And therein lies what makes the show such a wonderful example of fat positivity and feminism—Rae is, per her own description, mad and fat, but it takes less than a single episode to make it abundantly clear that she is so much more than that.
This guest post by Ariana DiValentino appears as part of our theme week on Fatphobia and Fat Positivity.
Considering the number of things media aimed at teenage girls typically gets wrong, it’s refreshing to see a mainstream TV program getting it very, very right. My Mad Fat Diary is a British series about Rae Earl (played by Sharon Rooney), a 16-year old girl who is big in size and bigger in personality. Having just been released from a stay in a psychiatric hospital after a suicide attempt, the show follows Rae struggling with mental health and body image issues alongside the slew of other issues that come with being a teenage girl: friends, school, sex, and family.
From the outset, the show’s approach to Rae’s weight is spot-on. She’s not particularly confident in her appearance (what 16-year-old is?), but she is trying her damnedest. Unlike the pitfalls many “lovable fat person” stories fall into, happiness and overall self-acceptance for Rae aren’t attached to her losing weight—not even under the common guise of “loving oneself enough to take care of your body.” Weight loss is rarely the question for Rae. Working toward her own mental health, with the help of her straight-talking therapist Dr. Kester (Ian Hart), constantly is.
What makes My Mad Fat Diary stand out is how it brings all of these topics to life in a way that is undeniably entertaining. For one thing, it’s set in 1996, with throwback outfits and a soundtrack to match. When it wants to be, the show is dead funny, and not in a slapstick or grotesque way centered around Rae’s size. When she makes genuine jokes at her own expense—on her own terms, it’s funny; when neighborhood hooligans do, it’s righteously nauseating. Rae herself is a clever, sharp-witted and outspoken character who pokes fun at everything and anything, making her friends laugh as often as viewers. Surrounded by a quirky band of friends and an unconventional home life (her flighty mother is harboring her younger, non-English-speaking, undocumented immigrant boyfriend Karim from Tunisia in the house), Rae may describe herself as “mad,” but she is often the sanest character of the cast.
Some of the show’s best jokes (as well as troves of heart-wrenching moments) stem from Rae’s fully budded sexuality. Here still, there’s much less temptation to laugh at Rae than with her. While Melissa McCarthy’s overt sexuality in Bridesmaids, for example, derives its humour at least as much from the idea of a horny but sexually undesirable woman as from McCarthy’s truly hilarious farcicality, Rae’s sexuality doesn’t position her size as the butt of its joke. Rather, her private thoughts read like a Cosmo column that’s more colorful than internet literotica and yet more relatable than either of the two. Anyone who’s been a sexually frustrated adolescent can appreciate phrases like “sculpted piece of testosterone wonder” and her general outlook on butts. If only we had all had Rae’s wicked sense of humour at 16, not to mention her complete comfort with her own desires.
Rae’s maturity is about on par for her age, and as such, we cringe as she blunders through conflicts with boys, friends, and worst of all, her mother, with youthful brashness. Her adolescent perspective is written to a T, best exemplified in the sixth episode of Series 2, “Not I,” in which Rae is forced to confront the events of the past several months through the eyes of her pretty, popular, but equally insecure best friend, Chloe. Rae may be naïve at times, but the show itself is far from myopic. Even older viewers will be along for the ride as Rae deals with anxieties—such as her aversion to eating in front of people—that are perfectly expressed and at times, truly heartbreaking in their honesty.
And therein lies what makes the show such a wonderful example of fat positivity and feminism—Rae is, per her own description, mad and fat, but it takes less than a single episode to make it abundantly clear that she is so much more than that. Rae’s character and her problems are just so real. It’s rare enough for teenage girls to see positive representations of themselves onscreen, and even less so for those outside the typical beauty norms. Rae Earl is an extremely well-developed, well-written character—one we could all afford to take a cue from now and then when it comes to speaking up for others and advocating for our own well-being. My Mad Fat Diary and shows like it deserve to flood the airwaves from here to Lincolnshire.
Ariana DiValentino is a lover and budding creator of all things film and feminism, based in New York. Catch her in action on Twitter @ArianaLee721.
I don’t want to jump the gun here, since the show has only been on now for a month and a half, but Jessica Huang might just be my new favorite female character. Why? Because she is hilarious, brilliant, incredibly sarcastic, and because she refuses to let anyone get away with anything. Basically, because I see myself in her and I love it. What can I say? I’m naturally egotistical.
Fresh Off the Boat’s Jessica Huang, played by Constance Wu
This guest post by Deborah Pless appears as part of our theme week on Asian Womanhood in Pop Culture.
Guys. Guys. Guys. I don’t want to jump the gun here, since the show has only been on now for a month and a half, but Jessica Huang might just be my new favorite female character. Why? Because she is hilarious, brilliant, incredibly sarcastic, and because she refuses to let anyone get away with anything. Basically, because I see myself in her and I love it. What can I say? I’m naturally egotistical.
For those of you who haven’t been keeping up with it, Fresh Off the Boat is a new sitcom based on celebrity chef Eddie Huang’s childhood. It starts when his parents, Louis (Randall Park) and Jessica Huang (Constance Wu) move their family of three boys and a mother-in-law from the tight-knit Taiwanese immigrant community of Washington DC to Orlando, Florida.
The Huang family on the way to Orlando
Louis has purchased a steakhouse and wants the family to pursue the American dream. Eddie (Hudson Yang) is miserable that he’s being sent to suburbia. And Jessica is mostly pissed that the humidity is going to wreck her hair. Also that she’s leaving all her friends and family behind for an uncertain future.
Still, she supports her husband and she believes in his dream. In fact, Jessica can be very accurately described as the world’s most supportive spouse, even if to our eyes she frequently doesn’t seem it. She’s harsh and critical and nit-picks and nags with no remorse, but she does all of that because she genuinely cares that Louis gets to see his dream fulfilled. She loves her husband and she loves her kids, and she’s willing to do a heck of a lot to help them achieve their full potential. Whether they like it or not.
And while the story mainly follows Eddie’s frustrations with middle school and his attempts to be cool in all-white suburban Florida, Jessica’s role is much more than just as a foil to her son and husband. She’s a full character in her own right, and her storylines have as much weight, if not more, than the other characters on the show.
When the season begins, Jessica is isolated and miserable, stuck at home all day while her husband goes to work and her kids go to school. So she reads Stephen King novels (even though they give her nightmares) and watches the news (even though it makes her paranoid) and tries to make friends with the neighborhood moms. Which is hard, because she hates them.
She loves Stephen King novels, even though they inevitably give her nightmares
Eventually she does make a friend and her life gets a little less lonely, but there’s still something missing. While Jessica tries to sublimate her frustrations and boredom with concentrating on helping her sons with their school work (and creating an entire extra-curricular tutoring program from scratch) and helping her husband at the restaurant (whether he likes it or not), she still finds herself un-fulfilled and bored.
I love that this is a plotline. Jessica’s internal malaise at having been pulled from the life and job she knew isn’t laughed off or glossed over. It’s a real problem that the show addresses. In Washington DC, Jessica managed her brother-in-law’s furniture store. In Florida, she doesn’t do anything, and she hates it. She loves and supports her husband, but she isn’t happy.
And this is huge, actually. Because this is where we see that Jessica’s character on the show really does transcend stereotypes: both the stereotype of the Asian-American woman on television and that of the sitcom mom. She has her own crap going on, and the story validates that. Jessica is bored and frustrated. Is that her fault? No, the show tells us, it’s a problem that has to be fixed. And it is.
Eventually Jessica finds that her critical nature and skill at strong-arming people into a bargain works perfectly in real estate and goes on to pursue becoming a realtor. It’s not a huge point in the show, but it is one that is showcased and presented as important. It’s important because Jessica isn’t just there to make Louis and Eddie look good, she’s her own person and she has her own story. The narrative supports that, and so too do Louis and Eddie. They’re happy for her, and they should be.
Jessica and Louis work together to vandalize a competitor’s billboard
It’s funny to say, but I think the Huangs might be one of the most functional sitcom families in a long while. They’re up there with the Belchers. Because while Jessica might not really understand Louis’ love for the American dream, and while she frequently wants to strangle Eddie or her other two sons, she doesn’t. She supports them and loves them and sometimes tough loves them. They stick together and they work. As a family, they work.
What makes Jessica Huang a legendary character, though, and one of my personal favorites, is how all of this is worked in with her identity as a Taiwanese immigrant coping with the stresses of American society and culture. It would be very easy for the story to descend into cheap stereotypes with her. So easy.
Like I said before, she could be idealized into a sweet, soft-spoken “Asian flower” racial stereotype, or she could be cast as the “tiger mom,” a mother so obsessed with her children’s success that she destroys their lives, or she could be a “dragon lady,” a woman whose seductive powers are legendary but who has no real agency in her own life. Granted, this is a sitcom, so she probably wasn’t going to be that last one. But still.
Or she could have fallen into the trap of just being yet another sitcom mother. She could be defined by her relationships on the show, confined to the house and portrayed as someone with no further ambitions or inner life. Since the narrative is told from Eddie’s point of view, and people generally view their parents with a solipsistic lens until well into adulthood, it would make sense for the story to sort of gloss over Jessica as a person, and leave her as “just a mom.”
But this show doesn’t do that. This show makes Jessica an active agent in her own life, fully cognizant of who she is and what she’s doing, flawed and also incredibly, fearfully competent, and generally badass. And the show is a lot better for it.
Jessica, Eddie, and Emery help unpack in Florida
The key is context. I mean, while, yes, she does sometimes veer towards “tiger mom” territory, it’s always incredibly clear that Jessica is hard on her kids because she knows that they have barriers to their success that the other kids don’t. Jessica is written to be fully aware of the impact that being non-white will have on her children, and she strives to offset that. And while she is supportive of Louis pursuit of the American dream, she is also critical of “America” in general. She sees little to value in white culture and is openly against some aspects.
As she says in the first episode when her youngest son, Evan, discovers he is lactose intolerant, “His body is rejecting white culture. Which makes me kind of proud.”
She’s a complex figure in Eddie’s life. On the one hand, he really admires his mother. He respects how driven she is and how she refuses to take anyone’s crap. You can tell he has learned a lot about being tough and strong from her. But, on the other hand, she clearly drives him nuts. She gets fierce and overprotective beyond the point of it being helpful, like when she assaults him with a stuffed animal to demonstrate why he shouldn’t date rape. It’s a great message, but the delivery is flawed. And that makes her a much more interesting character.
Credit here has to be given to all the people involved in the development process of the character Jessica Huang: from Eddie Huang and his real life mother to Nahnatchka Khan (who also produced Don’t Trust the B* in Apartment 23) to Constance Wu. All of these people and the many others who influenced her portrayal deserve a lot of thanks for their thoughtful intentionality in making Jessica Huang as grounded and real as she is.
Jessica holds a seminar on sexual harassment at her husband’s restaurant
Because that’s the thing, the real reason I love her so much. Jessica Huang is a real person. And not just in that she’s based on an actual human being. I mean that she has flaws and makes mistakes and overreacts and underreacts and sometimes she’s a bitch and sometimes she cries and sometimes she’s the best mother in the world. She’s a person, not just a cartoon.
I could go on here about how vital and wonderful this is when you consider the deeply sad state of women of color, particularly Asian women, on television, but I think I’ll let the numbers speak for themselves. Fresh Off the Boat is only the second mainstream sitcom in America to feature an Asian family. The first was Margaret Cho’s All-American Girl, and that show tried to strip as much Asian-ness from its characters as humanly possible.
Jessica Huang, though not the main character of the show, is undoubtedly its central figure and breakout star. And she is a fully fleshed out, complex, and fascinating character. Jessica’s existence doesn’t negate the fact that Asian women are chronically underrepresented on television, but she certainly is a step in the right direction.
Deborah Pless runs Kiss My Wonder Woman and works as a freelance writer and editor in western Washington when she’s not busy camping out at the movies or watching too much TV. You can follow her on Twitter and Tumblr just as long as you like feminist rants, an obsession with superheroes, and sandwiches.
As people, no matter what gender, it is seemingly second nature to want others to like us and to portray our best selves to them. Just look at the ritual of the date or the job interview. That Cristina defied this action (though we have seen her star-struck when meeting surgeons like Tom Evans and Preston Burke) made her not just a feminist character, but a truly human(ist) one.
This guest post by Scarlett Harris is an updated version of a post that originally appeared on The Scarlett Woman and appears now as part of our theme week on Unlikable Women. Cross-posted with permission.
When it comes to “likable” female characters on TV, up until she departed Grey’s Anatomy last season, Cristina Yang probably wasn’t one of them.
She was abrasive, unfeeling, career-driven, ruthless and selfish. Everything a woman shouldn’t be, according to patriarchal norms.
Perhaps she could’ve been more like the ousted Izzie Stevens, who was bubbly and sexy and baked cookies. Or the virginal and highly strung April Kempner, whom Cristina praises for having “virgin super powers,” enabling her to be super-organized.
But I, like many Bitch Flicks readers, loved Cristina just the way she is. She had her eye on the prize, wouldn’t compromise her personal beliefs or goals to be liked by her peers or loved by a man, and she had “tiny little genius” hands that enable her to roll with the big guns.
This is why Cristina Yang is one of an increasing cohort of “feminist”—or “strong female”—characters on television.
For one thing, she refuses to rely on her looks or her feminine wiles to get ahead. In “This is How We Do It” in season seven, she rejects Owen’s compliment about her beauty, saying, “If you want to appease me, compliment my brain.”
And in season seven’s final, we saw Cristina exercise her right to choose and schedule her second abortion on the show, after much (mostly solo) deliberation. While excluding the opinion of her significant other and biological contributor to the fetus wasn’t the most respectful thing to do, ultimately it came down to her choice, and she chose to terminate the pregnancy.
In season two, Cristina divulged that she was pregnant to Dr. Burke and, again, made the decision to get an abortion on her own. Whereas a character like Izzie seemed to serve the anti-abortion agenda (she gave up her own baby for adoption when she was a teenager growing up in a trailer park, and convinced a HIV-positive woman to carry her pregnancy to term), Cristina resisted the societal pressures to tap into her maternal instincts and give birth to a child she does not want. Shonda Rhimes has since proved that she’s one of the only truly pro-choice producers in television, and I have written further about her stance here.
Regardless of whose agenda could be seen as being served by Cristina’s character, she acted without fear of what other people will think of her.
As people, no matter what gender, it is seemingly second nature to want others to like us and to portray our best selves to them. Just look at the ritual of the date or the job interview. That Cristina defied this action (though we have seen her star-struck when meeting surgeons like Tom Evans and Preston Burke) made her not just a feminist character, but a truly human(ist) one.
When Grey’s Anatomy first debuted, it seemed that Cristina Yang was positioned to challenge and grate on the audience, with Meredith or Izzie being more palatable to viewers. As the seasons continued (some would say dragged on), the women of Grey’s Anatomy were proven to be anything but likable, cheating on their spouses, meddling in medical cases that would see them lose their licenses and be sued for malpractice, grieving, quitting, and just dealing with the challenges that being a surgeon and a person throws at you. Though Seattle Grace/Seattle Grace Mercy West/Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital/what the hell is that hospital called now?! is a fictional medical institution, it’s one of the realest portrayals of not just women but people on TV today. Like Cristina’s departure last season, it will truly be a sad day when those doctors leave our living rooms for good.
Scarlett Harris is a Melbourne, Australia-based freelance writer and blogger at The Scarlett Woman, where she writes about femin- and other -isms. You can follow her on Twitter.
It’s no coincidence that ‘Mom’ drew the ire of One Million Moms, a conservative media watchdog group that seeks to eliminate immorality and vulgarity (their words) in entertainment. In an undated post titled “CBS Makes ‘Mom’ Look Bad,” the group called for moms to protest ‘Mom,’ pointing specifically to the show’s portrayal of mothering: “If possible, try to imagine the worst possible characteristics a mother could have. Then multiply that by ten….” The post listed numerous examples of what was deemed “unacceptable content” on ‘Mom,’ but I think it’s the show’s deliberate challenge to the new momism that really ticked off One Million Moms.
Mom features two strong female leads played by Anna Faris and Allison Janney
This is a guest post by Jessamyn Neuhaus.
I’m a feminist and I’ve loved television all my life. Now TV has finally started to love me back with some of the most interesting and intelligent female lead characters ever seen in any entertainment medium. But there’s still lots to loathe, with gold-digging hussies, hysterical bridezillas, and helpmeet housewives aplenty on TV.
So when a show—particularly a show on one of the elderly big three networks—gives us something better, we should pay attention. Mom, the latest sitcom spearheaded by longtime TV writer and producer Chuck Lorre, is something better. Featuring two strong female leads, this CBS show about Kristy (Anna Faris), a recently sober single mother of two who is rebuilding a relationship with her own negligent mother Bonnie (Allison Janney), is not a flawless feminist text. But for those of us who believe mainstream popular culture can be a place for both reinforcing and challenging gender stereotypes, there are at least three reasons to be watching when the second season of Mom begins on Oct. 30.
1. Allison Janney is perfect.
Lorre has an uneven record when it comes to his female characters. Roseanne and Grace Under Fire were high points, and I think we can all agree that Two and a Half Men is the lowest of the low points. Even Lorre’s best shows are characterized by an unabashed mainstream commercialism, so it’s not surprising that some aspects Mom are cookie-cutter mediocre sitcom.
For instance, TV’s version of “working class” is frequently cringeworthy and Mom is no exception. Lorre has gotten props for his blue collar characters, but on Mom, a single waitress (admittedly, at an upscale restaurant) with two children and sober for only six months can afford to rent a three-bedroom home in a safe neighborhood and provide her family with smart phones, laptops, video games, and Anthropologie bed linens. Sitcoms don’t set out to be “realistic” of course, but it’s jarring to see the supposedly broke family enjoying luxury consumer goods. Kristy also sports a haircut and color that costs more per month than many viewers’ rent or mortgage payments.
A working class single mother of two could never afford these bed linens. Just sayin.’
In addition, many of the men on Mom are rather shallowly drawn male caricatures, from the loveable high school stoner who impregnates Kristy’s daughter Violet, to the loveable stoner ex-husband who impregnated Kristy years ago, to the whiny married-to-a-battle-ax boss with whom Kristy has a brief affair.
Then there’s the widely panned laugh track. At this point, a laugh track (even if it’s ostensibly recorded live audience laughter) is more than outdated. It undermines the show’s comedic impact.
And finally: the fat suit Farris donned in “Sonograms and Tube Tops.” It’s offensive, and it’s also just not funny. Really. Not. Funny.
Mom’s not perfect. But Allison Janney is.
Not to say that Faris isn’t good too. She has excellent comedy timing and physicality, and also handles some of the more serious moments in the show well, giving Kristy emotional depth within the limitations of a comedy-tackling-serious-subjects-with-a-light-touch framework. Farris has often deftly undercut the typecasting trap of being a cute petite blonde girl, and she does so on Mom.
But Faris’ solid skills are outshone in every scene with Janney, whose crackling delivery and unique physical presence exude…well, the only word is power. Power that is remarkable to see so confidently exercised by a female character on a traditional sitcom. Bonnie has a lot of past problems (teenage pregnancy, drug dealing) and current flaws (tenuously sober, intermittently employed, and highly self-absorbed). She’s making some amends to Kristy now, but she wastes no time on pointless guilt or doubt. Bonnie is always beautifully self-assured. It’s a real pleasure to see, on a traditional sitcom, a strikingly tall, handsome (not “pretty”), deep-voiced woman OVER 50 YEARS OLD strut her stuff without being made into a buffoon or an object of pity.
2. Female sexuality and reproduction are multifaceted and messy.
When the pilot ended with Kristy’s discovering that Violet might be pregnant, I almost gave up on Mom. Another TV teenage pregnancy, because that’s the most interesting thing that can happen to a high school girl, and naturally she’ll never consider an abortion because abortions don’t exist in TV Land? No thanks. But as the season continued, I was won over by some of the nuances and complexities of female sexuality and reproduction on Mom, including Violet’s pregnancy.
Although sitcomish in many ways, the pregnancy story depicted Violet truly struggling to decide whether to raise the baby herself or give it up for adoption. Violet changes her mind several times, up to and throughout her labor and delivery in the season finale. It was an emotionally difficult process, which included choosing potential adoptive parents and convincing her boyfriend it’s the right decision on “Clumsy Monkeys and Tilted Uterus,” and a tearful but determined goodbye to the baby after the birth. Meanwhile, Bonnie and Kristy support Violet’s decision but also experience it as a deep loss—though the emotional toll doesn’t stop Kristy from picking up her camera phone during Violet’s labor to “make a video for you to watch the next time you think about having unprotected sex.”
Kristy encourages Violet to use birth control in the future.
The National Council for Adoption praised the story line, and it was a refreshing change from the standard flippant sitcom treatment of birth mothers and adoption. (Ironically, one of the most egregious examples of such stories was the 2004 episode of Friends in which a birth mother played by Anna Faris is so nonchalant that she doesn’t even realize that she’s having twins.)
There are other things to applaud about the show’s depictions of sex, which are often humorous without falling into gratuitous references to horniness and/or female genitals (Two Broke Girls, I’m looking at you). The show begins with Kristy’s bad decision to sleep with her married boss but she clearly knows it’s stupid and soon ends it. She tries to make smarter sexual decisions, postponing intercourse with a nice guy in an effort to maintain her sobriety and to explore the long term potential of the relationship. But in “Nietzsche and Beer Run,” she falls immediately into bed and almost-love with a smolderingly hot philosopher/fireman (and who could blame her? What a combo!). This guy has a drinking/drugs/womanizing problem and for most of “Jail Jail and Japanese Porn,” Kristy teeters on the edge of messing up her life big time to be with him, but then snaps out of it and cuts him loose. Kristy also occasionally sleeps with her ex-husband, but with a minimum of drama. In contrast to TV’s tired “woman in her 30s who can’t find a husband or manage her romantic life,” Kristy’s sex life is convincingly messy but never demeaning or disempowering. She’s unashamedly sexual, gladly accepting the gift of a vibrator from Bonnie and joking that the only thing that could possibly cause her to relapse and drink again would be “I have a stroke and forget how to masturbate.” But sex is just one part of her life, and although she’s doing some fumbling, she’s not overwrought or hung up about it.
Bonnie’s healthy sexual appetite is sometimes portrayed as unfortunate promiscuity and sometimes embarrassing for Kristy, but Bonnie is never belittled by the writers for being a sexual person. She’s absolutely, completely confident in her attractiveness and picks up desirable (often younger) men with flawless and humorous ease that never stoops to presenting her as a laughingstock. Though Bonnie frets about the onset of menopause in “Estrogen and a Hearty Breakfast,” most of the time her sexuality is sophisticated and fluid in a way that’s unusual for network TV. In “Corned Beef and Handcuffs,” she smoothly comes out the victor in a kinky standoff with a pervy chef, and in “Leather Cribs and a Medieval Rack” casually reveals that she had a long time relationship with another woman. “You were gay?” gasps Kristy. “Not gay so much as temporarily disgusted with men,” smiles Bonnie. She knows she’s sexy, but more importantly, so do the viewers because the show does not depict Bonnie as a pathetic old cougar.
3. The moms on Mom are not “moms.”
Mom, in its title and in its content, strikes a blow against one of the more insidious aspects of gender ideology today: “the new momism.” Identified by Susan J. Douglas and Meredith W. Michaels in The Mommy Myth, the new momism sets impossibly high ideals and norms for good mothering. Douglas and Meredith argue that one symptom of the new momism is the widespread use of the term “mom” itself. They point out that “Mom” is what kids call mothers and in many ways it can be patronizing and problematic when adults use “mom” to describe women.
Recovering addicts, Bonnie and Kristy both attend AA meetings.
On Mom, the mothers are loving, but not even close to ideal moms. And not in a merely goofy Modern Family kind of way, but in seriously screwed up ways. Both Bonnie and Kristy are trying to reestablish trust with their daughters after years of addiction and neglect. Their AA friend Marjorie (Mimi Kennedy) is estranged from her children due to her past drug and alcohol abuse, and another friend, Regina (the always awesome Octavia Spencer) has to leave her son behind when she goes to jail for embezzlement. These are mothers who have messed up, but they are still trying to do right by their kids.
At times, Mom offers funny yet astute counterpoints to our society’s relentless glorification of mothering. For example, in “Loathing and Tube Socks,” Kristy’s son Roscoe’s run out of clean clothes and in desperation, she stops at a dollar store (a small but noteworthy nod to Kristy’s financial pressures) on the way to school to buy him new underwear. But Roscoe balks because they have anchors on them and “anchors are stupid” and he “likes his underwear to make sense.” “Oh for God’s sake, it’s just a design! It doesn’t mean anything,” she snaps, adding “I am not having this conversation with you.” Then a store employee won’t let Roscoe use the restroom to change. Kristy freaks, whips open a beach towel in front of Roscoe, and orders him to take off his pants and change right there in the aisle. The scene captures the frenzied moments when real-life parenting is absurdly exasperating; when you find yourself acting like a total jackass—arguing about anchor underpants with an eight-year-old, for example—and it’s not funny ha ha, it’s funny because it’s so frustrating and ridiculous that you either laugh or completely lose it.
It’s no coincidence that Mom drew the ire of One Million Moms, a conservative media watchdog group that seeks to eliminate immorality and vulgarity (their words) in entertainment. In an undated post titled “CBS Makes ‘Mom’ Look Bad,” the group called for moms to protest Mom, pointing specifically to the show’s portrayal of mothering: “If possible, try to imagine the worst possible characteristics a mother could have. Then multiply that by ten….” The post listed numerous examples of what was deemed “unacceptable content” on Mom but I think it’s the show’s deliberate challenge to the new momism that really ticked off One Million Moms.
Kristy, Bonnie, and even Violet are not sitcoms’ typical “good moms.” Rather, they are interesting, often complex, women who are definitely worth watching.
Growing up isn’t cute. At six or 16 or anywhere in between, figuring out who you are and what your place in the world is isn’t sparkly fun-times. The best you can hope for is to have a real friend to muddle through the worst of it with you, someone who is having just as much of a crazy time as you are, who will run to your defense, give you pep talks when you’re about to face the Dark Kingdom, and shamelessly make fun of you for being such a crybaby after you call her a meanie.
Usagi and Rei
This guest post by Kathryn Diaz appears as part of our theme week on Female Friendship.
Growing up isn’t cute. At six or 16 or anywhere in between, figuring out who you are and what your place in the world is isn’t sparkly fun-times. The best you can hope for is to have a real friend to muddle through the worst of it with you, someone who is having just as much of a crazy time as you are, who will run to your defense, give you pep talks when you’re about to face the Dark Kingdom, and shamelessly make fun of you for being sucha crybaby after you call her a meanie.
The face of true friendship
For real: shiny makeup senshi or not, the world needs more best friendships like Usagi and Rei’s from Sailor Moon. These two girls could not be more different on the surface, but does that stop Usagi from wanting to save her from sudden danger? You bet your moon tiara not. Even after she accidentally tried to exorcise an evil spirit from her and gave her a harsh brush-off when she tried to offer help, saving Rei is still Usagi’s top priority when she sees her in danger. In fact, it’s Rei’s peril that prompts fraidy-cat Usagi to find her courage and transform into her super-powered self at all. How’s that for serious friendship? But what really puts things over the top is how quickly they fall into sharp banter and jibes.
The Rei that teases Usagi about her crush on Tuxedo Mask, rolls her eyes when she’s goofing off on merry-go-rounds instead of fighting evil, and wrestles on the floor with her for a Sailor V book is a far cry from the testy, aloof shrine maiden she was when they first met, and yet she transitions into this openness very quickly where Usagi is concerned. For Rei, acting out her frustration in honest, albeit childish, ways is a sign of trust and comfortability. There is no other senshi on the team she leaps to go toe-to-toe with. In the second episode after they meet, Rei all but comes to blows with Usagi to get her and a small child away from the Jadeite-trap-of-the-week. Though normally cool and competent, she drags them off in an embarrassing spectacle. But after they’re called out, we see her begrudgingly riding the kiddie train with Usagi as a kind of apology, even though she knows she was right. This is because Rei cares under all her criticism and attitude. Cracking jokes at Usagi’s expense is her way of saying “I love you.” And for her part, Usagi speaks the same language as Rei when the situation calls for it. She spies on Rei’s talks with Mamoru and races to score a date with him before she does. She trips her, she shouts that she’s a meanie whenever they’re in front of their friends, and teases her about her crush on Yuichiro. In short, these two can exercise their anime teen angst on common ground until they’re practically blue in the face.
Nothing says I love you like fighting over who gets to read Sailor V first
This is not to say that Usagi and Rei are simply mutual punching bags for each other. As fellow senshi Makoto points out, “The more you fight, the better friends you are.” And are they ever friends. After taking a step too far in one of their “fights,” Usagi uses her disguise pen to pose as a fortune teller to help Rei get with a boy she likes. The plan falls apart, of course, but the point lies in the extent and sincerity of her effort. In a later episode, Usagi and Rei are trapped in a snow drift. To pass the time, Usagi breaks out a musical locket from the then-missing Tuxedo Mask. But as soon as Rei sits beside her, she puts it away and asks if she hurt Rei’s feelings. She knows she and Rei have been playing tug-of-war with Tuxedo Mask; she knows that when he was taken, and Rei was upset that she didn’t fight for him. Even though their problems have multiplied a good tenfold since then, Usagi is worried that she might have awoken genuinely hurt feelings in Rei. There is a line between these two. They give each other ample permission to communicate in implications, gestures, shouts and screams, but if any of their verbal blows actually bruise, they’ll race to pedal back. In the scene, Rei shrugs off Usagi’s worries. “Why would I think that?” she says. “Honestly, I’ve already given up on Mamoru–I mean–Tuxedo Mask.” Not only does she assure Usagi, but she takes the conflict off the table. She’s sad, of course, but any affection for Tuxedo Mask comes second to Usagi. Further proof: she steps away from communicating via implication and harsh humor to be comforting and frank with Usagi. It isn’t just what she’s doing for Usagi in this moment, it’s how.
Rei can put aside anything for Usagi
Of course, because Usagi and Rei’s friendship thrives less on heart-to-hearts and more on pulling faces and well-meant bickering, Rei follows up this tender moment with snipping, “If you don’t live in happiness with Mamoru, I’ll punish you!” Usagi smiles. She knows exactly what Rei is trying to say.
The strongest demonstration of Rei’s friendship with Usagi doesn’t come until one of the last episodes of Sailor Moon‘s first season. In a rare moment of thorough planning, Usagi has decided to pretend to have fallen out with the other senshi in the hope that the Dark Kingdom will come after her and take her to Tuxedo Mask. The bad guys take the bait, but rather than whisk her away, they begin to torture her. Unbeknownst to them, the other sailor senshi are lurking nearby, and they want to call the plan off and save their friend. What stops them? Rei. Rei knows what’s at stake and how important it is to Usagi that she have the chance to save the boy she loves. Rei’s bond with Usagi is one such that she can be in as much anguish as the other senshi at watching Usagi in pain, but have enough wherewithal to stay focused on the mission that Usagi has put in place. Of course, when to some of the senshi Rei’s relationship with Usagi looks more like veiled contempt than ill-concealed devotion, questions arise about her true motives. Makoto accuses her of hating Usagi all along. Rei reveals that she’s only lasted this long because she loves Usagi.
Rei’s truth is heartbreaking
In the end, Rei breaks the plan without so much as a “never mind” to the other senshi. She doesn’t care that she just insisted otherwise 10 seconds ago and she doesn’t care that the bad guys will know that the jig is up or that Usagi might be mad that she went back on her word. Rei is fearless. She knows that Usagi will accept and forgive her. Because if there’s one thing you can count on from a friend that you can name-call, boy chase, and fight evil with, it’s that you are always accepted and always forgiven. If that’s not true friendship, I don’t know what is.
This look is what it’s all about
Kathryn Diaz is a writer living in Houston, Texas. She is currently pursuing a B.A in English at the University of Houston. You can follow her at The Telescope for more of her work.
I avoided ‘Don’t Trust the B— in Apartment 23’ for quite a while; at a cursory Netflix glance it looked like anti-feminist tripe featuring catty women pitted against each other in a false dichotomy of “nice” and “bitch.” Then I watched it.
I could not have been more wrong.
June and Chloe and Pie <3
This cross-post by Mychael Blinde previously appeared at her blog Vagina Dentwata and appears as part of our theme week on Female Friendship.
I avoided Don’t Trust the B— in Apartment 23 for quite a while; at a cursory Netflix glance it looked like anti-feminist tripe featuring catty women pitted against each other in a false dichotomy of “nice” and “bitch.” Then I watched it.
I could not have been more wrong.
There are two points I want to make in this piece:
Don’t Trust the B— showcases a twisted yet surprisingly heartwarming female friendship that is fundamentally predicated on respect, and this mutual respect leads to personal growth for both women.
I endorse the use of the bowdlerized “B—” in the show’s title as well as the word “bitch” in the show, and I even think that the use of the word “bitch” in the context of this show has the potential to have a positive impact on women’s lives.
“Oh brave new world!”
Viewers are introduced to the series via June, an intelligent and optimistic Midwestern gal who moves to New York for an exciting new position at a big financial firm, only to discover that the firm has imploded and as a result she is left with no job and no apartment. Despite the dire nature of her circumstances, June is determined: she will not give up and go back to Indiana — she will take control of her life and somehow find a way to stick it out in New York. (Tenacious ladies FTW!)
After meeting with a montage of potential (utterly awful) roommates, June meets Chloe, who presents herself as the picture perfect BFF lady roommate. As soon as June signs on and pays first and last months’ rent, Chloe starts walking around naked and barging into the bathroom and being a total asshole all the time.
“Tis new to thee.”
But June does not capitulate to Chloe’s con artistry; instead, she escalates the altercation: she sells all of Chloe’s furniture. When June stands up to Chloe, their friendship begins to take root.
If June was weak, Chloe wouldn’t respect her, and for Chloe, respect is everything. If she doesn’t respect you, forget it. June is strong in a different way than Chloe. She’s strong in a more surprising way. Chloe does things that shock people, but then, June also steps up in a way that feels surprising and unexpected.
Show creator/executive producer/writer Nahnatchka Khan (left), executive producer/writer David Hemingson (a little bit less left), and the core cast of Don’t Trust the B–
Because of their fundamental respect for each other, over the course of the show’s two seasons these two very different women are each able to learn from the other. June teaches Chloe that girls can play pranks on each other, and Chloe teaches June that “sexy” shouldn’t be narrowly defined by the people featured on the covers of magazines. Chloe teaches June that she can be a “casual sexer,” and June teaches Chloe that it’s OK for her to care about other people.
Chloe and June enjoy brunch and friendship
Dreama Walker’s June is a joy to watch: her strength and determination in the face of adversity, her glass-half-full approach to life, her verve.
Dreama Walker, June
She’s an ambitious woman navigating the boys’ club world of finance, and she’s not afraid to walk away from a tremendous career opportunity when she discovers a gross misogynistic ethos pervades the company that hired her. It should be noted that June is no prude: she clearly has sexual desires, and while she’s sometimes hesitant to act on them, she’s never ashamed of them. Only someone with spectacular strength, spirit, and optimism could stand a chance of weathering Hurricane Chloe, and June is ever up for the challenge.
And let’s talk about Krysten Ritter’s Chloe –
Krysten Ritter, Chloe
I challenge you to name another female character on TV who is such a total sociopathic manipulative narcissistic asshole and yet so incredibly likable. Sure, the anti-hero is all over television, but it’s male characters: Gregory House, Walter White, Don Draper, all the guys in this book so aptly titled: Difficult Men. Chloe is unique, as Buzzfeed points out in the list “9 Reasons to Save Don’t Trust the B— in Apartment 23”:
2. There’s no other character like Chloe on TV.
She’s a treasure. The joy of Chloe is that there’s always a method to her madness. Even when she’s nasty and vindictive, she has a greater plan. Sometimes the end doesn’t justify the means, but she’s doing her best by being the worst.
Deep, deep, deeeep down, Chloe is extremely loyal to those closest to her. Her approach to everyone and everything is typically maniacal and manipulative, which renders her moments of (albeit often twisted) altruism all the more meaningful.
For example, in the pilot episode, Chloe has sex with June’s cheating scumbag boyfriend on June’s birthday cake for no other reason than to prove to June that she needs to DTMFA. “That is the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me,” June says, and she means it.
Khan provides an insight into Chloe’s psyche and why we embrace her often horrific antics:
She does have her own moral code. She’s not just a sociopath. You understand why she does what she does, once she explains it to you. It’s weird, fucked-up logic, obviously, but you’re like, “Oh, okay, all right, I see what she’s going for.”
My favorite example of this occurs in “Sexy People…”, the episode in which Chloe takes over People Magazine to prove a point to June about the mutability and marketability of “sexy” in popular culture:
Chloe: I had them mock this up down at the office. I became the managing editor of People Magazine today.
June: Yeah, right.
Chloe: It’s true. I’ve taken over a bunch of companies before…You just gotta walk in like you own the place, fire the first person to ask you a question, fire the second person to ask you a question, and then gaze out the window and draw a peen on the board. It’s the traditional intimidation-confusion-submission technique.
Commence Hostile Takeover
We root for Chloe in her quest to take over People’s Sexiest Man Alive issue, no matter how atrocious her methods. In fact, even the recipient of Chloe’s worst treatment (Brenda, smackwich) ultimately states that Chloe was the best boss she’s ever had. We, the audience, are asked to love Chloe in all of her bitch glory.
Don’t Trust the B—
This brings me to my essay’s second subject: the word “bitch.”
Just prior to the launch of the series, articles sprang up questioning and condemning ABC’s use of “Bitch” and “B—”:
Michal Lemberger, in “What ‘B—’ leaves out” (Salon), acknowledges that while “bitch” is often used to denigrate women, it can also be used by women to elevate other women:
Any woman who is labeled a bitch is someone who won’t give what’s asked of her. She has broken the social contract that demands women be pliable and accommodating. Which is precisely the opposite of its meaning when used as a compliment. A woman who admiringly calls another woman a bitch is declaring her admiration for someone who won’t conform to those expectations.
Nevertheless, she takes issue with the use of the “B—” in ABC’s show title:
Despite the gains women have made, gender relations in America remain troubled: Widespread wage gaps still exist, as does a paucity of women at the highest levels of power. We’re still arguing about why women get blamed for their own rapes. The list goes on and on. The words we use to refer to women show us how far that process is from being complete.
It’s not within a cultural vacuum that this show chose its title. The creators and ABC all know it demeans women. But they obviously don’t give a shit. What’s new?
I respect every woman’s right to object to words that have historically been used to subjugate women. But I also endorse every woman’s right to reclaim this oppressive language, to seize control of a hateful, harmful word and reshape it to facilitate empowerment.
Created by: Nahnatchka Khan
I believe that the use of “bitch,” in the context of Don’t Trust the B—, has the power to create a positive impact on women’s lives. This show, created by a woman, paints a bitch as a fearless woman who knows who she is, what she wants, and how to get it. We root for the bitch!
Andi Zeisler, co-founder and creative/editorial director of Bitch Magazine, writes in “The B-Word? You Betcha.” (Washington Post):
My own definition of the term being what it is, I can confidently say that I want my next president to be a bitch, and that goes for men and women. Outspoken? Check. Commanding? Indeed. Unworried about pleasing everybody? Sure. Won’t bow to pressure to be “nice”? You bet.
Outspoken, commanding, unworried about pleasing everybody, won’t bow to pressure to be “nice” – this sounds like Chloe…and it also sounds like June. In fact, sharing these qualities is what allows this unlikely duo to forge their friendship. Sure, Chloe takes “bitch” to the comic extreme, but hey, that’s the genre.
Don’t Trust the B— in Apartment 23 is by no means an absolute paragon of feminist values. There’s lots of problematic sociocultural stuff to unpack here, like impossible standards of beauty and white central characters orbited by peripheral characters of color. What shouldn’t be considered problematic by feminist communities is the show’s use of the word “bitch.”
America can’t yet handle using all five letters of the word “Bitch” in a network show title, but there is no question as to what B— means. The bowdlerized version allows Khan to use the controversial word, and the way she uses it pushes our culture’s conception of “bitch” toward Zeisler’s definition – a good thing for women and a great thing for June and Chloe!
Twenty years later, we need more of what My So-Called Life gave us a taste of. We need teenage girl protagonists to be sexual, not sexy. We need honest portrayals of what it is to be a teenager–not only for teenagers who need to see themselves in faithful mirrors, but also for adults who are still trying to figure themselves out.
My So-Called Life
This repost by Leigh Kolb appears as My So-Called Life turns 20.
Our teenage years are often unfulfilled and disappointing. We relentlessly try to find ourselves, to make things good, but those short years are over quickly, and we don’t truly get it until much later.
These years are much like the short-lived My So-Called Life, which aired from 1994 to early 1995, and was canceled after just one season. The protagonist of My So-Called Life, Angela Chase (Claire Danes), is a powerful representation of those short teenage years. She is self-centered, horny, and emotional. She is pulled from every direction, trying to separate from her parents and evolve with new friends. She has high expectations and deep disappointments. Angela and her friends are painfully accurate portrayals of what it is to be a teenager.
As sad and unjust as it is that the show only lasted one season, there’s something poignant about how it was short and open-ended, yet packed such intensity into 19 episodes. My So-Called Life is, essentially, a mirror image of adolescence not only in narrative, but also in format.
Angela Chase
My So-Called Life is a gold mine for feminist analysis–the show includes many thoughtful critiques of what it means to be a young woman in our culture, what it means to be a wife and mother, what it means to be a man, and what it means to be gay. Topics typically reserved for superficial after-school specials (sexuality, drug use, abuse, coming out) are treated with an intensely real humanity that many critics have argued completely changed the genre of adolescent and family dramas.
Being a teenage girl in our culture is fraught with cultural expectations and disappointments. Angela–along with girlfriends Rayanne and Sharon–are portrayed not as caricatures, not as virgins or whores, not as good girls or bad girls. They are complex and sexual; they are selfish and confused; they are wonderful and awful.
Teenagers are typically–biologically–self-centered and sexual, and the power of nostalgia drives us to consider and reconsider our teen years (in them and after them). My So-Called Life stands the test of time because it deals with these issues through characters and plot lines that reflect reality.
Self-Centered
Early in the season, the writers frame most episodes with lessons that the students are learning in school. Kafka’s Metamorphosis is juxtaposed with Angela changing her looks (dying her hair red) and feeling misunderstood by her parents. Angela sits in a class about JFK’s assassination, and says she’s “jealous” that she hasn’t had that defining moment in life that she’ll always remember where she was when it happened. Malcolm X’s words are turned into a lament about a zit. Students flirt and make out, ignoring the art on a field trip to the art museum.
On the surface, these woven-together stories seem jarring–we watch Angela turn everything into an insignificant comparison to her own life. But this is exactly what we do in adolescence. We pout that nothing important has happened in our lifetime without understanding the weight of history because we think that we are the center of history. There is scientific proof that teenagers’ brains function differently–it’s important to remind ourselves of that.
My So-Called Life, specifically through Angela’s narrative, portrays that era of life perfectly. Creator/writer/producer Winnie Holzman said, “I just went back to what it was like to be a teenager for me. Sure, Angela’s me. But at the risk of sounding. . . whatever, all the characters were me.” Holzman researched further by teaching at a high school for a couple of days, and realized that teenagers were “exactly the same” as they always had been (which is perhaps why the show still seems so real).
The unending journey to define “self”
This selfishness is not presented with judgment or disdain, though. All of the characters–teens and adults alike–have human motivations, which we sometimes like, and sometimes don’t. Their selfishness is examined through the consequences and normality of being self-centered as a teenager, and how that looks and feels different when one is a parent or teacher. Angela worrying about a zit over Malcolm X’s words seems off-putting, but it’s painfully real.
Angela’s relationships with her friends–Rayanne, Rickie, Brian, and Sharon–also highlight the inflated sense of self that navigates us through those formative years.
Horny
One of my favorite aspects of the show is the way young female sexuality is portrayed. Angela is horny as hell. Those fresh, out-of-control adolescent sexual urges are clear and accurate throughout the series, and the writers deal with teenage sexuality with truth and nuance that is too rare in portrayals of teenage sexuality (especially teenage girls’ sexuality). Angela’s inner monologues about–and eventual makeouts with–Jordan Catalano reveal that intensity.
Intense
Angela is clearly sexual, but also struggles with the disappointing reality of teenage male sexuality when Jordan tongue-attacks her with a terrible, awkward kiss, or expects sex before she’s ready. She wants him so much, but the expectations and imbalance of sexual power are crushing. Angela is never anti-sex, but she is nervous. She speaks with her doctor about protection, and opens up to Sharon. Her reasons for not being quite ready don’t have to do with her parents or religion–it’s about her. And that’s just how it should be.
Meanwhile, straight-laced Sharon is getting it on constantly. She shares with Angela that the expectations that disregard female agency are problematic, but she enthusiastically enjoys sex. While Sharon seems the most judgmental and prudish, she has a fulfilling and active sex life. Angela realizes–as do we–that sexual acts don’t define a person, but sexuality is an important part of who we are.
Rayanne is known by her peers as promiscuous and “slutty,” but we are also challenged to look beyond that. She wants to define herself, and that’s the label that has stuck–so she decides to be proud of the designation (she and Sharon share sub-plots about their sexual reputations). Her sexual experiences–the drunken night with Jordan being the only time we know she has sex–don’t seem to be healthy or for her. All of the characters needed more seasons to have their stories fully realized, but Rayanne especially needed more than 19 episodes to be explored.
My So-Called Life turns the virgin-whore dichotomy on its head. Young women’s sexuality–the intensity, the confusion, the expectations–is presented realistically, and the message that when it’s good, it’s good, is loud and clear.
INTENSE
Angela and Jordan’s makeout scenes are, well, amazing, and the female gaze is often catered to. When Angela is skipping geometry study sessions to go make out with Jordan in the boiler room, we understand why she’s doing it. That episode has some excellent commentary on young women’s educational motivations, especially mathematics. When an instructor laments that it’s “so sad” when these smart girls don’t try, another instructor says that it’s because of their low self-esteem.
While that’s not an untrue assessment, it’s also important to recognize that in Angela’s case, she was horny as hell. We brush off boys’ behavior–the idea that they can’t stop thinking about sex in their teen years–but girls are right there, too.
As Angela tells a confused Brian, “Boys don’t have the monopoly on thinking about it.”
My So-Called Life reiterates that idea, which is heartbreakingly rare in depictions of teenage girl protagonists.
Commentary on the pressures that teenage girls face is woven throughout the show.
Nostalgic
The Greek roots of the word nostalgia are to return (home) with pain. We often think of nostalgia as telling stories with old friends, or looking through old yearbooks as we reminisce. But it’s much more than that.
Angela says, “I mean, this whole thing with yearbook — it’s like, everybody’s in this big hurry to make this book, to supposedly remember what happened. Because if you made a book of what really happened, it’d be a really upsetting book.”
My So-Called Life ends with Angela stepping into a car with Jordan and driving away. Jordan has just met her mother, Patty, and the two sit and visit. Patty has been waiting for her old high-school love interest to stop by for a drink (and a business conversation), but he doesn’t show up. Patty and Jordan share a fairly intimate conversation, and both seem to understand something they hadn’t before.
Jordan comes outside, asks Angela to come along with him, and says that her mom says it’s OK. In understanding her own trajectory from teenager to adult, Patty has released Angela.
It’s sudden, it’s unclear, and it’s vague. It–the show, and adolescence–goes by so quickly, and we can’t fully understand it until we look back at the literal and figurative pictures of our life. Not just the smiling yearbook photos, but those things that remain inside.
We don’t know exactly where Angela is going at the end of My So-Called Life, and neither does she. The restraints and possibilities of adolescence can be overwhelming, and as life changes into adulthood, the restraints and possibilities both tighten and grow. By looking back–in all of its pleasure and pain–into those years of intense growth and confusion, we can better know ourselves.
Angela rides away with Jordan at the end.
When My So-Called Life originally aired, I was in middle school. Our antenna didn’t pick up ABC, so I wasn’t able to watch it in real time. I knew, however, from the occasional Sassy magazine that I wanted to be Angela Chase, and I wanted Jordan Catalano. Years later, after living through almost all of the plot lines of the show, I watched the entire series. And then again, years after that. I’m struck by how much I can still feel what I felt at 15 by listening to Angela’s internal monologue. Good television, like good literature, can do that–take us, through fiction, back to times and places. Whether those times and places are crushing or celebratory, there is a distinct pain in going back–that nostalgia that shapes us and creates our realities.
Imagine the power in seeing this ad as a teenage girl: “Yes, I DO know how it feels!”
Twenty years later, we need more of what My So-Called Life gave us a taste of. We need teenage girl protagonists to be sexual, not sexy. We need honest portrayals of what it is to be a teenager–not only for teenagers who need to see themselves in faithful mirrors, but also for adults who are still trying to figure themselves out.
That season of our lives is fleeting, open-ended, and ends abruptly. It’s meaningful but unfortunate that My So-Called Life so accurately portrayed those particular aspects of adolescence.
Leigh Kolb is a composition, literature and journalism instructor at a community college in rural Missouri.
‘Masters of Sex’ is not a great show. It’s awkward and safe and seems to think that we’re impressed by watching people masturbate. But it’s also this really strange, kind-of cool story all about the masculine ideal and a time traveler who tries to break the cycle of self-hatred that supports it.
Masters of Sex is not a great show. It’s awkward and safe and seems to think that we’re impressed by watching people masturbate. But it’s also this really strange, kind-of cool story all about the masculine ideal and a time traveler who tries to break the cycle of self-hatred that supports it.
Bill, Virginia, and the terror of human emotion
Masters of Sex, if you haven’t been watching or hate-watching it,is a fictionalized account of the work done by of real-life sex researchers William Masters and Virginia Johnson in the late 1950s. Officially, the series is about the study they conducted and the breakthroughs they made in our understanding of human sexuality. Unofficially, it’s a love story, too.
We know from history that the real Masters and Johnson eventually married, and the tension in Masters of Sex isn’t about whether they’ll get together. The tension in Masters of Sex is about whether Virginia can rescue Bill from his sense of self-hatred by freeing him from 1950s gender norms. She is the hero, and that is her quest; if she succeeds – and we think she’ll succeed – her reward will be his love.
Most of what we’ve learned about Bill, so far, has been in service of explaining Virginia’s quest to save him. He’s smart and sensitive and, basically, a good, well-meaning person, but he has a tragic backstory involving an abusive father, and an internalized sense of shame around his own emotions. With his wife – he’s married when he meets Virginia – he acts out the gender roles he’s learned. That is, he treats her kindly, but like something that’s foreign to him; a creature from another planet that he can’t quite understand. He doesn’t feel that he can talk to her about his troubles; he thinks that she depends on him to be a stable presence. He would like her to admire him, and thinks that he would damage their relationship by revealing his true self.
The reality, of course – and this is dramatized well by Masters of Sex – is that Bill’s wife would like nothing more than to be emotionally intimate with him – to know what he’s thinking and feeling, to have a sense that they’re on the same team. Unfortunately, her own ideas about gender are just as antiquated as Bill’s, and she is, in fact, alarmed when he shows signs of strong emotion. She also treats him like something foreign and unintelligible, hiding her own feelings, and acting like he’s more of a guest in their house than someone who actually lives there.
Virginia, just as stereotypes would have it, is the mistress that Bill can be his true self with. It’s a little bit because he looks down on her, a little bit because he respects her, and a lot because Virginia is a time traveler from 2014.
As the character the audience is most invited to identify with, Virginia is the mouthpiece for most of our beliefs. Masters of Sex is awfully proud of itself for telling us things like “the clitoris exists,” but its target audience is people who already know all this stuff. Specifically, the target audience seems to be women like Virginia – smart, single, independent, self-supporting, sex-positive women with liberal values and a soft spot in their hearts for closed-off men. Virginia is us, wearing a dress from the 1950s, and we get to vicariously rescue the 1950s, and Bill, from the backwards social taboos of the time.
It’s a story-telling strategy that’s sometimes extremely annoying, and other times strangely effective.
Virginia, with Lillian, who overcame Being a Woman to also become A Doctor, and then get killed by being a woman, because she has cervical cancer
On the annoying front, Masters of Sex doesn’t usually challenge us. Despite the fact that it’s supposedly about two people who had radical ideas for their time, the show’s pretty safe by today’s standards. It takes the bold stance, for example, that gay people shouldn’t try to turn themselves straight with electroshock therapy. And that women can have careers outside the home. And that people can have sex for recreational purposes. And that you shouldn’t be a dick to someone just because they’re black.
None of these are radical ideas by today’s standards, and we’re invited to look backwards at the 1950s with a sense of satisfaction about how much things have changed. At least so far, there’s very little attempt to examine racism, sexism, or homophobia from an angle that would highlight ongoing problems today. It’s all done retrospectively, like, “Can you believe what people were like?!?” And we share Virginia’s bewilderment and exasperation. She’s essentially A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court with a social rather than technological advantage. If we identify with her, we might enjoy the sense of feeling forward-looking and superior, but we don’t learn very much about ourselves.
Masters and Johnson’s actual research, as presented by the show, isn’t exactly a bag of surprises, either. We watch all of the characters freak out over discoveries like, “women can have multiple orgasms” and “people curl their toes during sex.” Were you aware that not everyone who has sex does so in the missionary position? Or that sometimes they think about something other than the person they’re having sex with? If so, you won’t learn anything new, here.
In some ways, this backward-looking orientation is most frustrating when the show is just barely unable to address information that’s actually useful today. There is, for example, a really topical B-plot about cervical cancer that can’t communicate the most important fact we now know about cervical cancer – that it’s caused by HPV, and that there are vaccines for that. The bitter irony of leading the audience to think about cervical cancer each week, without telling them the one thing they might need to know, is almost too much to take. Instead of learning something that might be of actual use, the audience is invited to feel good about the fact that pap smears are now a common practice.
We’re generally invited, through the benefit of hindsight, to see 1950s America as misguided and conservative, and to see Virginia as a hero who’s fighting a noble battle to achieve the future. We know that, in most cases, history is on her side, and we see that she faithfully represents our values. Somehow, she hasn’t internalized any of the bullshit in her culture. That makes her annoying, sometimes, but it’s also what makes her the perfect champion for Bill – she stands outside of everything that makes him hate himself, and offers the perspective that only a (highly improbable) outsider can give.
Bill and Virginia engage in a little after-sex metaphor-making
The root of Bill’s self-hatred is the masculine ideal. The cornerstone of any really excellent/terrible patriarchy, the masculine ideal is the notion that there is only one really desirable Way for a person to Be. Women are automatically excluded from being that Way, but so are most men. In the USA, and cultures like it, the masculine ideal of the 1950s required things like: heterosexuality; skill in physical combat;
avoiding the outward display of any emotion except, perhaps, anger; and courage in the face of physical danger. Trying to meet the requirements of that ideal – trying to be a “real man” and win approval from one’s peers – could lead to aggression, misogyny, homophobia, and the construction of a private emotional prison where normal feelings like sadness, embarrassment, grief, loneliness, uncertainty, and fear could fester until they got twisted.
The 1950s – the era that present-day conservatives harken back to when they talk about the good old days – is really a peak in the backlash against equal rights for people who weren’t straight, white men. It was a doubling down on rigid ideas that we now understand can hurt everyone – even the straight, white men who supposedly benefit from them.
Virginia, as a time traveler with values from the future, can give Bill something that nobody else – including his well-meaning wife – can deliver. She can give him a space where it’s safe to let go of all of the things he’s been taught about who he should be, and find out who he is underneath. It’s like Idina Menzel on that mountain.
“Fight,” the series’ best and most critically lauded episode so far, is nothing but a really heavy-handed treatise on this point. Bill and Virginia meet to have sex in a hotel, and a hugely symbolic boxing match on television leads Bill to confess, for the first time out loud, that his father used to beat him as a child and that his only form of protest was to take it “like a man” by not allowing himself to reveal how much it hurt him.
Virginia, who is horrified by this, tells Bill that she won’t raise her son to think that that’s the way to be a man.
The episode uses boxing as a metaphor for several other things, but the point it eventually drives at is that the ability to be vulnerable in front of other people is a strength. This is an idea that’s decidedly 2014, where we’re starting to understand the cost that comes from raising people to suppress their feelings, and shifting to a greater emphasis on mental and emotional health.
The idea that a woman can “save” a man by teaching him to talk about his feelings has become a cliché in the genre, but it’s one that makes sense in this setting. Virginia is the spokesperson for a future where feminists have already largely succeeded in challenging the masculine ideal – where everyone has benefited from discovering that there is more than one right Way to Be. Bill’s anguish and emotional isolation are a reminder of why no one should want to go back to the so-called golden era where men were “real men.”
The informative part of the series – “this is how anatomy works!” – isn’t telling us anything new, and the social values it promotes aren’t very challenging, but, if there’s something relevant buried deep within Masters of Sex, it’s the pointed view it takes of masculinity. It shows us how rigid notions of gender hurt everyone, not just specifically women, and highlights not just the distance we’ve traveled, but why it’s important to go there.
The series’ discussion of gender is the rare instance where its visionary characters have a vision that extends into our future. One where we stop feeling nostalgic for the 50s, and look forward to what we’ll become when we’ve let that all go.
Katherine Murray is a Toronto-based writer who yells about movies and TV on her blog.
Being friends with people of the opposite gender is important because ideally it can bridge empathy gaps. Leslie and Ron have a mutual respect for each other even when they don’t see eye to eye. Despite Ron being a super macho guy that you would assume to be sexist, he’s actually very supportive of Leslie. Whenever they have disagreements, it’s more to do with her enthusiasm for government than with her gender.
Baby Daddyis a cute and funny show with a progressive edge. However, it’s not without its flaws. It deconstructs stereotypes in some areas but reinforces stereotypes in other areas. Its issues could be fixed by taking cues from one of my favorite modern comedy shows, Parks and Recreation.
First, the good: BD accomplishes its main goal which is to be funny. The funniest moments usually include Ben’s spitfire mother, Bonnie and goofball friend, Tucker, played by the talented Melissa Peterman and Tahj Mowry respectively. It shines in other ways too:
1. Male stereotypes are deconstructed.
Ben, Tucker, and Danny in Baby Daddy
Ben’s two roommates are Danny–his brother–and Tucker. All three of them are shown handling Emma with tender love and care. Their softness towards her is never framed as emasculating. In the beginning stages, the three bachelors fumble when it comes to taking care of Emma but it has less to do with them being guys and more to do with them being young and inexperienced when it comes to babies.
Danny is a handsome hockey player who predictably is a ladies’ man. In any other show or movie, he would be a dumb and/or mean sports player character or he would be an emotionally-stunted playboy archetype. He can be dumb at times but so can his brother who isn’t a sports player. So, Danny’s occasional dimwittedness is framed more as a family trait than a jock trait. He refreshingly contradicts the jock stereotype by being sensitive, romantic, and sweet. Despite his promiscuity, he is secretly in love with his childhood friend, Riley.
2. Old-fashioned mother stereotypes are dismantled.
Bonnie is far from the 1950s-stereotype perfect mother and that’s what makes her so entertaining. She’s a sassy, loving mother and just like her sons, she enjoys playing the field. Usually women, especially mothers, are expected to be the moral center. Sometimes, she is the voice of reason. But most of the time, she exhibits the same immaturity, narcissism, and selfishness as her sons but never does it go to the point of her being irredeemable. She isn’t demonized for being imperfect and free-spirited. Just like Elaine from Seinfeld, her quirks and flaws make her funny, charming and likeable.
3. Racial minority characters and gay characters aren’t stereotypical.
Tucker is one of the leads and he is African American. His personality has nothing to do with his race. Various racial minorities show up as minor characters throughout the series, never appearing as offensive stereotypes. Positive depictions of gay people are in the episode “The Christening” and a few other episodes too.
Now, let’s move on to the bad:
1. There are too many underwritten female characters.
In a show about a young man raising a daughter, you would think the female characters would be better than this. When it comes to the male characters on BD–like Tucker’s uptight dad, for instance–there are layers to them; they’re never as bad as they seem. However, if they’re not boring pretty faces like Tucker’s girlfriend, Vanessa, then most of the female side characters are just as evil as they seem. They’re also usually the source of conflict–whether it’s Riley’s childhood female rival or Danny’s female general manager. The worst offender was Emma’s mom, Angela, who was already framed as a terrible slut for forgoing being a mother. Her terribleness was further emphasized by having her be an evil seductress who tries to tear Riley and Ben apart.
Solution:
Add more three-dimensional female characters that have quirks and interests the way the male characters do. Every major and minor female character on P and R is unique and interesting because they aren’t solely defined by being a girlfriend. In P and R, April Ludgate could have easily been written as a one-dimensional vixen like Angela. But April’s meanness is not shaped by her sexuality. And every now and then, she shows her softer side. She’s grown over time, showing that she has great admiration and respect for Leslie even if outwardly she pretends to be annoyed by her.
Even though Tammy, Ron’s ex wife, can be argued to be similar to Angela of BD, she was written in a more tongue-in-cheek way for the audience to laugh at-especially considering the fact that the actors that play Ron and “evil” Tammy are married in real life. So, the character was more a parody on the seductress archetype.
Leslie and Tammy on Parks and Recreation
2. There’s too much female rivalry and not enough female friendship.
Tucker, Ben, and Danny are roommates who have a friendship that’s a joy to watch; they joke with each other, they support each other, they tease each other, and they love each other even when they disagree. Their positive male friendship is at the center of the show while positive female friendships are sadly nonexistent. Female characters usually barely interact with each other. When they do, there’s either indifference or an adversarial feeling between them. Even Bonnie succumbs to it; she shows hostility towards the only other prominent female character, Riley. She gets along better with Tucker more than women her own age. There’s one episode where Riley explains she doesn’t have female friends because all girls are catty. I’m sick of male friendships being framed as superior to female friendships.
Cat fight on Baby Daddy
Solution:
P and R portrays female friendships so much better by not flattening female characters or their relationship to each other. I’m not asking BD to romanticize female relations either. Leslie Knope gets along better with some women (like Ann) than she does with other women (like Joan Callamezzo) just like she gets along with some men (like Ron) better than other men (like Congressman Jamm). That’s life. The show did have women disliking each other–for example, April disliking Ann. But they also showed women getting along in the form of Ann and Leslie. Who someone gets along with depends more on how their personalities mesh together rather than gender. P and R doesn’t set up a false dichotomy that all women are catty and all men are nice. Women get to be individuals just like the men do. Please follow suit, BD.
Ann and Leslie on Parks and Recreation
3. There aren’t enough entertaining platonic male-female relationships
Just like I don’t like gender stereotypes being used to dismiss same-sex friendships between women, I don’t want gender stereotypes being used to dismiss friendships between men and women. If women can’t be friends with women because of cattiness and they can’t be friends with men because of sexual/romantic tension then who can women befriend? The love triangle between Ben, Riley, and Danny and then Ben, Riley, and Angela adds to the archaic belief that men and women can’t be friends. Making Riley the love interest/childhood friend is an easy trope to use to create drama between the male leads. Tucker is the only one of the three male leads that doesn’t have feelings for her.
Solution:
Being friends with people of the opposite gender is important because ideally it can bridge empathy gaps. Leslie and Ron have a mutual respect for each other even when they don’t see eye to eye. Despite Ron being a super macho guy that you would assume to be sexist, he’s actually very supportive of Leslie. Whenever they have disagreements, it’s more to do with her enthusiasm for government than with her gender. They advise each other on different matters and they help each other out when one is in trouble. Their friendship isn’t framed as a consolation prize to the “superior” thing of being a couple. Instead, their friendship is presented as an edifying, significant thing that helps make them better people. And it’s not just about deep connections, friendships between male and females can be fun and lighthearted. Just look at Donna and Tom.
Donna and Tom on Parks and Recreation
Add more compelling scenes with Tucker and Riley. Add to the community raising Emma by putting in female characters for the male characters to befriend. I’m not banning BD from showing romantic relationships. I’m just saying don’t add fuel to the “friend-zone” fire by showing male-female friendships as this desert/limbo/wasteland. Show the good sides of being platonic the way P and R does.
4. Stop scraping the comedic bottom of the barrel by making fat a continual punch line.
Riley, like Monica from Friends, goes from being fat and insecure to being skinny, still insecure, but more conventionally attractive and therefore, more aesthetically pleasing to the boy she likes. There are many jokes that refer to Riley once being fat. Danny loved Riley even when she was larger which I guess is supposed to show he has a heart of gold. But chubby women shouldn’t be framed as a walking punch line nor should they be viewed as unattractive beasts that only the purest hearted of men could love/pity.
Solution:
Take Donna of P and R for instance. She’s confident, witty, and beautiful and she has no trouble attracting men. She carries herself well and dresses in flattering clothing. She’s shown doing the rejecting rather than being rejected.
Donna on Parks and Recreation
She doesn’t serve as a thing to be pitied. Unlike Riley, her weight isn’t a running gag. Riley’s transformation from ugly duckling to swan didn’t have to be the same old cliché of physical transformation. Why not have made her shyness the true problem instead of her perceived physical unattractiveness? Having her attractiveness stem from becoming more confident and vivacious would have been a nice change from the weight loss arc. It’s too late to alter her character back story now, so I suggest stopping the fat jokes altogether. Also, maybe introduce a Donna-like female character whose weight isn’t her sole defining trait.
I can see BD is trying to be an enlightened comedy and it has a lot of potential. By climbing out of its cliché pitfalls, it can become a truly modern show just like P and R has done. Not only can it improve in the ways I suggested and still remain funny, it can be even funnier. After all, the best humor comes from truth, not from stereotypes (unless you’re parodying those stereotypes, of course).
Nia McRae graduated summa cum laude from Medgar Evers College where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Liberal Studies with a concentration in history. She has a strong passion for critiquing racial and gender politics in the media and putting it in historical context.
‘Softcore Porn Roulette with Vampires’ is entering its final season and, while it’s never been good, it embraced being bad with such glee that I’m a little bit sorry to see it go. With that in mind, let’s take a moment to reflect on the awkward, sometimes hilarious, sometimes unintentionally hilarious, sometimes kind of offensive journey we’ve taken with the show that was nothing but humping and gore.
Softcore Porn Roulette with Vampires is entering its final season and, while it’s never been good, it embraced being bad with such glee that I’m a little bit sorry to see it go. With that in mind, let’s take a moment to reflect on the awkward, sometimes hilarious, sometimes unintentionally hilarious, sometimes kind of offensive journey we’ve taken with the show that was nothing but humping and gore.
Trigger Warning: Discussion of rape/assault.
Jason and Eric Get it On Because True Blood is About Who You Want to Have Sex With
The Gay Stuff True Blood’s original show-runner, Alan Ball, is an openly gay man who has done very good things for the representation of LGBT people in popular culture. His previous HBO series – and maybe his greatest work – Six Feet Under, still stands tall as being one of the only shows – and one of the earliest shows – to depict a nuanced, complicated relationship between two gay men, who were multifaceted characters, on par with their heterosexual counterparts. On the whole, the gay and bisexual characters on True Blood, be they ever so shallow and underdeveloped, are on the same playing field as the shallow, underdeveloped heterosexual characters (though there’s sometimes some weirdness about physical intimacy). For the most part, nobody on the show really notices or minds if anyone else is lesbian, gay, or bisexual, which, in itself, can be seen as a positive thing. The range of male sexuality is better represented than the range of female sexuality, but, compared to its contemporaries, the show is still unusually open to the idea of depicting something other than heterosexuality on screen.
Where things get weird is when vampirism is used as an awkward metaphor for homosexuality. Vampires “come out of the coffin” by announcing themselves to humanity. They’re persecuted by religious zealots holding signs that say “God hates fangs.” Two of the series most memorable (and intentionally hilarious) villains are/were leaders of a Christian hate group called The Fellowship of the Sun that targets vampires just a real-life hate groups have sometimes targeted homosexuals – one of the villains later decides to be true to his own identity and proudly comes out as “gay vampire-American.”
Going into the final season, the vampire population is dying from a disease called Hep-V, which, despite its name, has been presented in ways that are much more analogous to HIV and to the AIDS crisis in North America (where gay and bisexual men are disproportionately likely to contract the virus). The speech that Pam gives Eric in episode three, about how there are treatments that can help him lead a normal life, and how people are working to find a cure, could be ripped from any drama about HIV.
In this context, the hatred and prejudice that some of the characters exhibit toward vampires comes across as analogous to the bigotry that’s sometimes directed at the LGBT community… except that vampires, unlike homosexuals, want kill your whole family and feast on your blood. So maybe there’s a good reason to be wary of them.
The fact that vampirism doesn’t map very neatly onto the LGBT rights movement has already been discussed in great depth, and Ball, himself, has described the vampire/LGBT analogy as “window-dressing that makes [the story] contemporary.” For the most part, vampires and other Sups on True Blood seem to be a general representation of the Other, with the (awkwardly delivered) message being that we should judge people as individuals, based on the decisions they make, personally, rather than what group we think they belong to. We’re all just people in the end, etcetera.
In principle, though, it’s really True Blood’’s shallowness, rather than any concerted attempt to argue for tolerance, that’s brought so much lesbian and gay content to the fore. The show employs a less ambitious version of Torchwood’s “everybody’s bi” philosophy where, if there’s a possibility that two actors will look hot together, nothing else – including gender – is even a concern.
Which leads me nicely to the Tara stuff.
Tara (right) Becomes a Lesbian Cage Fighter Because True Blood is About Who You Want to Have Sex With
The Tara Stuff
If there’s one character the writers don’t find hot enough, it’s Tara. I mean, yeah, she was funny in the first season, and she seemed smart, and she had all this complicated stuff going on with her alcoholic mother, but that’s not enough to earn a real plotline on this show. Ever since season two, Tara’s been shoved into one troubling situation after another, with the final insult being her off-screen death in the first five minutes of season seven.
In season two, Tara and one of the only other Black characters on the show, Eggs, are held captive and forced to serve a magical white woman while they wait for another magical white woman to free them. All season long, they’re under a spell that makes them subservient and, in one scene, they punch each other in the face for their captor’s entertainment. They never manage to turn the tables or get their own back. Once they’re free – once they are freed by someone else – a deputy wrongfully shoots and kills Eggs, and the crime is covered up by the Sheriff. Nothing ever comes of that except that the deputy feels kind of bad.
In season three, Tara’s taken prisoner by a rapist vampire in a storyline that’s alternately played as serious and comedic (WTF). At one point, she’s held captive in an old plantation house, and it appears that she kills her kidnapper and escapes. We later discover that the kidnapper survived, and ultimately has to be dispatched by the same deputy who shot Eggs. Which, I guess, is supposed to make up for shooting Eggs? Somehow?
Other awful things happen, too – one of the worst is Tara taking a bullet for her awful, often absent bestie, Sookie, and dying on the kitchen floor during the last few moments of season four – but what’s even more telling are the two attempts the writers make to reboot the character and make her more interesting.
In the first reboot, Tara (who, up until this point has been exclusively heterosexual), becomes a lesbian cage fighter with super straight hair and more fashionable clothes. We see her girlfriend (maybe) twice, cage fighting never becomes important to the story, and all she does all season (before dying) is stand around awkwardly as the hostage of another magical white woman while waiting for magical white Sookie to come save her again.
In the second reboot, the recently dispatched Tara is turned into a vampire by fan favourite Pam. She uses her new abilities to become a pole dancer, wears corsets and belly-baring tops, and starts a lesbian relationship with Pam. Then she goes back to wearing her normal clothes and meets the true death in season seven.
Both attempts to reboot the character, and make her more relevant to the show, are pretty transparent in their intentions of making Tara seem sexy. It’s also clear that being sexy is your key to having something to do on True Blood. I mean, the werewolf plotlines are probably the most unnecessary ones in the series, but they persisted for a long time, because werewolf Alcide looked good with his shirt off. It really seems like production didn’t like Tara with any of the guys they paired her with, so they started pairing her with other women. Then, they didn’t like her as a human, so they tried making her a vampire. When all of that failed, she died.
I would actually be a little bit happy for Tara at this point, if it seemed like she was going to rest in peace, but the first three episodes have suggested that she’s in some kind of tortured, ghostly state, calling for help, waiting for someone to save her, powerless to save herself – that seems more like True Blood. I wouldn’t be surprised if, in the last five minutes of the series, they find a way to send her from purgatory to hell.
Eric and Sookie Defile Narnia Because True Blood is About Who You Want to Have Sex With
The “Let’s Just Give Up On Plot All Together, Now” Stuff
Every storyline on True Blood is treated as an opportunity for sex to happen. A witch comes to town and starts an orgy. Fairies show up because they want to mate with us. Scientists prepare for genocide by watching vampires get it on through one-way mirrors. Eric has amnesia so he and Sookie have sex in Narnia.
Ball – who half-jokingly names “the terrors of intimacy” as the theme of True Blood – is correct in reminding us that vampirism has often been tied up with sex. Most vampire stories involve some element of hunger, desire, and/or seduction that’s reminiscent of sex, and the act of biting someone and ingesting their blood can easily be seen as a sexual one. That doesn’t entirely explain why so many of the plotlines on True Blood sound like they could be awkward summaries for x-rated fanfic. Like:
Sookie learns that a magic, unbreakable contract promises her to the evil fairy, Warlow, for marriage. When Warlow comes to town, looking for his bride, Sookie is surprised by her attraction to him, and no one can believe what happens next.
(They experiment with bondage while they have sex in a graveyard).
Let’s be real, you guys. True Blood is not telling us something deep and meaningful about the nature of desire. It’s not exploring human sexuality in a way that teaches us something about ourselves – this is straight-up entertainment where every situation is a sexual situation, and every problem is a problem involving sex, and every plot point becomes an opportunity for the characters to have sex in a place, or a configuration, or a way that we haven’t seen yet.
Sometimes it’s uncomfortably voyeuristic – as when we have to watch real-life couple Anna Paquin and Stephen Moyer go at it. Sometimes it’s WTF – as when vampire Bill has sex with vampire Lorena and twists her head 180 degrees. Sometimes it’s actually a little bit sexy, and sometimes it’s just like, “So what?”
The only time it’s really a problem – if we accept for the moment that having gratuitous sex on your show is not necessarily a problem, sex being neither dirty nor bad – the only time it’s really a problem is when the show does something like mistaking rape for sex, mistaking rape for comedy, and mistaking rape as an acceptable way to shock us as viewers before brushing it off completely. I think it’s totally fine for True Blood to fill up its time with sexual situations that mean nothing and go nowhere – the show will not go down in history as a brilliant work of art, but not everything has to. Unfortunately, I also think that throwing sexual violence in, either as an accident, or a joke, or a cheap surprise, has been more of a problem.
One of the most offensive storylines on the show takes place in season four, where Jason Stackhouse, a human character, is kidnapped by a group of hillbilly werepanthers (they’re like werewolves but they stupidly change into panthers) and then tied to a bed and raped by several of the werepanther women. It isn’t clear whether the show understands that this is a problem, and Ball and the director made some unfortunate comments at the time, to the effect that it was funny or ironic for Jason, a fairly promiscuous character, to be placed in a situation where he didn’t like having sex.
As already mentioned, there’s a lengthy plot about Tara being kidnapped by a rapist that’s alternately played for laughs and drama. Sometimes this is a traumatic experience, sometimes they’re the odd couple on vacation. The actors don’t seem to agree about which level they’re playing it on, but the tone seems muddled over all, with the writers turning the rapist into a comedy villain. After he’s dead, the show briefly acknowledges that something significant happened, by sending Tara to a support group meeting, but then the story gets shoved down the memory hole with everything else.
As a final example, in season two, there’s this horrible moment right at the end of “Release Me” where one of the Fellowship of the Sun guys tries to rape Sookie to punish her for sleeping with vampires. There is an absolutely sickening shot of her screaming into the camera while he pulls her backward, and then a new character, vampire Godric, shows up to save her. Obviously, somebody at HBO (correctly) decided that it would be too disturbing to end the episode without reassuring us that Sookie escapes, but there are better ways to convince us that Godric’s a good guy than setting up a gratuitous rape scene.
In all of these examples, the show isn’t trying to say anything about sexual violence any more than it’s trying to say something the rest of the time. However, unlike with consensual sex, or vampires turning into puddles of goo, I’m not sure it’s appropriate to treat rape as something frivolous, or as an easy way to shock the audience, leading into a cliff-hanger. That’s the flipside of telling such a shallow story – the show isn’t equipped to broach topics requiring more serious treatment, and it ruins the fun when one of those topics crops up.
I find myself in the strange position of wishing that True Blood had been less realistic, less engaged with contemporary social issues, and more of the pure escapism it was intended to be. I’m down with a show about who we want to have sex with, and True Blood is best when it doesn’t aspire to (or accidentally stumble upon) anything deeper than that.
Katherine Murray is a Toronto-based writer who yells about movies and TV on her blog.
Even after the finale of its fourth season, the HBO series ‘Game of Thrones’ continues its reputation for unpredictability and for subverting our genre expectations. However, a glaring pattern of predictability is emerging: all sex workers with significant roles will die horribly. Think about it.
Even after the finale of its fourth season, the HBO series Game of Thrones continues its reputation for unpredictability and for subverting our genre expectations. However, a glaring pattern of predictability is emerging: all sex workers with significant roles will die horribly. Think about it.
Doreah (played by Roxanne McKee), Daenerys Targaryen’s handmaiden and a prostitute: DEAD.
Doreah is instructed to teach Dany the art of sex
Ros (played by Esmé Bianco), a Northerner who moves South to King’s Landing, working as a prostitute and trusted assistant to Littlefinger: DEAD.
Ros: tough, upwardly mobile, intelligent, and independent
Finally, we have Shae (played by Sibel Kekilli): a prostitute and the lover of Tyrion Lannister who poses as a handmaiden to Sansa Stark: DEAD.
Shae soothes Tyrion’s fears before the Battle of Blackwater Bay
What do all these women have in common? Their profession as sex workers, and they are all disloyal.
After being raped by Viserys and ordered to sexually train/service Daenerys, Doreah betrays her Khaleesi in Qarth, helping Xaro Xhoan Daxos (the man Dany instructed Doreah to sleep with) to steal Dany’s dragons. (A deleted scene even shows Doreah coldly murdering fellow handmaiden Irri.)
Doreah is caught in bed with Daxos
Ros rightfully fears her employer and seeks to help Sansa Stark by revealing to Varys Littlefinger’s plans to spirit the girl away.
Littlefinger punishes Ros by letting Joffrey put a series of crossbow bolts in her
In one of the most significant acts of betrayal the series has ever depicted, Shae testifies against Tyrion in court, condemning him for the crime of regicide. We also find that she was sleeping with his father, Tywin Lannister, which the show asserts is an even greater form of betrayal than her false testimony.
Shae gives her damning, full of lies testimony
Shae’s acts of betrayal are over-the-top and out of character (remember, we’re talking about the show here, not the books). Season 4 has her being sullen and adopting a completely unrealistic attitude about the danger she and Tyrion face. She is irrationally jealous of his forced marriage to Sansa while still maintaining her affection for the young Stark girl. Overall, though, we must remember that Shae truly does love Tyrion. She has refused gold, safety, and a fine home with servants all for love of Tyrion.
Shae and Tyrion lovingly kiss
We are to believe that because Tyrion white fanged Shae, she would condemn him to die by telling lies during his trial, condemn Sansa whom she loved and protected by telling lies about her, fuck Tywin, get so cozy with him that she’d call him “my Lion” and try to kill Tyrion the next time she saw him? I ain’t buying it.
Shae and Sansa watch ships arrive in King’s Landing
Is Shae really a woman so scorned that she’d destroy everyone she ever cared about to get revenge? Is she really so daft that she couldn’t see that Tyrion was trying to protect her all along? Is she really so malleable that Tywin could so easily manipulate her into such complete betrayal?
Her utter betrayal is character-defining for Tyrion. That he is “forced” to kill her changes him, so her unrealistic actions and extreme betrayal merely serve to further Tyrion’s character arc, while contradicting her own characterization over the last four years.
Tyrion finds a gussied up Shae in his father’s bed
More importantly, Shae’s betrayal when considered alongside the double-crosses of her fellow prostitutes and their collective fates reveal a disturbing attitude toward sex workers that Game of Thrones is advancing. It claims that sex workers are disposable and that they cannot be trusted.
“That’s in a way, the most horrible thing he could see because she wasn’t a whore…they had become committed to each other. She’s no longer a whore. When he calls her a whore, it’s not that he believes this is what she is; it’s what he desperately needs to tell her to save her life in his mind, and, ironically, he’s ended up turning her into that very thing that she was running from.”
Weiss’ repeated use of the offensive term “whore” here encapsulates so much more than Shae’s profession as a sex worker. Weiss’ and the show’s obsession and discomfort with these women’s occupation is very masculine and very patriarchal, asserting that if you must pay a woman for sex, her morals and motivations are never to be trusted about anything ever. This stems from an ego-driven masculine notion that if a woman retains enough agency to demand payment for sex, it is impossible to know if she really enjoyed said sex, and if she might be faking that, she could be faking any and all other emotions or professed loyalties.
Game of Thrones punishes another sex worker by having her die on her back in a bed
I’m pretty tired of seeing sex workers raped and murdered on TV. I’m sick of seeing sex workers depicted within a stereotypical trope as liars and betrayers who get what’s coming to them. It’s no secret that Game of Thrones doesn’t have a great track record when it comes to the exploitation of its female characters, liberally employing death, rapes, gratuitous nudity and crappy decision-making that runs counter to characterization in order to move the plot along, make a nonessential point or punish an “unlikeable” woman. This so disappoints me because, in other ways, Game of Thrones delights with its intricate plot, attention to detail, breathtaking visuals, character depth and endless surprises. Season 5 is being filmed right now. It’s time for the bar to be raised with this amazing series’ treatment of women and, in particular, its treatment of sex workers. I challenge the creators to stop exploiting their female and sex worker characters. I challenge them to start working as hard to give these marginalized women as much real depth and humanity as they do for their male counterparts.
Bitch Flicks writer and editor Amanda Rodriguez is an environmental activist living in Asheville, North Carolina. She holds a BA from Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio and an MFA in fiction writing from Queens University in Charlotte, NC. She writes all about food and drinking games on her blog Booze and Baking. Fun fact: while living in Kyoto, Japan, her house was attacked by monkeys.
The series chronicled the adventures of Mona Parker, a young girl who enjoys dressing up like a vampire and sees saving her town from monsters as her mission in life. The stories are Buffy-lite: a giant bug substitute teacher, a robot babysitter, doppelgängers, a computer virus with mind-control powers, and new cafeteria cooks who aim to poison the school with salmonella. Though the show often pulls out from Mona’s fantasies to reveal the reality of the situation, Mona’s fights against the forces of darkness, usually end up somehow solving the crime or prank, exposing a conspiracy or locating the lost item anyway.
Written by Elizabeth Kiy as part of our theme week on Children’s Television.
As a kid, I had a boundless imagination.
I put on plays in my backyard (notably a bowdlerized Romeo and Juliet) and my friends and I spent our recesses pretending we were princesses, fairies, cowgirls, mermaids and Hogwarts students. I convinced my little sister we were always traveling the world- any clock tower was Big Ben, a local bridge was the Golden Gate and power line towers were always the Eiffel Tower.
In short, I was a lot like Mona the Vampire. Or at least, I see a lot of myself in her.
Mona is a young girl who feels most comfortable dressed as a vampire
I’m unsure if the show is at all familiar outside Canada. Here, it ran for four seasons (1999-2003) on YTV (basically our equivalent to Nickelodeon) and I binge-watched it on weekends and as treat whenever I stayed home from school sick.
The series chronicled the adventures of Mona Parker, a young girl who enjoys dressing up like a vampire and sees saving her town from monsters as her mission in life. The stories are Buffy-lite: a giant bug substitute teacher, a robot babysitter, doppelgängers, a computer virus with mind-control powers, and new cafeteria cooks who aim to poison the school with salmonella.
Though the show often pulls out of Mona’s fantasies to reveal the reality of the situation, Mona’s fights against the forces of darkness, usually end up somehow solving the crime or prank, exposing a conspiracy or locating the lost item anyway.
And Mona is never deterred by rationality, in her mind, everything out of the ordinary has a supernatural explanation and nothing can convince her otherwise.
A typical day in Mona’s world may involve fighting space invaders.
As a lead character on a children’s show, Mona is refreshingly atypical. When deciding on alter ego, she eschews the traditional superhero or princess dress and chooses to be a vampire. As a female character, Mona is also unique in her love of scary stories and late night horror movies, comic books and gruesome creepy crawlies. With her usual costume, which she chose herself and slips on at every opportunity, she tries to make herself as frightening as possible with a wig of wild, gravity-defying braids, plastic fangs and exaggerated purple circles drawn under her eyes.
However, the general effect is more adorable than intimidating and with her high pitched voice, it’s clear she’s still a child, unsure of her place in the world, underneath it all.
In fact, like Batman, she considers her true self to be her caped crusaded identity. Mona Parker, not Mona the Vampire, is the disguise. Though Mona sees herself as a vampire, she never troubled with questions of morality, in her view, she’s a good vampire and that’s that. She doesn’t need to bite people or drink blood, but instead has vampire senses that tell her when trouble is near.
While Mona is a good vampire, Von Kreepsula is a evil one, who must be contained within the pages of a comic book
Unlike the brooding vamps we’re used to, Mona also has a child’s sense of morality. She believes that she and her friends are good while the monsters they fight are all bad. For example, Von Kreepsula is Mona’s nemesis, an evil vampire to match her good.
But like the children watching the program, Mona learns that morality is not so black and white
In several episodes, Mona learns the monster she’s been fighting is merely misunderstood, lost it’s home or separated from it’s family. Even her sense of self is challenged when Mona meets a vampire hunter and has to convince her of her essential goodness.
Though Mona is neither binary extreme of masculinity or femininity, the two options usually available to children’s heroes and heroines, her friends and sidekicks Charley (AKA Zappman) and Lily (AKA Princess Giant) certainly are.
Princess Giant, Zappman, and Mona the Vampire
Like Mona, Charley and Lily are imaginative kids who love to play her games, though it’s a little unclear to what extent they believe in actually believe in the monsters and vampires infesting their town. While both are timid and scared on their own, Mona’s bravery and self-confidence buoys them are draws them into her world.
What I found so refreshing was Mona’s personality as a leader, the Really Rosie type, the Queen of the neighborhood. As a leader, Mona also helps her less confident friends discover their skills and strengths by making them vital parts of her fantasy narrative. She can only defeat the monsters with the help for Charley’s Zapp-A-Rama Gun, his aptitude for science and Lily’s ability to grow.
She introduces them to the highly covetable idea of developing a superpower that makes your weaknesses into strength. Sure Charley is easily scared and often bullied, but with Mona’s encouragement to be the superhero she sees in him and encourages him to see for himself, he’s just like his hero, the Man with Nine Lives. Likewise, without Mona, shy Lily hides behind her hair and lets others push her around and feel her small. When they meet, Mona tells Lily she can have any type of alter ego she wants and chose her own powers. Lily chose to become the braver version of herself that she hopes to grow into, and takes on the power to make herself as big as she wants, so no one can intimidate her and make her feel unimportant.
In their daily lives, Mona and her friends are ordinary elementary school students
Closing out the pack is Mona’s trusty cat and confidant Fang is always there as back-up and a (silent) voice of reason anyway. Fang may have more sense than either kids or adults and his expressions often silently suggests the problems in Mona’s logic that no one else can see.
Mona’s parents are supportive but weary. They believe they are raising a highly intelligent, imaginative child, one who gets in her fair share of trouble but is loyal to her friends and always able to find a way out of a jam. They’re the kind of parents every wildly imaginative kid should have, people who always know there are many reasons to be proud of their daughter and nurture her creativity.
Moreover, Mona’s friends are also posed as underdogs throughout the series. Mona’s nemesis is Angela, the cruel and vain daughter of lottery winners who believes she can win friends by showing off her enormous wealth. George, often Angela’s henchmen, is a crude bully who mainly picks on Charley, but is the Principal’s nephew, so he rarely gets in trouble. In comparison, each episode, Mona shows she can save the day with just her wits and imagination, teaching young viewers their value above all.
As with many children’s shows, the kids on Mona the Vampire are smart and resourceful, solving crimes even the police can’t and speaking and working with adults like colleagues, the ultimate fantasy for most real-life kids. In many episodes, Mona deals with the local chief of police, Officer Halcroft who offers rational explanations to each incident. Each time, she dismisses them as ridiculous and unbelievable.
I also love how improvised the character’s costumes seem, like real things the kids could have gathered from around the house. Mona’s floral cape is an old curtain, while Princess Giant’s long blonde hair is a mop. This small aspect of the series adds realism to their imaginings and suggests that the show’s creators consider or remember the actual mechanics of children’s fantasy games.
The typical effect used to transition between “fantasy” and “reality”
In addition, the show refuses to underestimate children as an audience, the stories are never definitively attributed to natural or supernatural causes and the show never overtly indulges or refutes her world. The transition effect between “reality” and Mona’s fantasy gives viewers room to judge how much of the fantasy is real. Many episodes even end on an uncertain note, with even the adults unable to explain every detail rationally, suggesting there may be some truth to Mona’s imagination.
Mostly I liked the show because it clearly respected and celebrated the dreamworld so essential to childhood and creative, curious children. With imagination like Mona’s, even the ordinary world can be magical.
Elizabeth Kiy is a Canadian writer and freelance journalist living in Toronto, Ontario.
