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"Limit Your Exposure": Homosexuality in the Mad Men Universe

This post contains spoilers about the first four seasons of Mad Men.

1960s America saw its share of emerging social and political movements—the civil rights movement, second wave feminism and anti-Vietnam activism, just to name a few. And in June 1969, the modern gay liberation movement was born. The Stonewall riots resulted in gay people rushing out of the closets and into the streets in the hopes of gaining equal rights. For the first time, gay men and lesbians were able to express their attractions openly, build communities and mobilize activist efforts. None of the recent advances in LGBT equality would have happened over the last four decades were it not for the bravery and chutzpah of the Stonewall Inn’s patrons on that fateful summer evening in 1969.

Unfortunately, in the world of AMC’s Mad Men, it is still the first half of the decade. There was no gay liberation movement between 1960 and 1965, the years during which the first four seasons of the series take place. On the contrary, homosexuality was still considered a deviance by mainstream society and an illness by the medical community. There was certainly no such thing as gay pride—the great majority of closet doors were locked tightly. This makes it harder for Mad Men to address the experiences of gay people than to address those of women and people of color, as it’s a challenge for such a dialogue-driven character drama to address a topic that was rarely discussed openly. But that doesn’t mean that the effort isn’t made.

Despite the complete lack of visibility of gay people in the early 1960s, there is a surprisingly high amount of explicitly queer characters on Mad Men. Only one—Salvatore Romano, Sterling Cooper’s Art Director—is substantially developed, but a half dozen gay characters have passed through the Mad Men universe over the course of four seasons. All of the characters are unique, with distinct personalities and significantly different approaches to navigating same-sex desire in a hostile climate. And while Mad Men steers clear of making profound statements about the nature of gay identity in the 1960s, the characterizations it does present do have a few interesting things to say about gender identity and the ability to out oneself.

To discuss the depiction of homosexuality on Mad Men, one first needs to look at Salvatore. To the 21st century viewer, Sal reads undeniably as gay, yet no one at Sterling Cooper seems to notice this. Certainly, he isn’t out, nor does he intend to be. In season 1, he is a bachelor; in seasons 2 and 3, he is married to Kitty, a sweet and completely naïve woman who is either unaware or in denial of her husband’s internal struggles. Though Sal is an outwardly confident, charismatic and good-looking man, one who attracts the attention of men and women alike, he constantly lives in fear of his identity and the possibility that someone might discover it.

Salvatore and the bellboy

For the most part, the only people who catch on to Sal’s secret are other gay men. He is sexually propositioned by men on three separate occasions: by Elliott, a representative from Sterling Cooper client Belle Jolie Cosmetics; by an unnamed hotel bellboy in Baltimore; and by Lee Garner Jr., the owner of Lucky Strike, Sterling Cooper’s most lucrative account. Only in the case of the unnamed bellboy does Sal decide to give in to his desires. In that instance, he is with a man who he doesn’t know in a professional context, in a city he is only visiting for one night. The stakes are minimal, and his arousal is palpable, so when the bellboy leans in for a kiss in the privacy of Sal’s hotel room, he gives in. The scene is short—Sal is only granted a steamy make-out session and a crotch grab before the hotel fire alarm goes off— but it serves an important purpose. It is the only moment in the series when the audience is able to see Sal authentically satisfied. As the bellboy removes Sal’s clothing, a leak from an exploded pen is visible on Sal’s shirt—as blatant a symbol of unabashed excitement and premature ejaculation as one is likely to get past network censors. As the bellboy kisses and caresses his body, Sal emits heavy, hiccuped breaths and repeated moans of “Oh, God” and “Oh, Jesus.” The intense degree of passion he exhibits makes it clear to the viewer that this is his first sexual experience with a man. Though we never see Sal in an intimate situation with a man again, this scene represents a clear turning point in Sal’s comfort with his own identity.

A layer of complexity is added to Sal’s tryst when Don Draper, evacuating the hotel after the alarm blasts, runs down the fire escape, makes eye contact with Sal and notices the bellboy putting his clothes back on. Sal quickly looks away, ashamed and perhaps even scared of losing his job. Don doesn’t fire Sal on the spot, nor does he even directly broach the topic with him. Instead, he proposes a new campaign for London Fog raincoats that uses the slogan, “Limit Your Exposure.” When Don says this to Sal, his message is clear. And, ultimately, it becomes his undoing.

Lee Garner, Jr. propositions Sal

Sal’s interactions with Elliott and Lee are less fruitful than his night in Baltimore. In both instances, as soon as Sal realizes that he is being propositioned, his body tenses, a look of terror and sadness crosses his face and he declines the gesture. With Elliott, there are no consequences—Sal merely excuses himself from the bar where they had been sitting together. With Lee, though, the rejection costs Sal his job at Sterling Cooper. Lee’s proposition to Sal is abrupt, almost threatening; when Sal bristles at being grabbed around his chest, Lee just smiles and says, “I know what I know.” Still, Sal rejects the overture; embarrassed by the rejection, Lee sees to it that Sal is fired. He meets with Don to try to win back his job, appealing to the fact that Don knows his secret. But it doesn’t work because, in Don’s mind, Sal has violated the only piece of wisdom he was able to give him.

After Don fires Sal, we see him talking to Kitty from a phone booth, telling her not to wait up for him. We are to infer that Sal is going to go off on a night of cruising in the park, and this ultimately reads as more troubling than liberating. We know Sal has only had one sexual experience with a man before, and he certainly doesn’t have the language for discussing his sexual desires, let alone his identity. He is taking Don’s advice to limit his exposure, but at what cost? This is the last time we see Salvatore, and it’s an unsatisfying ending for such a beloved, complex character.

Joan and Carol

Though Sal is the gay character with which the audience spends the most time, the two (briefly appearing) lesbian characters are just as nuanced as he. Those characters are Carol, Joan Holloway’s roommate in season 1, and Joyce, Peggy Olsen’s friend at Life Magazine in season 4. Unlike the gay male characters, who, with one exception [i], only voluntarily come out to other gay men, Carol and Joyce both come out to straight women. Carol confesses her love for Joan in a beautiful monologue before they go out on the town for a night to meet men. As they dress and put on jewelry and make up, Carol confides in Joan, “I did everything I could to be near you, all with the hope that one day you’d notice me…Just think of me as a boy.” Joan pretends not to understand what Carol is talking about, and she gently brushes her words off. As hurtful as that may be for Carol, it’s certainly not as negative a response as it could have been, given the era. And it’s clear by Joan’s soft, attentive facial expressions and the look of compassion in her eyes that, even if she doesn’t acknowledge it, she appreciates what Carol is telling her. It may confuse her, but it doesn’t scare her, and she won’t let it change her relationship with Carol, someone who has been her friend for years. Though sad, there is a bit of sweetness in Joan’s rejection of Carol.

Joyce and Peggy

Joyce and Peggy have a similar, if far less dramatic, exchange. After meeting in the elevator of the building where they work (Joyce works for Life Magazine), Joyce visits Peggy at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce and invites her out to a party. At the party, Joyce kisses Peggy on the side of her face. Peggy giggles and backs away, leading her to tell Joyce that she has a boyfriend. Joyce responds, “He doesn’t own your vagina,” but Peggy counters, “No, but he’s renting it.” Joyce laughs—she takes this as a perfectly reasonable response, even if she did have designs on Peggy. Although Peggy rejects Joyce, it is not (or, at least, not directly) because she’s a woman. Peggy might very well be willing to reciprocate Joyce’s interest, but not while she’s in a relationship.

Both Carol and Joyce are able to say things to their straight love interests that Salvatore can’t say to his. In season 2, Sal develops a crush on Ken Cosgrove, going so far as to invite him for dinner in his home. Though he spends dinner hanging on to Ken’s every word and completely ignoring Kitty, Sal never dreams of explicitly coming out to Ken (or coming on to him). By contrast, Joyce is a blatant flirt. In addition to crushing on Peggy, she loiters by secretary Megan’s desk, chatting her up just like any of the men in the office would do. And during the season 4 finale, she visits Peggy’s office with another friend—a beautiful model named Carolyn. Though they aren’t a couple, Joyce and Carolyn have a definite butch/femme dynamic, as evidenced by the way they sit together and the way Joyce chivalrously puts her arm around her. It doesn’t matter to Joyce if it’s obvious what she’s doing— she is self-confident enough to own her sexuality, even if it isn’t socially acceptable for her to do so. Joyce hasn’t been a part of Mad Men for very long, and I certainly hope she’s back in season 5, continuing to make straight women blush wherever she goes.

It remains to be seen how far into the 1960s Mad Men will travel. Perhaps it will go all the way through 1969. Perhaps we will see a Stonewall episode, in which Peggy and Joyce are caught up in the riots, and Peggy sees Sal with another man somewhere in the crowd. Perhaps we’ll see less gay content, and homosexuality will take a backseat to other social issues, particularly as the Vietnam War heats up. But if the first four seasons are any indication, we’ll continue to see gay characters pop up every now and again, and while their full political and social histories may not be documented, we will continue to see the ways in which they limit—or, in some cases, enhance—their exposure.

[i] That character is Kurt, a member of Sterling Cooper’s art department during season 2. The scene in which he comes out in front of the likes of Ken Cosgrove and Harry Crane is rather funny, but due to space constraints I won’t get into it here.

Carrie Nelson has previously written about Precious, Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire and The Social Network for Bitch Flicks. She is a Founder and Editor of Gender Across Borders and works as a grant writer for an LGBT nonprofit organization in NYC. Her favorite Mad Men character is Sally Draper.

Mad Men and Sexual Harassment

This cross-post originally appeared at The Sociological Cinema

Click here for video

Summary: Cultural Anthropologist, William M. O’Barr (2010), notes of the popular television show, Mad Men, “[It] is a world of heterosexual, white, male privilege.” O’Barr further observes that “Gender displays recur. The social structure of the office—men in professional positions, women as their assistants—rings true of pre-Feminist Movement America in the 1960s. Every woman is either a Jackie or a Marilyn and every man wants them both—or at least most of the men. The admen direct the lives of women, not just those in the agency, but those in the entire society. It is a world in which men are dominant and women are subordinate and sexualized.” O’Barr draws on a number of clips to make his argument, but one in particular (Season 1, Episode 12, “Nixon Vs Kennedy”) struck me as a useful supplement to a discussion on sexual harassment. The clip features an adman chasing and wrestling a woman to the ground during an office party. Pinning the woman to the floor, he demands to see the color of her panties. The scene is a relatively unambiguous example of sexual harassment, but students might object that the woman who was tackled seems to be participating and even laughing. Here, it might be helpful to note the two women in the clip who were uncomfortably observing the incident and to encourage students to think about sexual harassment as a form of gender discrimination, which creates an unequal work environment for all women. Irrespective of the tackled woman’s outward expression, the incident clearly reinforced for everyone the ideas that women in the ad office are first and foremost valued for their capacity to sexually titillate, and they can be made to submit to the demands of their male colleagues.

Submitted By: Lester Andrist

Mad Men Week: Mad Motherhood

I used to think that I would be the type of mother like Claire Huxtable from The Cosby Show. Calm and together. Beautiful and smart. Making time for a fulfilling career and still having an impromptu musical number complete with costumes in order to illustrate an important life lesson. If my life were a musical I would feel more like Miss Hannagan from Annie. Everything around me is little…

I would like to think that I will never be like Betty Draper from Mad Men. We look at her through our take on modern feminism and feel bad for her. Poor bored Betty. Thank God that we have all been liberated from only having such choices. Betty Draper going to therapy because she can’t talk to anyone about how trapped she feels. How alone. How bored and guilty she feels about the role she has no choice about in her own life. Everything from the way the birth is treated to daily choices within the home. The constant undercurrent is that of limited choices. This is not an antiquated idea. As a mother, I know how it feels some days to count the hours until bedtime. Or to not be able to wait until my husband takes two steps in the door before I am telling him about the terrors our offspring have been that day. Yes, like Betty Draper I relish having a glass of red wine at the end of the day and talking to my friends. Other mothers and caregivers in the trenches with me.

Is that why we feel bad for Betty Draper? Because we know someone like her? Our own mothers? A sister? A friend? Or does she hit a little too close to home for some of us? It is the judgment of her that I have to wrestle with. Poor Pampered Betty Draper. A housewife with a maid and nothing to fill her days but shopping. High class problems indeed. Instead of dumping our kids in front of the black and white TV with three channels, we now have the Wii in monster 65-inch color, surround-sound, high definition. Is spending hours on Etsy so much different than at the department store? Hiding from our children. Hiding from who we are. Betty being so afraid of her own sexuality that her daughter ends up in therapy for “playing with herself.” I am sure all of us have had to confront some issue with our children that we have never anticipated. “Did you really just wipe boogers on the wall?” “Is that a fish stick under your pillow?” “No, I don’t know why trees don’t talk back.”

Parts of my life are not that different from what I can imagine for a 1950s or 60s housewife. Yes I am from the Midwest. Yes I got married at 20. Yes I was pregnant at said event. I still do laundry almost every day. I still wash dishes. For the most part, I have stayed home with my children. But I like being with my kids. I like who they are. I enjoy just being with them and seeing them discover how to navigate this world. The difference now is that so does my husband. He makes more dinners than I do. It is the expectations that are different. Not the reality. I think he would fear for his life if he came home and demanded his dinner. Our house will NEVER be as clean as the Drapers’. We don’t have a maid. We can’t afford it. The choices we have made allow me to stay home. Would we be more financially secure if we had two incomes, of course. Are there mothers out there who do not have this option, absolutely. But more and more I realize that it is other women who are our greatest obstacles. No matter what a woman’s choice is, it should be supported as valid by other women. Too frequently it is not. Working mothers think that stay-at-home-mothers are lazy or spoiled, and stay-at-home-mothers think that working moms are selfish or should be riddled with guilt.

Women are our own worst enemies. Inside our own heads and out. We hear our mothers, our friends. We feel judged as mothers from the time we discover we are pregnant. Keep the baby, or not? Home birth? Water birth? C-section? You will be judged. Breastfeed? Co-sleep? Crib? You will be judged. Vaccinate? Circumcise? You will be judged. Cloth diapers or disposable, home school, or public. You will be judged. Having these choices to begin with is what we should be thankful for. I get it. But that is only half of the equation. Having choices has to be balanced with having the freedom to get to be happy with the consequences of that choice. As Don Draper put it, “If you don’t like what is being said, then change the conversation.”

Look at Peggy. Was it her choice to have a baby? Was it her choice to give it up? Was she allowed to be, if not happy, at least at peace with her decision? She was pushing so hard against the idea of being a woman that she ignored the ultimate difference between men and women: our ability to give birth. Her birth experience was glossed over and not unlike Betty’s out-of-consciousness birth, we are left amazed. We have all known someone whose birth did not go as planned. A home birth that was transferred, or a vaginal birth that had to be a c-section. Women carry around those scars, physical and emotional, for the rest of their lives.

Then Joan. We all want to be more like Joan. She is much easier to take. More modern. Career woman. Waiting until her 30s to get married. Even her physical appearance is more realistic than teeny Betty Draper. But even with all of those curves, she has chosen to be childless. With all of that sex, and two “procedures,” she is still living on her own terms. Fertile. Ready for anything. Her femininity a blatant contrast to all of the men around her.

The female characters of Mad Men bring up feelings for everyone who sees them … either we envy or pity them. Or both. But until we realize that either emotion has validity and is mirroring something about our own mothering, history is bound to repeat itself. Women need to strive to respect one another and support one another. Only then can we feel less isolated like all of the women in the show. Then we can show our children that we are the mothers they want us to be.

Olivia London-Webb writes for herself as therapy. When not writing she likes to cook, drink, stare at art, and chase her children.

True Camaraderie: Don, Peggy, and Something to Prove

Don Draper and Peggy Olson

For me, the most endearing element of Mad Men is the humorous and detailed portrayal of developing friendships. Amidst the drinking, cheating, and general woes of the ad agency is the story of office camaraderie. There have always been back stories on different relationships that developed at Sterling Cooper, such as the friendship between Roger and Joan, but season four spends a great amount of time further delving into those relationships. It paints a picture of a time where business loyalty meant a commitment from both sides.

Now that the operations are smaller, there is an even closer knit of relations in the office. Season four gave us such delights as Don and Lane taking in New Year’s Eve, as well as offering a closer look into the drunken camaraderie between Don and Roger. Indeed, Don is a man of many women and men, but of all his office friendships, none compare to his kinship with Peggy. From early in the show, Don and Peggy had a professional and personal spark. Don gave Peggy an opportunity to nurture her talents, and while their story isn’t always happy, they are able to understand each other in a way that surpasses all other office duos. In spite of their differences, Don and Peggy share a common fight to be where they ought not be. It is in this fight for survival that the two trade-off dishing out tough love and gentle support.

Don and Peggy’s friendship did not develop overnight and there are clear and present power dynamics that complicate affairs. There are the obvious gender roles at play and the fact that Don is Peggy’s superior. Don also has a short temper and a tendency to project onto Peggy a lot of his own feelings of inadequacy. And while Peggy is hurt by Don’s verbal outbursts she is engaged in self reflection, and mostly welcoming of his mentorship.

It seems obvious to me that Don’s interest in Peggy is directly related to his own struggles with entitlement. Don wasn’t born with money or a name. He didn’t inherit his position in the company or marry into an account. He used his creative “genius” to con his way into a job and rise to the top of his field. This both limits him and gives him strength. He has less to lose, and that allows him to take greater risks. Don sees the way Peggy takes risks and admires her dedication to the work they do. In the episode where Marilyn Monroe dies, Don asks Peggy how she is doing and is surprised (if only for a quick side-glance of a moment) when Peggy responds, “It’s a good thing we didn’t go with Marilyn/Jackie ad. We would have had to pull everything indefinitely.” While others in the office mourn the loss of a role model, Peggy’s eyes are clearly focused on her career. She does not falter for a moment because she can’t afford it. Don gets that because he too knows that he can’t quit running. They share a common fear and subsequently, a common strength of self.

From the moment Don appears at Peggy’s bedside, the two have shared a level of intimacy that isn’t mirrored in any other professional relationship on the show. In fact, the only time we’ve seen Don be this honest with someone is in his relationship with Anna, and Don turns to Peggy when mourning that loss. In “The Suitcase,” Peggy is the only one in the office brave enough to confront Don’s destructive path. She walks into his office and, with concern asks, “How long do you intend to go on like this?” Moments later she reassures him that he didn’t lose the only person who knew him. Don and Peggy have provided each other with gentle support in a violent world and that support will surely be needed again as the company hangs by a thread. And even as the future of the agency hands in the balance, Don and Peggy march on. While the other partners and employees of Sterling, Cooper, Draper, & Pryce cry into their highballs, Peggy and Don put their nose to the ground and keep fighting for accounts and taking risks.

As the show progresses, I expect to see more conflict between Don and Peggy’s friendship. Peggy has thus far tolerated Don’s destructive side out of admiration and loyalty. I am curious to see how the quickly changing world of the sixties will effect her perceptions of the friendship. I am also curious to see how Don’s engagement will affect the level of admiration that Peggy has previously given him. In “Tomorrowland,” Don proposes to his secretary and we have yet to see what that means for his developing character, but one thing is clear: neither Peggy nor Joan is the least bit pleased about the engagement. As the progressive movement of the sixties marches on, the unspoken gender issues in the office are coming full head. Don and Peggy share the same drive and are invested in the friendship, but they still stand on different levels of the patriarchal power structure. Can their friendship sustain the changing social climate? What will happen as Peggy continues to embrace the rebellion of the sixties youth movement? I am certain that whatever happens, Don and Peggy will continue to be deeply passionate characters whether they have each other’s support or not. I once wished for the destruction of Don Draper. Now, I only want him to be saved. I’m just not sure that it’s Peggy’s (or any other woman’s) responsibility to save him, and I’m not certain that Don isn’t just chasing another dream.

Katie Becker studied at Luther College where she earned a Bachelor’s degree in Communication Studies. She loves saying what’s on her mind and asking inappropriate questions. She recently found the time to start writing again.

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.

Things They Haven’t Seen: Women and Class in Mad Men

Towards the end of the first season, Peggy Olson goes out on a date set up by her mother. The guy, Carl, drives a potato chip delivery truck, and makes it clear that he doesn’t think too highly of Peggy’s chosen profession. “You don’t look like those girls,” he tells her. Peggy storms off, snapping at Carl, “They are better than us. They want things they haven’t seen.”

I don’t agree, at least not when it comes to the main women of Mad Men. Joan and Betty are victims of both their class and their gender, and the only thing they would seem to aspire to is what they know and what they see: the comforts of an middle-to-upper class existence.

One element that has always fascinated me about Mad Men has been the element of class mobility and class-based constraints. The women, in particular, embody the opportunities and limitations of class during the 1960s. Looking at the characters of Peggy, Joan, and Betty, it becomes clear that if the people who live in Manhattan want things they haven’t seen, they are limited in being able to attain those goals by their class and class constraints.

Peggy Olson

From the beginning, Peggy is presented to us as a girl in her dress and her manners. She tells Joan that she attended “Miss Devers Secretarial School,” and while Joan reveals that it is one of the best, it isn’t a college education. We also see her small and simple apartment, later learning she is from the Bronx and, during the second season, Catholic. Her sister’s husband has been hurt on the job and unable to work, and their rather large family is living in a small apartment. All of this indicates that Peggy comes from a working-class background.

The episode mentioned above is an important moment for Peggy; in the same episode, Peggy has a successful pitch for the “Electrolizer.” Peggy is able to somewhat comfortably talk about the fact that the machine is a vibrator. Juxtapose Peggy’s ability to articulate the benefits of the Electrolizer versus Betty’s experience with the washing machine in the same episode. One embraces the freedom the machine can/could provide for women, while the other has to make do.

Betty Draper Francis

Betty came from both class and means; her family is wealthy, and from the descriptions of her mother, quite proper in terms of gender and class norms. Her mother disapproved of her brief career as a model after Betty had graduated from Bryn Mawr College. All of her married friends seemed to have attended one of the “Seven Sister” schools and traveled extensively in Europe.

For her, her marriage is her goal. She was raised to want to look pretty in order to attract an acceptable husband. She might be unhappy in her marriage to Don, but she has no idea how to escape or to fulfill herself. I saw her holding a rifle, smoking a cigarette, and shooting her neighbors birds not as a symbol of a woman rising up to defend her family, but of a woman who couldn’t bear even a reminder of freedom. Like the birds, she, too, would always come home.

Joan Holloway Harris

Joan, too, is the picture of elegance. She has gone to college and has moved up as far as she can professionally, enjoying being single while looking for a husband. She finds (and problematically marries) an aspiring surgeon. While it isn’t clear what kind of background Joan comes from, it is clear that she possesses the proper credentials for a woman who came from class or means.

Joan’s rape has, obviously, generated a lot of debate. I read it, however, as a type of class sacrifice; in order to “keep” her professional and respectable husband, she has to stay silent about her rape. It is never made clear if Joan truly loves Greg, or views him as her last chance at class respectability. Joan also quits her job at Sterling-Cooper once she is married because it is no longer necessary, but also no longer socially acceptable. But it isn’t just that. When she has the opportunity to read scripts and make valuable contributions to the newly-formed television department, Joan doesn’t speak up when an inexperienced man receives her job. Contrasted with Peggy’s courage to ask for Freddy Rumsen’s old office, Joan would seem to be trapped not just by the constraints of her gender, but the constraints of her upper-class upbringing.

One could also read the competition between Joan and Peggy as a competition between two women from different socio-economic class; Peggy doesn’t know the rules, doesn’t “look” the part, and Joan tries to help her “fit in” as an women with middle-class aspiration. But Peggy isn’t interested in marrying up; her ignorance of the rules is her biggest strength as she is not limited by the gender pressures of middle and upper-class expectations.

Peggy, in her quote about wanting things they haven’t seen yet, could be referring to the women that Don Draper consorts with throughout the first two seasons. Midge Daniels is a bohemian, for class seems to hold no allure or power. Rachel Menken has managed to transcend class (and racial/religious) boundaries and become a power-driven professional woman. The same goes for Bobbie Barrett, who manages her husband’s show biz career with savvy and ruthlessness. Each of these women is successful at eschewing the limits placed on them by class expectations.

It is interesting that when Don is faced with a choice between a non-traditional woman (Dr. Faye Miller) and his secretary (Megan), he chooses the latter. Faye and Peggy are, ultimately romantically punished for their non-traditional interpretations of class and gender norms. It remains to be seen how Faye bounces back from Don’s rejection, but Peggy is certainly doing better than either Betty or Joan when it comes to personal and professional success.

Call it the limitations of an upper-class upbringing; sometimes we can only want what it is we see.

Lee Skallerup Bessette has a PhD in Comparative Literature and currently teaches writing in Kentucky. She also blogs at College Ready Writing and the University of Venus. She has two kids, and TV and movies are just about the only thing she has time for outside of her work and family.

‘Mad Men’ Week: Hey, Brian McGreevy: Vampire Pam Beats Don Draper Any Day

This cross-post by Tami Winfrey Harris previously appeared at Fangs For The Fantasy and What Tami Said.

Vampire Pam saying, “He can do it; I’m wearing my favorite pumps.”

How much gender fail and homophobia can one pack into a brief online essay? Screenwriter Brian McGreevy takes a break from doing keg stands at the frat house to show us. In a guest blog for Vulture, McGreevy, who is currently adapting Bram Stoker’s Dracula for Warner Bros., complains that modern vampire books, film and TV shows have “taken the Romantic vampire and cut off his balls, leaving a pallid emo pansy with the gaseous pretentiousness of a perfume commercial.”

*side eye*

The problem, according to McGreevy, is “the female gaze.” It has given us vampire stories that are mere “pornography for tweens.”

Just as the Frito-Lay Company has created virtually nutrient-free vehicles of corn syrup and salt that make our youth fat, slow, and indiscriminate, the Castrati vampire is a confection that has the same impact on the psycho-dramatic imagination of today’s youth. Think of the message here: What is the consequence of falling in with a Romantic vampire? Death, either yours or his. What is the consequence of falling in with the Castrati vampire? Long and torturous (at least to everyone around you) conversations about feelings. This is not what really happens when you fall in with attractive monsters.McGreevy isn’t feeling Stephanie Meyer’s sparkling undead abstaining teens. But he has equal disdain for the sexed up vamps on True Blood, which, in his words, is “like Tennessee Williams fucked The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” See, blood suckers should be real men “ideal men” like Mad Men’s Don Draper.

McGreevy isn’t feeling Stephanie Meyer’s sparkling undead abstaining teens. But he has equal disdain for the sexed up vamps on True Blood, which, in his words, is “like Tennessee Williams fucked The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” See, blood suckers should be real men “ideal men” like Mad Men’s Don Draper.

What?

Yes, McGreevy reckons Don Draper is a far better vampire than any of Twilight’s or True Blood’s.

Of course I refer to Don Draper on the AMC series Mad Men, the purist’s vampire of choice for our time. This one has teeth. And adding an extra layer to the mystique is his position as an advertising executive. A more elegant embodiment of the metaphor could hardly be asked for: He is an engine of want, creating the illusion of fulfillment while sucking you dry. No is not in his vocabulary. Neither is yes—yes is implicit. He knows this, he is past needing to hear you say it. He knows the private and unmentionable place that cries “yes” when the bottom drops out of an amusement park ride and suddenly you are in free fall, and, like the ideal man, he is listening.

When Mad Men first premiered, much of its appeal was attributed to novelty factor: What a different time it was, when the American male was an unrecognizable breed of scandalous, id-driven malefactor; heedless, rapacious, just waiting to slide off his doe-eyed secretary’s pencil skirt and show off his executive account.

…

Men are predators at heart. Any refutation of this is also a refutation of evolution, or the common sense conclusion of observing a typical 3-year-old boy at unstructured play, his wake of destruction the envy of a Visigoth. It is a killer’s heart that is the motive force of masculinity and predation its spirit. This is not to suggest nature is immutable, or that one ought to act in blind obeisance to it, but that “ought” is not in the vocabulary of want, and choosing is meant to have consequences.

Vampires should be real ideal men. Ideal men are amoral. Ideal men kill and destroy things. Ideal men don’t think; they do. Ideal men don’t take “no” for an answer, especially from women. Ideal men are always rampaging heterosexuals, by the way. We can’t argue with this. McGreevy says it’s evolution.

Of course, if Mad Men is any indication, sometimes, under the weight of all those expectations to be sufficiently rapacious and manly, ideal men become sad, functional alcoholics, living in dim and depressing walk-up apartments, alienated from their children, following the dissolution of their soul-destroying marriages to beautiful “house cats.” Or maybe, like Roger Sterling, who McGreevy quotes to close his piece, ideal men become aging party boys, useless but for a last name that once held some power, and trapped in wedlock with the doe-eyed secretary, who, it turns out, wasn’t such a good idea after all.

There is so much wrong with McGreevy’s diatribe that it is hard to know where to start. Let me identify a few problems:

A person who is working on an adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula really ought to have a better understanding of vampirology. McGreevy’s pet version of the vampire is but one of many incarnations. The idea of the vampire can be found all over the world and there is little agreement on what these mythical creatures are like. For instance, Nosferatu, the mother of all vampire films, released in the 1920s, reveals a ratlike creature more monster than man. The idea that Bram Stoker’s is the definitive vampire and that Twilight and True Blood are some affront to the canon is silly—even sillier for someone who is adapting the Stoker story for Leonardo DiCaprio. I’m not sure about the casting for this project, but DiCaprio better not be playing the Count. He’s not fit to carry Gary Oldman’s bat makeup:

McGreevy also conveniently forgets Anne Rice’s vampires. Lestat was in love with Louis, could wear the hell out of some breeches and was also dangerous as fuck. If, as McGreevy states, vampires are stand ins for the ideal man, it’s good to remember that some real men don’t wear tailored suits or chase skirt.

It’s a ridiculous notion, anyway—this “ideal man” business. It’s a good thing that we as a society, save McGreevy, Scott Adams and possibly some members of the men’s rights movement, are letting go of it. Women have undoubtedly been oppressed by the culture of manly manness, but the thing is, so have men—a lot of good men who don’t fit McGreevy’s paradigm. And I would venture to say that most men don’t. And thank goodness for that.

And since when are all vampires MEN? One doesn’t need a penis to be a deadly creature of the night. Catherine Deneuve in The Hunger? Deadly little Claudia in the Rice series? Stoker’s Brides of Dracula and Lucy Westenra? And True Blood’s Pam? Pam would eat Don Draper for lunch. Literally.

To use Lafayette’s vernacular, here’s what I’m putting down: McGreevy’s thoughts on vampires, manliness and gender roles? Hot buttered horsepucky. All of it. If the writer is bringing this sort of regressive ridiculousness to his screenplay, then his version of Stoker’s Dracula is one I can surely miss.

Tami Winfrey Harris writes about race, feminism, politics and pop culture at the blog What Tami Said. Her work has also appeared online at The Guardian’s Comment is Free, Ms. Magazine blog, Newsweek, Change.org, Huffington Post and Racialicious. She is a graduate of the Iowa State University Greenlee School of Journalism. She spends her spare time researching her family history and cultivating a righteous ‘fro. She cross-posted her review of Sucker Punch at Bitch Flicks.

Guest Writer Wednesday: Resisting Motherhood in Grey’s Anatomy

This guest post by Marina DelVecchio also appears at Marinagraphy.

Lately, it seems that every single television show takes any kind of woman and turns her into a mother. She can be a Playboy vamp, a stripper, an affected teenager, or a surgeon, but at some point in her fictitious or reality TV role as a woman leading a happily single existence while having a lot of sex, she gets the urge to have a baby. Becoming a mother has become vogue—the “in thing.”

Kendra, former Playboy bunny who had sex with Hugh Heffner voluntarily (gagging here), is now settled down and pregnant. Pink (who I adore because she’s such a rebellious punk), is pregnant. The Kardashian sisters are each filing away their sexual escapades and viral sex tapes and preparing for babies.

On a more fictitious level, Kate Walsh’s character in Private Practice just gave up a relationship because she wants a baby and he doesn’t, since he’s already been there and done that. In House, Lisa Edelstein’s character, after years of service as head of the hospital—a powerhouse of a woman who has to dress sexy in every episode, adopted a baby because she could no longer wait for House or any other man to give her one.

And then there are three mothers presently blossoming at Grey’s Anatomy. Callie, (Sara Ramirez) is the eternal Madonna—a straight woman turned gay, who has been wanting her own baby for a long time and almost lost Arizona (Jessica Capshaw) because of it, since the pediatric surgeon never wanted kids for herself. Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo) is a new adoptive mom after many failed attempts at having her own baby—and the most realistic one to me, since she’s not sure how good she will be as a mom. And then of course, we have Christina Yang, played by the ever brilliant Sandra Oh, who finds herself pregnant for the second time. And for the second time, she wants to get an abortion.

And there’s nothing wrong with this—except that aside from Christina Yang’s character, there are few other representations of women. What about the women who don’t want to be mothers? Where are their voices? And why are the voices of mother-want-to-be’s so much louder? It seems that they are everywhere, telling all young women that eventually, they all need to settle down and have babies, especially before their biological clocks start humming, followed by the incessant whine of “what if you’re never a mother?”

I have been thinking about Christina Yang since a few weeks ago. I love her character. Aside from the fact that her writers fell off the track by making her have a nervous breakdown and dance on a bar drunk as a skunk, Sandra Oh’s character is brilliant and so different. She is a surgeon—a die hard, unrelenting, and un-self-sacrificing woman, who hates more than anything to lose herself in a man she loves. She even gave up her lover so that she could have a chance to operate and learn from the best in her field. She is single-minded, obtuse, and unapologetic—and I know she’s not just a figment of some writer’s imagination. There are women like her out there. Women who don’t want to have children or be mothers. Women who have no problems saying that they don’t even like kids. And it’s not because the child will interfere with her work or domesticate her. She is just not interested in having kids. Motherhood is not in her nature.

And there is nothing wrong with this. But the world makes us all feel like there is. There is something wrong with you if you’re a woman and don’t want to have any kids. You’re a cold bitch if you choose a career over family. You’re unnatural. Feminism of the seventies told us that we had choices, but the choices always included kids—women had to learn to have children, careers, and dinner at the table by five.

But what if you don’t want to have any? Hugh Heffner has sex with a lot of babies (they may as well be), but you don’t see the world crushing him with self-righteous diatribes because his Playboy mansion is not full of his children running around in their undies—and I am sure he has fathered many. But men are different, right? Rules don’t box them in. They get away with everything—including being in their 80′s and having sex with girls of 18. No gross factor there.

Women are controlled—subtly and and not so subtly. We have been conditioned to define ourselves via our biology. We have the children, therefore, we must have children. Commercials tell us our roles— our defining roles as women: mothers, care givers, cooks, cleaners, carpoolers, wives, volunteers, educators, and self-sacrificing do-gooders. Our neighborhoods define our place in society: mothers, care givers, cooks, cleaners, carpoolers, wives, volunteers, educators, and self-sacrificing do-gooders. Let’s add some negative ones here also, like nags, overweight hags, gossips and trophy wives. Now television shows—reality and non-reality—overwhelm us with maternal figures—no matter where they got their start from. Sex bunnies gone mom. Pop stars gone mom. Infertile women gone mom. High school drop-outs gone mom. And out of all of these, we only have one woman who resists motherhood: Christina Yang.

Where are all the others? Where are their voices? I want to see more representations of Yang’s character everywhere, because these women do exist. Although I got married and have two kids, I am the daughter of a woman who resisted conventional roles of women. I watched my mother growing up, keenly, as if I were observing a rare stone that never belonged to our region. She was as unique as they come. And even though she chose motherhood by adopting me—it was more for companionship than it was for a desire to show maternal affection—she had none—or at least she withheld it out of self-preservation. But I am reminded of her when I come face to screen with Christina Yang—and I wish young girls had more of her uniqueness with which to identify. I have learned so much from my mom—I learned that all women are different, and we can choose different paths in life than the ones we are told are especially pink-lined for us.

Just because women can have babies doesn’t always mean they should have them. We are not all made of the same cloth—we are not all designed to mother—even if biologically, we can.

Marina DelVecchio is a writer and a College Instructor. She has a BA in English Literature, an MS in English and Secondary Education and has completed thirty credits towards a Doctorate in Feminist Theory, Rhetoric and Composititon and 19th century Women Writers. Originally from New York, she began teaching on the High School level and then moved up to the College level in 2005. She presently teaches English Composition, Research, and Literature at a local Community College in North Carolina.

Degrassi, Teens, and Rape Apologism

This guest post by Marcia Herring previously appeared at Feministing.

A recent plot line in popular teen drama Degrassi: the Next Generation featured what was, for all rights and purposes, date rape. Instead of taking the standard track for the show, Degrassi ignored the issue and made the abusive actions of character Declan all right to thousands of teens watching.

If you are unfamiliar with Degrassi, you can watch the episodes in question (“Love Lockdown, Parts 1 and 2”) here.

Oh, Degrassi. What hath thou wrought?

Background: Tackling issues that many teen dramas often avoid, or get wrong, Degrassi wins awards for its cliched and intense portrayal of high school life. Early years of the Next Generation saw several plotlines getting censored on American television: an abortion, a lesbian relationship, drug usage and consequences, school violence. Now Canadian and American networks work closely together to ensure that the programming is top notch and groundbreaking, including, earlier this year, the first transgender young adult on television (which was, by the way, handled incredibly).

The range of success in portraying teen issues varies, but ever since the original incarnation of Degrassi Junior High in the 1980s, the show has been used as a teaching tool for social situations and family discussions. In the absence of after school specials about what the kids get into these days, it is shows like Degrassi that perhaps show youth positive options to problems they may face.

A History of Rape: Degrassi is no stranger to rape. In season two, bitchy cheerleader Paige was coerced by a guy she liked into an upstairs room at a party, immediately pushed past her comfort zone, and, while shouting “No,” held down and raped. As Feminist Music Geek notes, she used music to help overcome feelings of self-doubt and worthlessness to fight back, and testified against her rapist in court. Later, in season 6, uptight Christian Darcy decided to cut loose and go wild for a weekend: this backfired when her drink was roofied. When she woke up next to her boyfriend, she assumed they had engaged in consensual sex, which was, in itself, bad enough because Darcy had sworn to remain a virgin until marriage. Eventually, enough memory of the night came back (and Peter swore he had done nothing) that Darcy believed she had been raped. She got tested, had an STD, and began a downward spiral that involved a suicide attempt, and sexual advances toward a teacher who tried to help her. Both girls have slow healing processes, but they are shown to heal through extended plotlines, and the recurring issues that these involve (though Darcy is written out of the show so that Shenae Grimes could join the cast of 90210).

Demographics: Now. In addition to teaching life lessons, Degrassi has to drive an audience. The Degrassi audience is, for the purposes of this argument, comprised of 5 somewhat equal parts. Part one is loyal fans. These have seen every episode of every incarnation of the show, and will watch every week. They probably participate in some kind of fandom, whether it be following someone involved on Twitter or reading/writing fanfiction. Part two are new fans. These fluctuate with every generation or group of students that go through. These are the screaming fangirls who tune in when their favorite character has a plotline but doze off at other times. Part three are casual viewers, those who stay on the channel if they have nothing better to do and generally recognize the characters. Part four are parents of teens watching the show, and educators. They might watch with intent to monitor their childrens’ intake, or simply to partake in family time. They offer commentary on the action and are a sounding board for questions that viewers have, stirred up by the episode. They might even be fans themselves. Part five is a wild card: friend of a friend who has to watch the new episode at a sleepover. Boyfriend of a part one. Someone who marathons the show for a week, but then encounters a mean fan and drops the show.

An ideal Degrassi episode will have something for all of these audiences: fanservice (read: hot guys or the couple du jour) for the flighty new group, the structured and dramatic plot that older fans have come to expect, something to keep casual viewers coming back, and an educational value for parents and educators.

Thesis: The recent two-part episode “Love Lockdown” failed on a moral level, one from which I am not sure Degrassi can recover, no matter how many successful episodes follow.

Background: Holly J and Declan began dating in season 9 when he convinced her that he liked her take-charge, sometimes-bitchy attitude and was willing to go the extra mile to find out about her life. Their relationship was often physical, and focused on financial aspects as Declan’s family is very rich and Holly J’s family became quite poor. During their summer vacation (Holly J’s internship) to New York City, Holly J engaged in a rivalry over Declan with his sister, which resulted in Declan’s fluctuating behavior: at first angrily siding with his sister and then dramatically requesting forgiveness on a live television broadcast.

Later, in season 10, Holly J and Fiona (Declan’s sister) have a new friendship, one that is consistently troubled with issues of purchased affections. It is no wonder that this spreads into the relationship between Holly J and Declan: he has been living in New York, and believes that smooth-talking and a beautiful necklace will reassure his place in Holly J’s heart. They go on a break.

In Declan’s absense, Holly J and Sav engage in a casual relationship: flirty and physical. They always appear smiling and happy. Towards recent episodes this might even indicate deeper feelings than their original “only until graduation” pledge.

“Love Lockdown, Part 1”: In “Love Lockdown Part 1,” Declan returns. His goal is to convince Holly J to get back with him. From the moment he sees her with Sav, he does not register Sav as a threat, but as an obstacle to be brushed aside. He just needs to get some time alone with Holly J, and then she will see. For most of the evening, she sticks to Sav’s side (to Declan’s frustration, the episodes are told at his perspective) until Declan creates the perfect distraction: set up a sweet DJ booth for Sav the aspiring musician at a party. This gives Declan the in he has been wanting, where Holly J promptly turns him down. “I’m not going to do anything tonight/at this party”/”I have a boyfriend” are variations on Holly J’s replies to Declan’s pleading. He doesn’t get it.

Little sister to the rescue: Habitual drunk Fiona plays up her level of drunkenness for the sake of big brother’s love life, leaning heavily on her best friend and big brother. Holly J knows how to handle this situation and sends Sav home. Once Fiona is safely tucked in bed, Holly J and Declan are left alone, in the dark, on the sofa. A few words of concern about Fiona, and Declan’s agenda is back on the table. Holly J reiterates that she has a boyfriend, that she isn’t comfortable doing anything, that she doesn’t want to. Words that Declan ignores, kissing her shoulder, her neck. “We shouldn’t.” He kisses her cheek, turns her head, kisses her mouth, and she, reluctantly kisses back as the episode ends.

The reaction: Two definitive camps. Holly J was raped. No means no. And, If you think Holly J was raped you are stupid.

One fan’s reaction.

Most of the replies to this insisted that kissing and “spreading your legs” do in fact indicate consent.

Another fan’s reaction.

Victim blaming. Rape only exists under certain conditions. Holly J wasn’t raped because she didn’t really resist. Real victims suffer for years, they are beaten, drugged, and really abused. Holly J is fine.

“Love Lockdown, Part 2”: The description of the episode: “Holly J feels extremely conflicted about what happened with Declan at his party.” This episode too, though not as much as part 1, is framed in Declan’s narrative.

Holly J and Fiona:

“Last night, I didn’t want things to go as far as they did.”

“Like, as in sex? You and Declan have done that before.”

“No. Last night, I felt … pressured.”

Holly J and Declan:

“I didn’t want to. I told you that!”

“I thought that was because of Sav!”

“Does it matter why?”

Okay, so we’re on the right track, at least to recover from something atrocious. Right? And then, Holly J gets into Yale with Declan … and …

“I don’t know how I feel.”

“He thinks that you think he raped you.”

“I never said that.”

Holly J is backpedaling. Protecting herself from the pain she ends up feeling anyway. Rape is a stigma and a label that she obviously doesn’t want, so she denies it.

Part of the final scene, Holly J and Declan:

“I don’t… think you raped me.”

“Honestly?”

“Honestly.”

“Do you hate me?”

“I regret what happened.”

The reaction: A potentially facetious remark in tumblr RP, made to thedeclancoyne: “Congrats on not being a rapist.”

The results: Internalized rationalizations. If you were in a relationship once, there is always a chance to rekindle, even if you use coercion. If a guy is hot, you probably want it. If you dated a guy once, had sex willingly with him once, you probably want it again. If you say no, but then go along with it, you are saying yes. If you are smart and sassy under normal circumstances but don’t put those skills to use under duress, you obviously didn’t really feel threatened.

These statements fit in perfectly with contemporary culture’s view on rape, but not with what our youth should be learning. Take a look at a few of the graphics and campaigns.

Would it have been difficult for Degrassi to take a step back from the heart-throb Declan’s point of view for a moment, to truly examine the situation, to show viewers that Holly J was over-rationalizing, acting fearful and in denial, instead of staying in Declan’s view and getting a romanticized picture of potential future love? NO.

“Love Lockdown, Parts 1 and 2” is a plotline that asks viewers to side with Declan and apologize for his rape of Holly J. This is simply unacceptable. And then, what prompted me to finally finish up this meta, teennick used this as a valentine:

The lines he used—”back when he was with Jane” (quote @teennick) to initially hook up with her— while she was hesitant, and already dating Spinner. His tradition of claiming and power in relationships is long. And instead of punishing him, we get a Declan valentine.

As of the posting of this entry, Holly J’s plot has not been resolved or addressed.

Marcia Herring is a rollergirl receptionist from Southeast Missouri. She is still working on her graduate degree, but swears to have it done someday. She spends most of her time watching television and movies and wishes she could listen to music and read while doing so without going insane.

Guest Writer Wednesday: The Hollywood Concept of Collateral Beauty

This guest post also appears at Djelloul Marbrook’s web site.

One of the reasons I like the television series Bones is that women are doing well there, something you can’t say of Game of Thrones, The Borgias or Camelot or the many other shows where women are de rigeur decoration.

I don’t know if it’s occurred to filmmakers, but they’re a lot like museum curators who keep the work of women artists in their basements and then claim women are well represented within their four walls.

Emily Deschanel

On the other hand, women are doing quite well on The Good Wife, where the estimable Julianna Margulies creates a memorable woman with a few spare brushstrokes. Her riveting understatement is ably complimented by two other remarkable women, Christine Baranski and Archie Panjabi.

And then there’s Mary McCormack as the eccentric and poignant witness protection agent in the series In Plain Sight. She’s so genuine you think you’ve met her.

All to the good, but on the more problematic side, in eleven major television series corpses are the real stars of eight of them. And in The Borgias and Game of Thrones women are reduced to barn animals, while they’re chic accessories in some of the CSI, Law and Order, and NCIS shows.

But cameras have minds of their own. They gravitate towards actresses like Cote de Pablo, who is also a recording artist, in the original NCIS series. She gets more out of her role by underacting than her showier colleagues, and the producers are often obliged to team her up with the equally understated Mark Harmon, the show’s magnetic star.

Julianna Margulies

It’s to the great credit of actresses like Stephanie March, Diane Neal, Marg Helgenberger, Emily Procter, Mariska Hargitay and quite a few others that their presence transcends the weak hands they’re dealt by directors, writers and producers. They illuminate their series in spite of the best intentions of the director to contain them. March, for instance, in episode after episode of Law and Order stood out from the ensemble because of her gravitas and aura of integrity. As for Helgenberger, the camera celebrates her no matter what hand the producers deal her. And who wouldn’t rather follow Procter into the jaws of hell than the show’s star, the one-note David Caruso? The same may be said for reserved Alana de la Garza, who first appeared in CSI: Miami, went on to Law and Order in New York and now plays in its spin-off, Law and Order: LA.

What many of these women have in common is a restraint we used to assign to laconic Western stars like Gary Cooper and James Stewart, a sense that while they have no wish, in spite of their beauty, to fill a room, it would be ill-advised to step on their toes. They are in many ways women of the century, liberated in spite of society’s hesitancy to license their liberation.

If you compare them to the women stars of the 50s, you’ll see that they’re more like Humphrey Bogart and John Garfield than Barbara Stanwyck and Ida Lupino. Their feminity has a touch of the divine, and I’m not talking about looks, I’m talking about empowerment. These actresses, like Lena Headey in Game of Thrones, should be leading armies, toppling empires, governing our destinies, not playing second fiddle to writers who evince a palpable inhospitality towards women.

Mary McCormack

If we truly wanted to be a great nation the filmmakers could lead the way. But first they must acknowledge that the Marlboro Man could be a boob, his looks being no warranty of anything but Big Tobacco’s preconceptions, Anglo-centrism and misogyny.

NCIS: Los Angeles strikes a blow in the right direction by casting the memorable Linda Hunt as director of operations, but the scriptwriters insist she parody herself like Caruso in CSI Miami.

More promising, much more promising, is Mary McCormack In Plain Sight role. Here the script writer lavishes good lines on her, obviously with the sanction of the director and producer, and she emerges as the character who’s got your back, the one who cuts the bullshit.

The dazzling Emily Deschanel as Temperance Brennan in Bones has the benefit of the concept of the show as well as a co-star, David Boreanaz, who steps aside graciously with much good humor. She also has an endearing cast of colleagues, not least Tamara Taylor, her smart and funny boss, and Michaela Conlin, Brennan’s quirky, in-your-face sidekick.

It’s strange that filmmakers freight good-looking male actors with their projections but continue to use women as floral design. Who, looking at Lena Headey, could even think of her in Game of Thrones as a one-dimensional meanie queen and incestuous lover of her brother, in this case the attractive Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, who shone in the defunct and much lamented New Amsterdam series?

Unfortunately beauty in a male-dominated society lends itself to incidentality. I wonder if this would be so of males in a female-dominated society. My mother in her paintings created a world inhabited entirely by women. She simply banished men. At the same time she introduced a hint of androgyny. I suspect we may be heading as a species toward androgyny.

But in the meantime I think much evil in the world, including terrorism, is rooted in the hatred and fear of women. In The Borgias this emerges cruelly in the treatment of Holliday Grainger as Lucrezia by her boorish husband Giovanni Sforza. If she was indeed a poisoner, one can easily forgive her. One wishes him the best poisons in Italy.

The question that keeps bothering me as I consider these actresses and how they’re cast is simply this: Don’t the filmmakers see them, I mean really see them? I guess not. It’s reminiscent of the poet Randall Jarrell’s unforgettable poem, “A Sad Heart At The Supermarket,” in which a shopper wonders why the bag boy doesn’t really see her.

Didn’t they cast a chubby Richard Burton as the famously athletic Alexander the Great in 1956? Would they have cast a chubby woman as Olympias? And if they wouldn’t think of Dolph Lundgren or Jason Statham as wimps, why in hell would they think of Headey in that way? And who but an idiot would mess with Eva Green in Camelot? Grainger looks much less dangerous—indeed she looks angelic—but by episode three of The Borgias she has already shown her goon of a husband she is nobody’s chattel. His leg is broken and worse is undoubtedly in his future.

The problem seems to be that the camera all by itself, with little help from the cinematographer, sees what the filmmakers can’t see. Do Headey, Green and Helgenberger look like anybody’s sweetie pie? True, Boreanaz and Caruso don’t treat Deschanel and Procter like sweetie pies, but that’s only because they know the camera can’t wait to quit them in order to linger on the women, so there’s no use being churlish.

I don’t think filmmakers and museum curators live on my planet. The camera keeps offering forensic evidence that they keep dismissing like judges in a kangaroo court. They have lots of precedent, of course. History books have been doing it for millennia.

The filmmakers often treat beauty much as the army treats damage—they collateralize it. But you can fill the original CSI set in Vegas with corpses, with William Petersen, with Laurence Fishburne, and Matt Damon if you can get him, and Marg Helgenberger will still be the only one in the room. It’s not because of her beauty alone: it’s a presence, the projection of a high seriousness that it took far more action and gunplay for Gary Cooper to display in High Noon.

What I’m talking about is the feminine principle and how the film industry goes to great lengths to marginalize it in the same way that the church devotes itself to paternalizing religion. The film industry has taken over where the church left off, handing out a sop here and there, but insisting on women as decor. There have been exceptions, Milla Jovovich in science fiction action films and Maggie Q in Nikita most notably, but the overall picture is that of an industry striving for the appearance of gender equality but unable to embrace it. In a way, the film industry is struggling with what I posit as a root cause of terrorism, fear of women. Perhaps a society whose biggest industries are prisons and war has that much to fear from women.

Djelloul Marbrook blogs at www.djelloulmarbrook.com and is the author of two books of poetry (Far from Algiers, Kent State; Brushstrokes and Glances, Deerbrook Editions) and three novellas (Artemisia’s Wolf, Saraceno, and Alice Miller’s Room). A retired newspaper editor, he lives in New York with his wife Marilyn.

The Flick Off: Bored to Death

The first season of HBO’s Bored to Death had me–you guessed it–bored to death.

Honestly, the last thing we really need is another show about white male hipsterism. Set in Brooklyn? Check. Protagonist is a whiny artist type? Check. Whiny artist-type best friend? Check. Kooky outsider friend? Check. Bromance-style hijinks? Check. One-dimensional women? Check. Women who inhibit the protagonist and his best friend? Check. Money not an issue? Check. You get the picture, right?

Don’t get me wrong: Ted Danson is very funny in this show, even if he is just playing a less-evil Arthur Frobisher (from the fantastic Damages), replacing coke-fueled corporate crime with pot-fueled magazine-editor slickness and humor. That’s about the only compliment I can give this snooze-fest.

The premise of Bored to Death is a bit weak, yet has potential: With nothing else to do besides write his second novel, character Jonathan Ames (named by real-life writer Jonathan Ames, played by Jason Schwartzman) offers himself for hire on Craigslist as an unlicensed investigator. Jonathan only drinks white wine now since his girlfriend henpecked him about drinking, he’s really sensitive, and, come on, he’s a lovable hipster. FEEL SORRY FOR HIM! The fact that his cases are small and insignificant (the case of the stolen skateboard, finding a woman whose workplace and stage name are already known) isn’t the problem; the problem is that they mean nothing. Jonathan is such a boring person that he investigates other people’s problems to mine them for story ideas, since, you know, he’s blocked and his second book is due. At least I think that’s why he’s doing it. Also, it’s a semi-interesting way to procrastinate (it could be a hilarious way to procrastinate, but the show rarely, if ever, reaches those heights). Another HBO show, which shares the premise of an unlicensed detective investigating often small crimes, The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, has purpose and smarts. This unlicensed detective show is all about the ego of Jonathan Ames.

Here’s the real reason for the flick off: the women are awful. They aren’t bad people—we’re not dealing with the galling misogyny of Hollywood blockbusters here—but they’re so lazily written that I can’t believe HBO, usually so keen on characters, greenlit this show. Bored isn’t interested in who its female characters really are, as its main characters aren’t interested in anything but their own egos. Ray (Galifianakis) complains about his girlfriend’s obsession with their lack of intimacy, and she regularly suggests ridiculous solutions, including Ray getting a colonic, Ray going to therapy, and Ray giving her timed massages—yet she still gives him “an allowance” so he has money for essentials like weed. Jonathan’s ex-girlfriend, whom he is still obsessed with, seems to exist only to walk her little white dog while wearing gorgeous lady-hipster outfits and torture him with her beauty of lack of love for him. Guest stints from very funny actresses—including Parker Posey, Kristin Wiig, Jenny Slate, and Bebe Neuwirth as Jonathan’s editor–are utterly wasted. (As is Zach Galifianakis, actually.) These women aren’t there to be funny, or, you know, be people; they appear mostly as male fantasies (smart, beautiful women who would have anything to do with Jonathan and Ray) and nightmares (underage, duplicitous, blackmailing, domineering, hysterical, criminal, etc.)

Every time an interesting concept comes up, the show detours so as to not actually have to deal with said interesting concept. A character doing this would be fine and fitting; the show doing it tells me that the writer (ahem, Ames) is too close to the characters and show. For example, Ray agrees to donate his sperm to a lesbian couple, only to learn that the couple gave him fake names and sold his sperm to twenty-one other couples. This is a funny set up (if you can get past the evil lesbian trope)! So, Jonathan and Ray totally investigate the case, figure out who these women are, and run into all sorts of funny trouble on the way, RIGHT? Um, no. They happen upon a list of women who bought the sperm, and visit these women to see if any are pregnant. One is. Ray is happy? What? Huh? End of episode. What? Yeah, that’s about it.

You might wonder why I even watched the show, knowing it centered on privileged white male characters who think they are funnier and more interesting than they actually are. Good question. I guess I retain hope that such a show might be well written and funny. That maybe such a show could be a humorous examination of characters like these, instead of a blindly sympathetic ego trip. I’m open to giving a lot of things a chance, when maybe I should just skip them. I don’t want to be cynical, though, and HBO has a way of surprising us with its programming. (Take The Sopranos as an example: this show is an indictment of the American upper-middle class, disguised as a show about a mafia family. Granted, it has its own problems, but I never expected to like it as much as I did.)

Bored to Death is ready to begin its third season. Since it is still on the air, I hope it has improved from the first season I watched on DVD. I can’t say I’m optimistic, but since I don’t have premium cable, you might know better than me. So, what did you think of season one? Have you watched subsequent seasons/episodes? What do you think?

Miniseries Preview: Mildred Pierce

Mildred Pierce, the new miniseries from HBO starring Kate Winslet, Evan Rachel Wood, and Guy Pearce, premieres Sunday, March 27th at 9pm. The miniseries is based on the novel by James M. Cain, with a hat-tip, I’m sure, to the 1945 film of the same name, which won Joan Crawford a Best Actress Academy Award for her performance in the title role.

From the wikipedia plot summary (of the novel):

Set in Glendale, California, in the 1930s, Mildred Pierce is the story of a middle-class housewife’s attempt to maintain her and her family’s social position during the Great Depression. Frustrated by her unemployed cheating husband, and worried by their dwindling finances, Mildred separates from him and sets out to support herself and her children on her own.

After a difficult search, she finally finds a job as a waitress, but she worries that it is beneath her middle-class station. Actually, Mildred worries more that her ambitious elder daughter, Veda, will think her new job is demeaning. Mildred encounters both success and tragedy, opening three successful restaurants and operating a pie-selling business, and coping with the death of her younger daughter, Ray. Veda enjoys Mildred’s newfound financial success, but increasingly turns ungrateful, demanding more and more from her hard-working mother and letting her contempt for people who must work for a living be known. Mildred’s attachment to Veda forms the central tragedy in the novel.

The miniseries has been getting great reviews. Dan Callahan of Slant Magazine writes:

…Mildred Pierce is a triumph from beginning to end, and the casting in supporting roles couldn’t be bettered: Melissa Leo does her best Aline MacMahon as Mildred’s next-door neighbor Mrs. Gessler, while Mare Winningham seems to have sprung straight out of a 1930s diner as Ida (in the Crawford version, the sardonic Eve Arden played Ida like a valued secretary doing a bit of slumming in the restaurant trade). Haynes lets his female characters operate as they would have at the time in this milieu. He doesn’t do any modern editorializing on their plight and he doesn’t outright celebrate their resourcefulness; instead, he sets up a panorama of female struggle and solidarity and views it distantly, like somebody writing a history book and trying to keep personal opinions out of it.

And Dennis Lim of the New York Times discusses Todd Haynes’s affinity for “the woman’s picture”:

Asked recently about his longstanding attraction to the melodramatic form known as the woman’s picture–“the untouchable of film genres,” as the critic Molly Haskell once put it–the director Todd Haynes had a ready answer.

“Stories about women in houses are the real stories of our lives,” he said. “They really tell what all of us experience in one way or another because they’re stories of family and love and basic relationships and disappointments.”

Lim later writes:

Framed as a whodunit–it opens with the killing of Mildred’s second husband, the rakish Monty Beragon–the original “Mildred Pierce” has long been a staple of feminist film theory, which generally views it as a conflicted genre hybrid that combines the masculine conventions of film noir and the feminine ones of melodrama.

I haven’t seen the Joan Crawford film or read the book, but I’m aware of the feminist and queer discussions of the first film. I’m excited that HBO has decided to turn this into a five-part miniseries, too, because I’m starting to wonder (especially after reading Total Film’s ridiculous list of the Greatest Female Characters) if television might offer more opportunity for complex women–and feminist–characters to shine. (I’ve been thinking about HBO shows in particular, like Big Love, The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, and Deadwood, but Showtime certainly doesn’t shy away from strong women, with shows like Nurse Jackie and The United States of Tara, which both have season premieres on Monday, the 28th. I also wouldn’t rule out the latest season of Dexter–because it took on some serious feminist issues as well. But, alas, this is all for another long-ass blog post.)

In the meantime, here’s to hoping Mildred Pierce doesn’t disappoint!