminine’ woman.”  Society encourages men and boys to explore their freedom while women and girls are taught to embrace femininity, turning their back on what they themselves want. She asserts:

“In woman, on the contrary, there is from the beginning a conflict between her autonomous existence and her objective self, her “being-the-other;” she is taught that to please she must try to please, she must make herself object; she should therefore renounce her autonomy. She is treated like a live doll and is refused liberty.” (280)

 

Wives were supposed to support their husbands, echoing their desires.  While Martha eventually admits that George is the only man who has ever made her happy, she refuses to silence herself. She is loud, vulgar, shrewd, intelligent, assertive, sexual and outspoken; the antithesis to femininity. And in many ways, society punishes Martha and women like her for it. Yet she rails against constraints, struggling to navigate the sexist terrain on her own terms.

The title of the play and film comes from a riff of “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf” with the wordplay on Virginia Woolf.  It was a quote that playwright Albee saw scrawled on a bathroom mirror in a bar.  It’s also an allusion to show that people concoct imaginary scenarios and personas in order to cope with their lives, a theme that runs throughout the entire film.  The audience is never quite sure what is fact and what is fiction, the line often blurred.After the pivotal climax and shocking revelations, in the penultimate line of the film, George asks Martha, “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” to which she replies, “I am, George, I am.”  Some scholars assert that this alludes to being able to live without illusions, which both George and Martha, with their web of lies and treacherous games, clearly find difficult.  But the play/film’s title is also an accidental feminist reference as feminist author and writer Virginia Woolf famously advocated for women to be able to possess their own money and space to be creative and ultimately themselves.

Captivating yet uncomfortable to watch, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? depicts the brutal deterioration of a marriage and the crumbling of hopes, ambitions and illusions.  Through their cruel taunts and insults, the film exposes the illusory facades people create, while challenging stifling gender roles.In the 60s (and to a large extent still today), society demanded men act assertively and women behave passively. As men wield a disproportionate amount of power over women, people often fear female empowerment.  Despite her brazen outspokenness, Martha might be afraid too — afraid of her own power in a society that doesn’t embrace or accept powerful women.

———-
Megan Kearns is a blogger, freelance writer and activist. A feminist vegan, Megan blogs at The Opinioness of the World.  In addition to Bitch Flicks, her work has appeared at Arts & Opinion, Italianieuropei, Open Letters Monthly and A Safe World for Women. Megan earned her B.A. in Anthropology and Sociology and a Graduate Certificate in Women and Politics and Public Policy. She currently lives in Boston. She previously contributed reviews of The Kids Are All Right, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest and Something Borrowed to Bitch Flicks.

Quote of the Day: Roseanne Barr

Roseanne Barr
In her recent New York Magazine piece, Roseanne Barr talks about creating and starring in a number-one sitcom, and relates her experience to the breakdown of Charlie Sheen, the state of comedy today, and the hostility Hollywood has toward women–and especially working-class women. Here’s an excerpt. I highly recommend reading the entire piece here.
Hollywood hates labor, and hates shows about labor worse than any other thing. And that’s why you won’t be seeing another Roseanne anytime soon. Instead, all over the tube, you will find enterprising, overmedicated, painted-up, capitalist whores claiming to be housewives. But I’m not bitter.

Nothing real or truthful makes its way to TV unless you are smart and know how to sneak it in, and I would tell you how I did it, but then I would have to kill you. Based on Two and a Half Men’s success, it seems viewers now prefer their comedy dumb and sexist. Charlie Sheen was the world’s most famous john, and a sitcom was written around him. That just says it all. Doing tons of drugs, smacking prostitutes around, holding a knife up to the head of your wife—sure, that sounds like a dream come true for so many guys out there, but that doesn’t make it right! People do what they can get away with (or figure they can), and Sheen is, in fact, a product of what we call politely the “culture.” Where I can relate to the Charlie stuff is his undisguised contempt for certain people in his work environment and his unwillingness to play a role that’s expected of him on his own time.

But, again, I’m not bitter. I’m really not. The fact that my fans have thanked and encouraged me for doing what I used to get in trouble for doing (shooting my big mouth off) has been very healing. And somewhere along the way, I realized that TV and our culture had changed because of a woman named Roseanne Conner, whom I am honored to have written jokes for.

Quote of the Day: Janet McCabe

Feminist Film Studies: Writing the Woman into Cinema by Janet McCabe (2004). Part of the Wallflower Short Cuts Series.

Leading comedic roles for women in film and television are often relegated to “romantic” comedy and these women still, in 2011, struggle to break into the classification of comedy–without modifiers–and remain relegated to the dreaded “chick flick” (a term that the title of this website plays off of).

From the section “Romantic comedy and gender” in the book Feminist Film Studies: Writing the Woman into Cinema.

Television comedy is another area of recent feminist inquiry, which investigates in particular star performance, joke-making techniques and the television audience. Alexander Doty (1990), investigating the interplay between the star image of Lucille Ball and the character she plays in I Love Lucy (Desilu Productions Inc/CBS, 1951-57) argues that Lucy Ricardo is constructed as the zany, loveable, ditzy and talentless housewife and mother based on the denial, repression and (re)construction of Ball’s star image. Patricia Mellencamp (1997) is another scholar fascinated by Lucille Ball’s slapstick routines. Recuperating Ball’s performance as an act of defiance from the confinement of the domestic space allows her to locate the radical underpinnings of the show for female viewers. Each week Lucy unsuccessfully attempting to escape domesticity and break into show business. They physical comic routines performed by Ball offered a means of challenging patriarchy as she upstages her husband/other men; and this is what audiences tuned in to see. Drawing on Freud’s theory of humorous pleasures (that is, humour used to avoid emotional pain) enables Mellencamp to argue that laughter directed at Lucy’s performance of being talentless – ‘her wretched, off-key singing, her mugging facial exaggerations and out-of-step dancing [is] paradoxically both the source of the audience’s pleasure and the narrative necessity for housewifery’ (1997: 73). She contends that Lucy’s situation made visible the real dilemmas faced by many women: ‘Given the repressive conditions of the 1950s, humour might have been women’s weapon and tactic of survival, ensuring sanity, the triumph of the ego, and pleasures’ (ibid).
One of the most sustained discussions on gender, representation and cross-cultural theories is Kathleen Rowe’s study of the unruly woman (1995). Using theoretical models from Mikhail Bakhtin concerned with the grotesque, Rowe identifies the grotesque body as ultimately the female body – often an outrageous, voluptuous, loud, joke-cracking dissenter or ‘woman on top’. The unruly female is not about gender confusion but inverting dominant social, cultural and political conventions; unruliness occurs when those who are socially or politically inferior (normally, women) use humour and excess to undermine patriarchal norms and authority. Focusing on Roseanne Arnold allows her to suggest how Roseanne’s star image and her television situation (Carsey-Werner Company/ABC, 1988-1997) disrupt and expose the gap between feminist liberation (informed by second-wave feminism) and the realities of working-class family life (those of whom feminist liberation left behind), between ideals of true womanhood and unruliness to challenge notions of a patriarchal construction of femininity. Making a spectacle of herself – her overweight body, her physical excesses, her performance as loud and brash – reveals ambivalence as the unruly woman speaks out. Difficulties faced by Roseanne in the press with the vitriol directed at her ‘make known the problems of representing what in our culture still remains largely unrepresentable: a fat woman who is also sexual; a sloppy housewife who’s a good mother; a “loose” woman who is also tidy, who hates matrimony but loves her husband, who hates the ideology of true womanhood, yet considers herself a domestic goddess’ (1995:91).
As I hope is clear, feminist critics disclose how television culture is informed by context and given meaning through the ways in which particular programmes are consumed, how narratives are experienced and what they mean to the female viewer – what television series says about women and how media texts function in their daily lives. Through interviews, Deborah Jermyn (2003) analyses how women talk about the series in an effort to understand what Sex and the City (HBO, 1998-2004) means to female fans. Pivotal here is the point at which Jermyn’s own fandom intersects with the experience of those she interviewed – it is a moment that allows her to reveal both the pleasures and difficulties involved in understanding how fan culture operates and how to speak about it.
I Love Lucy and Roseanne are two shows that were able to reach a large mainstream audience, while Sex and the City remained, most definitely, for female audiences (as has the atrocious film franchise). Yet Sex and the City is very different from these two other shows, in that it is (for the most part) about women who aren’t in these traditional domestic roles.

What leading women of comedy since the 90s reach across gender divides and avoid the ghettoization of the “chick flick?” Who are the new “unruly” women? Does Tyler Perry’s Madea count? (I’m only half joking here.) I’d love to hear readers’ thoughts on these matters.

Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

Jodie Foster: Even female studio execs ‘see female directors as a risk’ from Los Angeles Times

Cate Marvin Discusses the VIDA Count from Luna Park Review

The FBI’s Definition of Rape: Older Than a Lot of Things from Ms.

Prom Early Reviews: Formulaic Tween Fantasy Flick or Stereotype Reinforcer? from Thompson on Hollywood

Olivia Munn to Bring “Stiletto Feminism,” Sandwich Hatred to Worst TV Show Ever from Tiger Beatdown

The Writers of the Summer Movies from Women and Hollywood

The Love Story that Made Marriage a Fundamental Right from Colorlines 

I know I can fight rape culture by… from Feministe 

Leave your links in the comments!

Short Film: Tech Support

Tech Support is a short film written and produced by Jenny Hagel. The film has won several awards–including Best Lesbian Short at the Hamburg International Queer Film Festival (Germany), the Audience Award at the Pittsburgh International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, and Best Short Film at the Fresno Reel Pride LGBT Film Festival–and has been an official selection at 16 film festivals.

Watch Tech Support:

Be sure to also check out Hagel’s very funny Feminist Rapper series: A Lady Made That, Real Ladies Fight Back, and This Is What A Feminist Looks Like.