Reviews of movies and TV focused on women
Let’s empty the stray thoughts from my head today, shall we? I want to say something quick about Madam Secretary, Charmed, and House of Cards. I’m not too happy about things in this episode of the brain dump. Continue reading “Brain Dump: Madam Secretary, Charmed, House of Cards”
The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson, a documentary directed by David France, looks back at the death of one of the icons of the gay rights movement. Continue reading “Review: The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson”
I read a wonderful article called 33 Experts Share Their Notable Female Characters Of Recent Years at Bang2Write.
Bang2Write asked screenwriters, directors, literary agents and other industry pros to talk about the female characters they thought were most important in recent years.
The names they mentioned were absolute favorites of mine: Carrie from Homeland, Kalinda from The Good Wife, Lizbeth from the Millennium Trilogy, Catherine from Happy Valley, Stella from The Fall, the women from Scott & Bailey and Last Tango in Halifax, Hushpuppy from Beasts of the Southern Wild, Michonne and Carol from The Walking Dead, various clones from Orphan Black, practically everyone from Orange is the New Black.
There were many more names mentioned by these experts. I loved reading their reasons and explanations for why they picked certain characters. I loved the females they named.
As I read each of the picks by the 33 experts I was surprised that no one mentioned Bo from Lost Girl. There are some awesome female characters on Lost Girl. Particularly Bo, who is strong and growing increasingly more powerful. She wears her power with grace and uses it with heart. She’s unaligned with either side in her world. She’s protective of those she loves. She makes mistakes – huge ones. She’s less than perfect, but she’s searching, yearning to improve.
Bo’s bisexual. As far as I know the only other female bi characters on television are Callie on Grey’s Anatomy and Kalinda on The Good Wife. Bisexual women are misunderstood and mistreated by the culture at large and even by the LGBT community. Since I’m a believer that #RepresentationMatters, I think having a bi character portrayed in a positive light is a powerful thing.
So while I agree with every single female named by the experts, I want to mention Bo as one they forgot. I’m not an expert. I’m merely a consumer of movies and television with notable female characters – I look for them every day. I seldom watch anything that does not have notable female characters. I support notable female characters with enthusiasm.
But don’t forget Bo on Lost Girl.
Let me count the ways that Thursday nights, AKA Rhimesday nights, are going to be amazing when the fall TV season begins.
That’s 3 solid hours of women lead drama from Shondaland productions. That’s a night for television, my friends. May I celebrate the fact that two of those leading actresses are women of color? Yes!
On Thursday nights real life will stop. The only things operating in the void will be televisions tuned to ABC and eleventy million tweets about every move on ABC for 3 solid hours.
Those fat cat white male dudes who run ABC and Twitter should be bowing before Shonda Rhimes. Bowing.
Here’s a little preview from Shondaland of where we might be going with Scandal, Grey’s Anatomy and How to Get Away with Murder.
In the season opener of Grey’s Anatomy last week, we saw the first reaction by Callie (Sara Ramirez) to Arizona’s (Jessica Capshaw) infidelity. Hurt and angry, Callie takes Sofia and leaves. She takes up residence on Derek and Meredith’s couch for a while.
It takes Callie one day to talk to Arizona about a schedule for sharing Sofia. She can’t discuss anything else about their relationship without crying, but she’s willing to talk about Sofia.
(IMDB does not give the real name of the child playing Sofia.)
Before the wedding, before the baby, Arizona had to be converted to the idea of parenthood. I clearly remember the episode when she embraced the idea of mothering Sofia. In fact, I wrote about it way back then.
A quick recap: Arizona and Mark argued about who was more important to save after the car wreck – Callie or the baby. Mark argued that he should have more say in the decision because he was the baby’s biological father and Arizona was “nothing.” Both Callie and the baby were saved, of course, and Arizona was at Callie’s bedside when she woke up. Arizona said, “I don’t feel like nothing. I feel like our baby’s mother.” Here’s what I wrote earlier:
It’s the line I feel like our baby’s mother that I want to talk about as important. Once the heart moves into that place of parenting, a family is born. For same sex couples like Callie and Arizona, or for adoptive parents from any configuration of family you can imagine, this is the bond, the spiritual tether. The parental bond, once formed, is what creates a family that will cherish and nurture a child.
This is what’s remarkable about Shonda Rhimes and this particular story about a two-mom family: from the first suggestion that there might be a split between the two women, they were written as equal parents to little Sofia. Shonda Rhimes gets the “parental bond” between both parents and their daughter.
Shonda Rhimes gives us drama and conflict, and plenty of it. Bumps in Callie and Arizona’s relationship are a part of that, but it looks as if their baby isn’t going to be a source of the conflict.
I’m rooting for Callie and Arizona to work it out. I really hope Shonda Rhimes wants them to be together and happy, too. Until we find out what happens, I’m glad to see her treating an adoptive parent as equal to a biological one. It’s further proof that Shonda Rhimes can write about same sex couples and treat them as she would any other couple.
Images ©ABC and Shonda Rhimes.
