feminist television characters

Something is happening over at Bravo. Previously, its reality TV programming was all about rich, gaudy, ambitious, tanned, shit-talking, table-throwing, materialistic socialites. Now, these same people have babies.

Hello, fellow Bitch readers! I’m a freelance journalist, editor, writer, and blogger, and I warmly welcome you to the first post of my guest blog series, Bringing Up Baby, which will explore pregnancy, childbirth, and infant care as represented on television (and, occasionally, in film and the mainstream media). My goal is to introduce babies as an important topic for feminists who are wary of representations of women and gender in the media.

Are there any explicitly feminist crime TV shows? Prime Suspect, which ran on UK television channel ITV from 1991 to 2006, is surely a contender, starring Helen Mirren as Detective Chief Inspector Jane Tennison, a female detective breaking into a male-dominated world. It dealt explicitly with issues such as institutional sexism and racism in London's Metropolitan Police force.

It's being remade for US television, with Maria Bello taking on the role of Tennison.

The general consensus at the end of Parks and Recreation last season was that the show was a sometimes funny, sometimes not, could be better Office knockoff (which was itself a knockoff). Well, times have changed.

It's a new season for Parks and Recreation, and if you haven't been tuning in yet you are missing out on a giant feminist treat: Deputy Director Leslie Knope. Knope, played by Amy Poehler, has really found her feminist (and hilarious) stride this season, and it is awesome. Check out this clip from last week's episode, wherein Knope judged a local beauty pageant and tried, in vain, to champion a "not hot" candidate:

Somebody should probably call these people up and inform them that actually, there is already a modern adaptation of Heathers on the air and it’s called Gossip Girl.  Oh yes, of course, Gossip Girl isn’t actually witty or smart or anything but Serena did kill that one guy and dates the modern version of Christian Slater’s character if said character had poured his dreams into modern Brooklyn “writer” “soulful” soullessness.  So please, for the love of God, don't try to remake it these days.  We'll end up with a poor substitute for Winona Ryder, I tell you what. 

Look, like everyone, I liked Heathers back in the day.  I just need to amend the proposition that I think that television is nice to women, somewhat, to say I think it's nice to women over the age of 18.   In fact, if anything, there is one archetype on television I think we have all had enough of in the last year: high-school bitchy.  (Lest you forget, in Tina Fey's famous words, this was Sarah Palin's most annoying personality trait.)  I am utterly and totally bored by the limited interpretation of the lives of teenage girls on television today.  Not a one of them seems to have the least bit of a problem with the world of consumerism and hot purses, and if they have academic or professional (read: fashion) ambition at all (read: Blair Waldorf), it is because such ambition would confer on them social status they would like to have.  Genuine intellectual curiosity, in a teenage girl on television today?  Pshaw.  You can't tear those ladies away from their Manolos!  And it's the reality too!  Have a look at The Hills sometime if you're looking for reasons to commit suicide, ladies!