Tag: Women in Television

‘Castle’ Part II: At Least The Women Aren’t So Bad

Castle’s Season 3 promo.

Written by Janyce Denise Glasper

I do like Castle‘s peculiar whodunnits and admire Andrew Marlowe’s diverse cast, especially the women characters who frequently provide humorous banter to their male counterparts. Yet as the series progressed more toward the Caskett pairing, putting their romance as a pivotal forefront of the show, it lost a certain integrity and edgy charm.

“You put yourself into these relationships with men you don’t love,” Castle says to Beckett in the season three finale.
How does Castle even know that Beckett doesn’t love these boyfriends or have feelings for them? Because they’re not him? Viewers barely get an opportunity to know who they are.

Castle (Nathan Fillion) and Beckett (Stana Katic) put on a kissing act.

I am a fan of Caskett’s affable, easy going camaraderie. By the third season, Castle and Beckett finish each other’s sentences and even have a signature “I know who the killer is” line, but working together simply hasn’t been enough for them. Castle gives Beckett sentimental gifts at times, compliments her inner attributes–not her looks, as he previously did so often–and occasionally saves her life. Their tender, endearing friendship is wonderful to watch, but by the end of season four it fully turns into a muddied Castle/Beckett melodramatic mess. I love my soap operas, preferably in the afternoon, and desire to have mysteries and comedic mayhem at night. Bones used to be sheer entertainment, but everyone at the Smithsonian is hooked up with each other–the two leads included! Apparently this seems to be all the rage at every network.

We never see Beckett with her boyfriends beyond the precinct. Every time she’s playing “sexy” undercover work (because she always has to seduce male bad guys and never the other way around), Castle is always there to stare her down like a starving man needing a cop’s jelly doughnut. (These scenes usually give me squeamish shivers.) Despite her role as a muse’s eye candy, Beckett’s strengths, flaws, and challenges are admirable. She has faced so much tragedy and adversity (including being shot in season three’s explosive finale) but continues to be a powerful, heroic woman who can throw a mean punch. Her private tears don’t always blur judgment, and her quips are sharper than razor tips.
However, my favorite relationship happens to be Castle/Alexis. They have sweet father/daughter moments that are genuinely touching to watch. Alexis is the bright, intelligent Penny to Castle’s quirky Inspector Gadget–sort of an adoring mother hen to her sometimes childish father. It became slightly tampered because of Gina. His ex-wife makes quite an eye-opening speech that sheds light on their marriage and her desire to have a relationship with Alexis:
“Even when we were married you built a wall around Alexis like you didn’t want anyone to be close to her. When it came to the two of you I was always on the outside looking in.”

Castle did make the ultimate commitment to this woman. She may not have been Alexis’s biological mother, but he should have at least given her an opportunity to try to play that role.

Season three Castle cast: top- Molly Quinn (Alexis), Susan Sulllivan (Martha), Stana Katic (Beckett), Tamala Jones (Lanie), bottom- Dever (Ryan), Nathan Fillion (Castle), and Jon Huertes (Esposito). 

Season three has milestones. Detective Ryan proposes to his longtime girlfriend Jenny. Castle and Beckett have their first kiss- -a ruse for an undercover assignment (bound to happen). Captain Roy Montgomery dies tragically. And Beckett is shot in the very somber finale. And then there’s …
“Esplanie!”
This season also introduces another coupling at work–Esposito (Jon Huertes) and Lanie (Tamala Jones). Now this pairing doesn’t receive the special treatment of a strong build up, “hot” tension, and those over-sentimental fluffy moments that Castle and Beckett continue having, or even the sweet sincerity of Ryan and Jenny. No. No. No. In Poof! You’re Dead, episode 12 of season three, they’re in bed together (okay a floor, but still). Marlowe and company gave no hints, no signs that these two were even going to be in this “bam bam thank you ma’am” situation. Prior to this affair, they barely speak or flash eyes at crime scenes. So what gives? On one hand, I’m happy to see Lanie have more to do than giving the cause of death in difficult medical terminology or telling Beckett to chase Castle, but I want to know who she is. Lanie is funny (who can forget her hilarious British accent?), smart (those words aren’t easy to pronounce!), and caring (riding the gurney whilst desperately trying to save Beckett’s life is so endearingly emotional). Why not see her presence around more?
Castle‘s season four promo with Beckett (Stana Katic) and Castle (Nathan Fillion). 

Season four also introduces a new character–Captain Victoria “Iron” Gates (Penny Johnson Herald). She’s ruthless, kind of mean, and likes to be called “Sir.” There’s something badass about wanting to be called “Sir.” It’s not that “I’m the man around here” attitude; it’s “I’m the boss, I mean business, and don’t take crap from anyone”–including Castle, mayor’s buddy or not! She’s not as lenient as Roy, but she isn’t all hard. There’s softness in her steel posture. I love that she despises Castle because that’s one person on the show who will not feed Beckett that “Castle loves you” tune that everyone keeps singing. Plus, she’s a minority woman (as is Lanie) and to place her in a strong leadership position is worth applause. Women of color could benefit from less stereotyping in television.
Season four highs and lows: Alexis finally tells Castle that he isn’t a bloody cop! (Finally!) Esplanie breaks up. Ryan and Jenny get married. Caskett confesses their feelings in the finale with, of course, cheesy Beckett all soaked from rain (what else is new?) and apologizing to Castle … and succumbing to the writer’s question of “will they or won’t they?” against the door.

No longer fun & witty, sex is selling Castle‘s season five promo.
The above poster tells viewers exactly what season five is about.
Well, Mr. Marlowe, the charm of Castle, started dwindling in season five–especially with Beckett whining every other episode about not knowing where their relationship is going (insert Lanie’s primary usage here). Now getting right into the season finale which included a proposal–an ultimatum disguised as romance–Castle feels pissed that Beckett didn’t want to tell him about her impressive new job offer. It’s become another villain, another crook to “put to bed.” Beckett seems pretty stoked–why else would she secretly fly out to D.C., have recommendations, and all her other little peas in a podded nicely? She really wants that job. I doubt that she wants to continue life with morning coffee and NYC crime. If she chooses Castle, she would have to stay and forever be the Nikki Heat to his Jameson Rook. How long can she stand being that person?

Penny Johnson Herald as Captain “Iron” Gates in Castle.

Season six is this mysterious mist that fogs up summer. It is a mist that is both anticipative and detrimental for all of these characters, but the last thing needed is another shocking cast death. Beckett is leg shackled to Castle and Tamala Jones and Penny Johnson Herald have too many credit-only appearances. They’ve never had stories featured on them, no accidental involvements in murders or connections to victims. Alexis may be in college too, but I miss her her warmth and intelligence; it’s rare to see a young woman in television using her brains and not her body to get attention (another stereotype bullet dodged!). The Save Alexis kidnapping two-parter episode showed that familiar Castle I had grown to love–a definite highlight of the season.
Castle‘s cherished spontaneity has quickly turned into rehashed predictability. I hope that these women remain strong against the tides that continue to either make or break them. The show should get back to focusing on enigmatic mysteries, Beckett’s reliable strength (the heart of everything), and let that romantic drama linger in the background–not kill the show’s balance like an unseen murderer.

‘Castle’ Part 1: Why Can’t We Just Be Friends?

Castle in on ABC.


Written by Janyce Denise Glasper

An avid fan of most Whedonverse alums, I started watching Castle in the middle of the fourth season to see the charming charismatic Nathan Fillion (Firefly, Buffy, and Dr. Horrible’s Sing- Along Blog) play the title role. Stana Katic–although a new actress to me, is a fantastic choice to play Detective Kate Beckett, a strong, independent, and very smart cop with a ferocious attitude and deliverer of humorous quips and handcuffs to the bad guys.

After Castle’s season five finale in which Beckett has to choose between a great promotion to D.C. and a marriage proposal, it raised a lot of questions about the summer hiatus. Why should she risk an opportunity to enhance her talented skills on a chance to become wife number three? Why are fans outraged and painting her selfish if she chose the power move over love? Most importantly, how did her relationship with Castle get to this point of wedding bells?

In television, there are far too many serials where the two leads get together–often at the workplace. This simply showcases that men and women cannot work in close quarters without “love” getting in the way. It leaves writers to play too much on the “will they or won’t they?” device which can muddle an entire episode. More often than not, they get the answer wrong (Mulder and Scully still comes to mind). Chemistry is a good thing to have, but why must it always be addressed as a sexual one? Why can’t men and women be friends at the workplace? Kate has beers with her male colleagues before and after Castle shows up. Why can’t he just be one more face across the bar?

Now I’ve finished watching the first two seasons of Castle–all 34 episodes over the course of a weekend and can honestly say that I’m not quite buying a passage on the “Caskett” train yet. Banter between the leads is fun to watch, and Fillion has an intriguing engagement with Katic.
And the opening premise isn’t hard to swallow.

Castle (Nathan Fillion) is a little too enthused over being interrogated by Kate (Stana Katic).

Famed crime novelist Richard Castle is a man surrounded by women. He lives with Alexis, his teenage genius daughter, and Martha, his mother–a Broadway actress who has to stay at his humble abode because an ex spent her entire savings. One of Castle’s former wives (he has two) happens to be his publicist and Alexis’s mother. He is at a point in his life where things are coming to a mundane standstill. Until Detective Kate Beckett, a secret Castle book fan, has a few questions for him. After getting a taste of helping the police aide in a case, thanks to a friendship with the mayor, he gets to stick around much to Beckett’s displeasure and announces that he plans to pen a book starring his new inspiration–Detective Kate Beckett.
That’s already two strikes in many of Castle’s interferences. 

Kate (Stana Katic) flashes her badge of honor.

While Castle is surrounded by women, emotionally guarded Kate is nestled in a man’s world. Her boss is Captain Roy Montgomery, and her two buddies are partners Detective Kevin Ryan and Detective Javier Esposito. She decided to become a cop because her mother was violently murdered, and for years she had run her own private investigation but ultimately decided to stop. She is drawn to strange cases, gets them solved in a matter of forty minutes with help from her friends and even Castle, who frequently spins his writer fictions yet shows off an incredible knack for crime resolution.

Castle does, however, add innuendo to conversations and is often too suggestive, but Kate doesn’t seem to mind lighting his fuses. Still not seeing the “love” here. Maybe it’s too early. Just a humorous camaraderie between a cop and a man that annoys her for fun. He brings charming wit and coffee into her gritty life, but it doesn’t change who he is at the end of the day–a big kid. He plays games with his daughter and sleeps around frequently, but every time a man shows interest in Kate, his bear claws come out. “No one touches my muse,” his expression says to these men who then always ask Kate–“Is there something going on between you two?”

At the end of season one, Castle coordinates his own investigation into Beckett’s mom’s murder (which she strictly forbade), and it angers her so much that she wants him gone.
Strike three.

Everyone wants Beckett (Stana Katic) to date Castle (Nathan Fillion) because he follows her around like a puppy.

However, Beckett’s friends just want her to be with Castle (because she’s beautiful, young, and lonely yadda yadda yadda!), and he gets compliments aplenty all around the precinct. Medical examiner Lanie Parish often tells Kate to give Castle a chance although it’s not clear why she does, having barely shared a few scenes with him. Also, I don’t think I would ever advise a friend to date a man staring hard at my cleavage and having conversations with them. Plus, why is it so wrong for Beckett to stay single? Lanie is too!

“Why do you think he keeps following you around? I’m sure it’s not to watch you be with another man.” –Detective Javier Esposito

Yet Beckett should continue seeing Castle flock to his women? Ugh!
From A Deadly Game, season two’s finale, Detective Javier Esposito says the above statement. It’s insensitive considering the fact that Kate has started dating a nice someone–a former co-worker and friend of his, Demming. It gets nastier when Castle keeps asking Kate to spend the summer at his Hamptons home knowing this. By the end of the episode she dumps Demming (who sadly doesn’t understand why) and is shyly on the verge of asking Castle out, but bam! He springs out his ex-wife, saying that she is his Hamptons last-minute companion. Kate is left embarrassed, and her nosy friends are watching through the glass.

This irksome moment defined Castle’s selfishness and vanity. Prior to the finale, in the episode Overkill, his ego wanted to win a case and went to battle with Demming in a disgusting showing of oversized macho testosterone. The finale further revealed just how vile his intentions were and made him pretty much unlikable for a strong woman like Kate.

Use us all: Ruben Santiago-Hudson (Roy),  Susan Sullivan (Martha), Molly Quinn (Alexis), Nathan Fillion (Castle), Stana Katic (Kate), Tamala Jones (Lanie), Jon Huertas (Esposito), and Seamus Dever (Ryan).
Castle has such a diverse cast, but creator Andrew Marlowe barely uses them all in one episode because he’s spending too much time building up Caskett. Yes. It’s a difficult challenge dealing with a large amount of actors, but each character is important in every aspect of the story–from the murder scene to the morgue to the precinct to Castle’s house (weird fit but this is his point of view). Here’s hoping that in the next three seasons of catch up that stories utilize characters outside of Castle and Beckett and, of course, answer the big question of whether I hop on the Caskett train or the casket bus. Male and female friends can work together. It’s just in the television world they seem to always want more. 

How ‘New Girl’s Jess and Nick Avoided Common Rom-Com Pitfalls

Jess (Zooey Deschanel) and Nick (Jake Johnson) have their first kiss
Written by Lady T.  
This year’s season of New Girl introduced a sitcom plot that fans and audience members anticipate and dread in equal measure: the BIG KISS between two lead characters, and the will-they-won’t-they dynamic that followed.
Hooking up the two lead characters of any show is always a risky move for writers to take. No matter how much chemistry exists between the two actors, viewers and critics often fear–with good reason–that once the unresolved sexual tension is resolved, the relationship will become an endless cycle of breakups, reunions, and miscommunication, and no longer be entertaining to watch (ahem).
As a fan of New Girl, I was apprehensive about the idea of Jess and Nick getting together, because I’ve watched TV before and I’ve seen how even great sitcoms can be dragged down by tiresome will-they-won’t-they plots (such as Community’s Jeff/Britta dance of sexual tension before the writers wisely changed course with that storyline). Now that the season has come to an end, I can safely say that Jess and Nick’s kiss did not drag down the show, but elevated a good season into a great one. In fact, Jess and Nick have become one of the more delightful TV romances I’ve ever seen.
How did the writers pull this off?
1. They kept up the pacing and moved the story forward.
On another show, Jess and Nick might have only reached their first kiss by the end of season two, if that. Nick would have realized his feelings for Jess at the end of season one, right after she started dating someone else, and the reverse would happen at the end of season two. On New Girl, Jess and Nick kissed mid-season, had a few awkward conversations about it, kissed again, eventually slept together, and are now in a state where they are pursuing…something, fumbling as they do it. Their relationship is progressing at the pace of actual humans, not characters who know they’re on a television show.

Jess and Nick, before almost kissing.

2. They didn’t forget that the show is a comedy.
So far, there have been no huge declarations of love between Jess and Nick. The closest that came to a declaration was Jess admitting that she didn’t want to call off whatever they had in the season finale, followed by Nick kissing her passionately. Other than that, the writers have emphasized the “comedy” part of romantic comedy, and the results have been great. Whether it’s Nick panic-moonwalking away from Jess on the morning after their first kiss, or Jess finding herself turned on when Nick acts remotely like a responsible grownup (learning how to do laundry!), the characters are still being funny even as they try to navigate their feelings for each other.
3. The barriers to a Jess/Nick relationship are organic to their characters.
The writers on New Girl have not wasted their time with many romantic false leads or contrived subplots designed to keep Jess and Nick apart. They haven’t had to, because there’s enough standing in their way of having a functional relationship without the typical sitcom contrivances.

Nick carries Jess over the threshold.

On the plus side, Jess and Nick are friends and roommates who get along, care about each other, offer each other emotional support, and have plenty of sexual chemistry–all ingredients to a successful relationship. On the other hand, Jess’s sunny disposition, determination, and optimism clash horribly with Nick’s eternal grumpiness and lack of direction. The girl who makes up her own theme songs and the guy who gets so irrationally angry that he yells at doors can’t possibly have a relationship without some serious bumps in the road.
That’s why Jess and Nick’s conflicts have been so refreshing to watch. She’s unsure about his directionless nature and the fact that he has a credit score of a homeless ghost, and he knows that she’s unsure about him because of that reason, which leads to him feeling even more insecure. The fact that they’re friends who live together also complicates matters. If whatever they have becomes more serious, there will be many entertaining bumps in the road along the way.
4. The endgame is a question mark.



Jess dresses as Elvis for Nick’s father’s funeral (it makes sense if you watch the episode)


The relationship between Jess and Nick has been developing for a while, with mutual attraction acknowledged long before they actually kissed, but there’s no sense that Jess/Nick is an “endgame” couple. Considering their differences in personality, there’s a big chance that a relationship between them won’t work at all. They also might stay together for a long time. When they drive off together at the end of Cece’s wedding that wasn’t, there’s a sense that anything can happen between them.
From the perspective of someone who’s watched countless romantic comedies and rom-com pairings on television, I’m relieved to see a different take on a pairing of potentially mismatched friends. As a feminist, I’m happy that there’s no sense of an “endgame” with Jess and Nick, that Jess’s story isn’t all about whether or not she ends up with a guy (even if said guy is my current favorite character on television and Jake Johnson needs to win ALL the Emmys). Whatever she has with Nick is a big part of Jessica Day’s life, but it doesn’t define her, and she’s treated as a human being trying to figure out her life.
Would that all writers of romantic comedy treated their characters the way Elizabeth Meriweather and the staff of New Girl treat Jess and Nick–as people, not props in a foretold rom-com ending.

Nick and Jess, shortly before calling off their relationship (and then un-calling it later)

Lady T is an a writer with two novels, a play, and a collection of comedy sketches in progress. She hopes to one day be published and finish one of her projects (not in that order). You can find more of her writing at www.theresabasile.com.

"We Almost Love Each Other": ‘The Mindy Project’s Rom-Com Conclusion

This is a guest post from Leah Prinzivalli.
Spoiler Alert!
Season one of The Mindy Project concludes with predictable romantic comedy twists between Mindy (Mindy Kaling) and her boyfriend Casey (Anders Holm). The Will they? Won’t they? plotline nods to tradition, allowing the comedy to break convention thematically. 
Mindy decides to volunteer in Haiti with Casey, then quickly backs out, setting up the viewer to believe high-maintenance Mindy could not handle third-world living conditions. Her male colleague Danny mocks her, “You called 911 when a butterfly got into your house?” and “You couldn’t last without your Jimmy Choos.” Mindy later goes camping with Casey, Danny (the token “straight guy”), and Morgan (a male nurse). When Danny notices Morgan has caught on fire, Mindy immediately smothers it with her blanket. Danny fails to act and afterward makes an excuse. The incident bolsters Mindy’s confidence in her ability to live in Haiti – leading us to the real reason why she may not end up going, her desire for independence. 
Mindy Kaling stars in The Mindy Project
Despite their constantly changing relationship status, Mindy and Casey’s dynamic is refreshing. When they decide to spend a year together in Haiti, they do so acknowledging, “We almost love each other.” This level-headedness is refreshing both for Mindy as a character and for the traditional romantic comedy plot. At least in this moment, the couple accepts their relationship at face value. 
Not one to stay lucid for long, Mindy tricks Casey both into believing she wants to get married and thinking she’s pregnant in this episode. Danny, again playing the cliché, reminds Mindy that men often fear commitment. Forgetting that Casey is atypical among her boyfriends, Mindy tries to use convention to her advantage in order to escape Haiti and her own fears about committing. When Casey actually does propose, she can’t understand why. Mindy tries to talk him out of it, “I work too much, I’m kinda selfish, I’ve never voted.” He responds, “Who are these guys that make you think that way?” As has become a pattern this season, the importance has been on the men in Mindy’s life to define her view of herself. 
Mindy’s bold take on the romantic gesture
Mindy’s new short haircut is, for better or worse, the most memorable piece of this episode. Danny’s ex-wife/current girlfriend Christina (Chloe Sevigny) remarks, “Whenever I’m in the field I keep my hair short. It’s better for the field and people don’t sexualize you.” A pre-breakup-and-makeup Mindy responds, “Who doesn’t want to be sexualized?” Mindy puts her sexuality and desire to be wanted above the volunteer purpose of the trip, which feels right for the character. This exchange led Mindy to cut her hair short later in the episode, “desexualizing” herself in order to commit to Casey. “Who will have me now?” she asks, implying that only Casey will find her desirable. It is this play on the romantic comedy “bold gesture” that wins Casey back, a comedic device but also a troubling one. When Mindy pulls back her hood to reveal her new hair, one eavesdropping neighbor cries out, “It was a boy the whole time.” Many jokes about the parallel between long hair and womanhood ensue, although the fact remains Mindy still changed her appearance because her boyfriend asked. 
One of the most likable aspects of The Mindy Project is that her career has never been an issue. The character seems most confident in surgery or when dealing with patients and can switch gears instantly from a relationship minidrama to delivering a baby (notably, she works as an OBGYN). For all the focus this episode on Mindy’s relationship struggles, we are reminded of her professional success in a satisfying shot for shot parallel to the first episode. She wipes off her lipstick before surgery to M.I.A’s “Bad Girls.” In the pilot, the “Bad Girls” surgery scene followed Mindy’s arrest for public drunkenness after her ex-boyfriend’s wedding. Last week, we saw Mindy choose Casey over that ex. The patient from the pilot did not have insurance; here she is working as a team with the other doctors to deliver triplets. By the finale, our lead has grown — by a reassuring yet believable amount.
Leah Prinzivalli is a NYC-based writer. For an alarming amount of her thoughts about television, follow her on Twitter @leahprinz.

Not Peggy Olson: Rape Culture in ‘Top of the Lake’

Jacqueline Joe as Tui and Elisabeth Moss as Robin Griffin in Top of the Lake
This guest post by Lauren C. Byrd previously appeared at her blog Love Her, Love Her Shoes and is cross-posted with permission.
You know there’s a Maori legend about this lake… that there’s a demon’s heart at the bottom of it; the beats makes the lake rise and fall every five minutes.

A young girl bikes away from her home, heading through beautiful scenery until she reaches the edge of a large lake. She wades in up to her shoulders. Cut to two shirtless men, muscled and tattooed. Immediately, the feminine: the girl; water is compared to the masculine: men, muscles, tattoos.
These gender-based opening images of the Sundance Channel series, Top of the Lake, set the scene and the ongoing conflict for the New Zealand-based show. Jane Campion, a director known for her feminist take on period dramas (The Piano, Bright Star), injects a feminist element into a police drama, a genre known for viewing women as victims. With Campion at the helm, the series does not shy away from uncomfortable issues, such as the frustrations of living in a patriarchal rape culture.
In the first episode, Tui (Jacqueline Joe), the 12-year-old girl who waded deep into the lake, is discovered to be pregnant. Robin Griffin (Elisabeth Moss) is called in by child services to participate in Tui’s case. Robin grew up in the small town of Laketop, New Zealand but fled the town at an early age and earned her stripes as a detective in a more metropolitan environment.
When Griffin arrives at the local police station to talk to Tui, a cadre of male officers stare at her dumbly while she gives them orders.
Later, Robin fields sexual innuendo and inappropriate questions from her superior, Sargent Detective Al Parker, but instead of objecting, she rolls with the punches, avoiding the questions or changing the subject back to the investigation. It’s a sad reality that she has no other option. She’s an outsider in the local police force, and even if she reported Sargent Detective Parker to someone higher up the food chain, it’s doubtful anything would happen other than word getting back to him. It’s pretty clear the Laketop police is an old boys’ club. Other than Robin, there’s only one female working there, Xena.
When Robin tries to brief the squad about Tui’s case, she is undermined by two of the men on the squad. When she pulls one out into the hall for talking out of turn, the others start to leave before the briefing is finished. Not only do they not respect Robin’s authority on the subject, they don’t care about Tui’s well being.
It’s clear there is a patriarchal order, not only at the police station, which is headed by Sargent Detective Al Parker (David Wenham), but also in the community of Laketop, where Tui’s dad, Matt Mitchum, and his sons, Mark and Luke, reign supreme. 
Top of the Lake‘s “Paradise”–a piece of land where a women’s commune lives
On a piece of land called Paradise, a half dozen women, led by GJ (Holly Hunter) a mother earth type with her long, wispy silver hair, sets up camp. The land is owned by Matt Mitchum, who doesn’t hide his temper from the women upon finding them there. “Who the hell are you?” he asks. Upon seeing GJ he asks, “Is she a she?” One of the women informs Matt she bought the property, but Matt isn’t used to taking no for an answer and throws a hissy fit. “Get out of here, you alpha ass,” another woman calls after him as he storms off the property.
Campion is known for symbolism in her films. Top of the Lake is no exception, starting with the women’s “commune” at Paradise. Paradise is a religious term for a higher place or the holiest place. Paradise also describes the world before it was tainted by evil. Laketop’s Paradise embodies the pastoral, its landscape being made up of large fields which look out over the water. Its leader, GJ, may look like a mother earth type, but her advice to the women is brutally honest. When Tui wanders onto the land, has lunch with the women, and shares her secret about the baby, GJ tells her she has a time bomb inside of her, and it’s going to go off. “Are you ready, kid?” GJ’s advice seems to be for these women to harden themselves emotionally, in a way making themselves more like men. 
Holly Hunter as GJ in Top of the Lake
Another form of symbolism, the lake, around and sometimes in which most of the action takes place, is a mysterious force of nature. The residents of the town often comment on how the water will kill or hurt them, and there’s the sense they don’t mean just the temperature. Maybe they believe it is possessed by the Maori legend (Maoris are the indigenous Polynesian people of New Zealand) of the demon’s heart in it, which Johnno tells Robin:
There’s a Maori legend about this lake that says there’s a demon’s heart at the bottom of it. It beats; it makes the lake rise and fall every five minutes. There was a warrior that rescued a maiden from a giant demon called tipua. And he set fire to the demon’s body while it slept and burnt everything but his heart. And the fat melting from the body formed a trough. And the snow from the mountains ran down to fill it, to form this lake.

Although the legend surrounding the lake features a typical “damsel in distress” tale of a male rescuing a maiden, water is often considered a feminine element. If considered in this way, the patriarchal society of Laketop is surrounded by the feminine: the lake.
Campion may not shy away from a dark look at how patriarchal violence seeps into every corner of life, but the series also offers up hope and possibilities of resistance. As the series unfolds, Robin’s own rape at the age of 15 and subsequent pregnancy is divulged. Although she and Tui’s stories are different, both of them are strong women. Not only is Robin fighting for a resolution to Tui’s case, but she stands up against a group of sexist men in a bar who makes several jokes at her and Tui’s expense. “Are you a feminist?” they ask. “A lesbian? Nobody likes a feminist, except a lesbian.”
Yet another comment in the bar involves victim blaming as the butt of the joke. “Hey, what does it mean if a girl goes around town in tiny shorts? It means she’s hot.”
“Or a slut!” his friend cries out. Robin throws a dart into the shoulder of one of the men. In a later bar scene, one of her former rapists starts flirting with her without realizing who she is. Robin breaks a bottle and stabs him. “Do you remember me now?” she cries.
Upon running away from home, Tui embodies a familiar lone male figure, a cowboy, as she rides into Paradise on her horse, a gun slung over her shoulder. When she disappears from Paradise, Robin fears she has been kidnapped and murdered by whomever assaulted her, but Tui makes a home for herself in the bush and survives on her wits. 
Robin in Top of the Lake
Even among a patriarchal society, there are allies. In Top of the Lake‘s case, it’s men who choose not to be “alpha asses” like Matt Mitchum. Johnno, Robin’s high school sweetheart and Tui’s half-brother, still harbors guilt about the night Robin was attacked. He feels he failed by not standing up for her: “I should have helped you, but I didn’t. I was a coward.” Johnno later attacks one of Robin’s rapists, telling him to leave town. “She was 15!”
Johnno and Robin’s past is marred by painful events, but as Robin continues to work on Tui’s case, they begin to grow close again, and among all the sexual violence, Campion uses the pair to portray the pleasure of a consensual relationship.
Similarly, Tui has a male ally in her life. Her relationship with Jamie is in no way sexual, there are parallels between their relationship and Johnno and Robin’s. Jamie also feels guilt for what happened to Tui, and he literally beats himself up about it in a scene where he slams his head against the doors in his house, only stopping when his mother pulls him away. Jamie brings supplies to Tui while she’s hiding in the bush and plans to help her during the labor.
The series does not wrap up things in a tidy little bow. It may not offer solutions for eradicating sexual assault, but it does more than many previous television series and films: it exposes the truths of a rape culture and violent patriarchal society and how those who live in them choose to survive.
Lauren C. Byrd is a former post-production minion but prefers to spend her days analyzing television and film, rather than working in it. She studied film and television at Syracuse University and writes a blog, Love Her, Love Her Shoes, about under-appreciated women in film, television, and theater. She is currently writing a weekly series about feminism on this season of Mad Men. 

 

To Romance Film Casting Directors: Without Further Ado–Hire Lucy Liu

Lucy Liu is dying to show off her comedic chops in the romance department.

“People see Julia Roberts and Sandra Bullock in a romantic film, but not me,” speaks Lucy Liu, frankly voicing an issue that refuses to die in Hollywood.
While Roberts and Bullock don’t dominate romantic comedy genre as they did in the nineties, their heavyweight torches have been passed down to Reese Witherspoon, Kate Hudson, and Emma Stone–actresses who can easily score roles without directors questioning color lines.

 Ally McBeal creator David E. Kelley wrote Ling Woo specifically for Lucy Liu. 
In Net-A-Porter’s Graphic Issue, Liu implores intimate details about racism.
As an educated, finely trained artist, Emmy-nominated Liu is right to wonder why her roster mainly consists of playing the stereotypical emotionless Asian (Ally McBeal’s Ling Woo) or the kick butt martial arts diva (Alex Munday in Charlie’s Angels and O-Ren Ishii in Kill Bill V.I & II). She deserves better.
Well, at least there is one joy to celebrate. 

Dr. Joan Watson (Lucy Liu) and Sherlock Holmes (Johnny Lee Miller) are renewed for a second helping of eclectic crime solving this fall.
Liu just wrapped up the freshman season of CBS’s hit Elementary, an intriguing television series drama adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s classic–Sherlock Holmes. Out of London and into modern day New York City, Holmes is a former drug addict residing with live-in sober companion and ex-surgeon Dr. Joan Watson–typically a male character named John. That’s wherein lies the exciting twist–a part Liu was born to play. 
Those boycotting Elementary due to Liu’s Asian background are missing out on an entertaining spin on history and a gracious opportunity rarely given to Liu. Holmes and Watson have a quirky charismatic relationship filled with warm humor, spontaneity, and charm, but I personally don’t want them to become more than that. Shows like Castle and Bones have their two leads together, and it would be a nice stretch if male and female relationships could stay strictly platonic and professional despite close quarters.
However, Liu deserves to be a female lead in a romantic comedy. She has terrific comedic timing (a huge plus, right?), irresistible chemistry with many male co-stars, and showcases a range of emotions.

More than the girl next door in Lucky Number Slevin, Lindsey is one of Lucy Liu’s favorite roles to date.
“I was thinking that if you’re still alive when I get back from work tonight… maybe we could go out to dinner or something?”
Liu’s delivery of the above line is expressed in such sweet precision in my recent discovery Lucky Number Slevin. She plays a witty sleuth of a coroner named Lindsey. Like Dr. Joan Watson, as the primary female presence in the male dominated cast, ethnicity isn’t focused on in this enigmatic action-packed thriller. From bloodthirsty beginning to grisly end, it proves to be no romantic comedy, but Liu is so charming, refreshing, and intelligent in her scene-stealing capabilities that one wishes that it was. Although Lindsey’s story isn’t as fully fleshed out as the male lead’s, in every affectionate laugh and soft smile, Liu shines bright from pigeonholed prison.

Alex Munday (Lucy Liu) in Charlie’s Angels.
Now if Elementary and Lucky Number Slevin both tap into Liu’s versatile potential, shouldn’t other casting agencies take note?
Despite Hollywood still being controlled by white men’s dominance, romantic comedies should give equal chance to the one who fits the role regardless of race. I have read articles where directors want Anne Hathaway or the next big non-ethnic actress for an audition, but no one asks for Lucy Liu or any other minority actress. Isn’t the primary importance of a romantic comedy to center on an adoring female lead who can seduce the audience with captivation and humor? Why must we continue cheering on the same type of woman when others desire the same role?
Liu proves that she can handle acting as both a love interest and a strong, fiercely independent woman. Often valiantly fighting to continue breaking role barriers, Liu’s ambition alone should drive considerable notice.

O-Ren Ishii (Lucy Liu) is ready for battle dressed in her lily white kimono.
“It’s really taking a while,” Liu states. “But I do think it’s becoming more acceptable to cast Asians in roles that weren’t originally slated for someone who is Asian, which is so great.”
That is true, especially in Liu’s case.
Yet as much as women desire very well-written romantic comedies and comforting “chick flicks,” we’re getting impatient with waiting for Liu’s turn on the merry-go-round.
C’mon. It is about time to let her be the star for once, Hollywood.

Here’s a Fun and Depressing Graphic About Television, Ratings, and Dudes Who Create Shows

Canceled: Single Season TV Shows – An infographic by the team at CableTV.com

 
Do you have any graphics you’d like to share with Bitch Flicks readers? Share them in the comments or email them to btchflcks(at)gmail(dot)com!
 
 
 

Infertility and Miscarriage in HBO’s ‘Tell Me You Love Me’

Tell Me You Love Me poster

Written by Stephanie Rogers as part of our theme week on Infertility, Miscarriage, and Infant Loss.

Before Lena Duhman burst onto the HBO scene and started ruining lives with her depictions of graphic and awkward sex on screen, a show existed called Tell Me You Love Me. Created by Cynthia Mort, and airing on HBO for only one season, the show centered around four upper middle-class white couples in different stages of their lives, trying to keep their shit together and their relationships functional. I tend to enjoy watching people on screen struggle with interpersonal conflict, fail miserably at resolving it, and then end up in intensive psychoanalysis and sex therapy where they experience embarrassing emotional breakdowns. YOLO, right? 

Dave and Katie in Tell Me You Love Me
David (Tim DeKay) and Katie (Ally Walker) represent the typical married couple in their 40s: busy with work, busy with children, who’ve lost the “fire” in their marriage. The sex fire. They manage to talk about it openly with each other, but they eventually end up seeing a therapist to help them work through that year-long lovemaking lull. Carolyn (Sonya Walger) and Palek (Adam Scott), both in their 30s, want a baby but struggle with infertility issues, which also sends them to therapy. The not-yet-married Jamie (Michelle Borth) and Hugo (Luke Farrell Kirby), the youngest members of the ensemble, seem to have the exact opposite problem—they sex it up so much in public, in private, wherever the fuck, that they’re each convinced the other will eventually cheat. Similar to HBO’s In Treatment, the show connects these storylines together by sending all three couples to the same therapist—Dr. May Foster (Jane Alexander), whose own relationship struggles with her partner Arthur (David Selby) occasionally surface. 
Dr. Foster and Arthur in Tell Me You Love Me
The show raised all kinds of eyebrows in 2007 because of the very real sex scenes. The show creators countered any arguments that a cast fuckfest had ensued with “IT’S SIMULATED,” but I distinctly remember seeing penetration. That was six years ago, so, like, Lena Dunham ain’t got nothin’ on Cynthia Mort. 
Of all the couples on Tell Me You Love Me, Palek and Carolyn—and their struggles with infertility—enthralled me the most. 
Jamie and Hugo in Tell Me You Love Me
Sidenote: I love Parks and Recreation, especially Ben and Leslie’s adorable relationship. But before Adam Scott landed the role of Ben Wyatt and became part of the most wonderful couple on TV, he got super naked a million times on Tell Me You Love Me. (According to an interview with Scott, that penis was hardcore prosthetic. Still, sometimes, when I look at Ben Wyatt, I accidentally think about Palek’s fake penis.) 
Admittedly, I haven’t seen the show since it first aired, but I remember finding Palek and Carolyn so compelling. I was 28 years old at the time, but for some reason, I found less interesting the couple in their 20s fucking in cars every five minutes and more interesting the professionally successful couple in their 30s, who deeply loved each other but for whom sex had become a means to an end. They wanted a baby. And each time Carolyn failed to become pregnant—and both Carolyn and Palek viewed their potential infertility as an individual failure—their relationship suffered. 
Palek and Carolyn in Tell Me You Love Me
Perhaps what I found interesting, and even important, especially as a woman starting to understand how feminism fit into my life in a practical way, were the gender dynamics at play in Palek and Carolyn’s pregnancy struggles. Throughout the ten-episode arc, Carolyn basically treats Palek as a sperm donor, and his complaints about the lack of intimacy in their relationship stem from that—he wants feeling and emotion attached to making love with his wife; yet Carolyn sees that as unimportant, often demanding that he provide her with sex whenever she asks for it. 
In one pivotal scene, after an argument about their sex life and possible infertility, Palek and Carolyn get rough on the couch, with Palek saying, “I’ll get you pregnant,” every time he thrusts inside her. I remember feeling sick to my stomach as I watched that scene. The anger Palek felt toward his wife, accompanied by his own feelings of inadequacy as a man unable to perform an exclusively male function, manifested as a borderline violent sex scene that, frankly, scared me a little. 
Palek and Carolyn in Tell Me You Love Me
At the same time, I found the on screen gender dynamics fascinating between them: Carolyn becomes the stereotypical man demanding sex from his wife; Palek becomes the stereotypical woman who desires emotional intimacy with her husband; they end up in therapy as a result, and they’re both sympathetic characters. I like that the show flips this conventional portrayal of married couples, and, while I know this either/or, Mars/Venus shit ain’t true, and that we’re all complex fucking human beings with a spectrum of similar physical and emotional needs, it’s necessary to see a man on screen who’s up in arms about the lack of emotional intimacy in his relationship with his wife. Somehow, it’s still a rarity to see nuanced portrayals of sensitive men. 
I don’t want to give anything else away about this show, particularly about this couple. It ended after only one ten-episode season, and I think people need to revisit it. The best teaser I can give you is the fan vid below. That is all. 

‘Buffy’ Season 9: Sci-Fi Pregnancies and the Story That Almost Was

Buffy talks to Spike about her pregnancy in the Season 9 comic

Guest post written by Pauline Holdsworth for our theme week on Infertility, Miscarriage, and Infant Loss. 

Nikki Wood—New York punk slayer and the mother of ex-Sunnydale High principal Robin Wood—had been absent from the Buffyverse for a long time. So it’s a bit of a surprise when she shows up in the opening scenes of “On Your Own,” the second volume of the Season 9 Buffy the Vampire Slayer comic books. She’s being held off the edge of a tall building by the throat, pumped full of sedatives that have taken away her powers for a Council-mandated rite of passage. She’s pregnant.

The vampire in question mocks her, saying he can smell the sedatives, he can smell the baby, and it’s going to be easy to kill them both. Cue vampire dust, and Nikki’s Watcher Crowley rushing over to make sure she’s alright. Crowley thinks it’s unbelievable that the Council made her go through with rite of passage, given that she’s in such a “delicate condition.” Nikki brushes it off, telling him that the job doesn’t stop because her life got in the way. “In the meanwhile, can you at least tell me…who the father is?” says Crowley.

Cut to Buffy, present day, who’s just been asked the same question by Dawn. “I have no idea,” she says.

When the end of the first volume of Season 9 ended with Buffy’s positive pregnancy test, my faith in the comic book extension of Buffy came rushing back. After the TV show ended in Season 7, Joss Whedon and a group of other writers returned to the story in comic book form, but Season 8 bit off more than it could chew. Taking advantage of the unlimited scope (and reduced production costs) this new medium gave them, the comic book writers dreamed up alternate realities to their hearts’ content, and Season 8, while intriguing, was often hard to follow.

Dawn comforts Buffy in Season 9

So far, Season 9 has had a much smaller, more intimate focus. The world lost its connection to magic at the end of the previous season, something Buffy is responsible for. She’s living in San Francisco, trying to make ends meet by making coffee. As far as tone goes, it’s very reminiscent of Season 6—it’s about dealing with fallout, navigating uncertainty, and trying to figure out what survival means when you`re talking about the everyday instead of slaying monsters.

Buffy’s relationship to her pregnancy was a trigger that had the potential to change the story and the characters’ world fundamentally. The only parallel I can think of that comes close is the way Buffy`s life changed after her mother died, and she sacrificed herself to save Dawn at the end of Season 5. In the same way that those events set up Season 6, which was an incredibly compelling engagement with loss, depression, addiction, and responsibility, Buffy`s pregnancy opened up a storyline that looked like it would be a smart and painful discussion of reproductive choices, motherhood, agency, and trying to understand the future.

But here’s the thing: Buffy’s not actually pregnant.

Instead (in a bizarre, inexplicable, and incredibly frustrating plot twist) her consciousness has been transplanted to the Buffybot by Andrew, who’s taken it upon himself to give her a “normal” life by hiding her body away in a 50s-esque suburban paradise while an assassin hunts her robot replacement—without checking in with her or letting her know someone’s hunting for her, of course. The positive pregnancy test was apparently a by-product of the robot technology, but that’s an explanation that’s still lost on me. And though this leads to some really interesting explorations of “normalcy,” it reads to me like a missed opportunity of massive proportions.

The book had opened with a Buffy who had no idea how she felt about her pregnancy. She blacked out at a party, and she has no idea what happened or what might have been done to her (this, it turns out, was when Andrew’s body-switching hijinks ensued). She was beginning to undertake the difficult work of deciding what she wanted to do with her future and her body, and trying to reconcile her long-standing desire for normalcy with her anxiety about the uncertain circumstances under which her pregnancy occurred and her identity as a Slayer—which she realizes isn’t just a duty, it’s a drive.

Buffy asks Robin Wood about having a Slayer for a mother

Buffy asks Robin Wood to give her his perspective on growing up with the Slayer for a mother. “If you want an easy answer, you won’t get it from me,” he tells her; his childhood was raw and painful, and he grew up knowing that his mother could have walked away from him, but she never could have walked away from the job. He tells her about learning about vampires and demons before he heard about the Tooth Fairy and about lying awake waiting for his mother to come home, about how he got more support and family from Nikki’s Watcher than he did from her. He’s not sure what to tell her. It’s fascinating watching Robin try to vocalize what he thinks his mother should have done—would he rather have had her put him up for adoption? Not try to have a family at all? He’s still harboring resentment toward his mother for the choices she made throughout his childhood, but he’s also not sure Buffy would be repeating history if she chose to keep her child—and he’s also deeply cognizant of the context in which his mother made the choices she did.

The difference between Nikki and Buffy, he explains, is that Buffy is willing to let people in. She’s spent years making the kind of collective, “chosen” family that’s so important to Whedon’s work and the Buffyverse’s larger thematic structure. The title of this volume is “On Your Own,” but Buffy’s not—she has Dawn and Xander and Spike, and they’ve been trying to figure out what their family looks like since Joyce died. This scene with Robin also suggests that reproductive choices don’t end with the decision to have or not have a child—for him, the painful aspects of his childhood didn’t necessarily come from her choice to keep him, but from the choices she made after he was born, about what her priorities were, what kind of family she wanted (or was able) to have, and what kind of relationship she would have with her son.

I loved this moment because it broadened the scope of the conversations we have about reproductive decisions to include the complexities of life after birth. For Nikki, and for Buffy, it’s not just about this do-or-die moment where you choose the kind of future you’re going to have. Reproductive choice is something that’s repeated and remade and takes on new weight throughout the years, and it’s just as applicable to questions about raising your child and choosing your family as it is to questions about adoption and abortion.

This is the line of questioning that drives Buffy’s reproductive decision. She’s been thinking about what kind of mother she could be, and whether she could turn away from her identity as the Slayer to pursue a different kind of future. That’s the decision that Nikki made when Robin was born, but her life away from slaying didn’t last long. “She got an itch before I was even a year old. And we ended up right back where Crowley didn’t want us,” Robin says. “Patrolling while I waited for the night she didn’t come home. It took me a long time to realize why. She was chosen, Buffy. Just like you. No matter where she went, no matter how much she wanted to be with me. She wasn’t strong enough to ignore it. She had to be a Slayer.”

A depiction of Buffy’s confusing universe in the Season 9 comic

Buffy decides she could navigate the dual responsibilities of slaying and motherhood, but she also realizes that it wasn’t the only thing on her mind. Her decision also had to be about where she is in her own life, and about the fallout and tense relationships and financial responsibility she’s still trying to understand. She takes stock of where she is, and she’s not sure she’s ready to expand her chosen family to one that includes a child.

“It’s not the slaying. It’s me,” she says, sitting on the side of an abandoned pool with Spike. She’s going to have an abortion, and she asks Spike to come with her when she does it. Spike stands up and reaches for her hand. “Yeah,” he says, and nothing more. It’s a lovely, simple scene that speaks volumes to both of their characters and to how Buffy’s life and support system has changed since the TV show ended.

What I don’t understand is why after doing all of this heavy lifting and complex narrative development the writers chose to walk away. I loved this storyline, and I wanted to see them follow through with it. I wanted to see how Buffy’s relationship to her choices would evolve. I wanted to hear more from Robin Wood about how the choices he and his mother made complicate his continued involvement in this world. Though we do get to see an interesting exploration of Buffy’s loss and confusion after she realizes she was never pregnant, the weird fake-robot-pregnancy explanation feels far too convenient—and it points to some of my larger frustrations with sci-fi pregnancy storylines.

In the world of science fiction, a pregnancy is much more likely to be a flimsy excuse for deus ex machina than the beginning of a complex and nuanced exploration. Pregnancies happen and gestate overnight, and they lead to spiders that claw their way out of stomachs and babies whose blood is the cure for specific kinds of cancer or which opens portals. More often than not, these stories skip over any kind of emotional exploration of pregnancy, choice, or loss and fail to recognize that pregnancy often involves a difficult engagement with people’s own families, pasts, and fears.

There are some notable exceptions. But pregnancy should not be treated as a one-episode storyline, and reproductive decisions shouldn’t be introduced as monster-of-the-week plot twists.

What’s more, there are a lot of parallels between the 24-hour sci-fi pregnancy and the Convenient Miscarriage trope, in which characters who don’t want to have a child but don’t want to have an abortion miscarry at an opportune moment in the plot so they don’t have to make a decision. It’s a cop-out of a plot device, and the fact that it’s one of the dominant representations of miscarriage in pop culture is deeply problematic. Convenient Miscarriages gloss over an event many people experience as deeply traumatic and have a complicated relationship with, even if they’d been considering having an abortion.

Buffy tells Spike she’s having an abortion

The rest of the comic wavers back and forth between this kind of Convenient Fake Pregnancy and a continued exploration of what this experience means for Buffy. She’s struggling to understand the loss of her pregnancy, and the writers’ exploration of what it means to lose a child you’d made the decision not to keep is compelling. She’s also sure this is one more piece of proof that she’s a failure at anything to do with the “real world,” and her coming to terms with the fact that what she thought was a real-world decision with real-world implications was just “more bizarre Slayer crap” is really moving.

And though I’m not wild about Buffy’s pregnancy being framed as a “fake problem,” I’m intrigued by this continued exploration of what she went through, even if it’s only happening in a partial and underdeveloped way. I just hope it has consequences for the story as a whole. This was a smart, complicated discussion of reproductive justice and what it means to make a family—until it wasn’t. I’m frustrated that in a plotline where Buffy was asked to make a decision about her body, she wasn’t even in her body, and the choice wasn’t actually hers to make. I wanted to see the scene where Buffy went to the clinic with Spike. I wanted to see if she chose something else. However interesting this exploration of normalcy and loss was, I wanted to see the writers commit to the way her pregnancy would have changed her fictional world, to follow through and show Buffy negotiating the trauma of her history and the uncertainty of her future. More than anything, I really, really wanted to read the story they just walked away from. 

———-
Pauline Holdsworth is a fourth-year English student at the University of Toronto, where she is the Editor-in-Chief of The Strand. She also covers women’s issues for Campus Progress. You can follow her on Twitter at @holdswo.

Women of Color in Film and TV: A Post About ‘Community’s; Shirley? That’s Nice.

Written by Lady T. 

Yvette Nicole Brown as Shirley Bennett on Community

Anyone who has absorbed even a little bit of pop culture can see that the “sassy ethnic woman” archetype is ubiquitous in television and film. Women of color – particularly black and Latina women – are often used as sassy, finger-snapping side characters who exist only to provide amusing one-liners in the background of whatever white person drama or comic event happening in the forefront. (On a great scene from Scrubs, Carla and Laverne demonstrate how to act like a “minority sidekick from a bad movie”:)

One refreshing departure from the “sassy ethnic woman” stereotype is Shirley Bennett on Community. Played by Yvette Nicole Brown, Shirley is one of four people of color in the show’s main cast, though the only woman of color. In an interview with The Daily Beast, which included cast members Alison Brie and Gillian Jacobs and writer Megan Ganz, Brown discussed why Shirley is a refreshing character for her to play:

As a black actor, it’s refreshing that I’m not playing the “sassy black woman.” It’s something that Dan Harmon was cognizant of from the beginning. It is something that I’m always cognizant of. Every woman on the planet has sass and smart-ass qualities in them, but it seems sometimes only black women are defined by it. Shirley is a fully formed woman that had a sassy moment. Her natural set point, if anything, is rage. That’s her natural set point, suppressed rage, which comes out as kindness and trying to keep everything tight.

Shirley is, perhaps, the only main character on Community who has her own catchphrase, but the catchphrase – “That’s nice!” – is a far cry from the finger-snapping talking-through-the-nose stereotype demonstrated on the above clip from Scrubs. Shirley is exactly what Brown described: a woman filled with suppressed rage who covers up her anger by trying to be sweet and kind. But rather than being an example of a different kind of negative black stereotype – the Angry Black Person who bursts into a rage for no stated reason – the Community writers and Brown show that Shirley has plenty of reasons to be angry.

Like the other members of the Spanish study group, Shirley comes to Greendale Community College when she needs to start a new chapter in her life after the first chapter ended badly: her husband abandoned her and their two children, and she wants to earn a business degree so she can sell her baked goods. Christian and motherly, Shirley takes on a protective nature to the youngest members of the group (Annie, Troy, and Abed), tries to develop a camaraderie with Britta and act as a cheerleader for her flirty dynamic with Jeff, and does her best to ignore the sexual harassment from Pierce.

Annie (Alison Brie), Britta (Gillian Jacobs), and Shirley get caught in a “reverse Porky’s” shenanigan

Soon, Shirley develops close bonds with other members of the study group, trying to keep the group dynamic sweet, light, and happy – but time and time, her repressed anger rises to the surface.

Shirley flies into a rage when Jeff shows interest in a woman other than Britta, acting indignant on Britta’s behalf, but she later admits that she’s still in deep pain over her own divorce: “I was too proud to admit I was hurt, so I had to pretend you were,” she says to her friend.

Shirley is put out and offended when her friends don’t want to attend her Christmas party, taking their reluctance as an insult to her faith, but again, Britta gets to the heart of the matter: Shirley is desperate to recreate a tradition that’s important to her, that’s missing from her life since her painful divorce.

Shirley, when given a chance to act as campus security with Annie for a few days, insists on being the “bad cop” of the duo, a role that Annie also claims. The two characters clash during most of the episode because both are desperate for a change in image. While Annie wants people to stop seeing her as a sweet little girl, Shirley wants people to stop seeing her as a sweet motherly type. (More on that in a minute.)

Annie and Shirley as campus security officers

In short: Shirley has a lot of anger. What makes Shirley’s anger so refreshing is that her anger is not portrayed as a sign of her blackness, or her womanhood, but as the sign of a flawed, complex human being with legitimate pain. Sometimes her anger is towards a perceived slight that has nothing to do with her (assuming that her friends judge her for her Christianity when they don’t), and sometimes her anger is completely justified (getting fed up with Pierce’s harassment and racist comments). Sometimes she’s wrong, and sometimes she’s right – just like any other person.

Anger isn’t a character trait limited to Shirley, either. Annie also has repressed rage. The two women have a lot in common, “aww”-ing over cute things and getting upset when they’re not taken seriously. But of all the other characters in Community, Shirley seems to have the closest bond with Jeff. On the surface, they have little in common – he’s a white playboy sarcastic former lawyer, she’s a married black Christian woman with children – but just as Shirley covers her anger with a layer of sweetness, Jeff covers his with layers of blasé indifference. The fact that a young, insecure Shirley turns out to be Jeff’s former bully from when they were children seems perfect for their characters, and their friendship deepens – and some of their anger is assuaged – after they confront this issue.

Jeff (Joel McHale) and Shirley, BFFs (sort of)

Sometimes the writers on Community give Shirley short shrift compared to the other characters, as if they’re not sure what to do with a woman who is now re-married and in a happy relationship (their strengths are in writing damaged people, not content people). I’d also like the show to further explore her complicated dynamic with Britta, a woman with whom Shirley craves close friendship, but also finds threatening. Still, I’m grateful that Community allows Shirley to be as flawed, funny, and complicated as everyone else at Greendale Community College. She’s my younger brother’s favorite character, and I think that’s nice.

———-

Lady T is an aspiring writer and comedian with two novels, a play, and a collection of comedy sketches in progress. She hopes to one day be published and finish one of her projects (not in that order). You can find more of her writing at The Funny Feminist, where she picks apart entertainment and reviews movies she hasn’t seen.

Lady T is an aspiring writer and comedian with two novels, a play, and a collection of comedy sketches in progress. She hopes to one day be published and finish one of her projects (not in that order). You can find more of her writing at The Funny Feminist, where she picks apart entertainment and reviews movies she hasn’t seen. – See more at: https://www.btchflcks.com/search/label/Lady%20T#sthash.84hpSUKB.dpuf
Lady T is an aspiring writer and comedian with two novels, a play, and a collection of comedy sketches in progress. She hopes to one day be published and finish one of her projects (not in that order). You can find more of her writing at The Funny Feminist, where she picks apart entertainment and reviews movies she hasn’t seen. – See more at: https://www.btchflcks.com/search/label/Lady%20T#sthash.84hpSUKB.dpuf
As a black actor, it’s refreshing that I’m not playing the “sassy black woman.” It’s something that Dan Harmon was cognizant of from the beginning. It is something that I’m always cognizant of. Every woman on the planet has sass and smart-ass qualities in them, but it seems sometimes only black women are defined by it. Shirley is a fully formed woman that had a sassy moment. Her natural set point, if anything, is rage. That’s her natural set point, suppressed rage, which comes out as kindness and trying to keep everything tight. – See more at: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/02/28/community-alison-brie-yvette-nicole-brown-gillian-jacobs-megan-ganz-roundtable.html#sthash.cAOgrEkS.dpuf
As a black actor, it’s refreshing that I’m not playing the “sassy black woman.” It’s something that Dan Harmon was cognizant of from the beginning. It is something that I’m always cognizant of. Every woman on the planet has sass and smart-ass qualities in them, but it seems sometimes only black women are defined by it. Shirley is a fully formed woman that had a sassy moment. Her natural set point, if anything, is rage. That’s her natural set point, suppressed rage, which comes out as kindness and trying to keep everything tight. – See more at: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/02/28/community-alison-brie-yvette-nicole-brown-gillian-jacobs-megan-ganz-roundtable.html#sthash.cAOgrEkS.dpuf
As a black actor, it’s refreshing that I’m not playing the “sassy black woman.” It’s something that Dan Harmon was cognizant of from the beginning. It is something that I’m always cognizant of. Every woman on the planet has sass and smart-ass qualities in them, but it seems sometimes only black women are defined by it. Shirley is a fully formed woman that had a sassy moment. Her natural set point, if anything, is rage. That’s her natural set point, suppressed rage, which comes out as kindness and trying to keep everything tight. – See more at: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/02/28/community-alison-brie-yvette-nicole-brown-gillian-jacobs-megan-ganz-roundtable.html#sthash.cAOgrEkS.dpuf

A Post About ‘Community’s Shirley? That’s Nice.

Written by Lady T. 

Yvette Nicole Brown as Shirley Bennett on Community

Anyone who has absorbed even a little bit of pop culture can see that the “sassy ethnic woman” archetype is ubiquitous in television and film. Women of color – particularly black and Latina women – are often used as sassy, finger-snapping side characters who exist only to provide amusing one-liners in the background of whatever white person drama or comic event happening in the forefront. (On a great scene from Scrubs, Carla and Laverne demonstrate how to act like a “minority sidekick from a bad movie”:)

One refreshing departure from the “sassy ethnic woman” stereotype is Shirley Bennett on Community. Played by Yvette Nicole Brown, Shirley is one of four people of color in the show’s main cast, though the only woman of color. In an interview with The Daily Beast, which included cast members Alison Brie and Gillian Jacobs and writer Megan Ganz, Brown discussed why Shirley is a refreshing character for her to play:

As a black actor, it’s refreshing that I’m not playing the “sassy black woman.” It’s something that Dan Harmon was cognizant of from the beginning. It is something that I’m always cognizant of. Every woman on the planet has sass and smart-ass qualities in them, but it seems sometimes only black women are defined by it. Shirley is a fully formed woman that had a sassy moment. Her natural set point, if anything, is rage. That’s her natural set point, suppressed rage, which comes out as kindness and trying to keep everything tight.

Shirley is, perhaps, the only main character on Community who has her own catchphrase, but the catchphrase – “That’s nice!” – is a far cry from the finger-snapping talking-through-the-nose stereotype demonstrated on the above clip from Scrubs. Shirley is exactly what Brown described: a woman filled with suppressed rage who covers up her anger by trying to be sweet and kind. But rather than being an example of a different kind of negative black stereotype – the Angry Black Person who bursts into a rage for no stated reason – the Community writers and Brown show that Shirley has plenty of reasons to be angry.

Like the other members of the Spanish study group, Shirley comes to Greendale Community College when she needs to start a new chapter in her life after the first chapter ended badly: her husband abandoned her and their two children, and she wants to earn a business degree so she can sell her baked goods. Christian and motherly, Shirley takes on a protective nature to the youngest members of the group (Annie, Troy, and Abed), tries to develop a camaraderie with Britta and act as a cheerleader for her flirty dynamic with Jeff, and does her best to ignore the sexual harassment from Pierce.

Annie (Alison Brie), Britta (Gillian Jacobs), and Shirley get caught in a “reverse Porky’s” shenanigan

Soon, Shirley develops close bonds with other members of the study group, trying to keep the group dynamic sweet, light, and happy – but time and time, her repressed anger rises to the surface.

Shirley flies into a rage when Jeff shows interest in a woman other than Britta, acting indignant on Britta’s behalf, but she later admits that she’s still in deep pain over her own divorce: “I was too proud to admit I was hurt, so I had to pretend you were,” she says to her friend.

Shirley is put out and offended when her friends don’t want to attend her Christmas party, taking their reluctance as an insult to her faith, but again, Britta gets to the heart of the matter: Shirley is desperate to recreate a tradition that’s important to her, that’s missing from her life since her painful divorce.

Shirley, when given a chance to act as campus security with Annie for a few days, insists on being the “bad cop” of the duo, a role that Annie also claims. The two characters clash during most of the episode because both are desperate for a change in image. While Annie wants people to stop seeing her as a sweet little girl, Shirley wants people to stop seeing her as a sweet motherly type. (More on that in a minute.)

Annie and Shirley as campus security officers

In short: Shirley has a lot of anger. What makes Shirley’s anger so refreshing is that her anger is not portrayed as a sign of her blackness, or her womanhood, but as the sign of a flawed, complex human being with legitimate pain. Sometimes her anger is towards a perceived slight that has nothing to do with her (assuming that her friends judge her for her Christianity when they don’t), and sometimes her anger is completely justified (getting fed up with Pierce’s harassment and racist comments). Sometimes she’s wrong, and sometimes she’s right – just like any other person.

Anger isn’t a character trait limited to Shirley, either. Annie also has repressed rage. The two women have a lot in common, “aww”-ing over cute things and getting upset when they’re not taken seriously. But of all the other characters in Community, Shirley seems to have the closest bond with Jeff. On the surface, they have little in common – he’s a white playboy sarcastic former lawyer, she’s a married black Christian woman with children – but just as Shirley covers her anger with a layer of sweetness, Jeff covers his with layers of blasé indifference. The fact that a young, insecure Shirley turns out to be Jeff’s former bully from when they were children seems perfect for their characters, and their friendship deepens – and some of their anger is assuaged – after they confront this issue.

Jeff (Joel McHale) and Shirley, BFFs (sort of)

Sometimes the writers on Community give Shirley short shrift compared to the other characters, as if they’re not sure what to do with a woman who is now re-married and in a happy relationship (their strengths are in writing damaged people, not content people). I’d also like the show to further explore her complicated dynamic with Britta, a woman with whom Shirley craves close friendship, but also finds threatening. Still, I’m grateful that Community allows Shirley to be as flawed, funny, and complicated as everyone else at Greendale Community College. She’s my younger brother’s favorite character, and I think that’s nice.

———-

Lady T is a writer with two novels, a play, and a collection of comedy sketches in progress. She hopes to one day be published and finish one of her projects (not in that order). You can find more of her writing at www.theresabasile.com.

Lady T is an aspiring writer and comedian with two novels, a play, and a collection of comedy sketches in progress. She hopes to one day be published and finish one of her projects (not in that order). You can find more of her writing at The Funny Feminist, where she picks apart entertainment and reviews movies she hasn’t seen. – See more at: https://www.btchflcks.com/search/label/Lady%20T#sthash.84hpSUKB.dpuf
Lady T is an aspiring writer and comedian with two novels, a play, and a collection of comedy sketches in progress. She hopes to one day be published and finish one of her projects (not in that order). You can find more of her writing at The Funny Feminist, where she picks apart entertainment and reviews movies she hasn’t seen. – See more at: https://www.btchflcks.com/search/label/Lady%20T#sthash.84hpSUKB.dpuf
As a black actor, it’s refreshing that I’m not playing the “sassy black woman.” It’s something that Dan Harmon was cognizant of from the beginning. It is something that I’m always cognizant of. Every woman on the planet has sass and smart-ass qualities in them, but it seems sometimes only black women are defined by it. Shirley is a fully formed woman that had a sassy moment. Her natural set point, if anything, is rage. That’s her natural set point, suppressed rage, which comes out as kindness and trying to keep everything tight. – See more at: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/02/28/community-alison-brie-yvette-nicole-brown-gillian-jacobs-megan-ganz-roundtable.html#sthash.cAOgrEkS.dpuf
As a black actor, it’s refreshing that I’m not playing the “sassy black woman.” It’s something that Dan Harmon was cognizant of from the beginning. It is something that I’m always cognizant of. Every woman on the planet has sass and smart-ass qualities in them, but it seems sometimes only black women are defined by it. Shirley is a fully formed woman that had a sassy moment. Her natural set point, if anything, is rage. That’s her natural set point, suppressed rage, which comes out as kindness and trying to keep everything tight. – See more at: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/02/28/community-alison-brie-yvette-nicole-brown-gillian-jacobs-megan-ganz-roundtable.html#sthash.cAOgrEkS.dpuf
As a black actor, it’s refreshing that I’m not playing the “sassy black woman.” It’s something that Dan Harmon was cognizant of from the beginning. It is something that I’m always cognizant of. Every woman on the planet has sass and smart-ass qualities in them, but it seems sometimes only black women are defined by it. Shirley is a fully formed woman that had a sassy moment. Her natural set point, if anything, is rage. That’s her natural set point, suppressed rage, which comes out as kindness and trying to keep everything tight. – See more at: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/02/28/community-alison-brie-yvette-nicole-brown-gillian-jacobs-megan-ganz-roundtable.html#sthash.cAOgrEkS.dpuf

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).