‘Puella Magi Madoka Magica,’ Declaration Feminism

Immortality is not what makes a world better. Hope, friendship, and love do, and love is not limited by sex, gender, ethnicity, or race. Women like Homura and Kyoko can fall in love with other women like Madoka and Sayaka respectively. We have the responsibility to stand up with people like them. This series is part of the reason I try to do that and more. I hope that many others to do the same.

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Promotional material for Puella Magi Madoka Magica, featuring (left to right): Kyoko Sakura,
Sayaka Miki, Mami Tomoe, Homura Akemi, and Madoka Kaname.

 

This guest post by Matthew Abely appears as part of our theme week on Child and Teenage Girl Protagonists.

It has been said over and over again that “Religion is the opiate of the masses;”[i] that is just not fair. It is not the masses, it is the privileged and powerful, and it is not just religion that is their opiate, it is anything that provides a perpetual escape from the reality that with power and privilege comes responsibility.  Today a lot of people use anime for this.  Beloved anime like Studio Shaft’s spring 2011 series, Puella Magi Madoka Magica (Madoka Magica for short), among others, are heavily feminist.  Go online and even suggest something remotely like this, however, and a virulent few will inevitably rise to shut such thoughts down.[ii] Not this time.

Madoka Magica has a sequel film premiering in theaters,[iii] and it is high time the series’ social criticism and advocacy were recognized. It is high time many an anime received such praise. Madoka Magica, however, is the right place to start. Why is rape and violence against women such a common cross-cultural occurrence that such a term as “rape culture” exists?[iv] Why is male supremacy likewise just as common that there is a term called “patriarchy”?[v]  Why does patriarchy inevitably stratify along class, race, and related social lines (this is called “kyriarchy”)?[vi] Why would anyone institutionalize evil like this?

Madoka Magica is not a perfect response. It does answer all of the above; however, it is in its subtext only. The merchandise its creators license also objectifies the teenage cast horribly.[vii]  The series, however, is still a good place to start. It may only answer these aforementioned fundamental questions of feminist theory through symbolism and allegory. It however also does something few others works of popular fiction seem to do. It gives an idea of what to do about its answers.

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Madoka Kaname, Age: 13.

 

Madoka Kaname sees herself as nothing more than average and plain.[viii]

Until the day an entity named Kyuubey informs her that she has dormant superpowers. Magic is real, and everywhere there are invisible monsters called witches instigating traffic accidents, suicides, natural disasters, and more. Kyuubey explains that he and his species, the Incubators, search endlessly for people with dormant magic in order to offer them a contract.  He will grant a person any one wish, and in return they must let him awaken their magic and pledge to do battle with witches as magical girls. Madoka finds out, however, that Kyuubey is not telling the whole truth.[ix]

He awakens magic by placing a person’s soul in a gem, thus making each magical girl the undead. Magical girls’ powers have limits. Should they exhaust all the magic of their soul gem, they die. Witches are born whenever a magical girl dies from soul gem exhaustion. Magical girls themselves can also transmogrify into witches should they succumb to madness, despair, or choose evil. The birth of a witch releases a lot of energy; the transmogrification of a magical girl even more. The Incubators use this energy to fuel the multitude of civilizations across the Earth and universe that they rule from behind the scenes. They do not, however, use everyone as a battery. The Incubators indirectly institutionalize it so that only pubescent girls must be sacrificed.[x]

It is the most efficient way; it is all for the greater good, Kyuubey claims.[xi]

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Kyuubey and Madoka in their penultimate of many “debates.”

 

He is not the only one who does. In the United States and Canada, a man rapes a woman every minute; another man hits a woman every nine seconds; men murder 1,000 women via domestic violence a year.[xii]  The law prosecutes less than 10 percent of these men, convicting and sentencing even fewer.[xiii]  Who cares? Steubenville and Pennsylvania State have football games to win.[xiv] Roman Polanski has too many great films to make and Julian Assange too many great secrets to reveal.[xv]  Society simply cannot afford to have any of these rapists waste away in prison.  People kill or sexually enslave at least 200 million women in and around China and India since the One Child Policy began.[xvi] No matter, class warfare—the population boom—must be stopped.[xvii]  Besides, if Senator Hilary Clinton became president of the United States of America[xviii] or Doctor Wangari Maathai a member of the Kenyan Parliament[xix], their “PMS and mood swings” would destroy progress.

It is all for the greater good. It is building a better, immortal, world, Kyuubey repeats over and over again.[xx]  In this better world, however,all four of Madoka’s friends die more horribly than the last.[xxi]

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Madoka’s friends unite only in martyrdom; from left to right clockwise: Mami Tomoe, Sayaka Miki, Homura Akemi, Kyoko Sakura.

 

Mami Tomoe, weighed down by the guilt of her parents’ death, attempts to atone by being the perfect school girl, perfect host, perfect warrior, perfect mentor, and perfect leader. She stretches herself too thin; a witch gores her to death.[xxii] Sayaka Miki, upon finding out that her contract made her a zombie, thinks herself too tainted to deserve the love of her secret crush, especially when it turns out he already loves, and is loved in return, by a much more conventionally feminine girl than she. Sayaka resolves to repress all her passion and desire.  She transmogrifies into a witch.[xxiii] Kyoko Sakura uses her magic to help her preacher father convert people to his new strand of Christianity. Ashamed to have needed magic’s help, he murders Kyoko’s sister and mother, and attempts to kill Kyoko as if they were property, before hanging himself. Kyoko becomes so belligerent and cynical that her attempt to befriend Sayaka Miki, whom Kyoko finds she may actually love, backfires. Kyoko commits suicide, battling the witch she helps push Sayaka into becoming.[xxiv]

Homura Akemi comes to love Madoka Kaname. The first time they meet, Madoka is a magical girl. Madoka dies in battle. Homura wishes for the power to change this. She travels back in time, over and over again, trying to save Madoka by any means necessary, including murder. No matter whom she kills, however, Homura makes Madoka’s fate worse with each loop. Madoka dies in battle. Madoka dies and give birth to a witch. Madoka dies and gives birth to a witch that destroys the earth.[xxv]

The Incubator’s desire for immortality and demands for perfect maximum efficiency affects more than just children’s attempts to find happiness. Only the relationship between Madoka’s parents is based on collaboration and equality.[xxvi] Every other adult relationship shown is based on competition and hegemony. Madoka’s teacher is constantly dumped for being an imperfect wife.[xxvii] Madoka’s mother Junko must constantly prove her worth as a business executive by drinking hard with the big boys.[xxviii]  Their neighbors and community forced Kyoko’s family into starvation and destitution when her father’s preaching diverted from Christian dogma.[xxix]  Sayaka breaks and transmogrifies when she encounters two men on a train waxing loudly about the importance of physical and emotional abuse.[xxx]

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It is the only shown moment of direct misogyny that pushes Sayaka past her limits.

 

There are beautiful walkways, malls, cafes, schools, apartment complexes in this better world the Incubators have built,[xxxi] yet there are few if any signs that there is community.  The streets are usually deserted.[xxxii] The cafes full of empty chairs at empty tables.[xxxiii]

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Sayaka and her friend/romantic rival, Hitomi Shizuki, meeting in a “crowded” café.

 

Pedestrians do not interact.[xxxiv]

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Other people once again ignoring Madoka, Sayaka, Kyuubey, and everyone else around them.

 

Only Madoka notices it when a witch’s curse induces a mass hypnosis in the middle of a street.[xxxv]  Sayaka and Kyoko have two loud battles, one that breaks a water pipe and one on a bridge over a crowded freeway.[xxxvi] Nobody notices them. When they die, no one realizes that Mami and Sayaka are even missing until days later.[xxxvii] No one ever noticed that Kyoko still existed after her father’s suicide.[xxxviii] Three characters (Mami, Homura, and Sayaka’s crush Kyouske) all suffer from traffic accidents. No one explains them, and likewise few people notice how common suicides, accidents, natural disasters, and general strife seem to have become.[xxxix]

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Mami explaining to Madoka and Sayaka where witches lurk.

 

This better world the Incubators have built may be immortal, yet there is no reason to live in it. There is no companionship nor trust nor love. Madoka sees this; Kyuubey however, continues to insist that short of returning to being naked in caves, there is no other way to live.[xl] He, again, is not the only one.  Even in the face of impending environmental catastrophe, President George H. W. Bush stated: “THE American way of life is not up for negotiation.” [xli] This same American Life has made its people less and less happy since the 1950s, while the amount of time they work has more than doubled.[xlii]  “Let some people get rich first,”[xliii] Chinese Vice-Chairman Deng Xiaoping declared this to be the way to build a modern China.  No one suffers from as much smog as the Chinese.[xliv] Still, men like this and Kyuubey continue to insist: it is foolish to think that there is another way live well. Madoka comes to disagree.

Madoka wishes for the power to stop all witches throughout space and time from being born, and save all magical girls from transmogrifying into them. It works. Madoka ascends to godhood and recreates the universe into one where Kyuubey cannot transmogrify anyone into a witch.[xlv]

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Madoka Kaname, Goddess of Hope.

 

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Homura Akemi shares her memories of Madoka with Madoka’s brother, Tatsuya Kaname.

 

Though she sacrifices her own mortal existence and all memory that she ever existed in every mind, except Homura’s,[xlvi] she opens a door. Kyriarhcy and its ilk seem to continue to exist in the new universe that Madoka creates.[xlvii] Homura and the now reborn Mami, Kyoko, and Sayaka, however, now have the freedom and so the responsibility to fight back. The same has been true the viewers this whole time.

Madoka Kaname is not the only one who found another way. Those people so often scored as too effeminate to lead:  like Wangari Maathai, Hilary Clinton, and more–they often have as well. Doctor Maathai and the Green Belt Movement toppled a 30-year dictatorship in Kenya. Their first move: empowering communities of impoverished women to plant trees.[xlviii]  They did not win it alone.[xlix] Those who have the privilege to experience art and anime, can choose to use them like drugs, and attempt to escape from reality. We can all stay individuals relating primarily by competition, pretending this will stave off environmental collapse,[l]  or we could choose to become communities, and continue to prove to everyone, human or otherwise, that there are always other ways to live well than violent sacrifice.

Immortality is not what makes a world better. Hope, friendship, and love do, and love is not limited by sex, gender, ethnicity, or race. Women like Homura and Kyoko can fall in love with other women like Madoka and Sayaka respectively.[li] We have the responsibility to stand up with people like them. This series is part of the reason I try to do that and more.  I hope that many others to do the same.

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Promotional material for the series; from left to right: Mami Tomoe, Homura Akemi, Madoka Kaname, Sayaka Miki, Kyoko Sakura.

 


Matthew Abely is a recent college graduate, longtime nerd, and novice ally to intersectional feminists. When not researching, writing, or working, he can be found attending comic book conventions with friends on the United States’ Pacific Northwest and Central Coast, or exercising.


[v] Ibid.

[vi] Ibid.

[xi] Ibid.

[xiii] Ibid.

[xiv] Ibid.

[xvii] Ibid.

[xxi] Ibid.

[xxii] Ibid, 1-3.

[xxiii] Ibid, 4-8.

[xxvi] Ibid, 1-12. 

[xxvii] Ibid, 1. 

[xxviii] Ibid, 1-6. 

[xxix] Ibid, 8. 

[xxx] Ibid, 8.

[xxxii] Ibid.

[xxxiv] Ibid, 5. 

[xxxv] Ibid, 4. 

[xxxvi] Ibid, 6-7. 

[xxxvii] Ibid, 11. 

[xxxviii] Ibid, 5-9. 

[xlvi] Ibid.

[xlvii] Ibid.

[xlix] Ibid.

 

‘Bob’s Burgers’: The Uniquely Lovable Tina Belcher

Delightful Tina. Shy, painfully weird, butt-obsessed, quietly dorky, intensely daydreamy Tina. Tina is a little bit like all of us (and–cough–a lot like some of us) at that most graceless, transitional, intrinsically unhappy stage of life that is early adolescence. She is also a wonderfully rich and well-developed character, both in her interactions with her family and in her own right, and she’s arguably the emotional core of the whole show.

tina-belcher

Written by Max Thornton as part of our theme week on Child and Teenage Girl Protagonists.

It might seem odd to be writing about Bob’s Burgers for Bitch Flicks‘ Child and Teenage Girl Protagonists week, but I can justify it. For the uninitiated, Bob’s Burgers is an animated comedy centered on the Belcher family,who run the titular restaurant: long-suffering paterfamilias Bob (Archer/Coach McGuirk!), his irrepressibly cheery wife Linda, and their three children–awkward 13-year-old Tina, genial 11-year-old Gene, and borderline-sociopathic 9-year-old Louise. The show is charming, warm, and very funny, and it’s no great leap to declare it the spiritual and comedic successor to The Simpsons. It’s also eminently possible, as A.V. Club’s Sonia Saraiya explains in a recent article, to read Tina as the show’s protagonist.

Delightful Tina. Shy, painfully weird, butt-obsessed, quietly dorky, intensely daydreamy Tina. Tina is a little bit like all of us (and–cough–a lot like some of us) at that most graceless, transitional, intrinsically unhappy stage of life that is early adolescence. She is also a wonderfully rich and well-developed character, both in her interactions with her family and in her own right, and she’s arguably the emotional core of the whole show.

tina-belcher-1

The typical oldest child on TV doesn’t look like Tina. Oldest children are smart and accomplished or bratty and rebellious, but always outspoken and confident: Becky from Roseanne, Sondra from The Cosby Show, Bart from The Simpsons, Haley from Modern Family… The oldest child is almost never the clear point of identification for the TV viewer, but Tina’s gentleness makes her the most relatable and in some ways the realest Belcher.In Saraiya’s words, “She’s sensitive and working-class and even possibly neuroatypical.” This might not seem like a recipe for a popular television character, but it gives Tina a depth, nuance, and a potential for growth in comparison to which her family seems a little, well, cartoonish.

Wait... you mean to say... they ARE cartoons??
Wait… you mean to say… they ARE cartoons??

Tina’s very existence is arguably an explicitly feminist triumph. To quote Saraiya once more:

In the original pilot for Bob’s Burgers, [Tina] was a teenage boy. That fundamental difference aside, Daniel Belcher and Tina Belcher are the same character—but looking back, that choice had enormous implications for the show, because a TV audience has never seen a girl growing up like this. She’s nothing like an archetypal teen, but she’s also unmistakably one. She daydreams about kissing her crushes—and also about touching the butts of all the cute boys in her class. She fantasizes about being a prettier, bolder version of herself, who talks politics with adults and is an object of affection among the guys at Wagstaff School. … Puberty and dating have a typical arc on shows about teenage girls, but Tina’s arc on Bob’s Burgers is something else entirely. It’s gross. It’s messy. It occasionally encourages threesomes. And it’s hilarious, but the show is careful to never make Tina the butt of any jokes. (Tina touching butts, however, is okay.) If the viewer is laughing, it’s most likely with Tina—or at the very least, with the people who love her.

Amen to that.

An oddity of Bob’s Burgers is the fact that Kristen Schaal, the voice of the wonderfully evil Louise, is the only woman among the cast for the Belcher family. John Roberts voices Linda, and Dan Mintz voices Tina. Metatextually, I’m troubled by yet another instance of women not getting work in the vastly male-dominated industry of film and TV; but within the world of the show, it’s simply one instance among many of gender norms being subverted, tossed aside, or merely ignored by the marvelous Belchers. Whether it’s Tina regretting waxing her legs because she mowed down her “furry little friends,” Bob delighting in the fact that he also waxed his, Linda and Louise bailing on a creepily womb-centric mother-daughter seminar to bond over laser tag, or Gene casually declaring which outfits in a fashion catalog would suit him–all examples from a single superb season 3 episode, “Mother Daughter Laser Razor”–the Belchers are not bound by the anxieties of conforming to strict gender roles, and it’s glorious to behold.

The whole Belcher family dynamic is the real reason to watch this show. As Saraiya notes (and I swear this is the last time I will quote her), “everybody watches out for Tina, because Tina couldn’t hurt a fly.” As someone whose siblings are my best friends, I love the Belcher kids more than any other set of TV siblings. They pester and needle and tease other, as siblings do, but they also scheme together, protect each other’s greatest vulnerabilities, and have huge amounts of fun together. Tina isn’t bossy or a bully, like so many TV oldest kids. She’s weird, she’s wonderful, she’s a 13-year-old girl voiced by a 32-year-old man, and she’s one of the best young female characters on TV.

Also, she's basically Tumblr in human form.
Also, she’s basically Tumblr in human form.

Max Thornton blogs at Gay Christian Geek, tumbles as trans substantial, and is slowly learning to twitter at @RainicornMax.

Powerful Realism and Nostalgia in ‘My So-Called Life’

Almost 20 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
My So-Called Life

 

Written by Leigh Kolb as part of our theme week on Child and Teenage Girl Protagonists. 

Recommended listening: “Dreams,” by The Cranberries; “Spin the Bottle,” by Juliana Hatfield; “Return to Innocence,” by Enigma; “Late At Night,” by Buffalo Tom; “Genetic,” by Sonic Youth; “Blister in the Sun,” by Violent Femmes“Red,” by Frozen Embryos

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
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).

Defining self
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
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
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 are woven throughout the show.
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.
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.

asdf
Imagine the power in seeing this ad as a teenage girl: “Yes, I DO know how it feels!”

 

Almost 20 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. 

‘The Killing’s Bullet: The Quintessential Lionhearted Heroine

What is so remarkable about Bullet in the aftermath of this attack is that she bravely continues her quest to recover Kallie, never once giving into fear or despair, nor losing the “faith” she wears on her wrist and professes to Sarah Linden. Instead, her scars make her all the more willing and determined to connect with others–chiefly Detective Linden and her streetwise partner, Detective Stephen Holder–in a deep and profound way. Her great humanity in the face of overwhelming evil and her sacrificial actions towards those she cares about, including a prostitute named Lyric who coldly spurns her, transcends perceptions about her sexuality and render her a universal character that people from all walks of life, backgrounds, faiths, religions, ethnicities, etc. can strongly relate to and identify with.

 

killing
Bullet (Bex Taylor-Klaus) from AMC’s The Killing, Season 3 (2013)

 

This is a guest post by Natalia Lauren Fiore.

Part 1 in a two-part series about “Lionhearted Heroines”

Bullet is the tough yet faithful boarding school dropout turned scrappy Seattle street-kid who unexpectedly resurrected the third season of AMC’s The Killing. She shows her “faith” wrist tattoo to lead homicide detective Sarah Linden, whom she calls “the north star” for fighting the crime brutally visited upon the wayward youths that inhabit her “block.” As a lesbian tomboy on her own in a big city, Bullet learns to rely on her inner strength to survive even when her overriding empathy and selflessness make her vulnerable to the horrific dangers that her desire to protect others prevents her from foreseeing. When her best friend, Kallie, a teenage prostitute neglected and discarded by her mother, disappears, Bullet tirelessly searches the streets and, without flinching, confronts a rough pimp named Goldie, who threatens her with a firearm. Later that evening, Goldie apprehends Bullet in his apartment and, at knife point, rapes her in retaliation for the confrontation.

“You know why I got 'Faith' on here? Because no one’s got it in me but me.” - Bullet, The Killing
“You know why I got ‘Faith’ on here? Because no one’s got it in me but me.” – Bullet, The Killing

 

What is so remarkable about Bullet in the aftermath of this attack is that she bravely continues her quest to recover Kallie, never once giving into fear or despair, nor losing the “faith” she wears on her wrist and professes to Sarah Linden. Instead, her scars make her all the more willing and determined to connect with others–chiefly Detective Linden and her streetwise partner, Detective Stephen Holder–in a deep and profound way.  Her great humanity in the face of overwhelming evil and her sacrificial actions towards those she cares about, including a prostitute named Lyric who coldly spurns her, transcends perceptions about her sexuality and render her a universal character that people from all walks of life, backgrounds, faiths, religions, ethnicities, etc. can strongly relate to and identify with.

Bex Taylor-Klaus, the 19-year-old actress who won the role, was herself so moved by her character that she was inspired to reflect in writing about Bullet’s strength and beauty which carries a universal truth for us all:

Yes, I am a straight girl who plays a gay character on TV. No, I am not ashamed. The point of Bullet is not that she is gay. There is so much to her and I look up to the strength and determination this girl has. I get the beautiful opportunity to play a character I can admire and learn from on a daily basis. Bullet knows who she is and can accept herself for it all, even if others can’t or won’t….Not everybody is that strong. My biggest worry is that people will look at her and just see a gay kid, when that’s truly only a tiny piece of Bullet’s puzzle. Look at the big picture. People are a medley of different things and that is what makes us so interesting. Don’t lose sight of the beauty just because you see one thing you may find ugly.

To adapt Bex’s opening line: yes, I am a straight girl who has been besotted with Bullet (and the brilliant girl who plays her) from the moment she pulls her best friend, Kallie, from the ledge of a Seattle Bridge following the opening credits of the first episode.

Bullet on the bridge.
Bullet on the bridge.

 

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDYHyZ5RUtY”]

Like Bex herself, I am not ashamed to adore Bullet.  As Detective Stephen Holder (played by the endearing Joel Kinnaman) remarks when he first meets her, she’s “pretty unforgettable”–a description that captures her lasting impact on him and on all those she seeks to protect.  Indeed, Holder and Bullet get past their initial mistrust of each other–aided by Bullet’s mistrust of men in general–to form one of the most beautiful friendships, fraught with angst and tenderness, ever portrayed onscreen.  The two are, in many ways, twin souls who struggle to appear tough even when they are broken. Together, they embody Aristotle’s quote about true friendship: “A friend is a single soul dwelling in two bodies.”  Their unlikely affection and mutual admiration, although tested many times, is steadfast and powerful, so much so that when Holder loses Bullet, he is more devastated than we have ever seen him–as if he has lost part of himself.  In his moment of intense grief over her death, Holder becomes the conduit for the audience’s overwhelming sadness as we share in his mourning of her.

the-killing-Scared-and-Running-3-1024x681
Holder (Joel Kinnaman) embraces Bullet.

 

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5Nx3E1ELd8″]

In the end, with identical stubbornness, the two betray each other–Bullet, desperate, telling a lie that inadvertently compromises the investigation and Holder, enraged, turning an icy cold shoulder to the girl he once sought to help–obstinately refusing to answer the phone when she urgently calls him later that night.  This, of course, turns out to be a fatal mistake, which ensures Holder’s imminent down spiral once he discovers Bullet’s body butchered in the trunk of the killer’s car.

But Bullet would not have been as “unforgettable” had it not been for the incomparable Bex Taylor-Klaus, who blazes in each scene–truthfully portraying Bullet’s fierce yet compassionate courage and faith. We’ll be hard-pressed to find another TV performance by a young breakout actress that quite matches what Bex accomplishes as Bullet. Bex so completely embodies Bullet that when she is found dead, it is as though a real-life person–a best friend, a sister, a daughter–has been lost.  Through her performance, Bex makes the audience, even those who initially find her bravado somewhat off-putting, come to care deeply and passionately about a lesbian street girl (she suffers a heartbreaking unrequited love for a young prostitute named Lyric) whose apparent impenetrable toughness hides a selfless, vulnerable spirit.

In a recently published ARTS-ATL article entitled “30 Under 30: Bex Taylor-Klaus bites the bullet and lands dream role on AMC’s ‘The Killing,’” Bex articulates her profound understanding of Bullet: 

“As an actor, you’re given a character as a kind of shell and it’s your job to breathe life into it. Bullet’s the one who breathed life into me…I knew everything she wanted to do when she grew up. I knew who she was, who she wanted to be, and then I watched it all get taken away.”
[youtube_sc url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UQkOn7nEu4″]


One of the greatest demonstrations of Bex’s astounding ability to translate her understanding of Bullet for the audience occurs in Episode 3 during a beautifully shot two-scene sequence that captures the aftermath of Bullet’s rape.  In a heart-wrenching moment, Bullet’s full inner beauty emerges even as she is at her lowest point, when she stares at her reflection in a bathroom mirror, examining the fresh, bloody wounds the rape has inflicted.  Bex brilliantly captures Bullet’s fractured self in that moment, revealing fear, devastation, disgust, humiliation, and rage through her eyes and facial expressions.  These emotions that she has never before felt so acutely ignite her burning resolve to save her best friend, so when Holder chases after her on the bridge later that day, she buries her fear and mistrust and tells him about that “nobody, nothing pimp” named Goldie.  Later on in the episode, when Holder fails to apprehend Goldie, Bullet bravely and forcefully tells him off, and when he confronts her about whether Goldie has “done something to” her, she answers only with an instruction to “do your job” and “find her (Kallie).” Once again, Bex is superb–naturally conveying Bullet’s selfless devotion to her friend, even in the midst of the biggest crisis she has ever experienced.

[youtube_sc url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-khchRvOJuk”]


Bullet never does get the chance to tell Holder, or anyone else, about what Goldie did to her–nor does she get the chance to tell Holder what she found out from the girl at the train station about the identity of the killer.  Her life is ended so suddenly and cruelly that she leaves behind her a bitter trail of unanswered questions that could never be resolved satisfactorily in the wake of her death. It is these answered questions, combined with the magnitude of Bullet’s–and by extension Bex’s–potential epitomized by her intelligence, her kindness and compassion, her acceptance, her longing, and her grace–that we mourn mightily as the case stalls toward a resolution. For a fleeting period, it seems these virtues which she demonstrates so freely even towards those who don’t deserve them, are blissfully rewarded when Lyric, the previously unattainable object of her affection, appears to “see” Bullet’s heart for the first time and reciprocates its longing with a tender kiss:

[youtube_sc url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3xUI7sRINA”]


For a day, Bullet experiences what it is like to be loved in return and we are afforded a rare and precious glimpse into the blissful life she should have been granted:

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNUqL8RWmLA”]


But the next day, Lyric is reunited with Twitch, the hustler she thought had abandoned her, and in a heartbeat, she turns her back on Bullet, cruelly claiming, “I don’t belong to you…I’m not gay, you know” (Season 2, Episode 8 “Try”). Already reeling from the mercilessly unjust suffering she endures during her brief life of which Lyric’s cutting rejection is the tipping point, the viewers’ reaction to Bullet’s death, and the absence of Bex in the role, was swift, heartfelt, and defined by a large volume of online fan art that was created to pay tribute to the murdered “Lionhearted Heroine,” as they began calling her:

The lionhearted heroine with a thousand faces. (Bullet image created by Maren Usken.)
The lionhearted heroine with a thousand faces. (Bullet image created by Maren Usken.)

 

Even though I do not possess the artistic talent or ability to paint a portrait, as many other talented fans did to remember and honor Bullet, I shed more tears for Bullet than I have since my father’s death when I was 8 years old.  She became like a sister to me, as Bex did in the role.  I loved her. I miss her. Like Holder, I will never forget her.  And, by her own eloquent admission, neither will Bex, who encapsulates our collective sorrow, but pays tribute to Bullet’s faith:

“I saw a woman with a similar haircut—an older woman with the haircut and similar style and it made me smile at first like ‘Oh look – Bullet when she grows up.’ And then all of a sudden I was standing in the street and it hit me…the realization that that’s not ever going to be what Bullet gets to do. Some people are saying how much she’s meant to them, they’re sad she’s gone and I’m saying she’s not. If she really meant that much to you, keep her alive inside of you. She’ll always be there. Keep her in your heart, whatever poeticness you’d like to put on it, whatever poetic words you want to put to it—keep her alive inside of you. She’s always be there. She always has. She’s a really strong character and strong, strong person. Even though she’s dead on the show or in the ‘real world,’ she doesn’t have to be dead inside. If she did really have an effect on you, she will always be with you.”

Bullet takes a drag.
Bullet takes a drag.

 

Still…In Season 4, Episode 5 of PBS’s beloved series Downton Abbey, a male valet says to his wife, a maid who is attacked in the same way that Bullet is attacked by Goldie in Episode 3 of The Killing: 

”You are not spoiled. You are made higher to me and holier because of the suffering you have been put through.”

 If she had to die, brave Bullet deserved a death worthy of the “higher, holier” human being she was–a girl who did not dwell in her suffering nor let it define her, but rose above it and used her pain to compassionately protect her street-family from suffering what she did.  Ideally, though, with all she silently suffered through, she deserved to live and to fulfill, as Bex articulated, “all she wanted to be.”  By extension, Bex, who, to use a phrase from Miley Cyrus’s song, “came in like a wrecking ball” and all but stole the entire season with her nuanced and engaging portrayal, deserved the opportunity to develop her performance of Bullet’s character beyond Season 3, as affirmed by AMC’s recent decision to cancel the series for a second time which many attribute to the irrevocable loss of Bex’s Lionhearted Heroine.

Check back  for Part 2: “18 Lionhearted Heroines From Film and Television

Bullet lives on.
Bullet lives on.

 

A version of this post first appeared at Outside Windows.

 


Natalia Lauren Fiore received a B.A. in Honors English and Creative Writing from Bryn Mawr College and an M.F.A in Creative and Professional Writing from Western Connecticut State University, where she wrote a feature-length screenplay entitled Sonata under the direction of novelist and screenwriter, Don J. Snyder, and playwright, Jack Dennis. Currently, she holds a full-time tenure track teaching post at Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, Florida, where she teaches English and Writing. Her writing interests include film criticism, screenwriting, literary journalism, fiction, the novel, and memoir. Her literature interests include the English novel, American Literature, and Drama – particularly Shakespeare. She blogs at Outside Windows and tweets @NataliaLaurenFi.

 

Women of Color in Film and TV: Talk About a ‘Scandal’: ‘Bunheads,’ the Whitey-Whiteness of TV, and Why Shonda Rhimes Is a Goddamn Hero

This guest review by Diane Shipley previously appeared at Bea Magazine and is cross-posted with permission.

I love Scandal. Halfway through the second season, it’s still some of the most sharp, fast-paced, thrilling TV I’ve ever sat through. Sure, it’s often improbable and features silly banter, but it’s never predictable, and Kerry Washington shines like the star she is as clever, controlled, morally ambiguous “crisis manager” Olivia Pope. (Yes, she’s the Pope.) (Oh, if only.)

What I don’t love is the fact that Kerry Washington is the first black woman to have the lead in a network drama in my lifetime.

Shonda Rhimes’ Scandal

I’m in my thirties! And since five years before I was born there hasn’t been a black female lead in an American network drama. (That was one called Get Christie Love!, inspired by the blaxploitation films of the ’70s.) And while there have been Asian and Latina leading ladies in that time, let’s not pretend that TV has ever been full of diversity. It’s a white person’s playground.

So it’s maybe not surprising that when Gilmore Girls creator Amy Sherman-Palladino’s new show Bunheads first aired, Shonda Rhimes, who created Scandal as well as Grey’s Anatomy and Private Practice, felt a little fed up.

She tweeted ABC Family:

“Really? You couldn’t cast even ONE young dancer of color so I could feel good about my kid watching this show? NOT ONE?”

Which seems like a fair comment, as Bunheads‘ lack of diversity is a glaring omission.

It’s great to see a show that’s unabashedly female-centric and more concerned with telling stories than trying to be gimmicky (and which portrays performers with far more subtlety than Smash could ever manage). There are enough shows where women are nothing more than set dressing for it not to be an issue that all six leads in Bunheads are ladies.

But it is an issue that all six leads are white.

It would have been nice if Rhimes’ tweet had launched a respectful debate about the underrepresentation of women of color on TV. Instead, it sent Sherman-Palladino on a self-justifying rant in a horrible interview with Media Mayhem, which was notable for the fact that neither she nor the journalist who questioned her actually stuck to the point. That journalist, Allison Hope Weiner, said that what she took from the incident was that it was “inappropriate” for a woman to criticise another female showrunner, when there are so few of them.

Sherman-Palladino agreed, saying she would never “go after” another woman and that women in TV are not as supportive as they should be. She also pointed out that she only had a week and a half to cast four girls who could act and dance on pointe. Then she said that she doesn’t do “issues shows.”

It’s hard to know where to start with this clusterbleep of wrongness, but how about we begin with the idea that women should always support each other, no matter what?

Rebecca Paller of the Paley Center posted a blog post about the fracas, Bunheads and Women: Why Can’t We Just Get Along?” in which she supports Sherman-Palladino and scolds Rhimes for her criticism, saying:

“You should have been more supportive of another female showrunner especially in this day and age when it’s so difficult to get a new dramatic series on the air.”

(Excuse me while I scream into a pillow until I throw up.)
Kerry Washington as Olivia Pope in Scandal
Here’s the thing: if anyone, regardless of gender, makes a mistake in their professional life, you have the right to call them out on it. Sure, Shonda Rimes could have been more deferential, but why the hell should she be?

Saying that women have to be nice to each other at all times because there are so few of us in top jobs only promotes the idea that we’re special snowflakes who have to be treated like precious cargo. While there are men whose shows are similarly lacking in diversity, female solidarity doesn’t preclude valid criticism. And the competitiveness among women that Sherman-Palladino alludes to is surely a symptom of the patriarchy and the fact that it’s so hard for women to get ahead rather than a case of “bitches be loco.”

Even worse, for white women like Sherman-Palladino, Hope Weiner, and Paller to ignore the context of Rhimes’ remark is breathtakingly ignorant. As you might have noticed, America has a history of oppressing both women and people of color and of stereotyping them in popular culture (the Academy is still rarely more impressed than when a black women plays a maid). And yet Paller mentions a possible Asian extra as proof that Bunheads is diverse, and says she’s “still not certain” why Rhimes saw fit to criticise Sherman-Palladino.

Shonda Rhimes is one of very few TV writers creating interesting black female characters. And she’s a black woman. That’s probably not coincidental. Sure, white men could be doing the same thing. But they’re not.
 

The most disappointing thing about Girls is that Lena Dunham appeared to not even consider that her show could include a main character who was black, or working class, or disabled, or transgender, and that viewers could still relate to that person. Because some of them are that person. Perhaps she was reluctant to make what Sherman-Palladino so charmingly dubs an “issues show,” but Scandal proves that a black character’s race doesn’t have to be her defining characteristic. 
Kerry Washington as Olivia Pope in Scandal
A few months ago, Vulture ran a round table discussion with female showrunners to acknowledge that there have historically been so few women in charge of TV shows, and to celebrate the fact that things are starting to change. When talk turned to criticisms of Girls, this exchange actually happened:
E.K.: I think the lack of diversity on Girls probably has something to do with HBO’s willingness to let her be very specific, and tell her story. Whereas with network shows, there’s always a mandate. It becomes, “How are we gonna include this group of people?” or “We have to have some diversity.”

W.C.: And then every doctor is black.

E.K.: It becomes a token gesture. It doesn’t come from a place of sincere storytelling, or anything organic to the world.

It’s true; there’s been a lot of tokenism in TV over the years, with black doctors and lawyers and police officers clumsily slotted into the background of shows like politically correct afterthoughts since at least the early ’70s. But this was still progress, because before that television was so white-dominated that only by networks making a concerted effort to seek out non-white actors could things start to change. Even now, a lack of diversity is more often an oversight than some kind of brave creative choice.

And sure, we’re talking television here, and not real life. But TV shows matter. They’re probably our biggest shared cultural experience, and how they portray (or ignore) members of historically marginalised groups can reflect and reinforce stereotypes in an insidious way. Helena Andrews wrote a great piece for xoJane about Bunheads and the fact that, had her own ballet teacher not been black, she might not have realized that the white-dominated world of dance was something she could take part in, let alone enjoy:

“In a world that was looking less and less like me just as I was beginning to actually take a look at myself (oh, hey, there puberty) seeing an impossibly elegant (and forgive me) strong black woman every week was more than just a drop in the bucket of my confidence. It was a monsoon.”

Not seeing anyone like yourself on TV, over and over again, is profoundly alienating, and yet Sherman-Palladino and Dunham seem to shrug off the idea that this matters, as if their life’s work has no effect on people.

Shonda Rhimes knows it does. 

———-

Diane Shipley is a freelance journalist specialising in women/feminism, books, and wonderful, wonderful television. She also blogs at No Humiliation Wasted and tweets (a lot). 

Women of Color in Film and TV: Talk About a "Scandal": ‘Bunheads,’ the Whitey-Whiteness of TV, and Why Shonda Rhimes Is a Goddamn Hero

This guest review by Diane Shipley previously appeared at Bea Magazine and is cross-posted with permission.

I love Scandal. Halfway through the second season, it’s still some of the most sharp, fast-paced, thrilling TV I’ve ever sat through. Sure, it’s often improbable and features silly banter, but it’s never predictable, and Kerry Washington shines like the star she is as clever, controlled, morally ambiguous “crisis manager” Olivia Pope. (Yes, she’s the Pope.) (Oh, if only.)

What I don’t love is the fact that Kerry Washington is the first black woman to have the lead in a network drama in my lifetime.

Shonda Rhimes’ Scandal

I’m in my thirties! And since five years before I was born there hasn’t been a black female lead in an American network drama. (That was one called Get Christie Love!, inspired by the blaxploitation films of the ’70s.) And while there have been Asian and Latina leading ladies in that time, let’s not pretend that TV has ever been full of diversity. It’s a white person’s playground.

So it’s maybe not surprising that when Gilmore Girls creator Amy Sherman-Palladino’s new show Bunheads first aired, Shonda Rhimes, who created Scandal as well as Grey’s Anatomy and Private Practice, felt a little fed up.

She tweeted ABC Family:

“Really? You couldn’t cast even ONE young dancer of color so I could feel good about my kid watching this show? NOT ONE?”

Which seems like a fair comment, as Bunheads‘ lack of diversity is a glaring omission.

It’s great to see a show that’s unabashedly female-centric and more concerned with telling stories than trying to be gimmicky (and which portrays performers with far more subtlety than Smash could ever manage). There are enough shows where women are nothing more than set dressing for it not to be an issue that all six leads in Bunheads are ladies.

But it is an issue that all six leads are white.

It would have been nice if Rhimes’ tweet had launched a respectful debate about the underrepresentation of women of color on TV. Instead, it sent Sherman-Palladino on a self-justifying rant in a horrible interview with Media Mayhem, which was notable for the fact that neither she nor the journalist who questioned her actually stuck to the point. That journalist, Allison Hope Weiner, said that what she took from the incident was that it was “inappropriate” for a woman to criticise another female showrunner, when there are so few of them.

Sherman-Palladino agreed, saying she would never “go after” another woman and that women in TV are not as supportive as they should be. She also pointed out that she only had a week and a half to cast four girls who could act and dance on pointe. Then she said that she doesn’t do “issues shows.”

It’s hard to know where to start with this clusterbleep of wrongness, but how about we begin with the idea that women should always support each other, no matter what?

Rebecca Paller of the Paley Center posted a blog post about the fracas, Bunheads and Women: Why Can’t We Just Get Along?” in which she supports Sherman-Palladino and scolds Rhimes for her criticism, saying:

“You should have been more supportive of another female showrunner especially in this day and age when it’s so difficult to get a new dramatic series on the air.”

(Excuse me while I scream into a pillow until I throw up.)
Kerry Washington as Olivia Pope in Scandal
Here’s the thing: if anyone, regardless of gender, makes a mistake in their professional life, you have the right to call them out on it. Sure, Shonda Rimes could have been more deferential, but why the hell should she be?

Saying that women have to be nice to each other at all times because there are so few of us in top jobs only promotes the idea that we’re special snowflakes who have to be treated like precious cargo. While there are men whose shows are similarly lacking in diversity, female solidarity doesn’t preclude valid criticism. And the competitiveness among women that Sherman-Palladino alludes to is surely a symptom of the patriarchy and the fact that it’s so hard for women to get ahead rather than a case of “bitches be loco.”

Even worse, for white women like Sherman-Palladino, Hope Weiner, and Paller to ignore the context of Rhimes’ remark is breathtakingly ignorant. As you might have noticed, America has a history of oppressing both women and people of color and of stereotyping them in popular culture (the Academy is still rarely more impressed than when a black women plays a maid). And yet Paller mentions a possible Asian extra as proof that Bunheads is diverse, and says she’s “still not certain” why Rhimes saw fit to criticise Sherman-Palladino.

Shonda Rhimes is one of very few TV writers creating interesting black female characters. And she’s a black woman. That’s probably not coincidental. Sure, white men could be doing the same thing. But they’re not.
 

The most disappointing thing about Girls is that Lena Dunham appeared to not even consider that her show could include a main character who was black, or working class, or disabled, or transgender, and that viewers could still relate to that person. Because some of them are that person. Perhaps she was reluctant to make what Sherman-Palladino so charmingly dubs an “issues show,” but Scandal proves that a black character’s race doesn’t have to be her defining characteristic. 
Kerry Washington as Olivia Pope in Scandal
A few months ago, Vulture ran a round table discussion with female showrunners to acknowledge that there have historically been so few women in charge of TV shows, and to celebrate the fact that things are starting to change. When talk turned to criticisms of Girls, this exchange actually happened:
E.K.: I think the lack of diversity on Girls probably has something to do with HBO’s willingness to let her be very specific, and tell her story. Whereas with network shows, there’s always a mandate. It becomes, “How are we gonna include this group of people?” or “We have to have some diversity.”

W.C.: And then every doctor is black.

E.K.: It becomes a token gesture. It doesn’t come from a place of sincere storytelling, or anything organic to the world.

It’s true; there’s been a lot of tokenism in TV over the years, with black doctors and lawyers and police officers clumsily slotted into the background of shows like politically correct afterthoughts since at least the early ’70s. But this was still progress, because before that television was so white-dominated that only by networks making a concerted effort to seek out non-white actors could things start to change. Even now, a lack of diversity is more often an oversight than some kind of brave creative choice.

And sure, we’re talking television here, and not real life. But TV shows matter. They’re probably our biggest shared cultural experience, and how they portray (or ignore) members of historically marginalised groups can reflect and reinforce stereotypes in an insidious way. Helena Andrews wrote a great piece for xoJane about Bunheads and the fact that, had her own ballet teacher not been black, she might not have realized that the white-dominated world of dance was something she could take part in, let alone enjoy:

“In a world that was looking less and less like me just as I was beginning to actually take a look at myself (oh, hey, there puberty) seeing an impossibly elegant (and forgive me) strong black woman every week was more than just a drop in the bucket of my confidence. It was a monsoon.”

Not seeing anyone like yourself on TV, over and over again, is profoundly alienating, and yet Sherman-Palladino and Dunham seem to shrug off the idea that this matters, as if their life’s work has no effect on people.

Shonda Rhimes knows it does. 

———-

Diane Shipley is a freelance journalist specialising in women/feminism, books, and wonderful, wonderful television. She also blogs at No Humiliation Wasted and tweets (a lot). 

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

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

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

Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

Stephanie‘s Picks:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Amber‘s Picks:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Megan‘s Picks:

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

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

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

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

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

Geena Davis on Gender by Jenny Peters via Variety

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

Justice Sotomayor Gives Sesame Street Some Career Advice via Feministing

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


Quote of the Day: Screenwriter/Director Callie Khouri Weighs In On How TV Is Friendlier to Women

Callie Khouri

In a recent interview with Salon, Academy Award-winner Callie Khouri weighed in on how TV seems to be more friendly to shows about women. Khouri (who wrote Thelma and Louise for that Oscar) is the writer and producer for ABC’s new musical drama Nashville.
Salon asked her about television telling women’s stories and Khouri responded with thoughts that articulate the difficulties in writing feature films about women (adding that “I don’t think any studio in a million years would make Thelma and Louise right now”), and how to properly write stories once you get the green light.

Salon: People who make TV also seem much more comfortable making shows for women than people making movies do.

Khouri: “Because you’re allowed. You’re allowed to make things for women on television and there’s not like … you don’t have to go through the humiliation of having made something directed at women. There it’s just accepted, whereas if it’s a feature, it’s like “So, talk to me about chick flicks.” … I just think it’s insulting that if there is something with women in it, it’s relegated to this kind of trash heap. It doesn’t matter what it is, how good it is, if there is emotion in it, it’s immediately going to be talked down to. And I’m obviously irritated by that. Probably all women are. Certainly a lot of women filmmakers are.Anyway, I don’t want to just complain about features, but it does seem unduly hard given the number of women that exist in the world.”

On the show not being “about a catfight,” even though it starts out that way:

Khouri: “…You come at things from the place where everybody thinks they know everything about what they are seeing. And then you just slowly peel back the layers until you’ve got very complicated human beings with very different sets of problems, all of them doing something that’s impossibly hard to begin with and trying to make their place in this world. Watching two women go at it is boring. There are so many other shows where you can get that. I want it to be about something more than that.”

The depth and breadth of female characters on TV is stunning right now. Whether the female is the protagonist (Homeland, The Mindy Project, 30 Rock, Parks and Recreation, etc.) or females are strong supporting characters (Boardwalk Empire, Sons of Anarchy, etc.), women’s stories on TV are becoming much less of an anomaly.
Women on the big screen, however… well, we still see a distinct difference, as Khouri notes, between “chick flicks” and “Hollywood blockbusters.” This is why the Bechdel Test has to exist; it’s rare for a film to place value on women’s stories and anything that might, as Khouri says, have “emotion in it.” 
As she goes on to observe, to properly tell women’s stories you have to “slowly peel back the layers” after presenting the audience with a stereotype. Perhaps that’s why it’s easier to do in TV — the sheer time that TV writers have to lure audiences in with character development and storytelling.
It seems Hollywood’s two hours, more or less, just aren’t enough to properly “peel back the layers.”  Are women’s stories really that much more complicated than men’s? Or is the “otherness” of women just so ingrained that a writer would need a few hours to first deconstruct the stereotypes and cultural myths that the audience walks in with?
Whatever the case may be, Khouri is right. This double standard is “unduly hard given the number of women that exist in the world.” Their stories are being showcased in the private sphere of the home, but they just can’t seem to break through to the public big screen. It’s time for that to change.



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

Quote of the Day: Screenwriter/Director Callie Khouri Weighs In On How TV Friendlier to Women

Callie Khouri

In a recent interview with Salon, Academy Award-winner Callie Khouri weighed in on how TV seems to be more friendly to shows about women. Khouri (who wrote Thelma and Louise for that Oscar) is the writer and producer for ABC’s new musical drama Nashville.
Salon asked her about television telling women’s stories and Khouri responded with thoughts that articulate the difficulties in writing feature films about women (adding that “I don’t think any studio in a million years would make Thelma and Louise right now”), and how to properly write stories once you get the green light.

Salon: People who make TV also seem much more comfortable making shows for women than people making movies do.

Khouri: “Because you’re allowed. You’re allowed to make things for women on television and there’s not like … you don’t have to go through the humiliation of having made something directed at women. There it’s just accepted, whereas if it’s a feature, it’s like “So, talk to me about chick flicks.” … I just think it’s insulting that if there is something with women in it, it’s relegated to this kind of trash heap. It doesn’t matter what it is, how good it is, if there is emotion in it, it’s immediately going to be talked down to. And I’m obviously irritated by that. Probably all women are. Certainly a lot of women filmmakers are.Anyway, I don’t want to just complain about features, but it does seem unduly hard given the number of women that exist in the world.”

On the show not being “about a catfight,” even though it starts out that way:

Khouri: “…You come at things from the place where everybody thinks they know everything about what they are seeing. And then you just slowly peel back the layers until you’ve got very complicated human beings with very different sets of problems, all of them doing something that’s impossibly hard to begin with and trying to make their place in this world. Watching two women go at it is boring. There are so many other shows where you can get that. I want it to be about something more than that.”

The depth and breadth of female characters on TV is stunning right now. Whether the female is the protagonist (Homeland, The Mindy Project, 30 Rock, Parks and Recreation, etc.) or females are strong supporting characters (Boardwalk Empire, Sons of Anarchy, etc.), women’s stories on TV are becoming much less of an anomaly.
Women on the big screen, however… well, we still see a distinct difference, as Khouri notes, between “chick flicks” and “Hollywood blockbusters.” This is why the Bechdel Test has to exist; it’s rare for a film to place value on women’s stories and anything that might, as Khouri says, have “emotion in it.” 
As she goes on to observe, to properly tell women’s stories you have to “slowly peel back the layers” after presenting the audience with a stereotype. Perhaps that’s why it’s easier to do in TV — the sheer time that TV writers have to lure audiences in with character development and storytelling.
It seems Hollywood’s two hours, more or less, just aren’t enough to properly “peel back the layers.”  Are women’s stories really that much more complicated than men’s? Or is the “otherness” of women just so ingrained that a writer would need a few hours to first deconstruct the stereotypes and cultural myths that the audience walks in with?
Whatever the case may be, Khouri is right. This double standard is “unduly hard given the number of women that exist in the world.” Their stories are being showcased in the private sphere of the home, but they just can’t seem to break through to the public big screen. It’s time for that to change.



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

Horror Week 2012: ‘The Walking Dead’ and Gender: Why I’m Skeptical the Addition of Badass Michonne Will Change the TV Series’ Sexism

Michonne (Danai Gurira) in The Walking Dead

Warning: if you haven’t seen Seasons 1 and 2 of The Walking Dead, there are spoilers ahead.

Have you ever dated someone because of their potential rather than what she/he/ze brings to the table? Or is that just me?? Well, that’s how I feel about AMC’s The Walking Dead.

While I like the show, I keep watching the zombie apocalypse, based on the comic books, because I keep hoping and expecting it to become great – especially when it comes to the female characters and the show’s sexist portrayal of gender roles.

The conservative characters continually depict retro gender norms. The men talk about protecting the women. The women cook and clean while the men go off and hunt or protect the camp or farm. Yes, Andrea is the exception to the rule. She shoots and kills zombies and patrols the perimeter. But the women take a backseat to the men. They let the men debate, argue, decide.

I criticized Game of Thrones, a show I adore, for its misogyny. But at least it contains strong, intelligent and powerful female characters. Where the hell are they on The Walking Dead???

Which is why I’m so excited about the introduction of Michonne.

In Season 2’s record-breaking finale, Andrea (Laurie Holden) is rescued by a katana-wielding, hooded woman holding two chained, jawless, armless zombies. It was probably the best introduction I’ve ever witnessed. Ever. And that mystery woman would be Michonne. Not only am I delighted to see another female character. But the show so desperately needs another bad-ass woman.

For those who haven’t read the comics (like me), Michonne, who will be played by Danai Gurira (who’s simply amazing in The Visitor and Treme) seems to be a strong, powerful, complex character. She’s clever since she uses two incapacitated walkers in order to seek out the living hide from other walkers. She appears to be a fierce and fearless survivor. But what’s even more exciting is that she’s a woman of color.

Yet I’m skeptical as the show hasn’t done a great job portraying gender so far.

Lori (Sarah Wayne Callies) does whatever Rick (Andrew Lincoln), her husband and leader of the group, says, blindly and unquestioningly standing by him. Carol (Melissa McBride), who’s keeping it together pretty well considering she’s lost her daughter and her husband, still clings to men, first her abusive husband Ed and now Daryl (Norman Reedus), who tell her what to do. The writers squandered the opportunity to explore a domestic violence survivor rather than making her a caricature. When we first meet Maggie (Lauren Cohan), she’s riding in on a horse, bashing a Walker (aka zombie) with a baseball bat. She started off so fierce, spunky and sexually assertive. It’s just unfortunate she’s unraveling, a hysterical mess who seems to cling to her BF Glenn (Steven Yeun) for protection.

The two bright spots are Andrea and Jacqui. Andrea is one of my favorite characters. A tough survivor, she’s one of the best shots and guards the camp. She did try to commit suicide, despondent after her sister died. But she’s become determined to live. She’s smart, questions the status quo, and has become more assertive, unafraid to voice her opinion. Jacqui was outspoken and seemed to possess a quiet inner strength. While I wish she’d fought harder to survive, she chooses to end her life, dying peacefully at the end of Season 1. Even though Andrea and Jacqui are the only ones, I’m glad SOMEBODY questions the ridiculous gender nonsense.

In the very first episode in Season 1, there’s a flashback depicting Rick and Shane joking about gender differences. When Rick confides that he’s having marital problems, he tells Shane that Lori accused him of “not caring about his family in front of” their son Carl. And then Rick (who I actually like a lot) says:

“The difference between men and women? I would never say something that cruel to her.”

Wow, so we’re treated to gender essentialism and a lovely tidbit that women are cruel, heartless shrews all in the first episode. This is definitely an omen of things to come.

Andrea (Laurie Holden), Amy (Emma Bell), Carol (Melissa McBride) doing laundry on The Walking Dead

In “Tell It To the Frogs,” Andrea, Amy, Carol, Jacqui wash laundry in a lake. As the women work, they see the men splashing around enjoying themselves. Jacqui, one of the only women with any common sense and a spark of strength, asks:

“I’m really beginning to question the division of labor around here. Can someone explain to me how the women ended up doing all the Hattie McDaniel work?”

YES!! Love this! How about maybe they rotate chores? Or what if (radical idea here) some of the men wanted to cook or clean? Why should the women do all the domestic tasks??

The women proceed to bond over missing their washing machines and vibrators. But then the frivolity is cut short by Carol’s abusive husband Ed who threatens the women and then slaps Carol. While the women try to defend her, Shane steps in and starts beating the shit out of him, getting out all his aggression and frustration about Lori spurning him. So even though Shane warns Ed that he better not ever lay a hand on Carol or Sophia, he’s not acting out of nobility or the belief that men shouldn’t abuse women. Not surprising as this is the same douchebag who later tries to rape Lori and then brushes it off when she confronts him about it.

Talking about women in post-apocalyptic genres, Balancing Jane asserts that while strong women exist, it’s the men who rescue them and allow them their strength:

“[The Walking Dead goes out of its] way to demonstrate that those women had to first be saved by a righteous man. In order for women to become competent and determined, a man had to first stand up and make a space for them. Until a man appeared as savior, the women were doomed to be physically overpowered and sexually exploited.”

Men continually deny women power and autonomy. Dale takes Andrea’s gun away from her (“What Lies Ahead”) like she’s a child, backed up by rapist Shane. So a grown-ass woman shouldn’t have a gun but Carl, an ELEVEN-year-old can carry one! Oh but the little woman can’t be trusted. Ugh. Dale also comments on Andrea and Maggie’s sex lives. Speaking of Carl and guns…Lori voices her opposition for her son shooting yet no one listens to her concerns. When Lori discovers she’s pregnant, Glenn scolds her for not taking her vitamins as if she doesn’t know how to care for herself. Gee thanks, Glenn, it’s not like she’s never been pregnant before.

And then of course there’s the infamous abortion/emergency contraception storyline in “Secrets.” After Lori discovers she’s pregnant, she asks Glenn to obtain medication from the pharmacy for her to terminate her pregnancy (which she admits she’s not sure if it will work). But EC is contraception, doesn’t terminate an existing pregnancy and must be taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex or failed contraception. RU-486, which does terminate an existing pregnancy, has to be procured from a doctor, not a pharmacy.

Jezebel, Slate, ACLU and many others wrote about this episode and the myths it perpetuates. Of course showrunner Glenn Mazzara brushed off the criticism saying the writers took “artistic creative license” and he “hopes people aren’t turning to the fictional world of The Walking Dead for medical advice.” Well of course people shouldn’t be. But the media influences people’s perceptions, including medicine and abortion. There’s so much misinformation swirling around abortion and contraception. And it’s this misinformation that anti-choicers use to their advantage.

If ever there was a time for a show to depict a pregnant character having an abortion…yeah, I think a zombie apocalypse would be it. But it’s strange that this abortion/contraception arc occurs in the same episode where people are debating the zombies in the barn and what constitutes life.

Lori (Sarah Wayne Callies) and Rick (Andrew Lincoln) on The Walking Dead

But it’s the reaction of those around Lori that most disturbs me. Rick screams at Lori for even thinking about terminating the pregnancy. After Maggie and Glenn return from the pharmacy (granted, they’ve just been attacked by zombies), Maggie chucks the pills at Lori saying, “Here’s your abortion pills!” So not only does Lori not turn to another woman for help (turning to Glenn instead), but Maggie yells at her for her reproductive choice. As Bitch Magazine blogger Katherine Don writes:

“When reproductive choices are navigated by a stereotyped character and manhandled by scriptwriters who don’t recognize a woman’s ability to weight options and make decisions, the woman is robbed of her individuality, humanity and dignity.”

Beyond their “individuality, humanity and dignity,” the women are also robbed of their voice. In “Judge, Jury, Executioner,” the group congregate in the farmhouse to discuss the fate of captured Randall. While Dale vehemently opposes the decision to execute him, he’s the only one who speaks up. Eventually, Andrea, who was a civil rights lawyer pre-walkers, voices her opinion that Dale’s right. Lori, who opposes the death penalty, says nothing, almost always blindly agreeing with Rick. But the worst comes when Carol says she wants no part of the decision and wants them to decide it for her. Excuse me?? You want to forget all about making the hard decisions and just sit back, letting others decide for you??

I’m so fucking tired of the writers silencing the women.

The show’s treatment of race and heteronormativity isn’t a whole lot better. Why does the one black man (what happened to Morgan and his son from Season 1??) have to be silent for most episodes and have a ridiculous name like T-Dog? Where are the LGBTQ characters? What does it say about a show where the most interesting and complex character is a racist?? Yep, sad to say but Daryl’s my favorite. Why do we have to keep hearing racist Asian jokes? Why did Jacqui, the one black woman on the show, have to kill herself??

We see female empowerment continually stripped away. Lori seems to be the worst perpetrator of gender stereotypes and reinforcing hyper-masculinity. Glenn tells Maggie that he was distracted shooting at the bar because all he could think about was her. When Maggie confesses this in “18 Miles Out,” Lori in her infinite wisdom tells her that she should let “the men do their man-work” and that it’s women’s jobs to support the men. Oh yeah, she also says, “Tell him to man up.” Gee thanks, Lori. Swell advice. So men aren’t allowed to be emotional or sentimental. Only women.

(L-R): Glenn, Andrea, Shane, T-Dog, Daryl on The Walking Dead

Later, Lori, on another anti-feminist tirade (!!!), scolds Andrea for burdening the other women by not cooking and cleaning. Lori says Andrea should leave the other work for the men, like a good little woman, don’t ya know. What. The. Fuck. When Andrea says that she contributes to the group by offering protection and keeping watch (which she does), Lori blurts out,

“You sit up on that RV working on your tan with a shotgun in your lap.”

I’m sorry, did the zombipocalypse also signal a rip in the fabric of time where The Walking Dead characters now live in fucking 1955?! So Lori, women shouldn’t be “playing” with guns or hunting for food or protecting the camp. Nope. Women are only good for domestic duties like cooking, cleaning and child-rearing. Leave the tough stuff to the men. Silly me for forgetting. Thank god Andrea told Lori and her bullshit off. Maybe Lori’s just jealous of Andrea’s skills since Lori can’t drive a car without flipping it into a ditch.

While blaming it on Lori’s “irrational behavior” due to her pregnancy and “going through a lot of stuff” (um, aren’t they all?), writer and The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman ultimately defends this exchange and the show’s depiction of traditional gender roles:

“Lori is really just aggravated over a lot of things and she’s lashing out. She was serious and she wants Andrea to pull her weight; certain people are stuck with certain tasks and to a certain extent people are retreating back into traditional gender roles because of how this survival-crazy world seems to work.”

So I’m really supposed to believe that when the zombie shit hits the fan, we’re all going to take a time warp? And why the fuck is it a woman, the wife of the leader of the group, who keeps spouting sexist bullshit?!

The horror genre often makes commentaries on humanity vs. brutality. Yet Kirkman clearly doesn’t care about making a social commentary on gender. And to a point that’s fine – not everything must possess some deep message. But there’s no reason the opposite couldn’t be true – an apocalypse spurring egalitarian rather than “traditional” gender roles.

All of the survivors have endured unspeakable horrors, witnessing the slaughter of their loved ones. People react differently to tragedy, some will come unhinged while others grow stronger. And wielding a gun isn’t necessarily synonymous with strength. But why must we constantly see a rearticulation of sexist gender stereotypes? Do people actually think this sexism is justified because they erroneously think we live in a post-feminist society?? When it comes to genres like horror, fantasy and scif-fi, writers can imagine any world they wish. Why imagine a sexist one? Why is everyone on the show struggling to maintain white male patriarchy??

We haven’t witnessed a fierce woman in any leadership role yet. With the arrival Michonne, I’m finally truly excited about The Walking Dead. I’m hopeful that the writers can still turn things around. With Michonne and Lauren Cohan who plays Maggie promoted to series regular, some speculate “Season 3 is shaping up to be a big one for the ladies.” But I’m still skeptical. Michonne has a lot to do to erase the stench of sexist bullshit contaminating the show.

Listening and the Art of Good Storytelling in Louis C.K.’s ‘Louie’



Louis C.K.’s Louie
“I remember thinking in fifth grade, ‘I have to get inside that box and make this shit better’… It made me mad that the shows were so bad. People have a right to relax and watch theater about themselves that makes them reflect and feel and have a good time doing it.” – Louis C.K.
The subversive feminism of a show is most striking when it is underneath, not necessarily a part of, the writing. From season 1 of FX’s critically acclaimed Louie, it has been clear that Louis C.K. isn’t trying to make some grand commentary on gender or social norms. He’s simply weaving stories out of life.

Louie–starring C.K. as Louie–is one of those shows that doesn’t leave a feminist audience balking at stereotypes or scrambling to celebrate its female empowerment (although C.K. is, in general, a feminist darling). In fact, its power lies in its ability to allow us to not think too much about gender; instead, we are focused on the stories and the sheer humanity of the characters. 

Louie is a single father co-parenting two daughters in New York City and working as a comedian. The obviously semi-autobiographical sitcom is wrapping up its third season next week. A TV auteur, C.K. produces, writes, directs, edits, and stars in each episode. He has been nominated for three Emmy awards for the series (for acting, directing, and writing).

Early on, audiences felt there was something different about Louie. The best way to describe the ebb and flow of comedy and dramatic genius would be intensely human. Everyone is flawed (not just Louie, and not just his love interests and friends), and his relationship with his on-screen daughters is particularly moving in its stark honesty. We worry, panic, yearn, laugh, and cry along with our protagonist.

Parenting–a subject most often reserved for the action and commentary of mothers–is central to C.K.’s stand-up and to Louie. In the show, Louie is consistently shown as a capable father who loves and is loved by his daughters. He’s no heroic single father, but we see him as a parent, nothing less. On the subject of gender roles in parenting, C.K. has said, “Roles have all changed. There’s a lot of fathers who take care of their kids, there’s a lot of mothers who have careers. But in culture, those roles are still the same. When I take my kids out for dinner or lunch, people smile at us. A waitress said to my kids the other day, ‘Isn’t that nice that you’re getting to have a little lunch with your daddy?’ And I was insulted by it, because I’m like, I’m f**king taking them to lunch, and then I’m taking them home, and then I’m feeding them and doing their homework with them and putting them to bed. She’s like, Oh, this is special time with daddy. Well, no, this is boring time with daddy, the same as everything.” This philosophy is clear in Louie.

Louie eats dinner with his two on-screen daughters.

C.K.’s stand-up acts frame the plot(s) of each episode, which are usually independent to what has happened in previous episodes. This season alone, Louie has dealt with being sexually assaulted on a date (although some bloggers problematically downplayed the assault in semi-celebration of the challenged double standard), wrestling with a friendly attachment to a young handsome man on a trip to Miami, and experiencing awkward encounters with women as flawed as he is. He is frequently depicted as having the more stereotypically feminine role in relationships (emotional, needy, and looking for serious companionship). Previous seasons have featured him having sex with (and being inspired by) Joan Rivers, dealing with childhood issues surrounding religion and sexual awakening, and being an adequate son and brother. His daughters are continually portrayed as empowered and fully realized (including one episode in season 2 in which his youngest daughter helps scare off some teenage thugs on Halloween). As the girls grow up, their character traits become more pronounced and realistic.

Parker Posey plays one of Louie’s love interests in season 3.

Season 2’s critically acclaimed “Duckling” was an hour-long episode that followed Louie on a fictional USO tour to the Middle East. According to C.K., it was an accurate depiction of his real experiences on a USO tour to Afghanistan, and the idea for the episode came from his daughter, who was four at the time.

And for his show in general, C.K. says, “I just like listening. I try to take people who are way far away from what I think or understand and put a representative of them on my show.”


Indeed, one of the aspects of C.K. as a comedian, producer/director/writer/actor, and person that makes him who he is and Louie what it has been is that he listens. He listened to a four-year-old little girl and created a television show that is up for an Emmy. It’s also clear that he spent his original trip doing a great deal of listening to his fellow USO performers and the soldiers he met. That is what leads to great storytelling.

C.K. used his own experiences and inspiration from his daughter to create “Duckling” in season 2.


Outside of the television show, C.K. has also made it clear that listening is key to everything he does. After Daniel Tosh’s rape joke went viral earlier this summer, C.K. was brought into the spotlight after tweeting a complimentary tweet to Tosh (which he said he sent not knowing about the rape joke or the backlash). In an interview with Jon Stewart, C.K. addressed the fact that he listened to the bloggers–feminists, comedians, feminist-comedians–and altered his thoughts about the situation. He said, I think you should listen when you read – If somebody has an opposite feeling from me, I wanna hear it so I can add to mine. I don’t wanna obliterate theirs with mine; that’s how I feel.” He went on to say that in being enlightened to the true ramifications of rape culture: Now that’s part of me that wasn’t there before.”

In an interview with NPR last winter, C.K. was asked about his thoughts on those who identify as “right-wing” (after a discussion about Christians often stumbling across his stand-up after seeing a mild clip and asking him to “clean up” his comedy): “There’s been a lot of simple vilification of right-wing people. It’s really easy to say, ‘Well, you’re Christian, you’re anti-this and that, and I hate you.’ But to me, it’s more interesting to say, ‘What is this person like and how do they really think?’ Do I have any common ground with people like that who find me really, really offensive? Do I have common ground with them? It’s worth exploring.” C.K. clearly explores every piece of life he encounters, and that seeking, that analysis, makes all of the difference.

It’s no secret that listening to others’ stories leads to better storytelling (listening well pretty much leads to better everything). However, it’s rare that we witness that kind of storytelling on half-hour TV sitcoms. On the surface, a show produced, written, directed, and edited by one man (who also stars as the protagonist and is a comedian) doesn’t sound like it would be the panacea for three-dimensional storytelling. But as C.K. continually shows his audiences, episode after episode, listening to others and thinking about life critically has led him to accurately tell stories in a fully human way.

In an interview with the New York Times last summer, C.K. said, “An uphill battle is just more interesting to me.” Choosing to not rely on tropes and recycled story lines and stock characters is an uphill battle, but as Louie demonstrates, what’s on top of that hill is well worth the climb.




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