Push(back) at the Intersections

We've got five new shows coming up with women on the creative team and I thought, as I wind up my time here, that I'd delve into them to see what we have to look forward to this fall/spring, and to see what kinds of women-led television make the brutal cuts of pilot season.

Two of them are romantic comedies. Two of them are cop dramas. One of them is a medical drama.

It's notable that these shows, for the most part, aren't being created by women writing about women's experiences. Evidently the networks feel that such a thing wouldn't be very interesting to members of the general public.

I think the best way to fight knee-jerk reactions to pop culture discussions, to resist the sense that one is being personally attacked, is to step outside the equation, and to step away from the keyboard to do some thinking. Remember that the writer probably doesn't know you, isn't thinking about you while writing the piece, and doesn't think that you are a bad person. The writer is just discussing something seen, an embedded message.

After all, you didn't create the piece of pop culture under discussion. You may be complicit in the social attitudes that it embodies, but that often happens on an unconscious level. You are not responsible for not seeing everything in all things, but you are responsible for seriously evaluating and considering critiques pointing out things you didn't see.