Wisdom and Violence: Strong Women on Television

When I was a kid, I would play Charlie’s Angels with my friends Kim and Tammi.  Kim was Sabrina (played by Kate Jackson on the show), Tammi was Jill (Farrah Fawcett Majors), and I was Kelly (Jaclyn Smith).   I’m not quite sure what we did to play these characters, besides shoot imaginary bad guys who invaded my backyard.  As a little girl who was first obsessed with strong female characters in literature like Jo March in Little Women and Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With the Wind, perhaps I wanted mostly to be grown up, and thus have some power to change things for the good.  These women, to a greater or lesser degree, had adventures and took risks unimaginable to me in our quiet suburban neighborhood. 

While I discovered plenty of strong female characters who could kick some ass in literature and popular culture since then, they have always been either over-the-top or too perfect.  In the former category, we had Saving Grace (TNT), a short-lived series featuring a scarily skinny Holly Hunter, who played Grace Hanadarko, a police detective in Oklahoma City.  She drank, smoked, and had sex like the men, but was also in need of saving by Earl, an angel (yes, I know.  The kind sent by God).  So the woman needed redemption but not the men?  Hm.  Holly Hunter’s devil-may-care (pun intended) characterization was undermined by the lousy writing and erratic pacing. 

In the too-perfect category, there is The Good Wife (CBS).  Alicia Florrick, played by Julianna Margulies, is a top lawyer at a top law firm married to the state’s attorney.  Yes, she engages in some high jinks of her own, but even her colleagues at the firm call her “St. Alicia.”  No thanks.  Both Saving Grace and The Good Wife suffer from inconsistent writing and cheesy dialogue.  Grace was too obnoxious and Alicia too mannequin-like for me to want to identify with.  *Sigh.* Where are the fierce, compelling, and realistic (within the suspension of disbelief realm) women who, just by watching them, can make me feel as if I can channel their powerful, positive energy and no BS attitude?

Luckily, there are two recent characters who fulfill that longing.  First we have Carrie Mathison (played by Claire Danes) in Homeland (Showtime). She’s independent, perceptive, courageous, and while she works for the CIA, she also sees the flaws in the system.   What’s not to like?  Oh wait…there’s that bipolar thing that provides some trouble with impulsivity and obsessiveness.  However, Carrie’s flaws are also assets. That’s how she got the information that a POW had been turned.  Of course, it’s also why she subsequently slept with him.  It’s also what enabled her to go into an old mill by herself to confront a terrorist.  Of course, she almost got killed.  But Carrie’s physical and emotional fearlessness, along with her commitment to a cause, make her the most appealing female character I’ve seen on television or in movies in recent memory.

Another new show, also about spies, has a similar character.  The Americans (on FX) is set in 1981 at the height of the Cold War.  Philip and Elizabeth Jennings (Keri Russell) appear to be your typical suburban couple with two adorable but real kids. You’d never know that they are (drum roll, please) Soviet spies under deep cover.  As their backstory unfolds, we find out they were trained to take on these American identities, erasing all trace of their Russian backgrounds, not even sharing their original names with one another.  Their marriage is somewhat fictional, in that, at first, they are more like teammates than romantic partners.  Elizabeth and Philip don different disguises in order to elicit information from a diverse group of characters working for the U.S. government, either through sexual or violent means. 

Like Carrie in Homeland, Elizabeth is intelligent and resourceful, and can kick some serious ass.  However, she is distinctly different from Carrie in that she is deeply loyal to the Soviet Union, whereas Carrie questions her country’s methods and morality.  Carrie has her own perspective and is happy to violate CIA protocol if she sees fit; whereas Elizabeth shoots a guy in the head simply because she was ordered to, without questioning if this is an ethical thing to do.

Carrie and Elizabeth also demonstrate vulnerability, which makes them feel human, and thus easy to identify with.   Carrie falls for the wrong guy, and has to make the choice between him and her loyalty to her country.  Elizabeth eventually decides that she is ready to make her marriage to Philip more than just a cover.  It is both tension-building and gratifying to watch these two powerful women grapple with ethical choices in their roles as spies and as women. 

I hadn’t thought about what it meant to play games like Charlie’s Angels growing up; that is, to try on different identities.  Why would I want to try on Carrie or Elizabeth?  What’s their appeal to me now, and is it similar to the Jaclyn Smith character when I was nine?  Carrie and Elizabeth are thin and attractive, but that’s where the similarities end.  They are intense, make mistakes, and take risks for what they believe in.  Maybe that’s what appeals to me now: these characters may have doubt and fear, but they don’t let those feelings slow them down.    

Clothing Loathing: The (not so) Great Purge

You only need one pair of pants and one shirt for the week.

                                                            The Waynus (my dad)

When I was in my early teens, my mom and I would go school shopping every August.  We would spend the day at Glenbrook Mall starting at 10 a.m., stop for lunch at the food court overlooking the indoor ice rink, and then wind down, exhausted, by splitting one of those giant chocolate chip cookies at the Great American Cookie Company.   I dutifully modeled each outfit for my dad as he had a martini before supper.  As I ran up and down the stairs to change, Mom would say, “That was a great bargain!” Sometimes she would tell me not to bring out a particular item, saying, “Daddy doesn’t need to know about this one yet.”  We had our secrets, as Mom would carefully parse the line between what I wanted and how much she knew Dad wanted to spend on things as unimportant as school clothes.  When both your parents spend their formative years during the Depression, it’s pretty hard to convince them of the need for Calvin Klein jeans or Izod shirts, both of which were essential at Homestead High School.   

Unfortunately, neither my mom or I were sensitive to fashion trends, so it wasn’t until the first week of school that I would find out either a) every other girl had bought the same exact shirt I had, or b) bell bottoms had gone out of style without my noticing, both of which happened in seventh grade.  This was in contrast to a friend, Melissa, who had a seemingly endless supply of different-colored corduroys with matching sweaters.  She hardly ever wore the same clothes within two weeks, much less within one week.  

That year, a store that specialized in low prices for flawed designer items (a precursor to TJ Maxx and Marshalls) opened at Times Corner, the local shopping plaza.  Mom was in Germany with her church choir, but when I saw that the store had Calvin Kleins on sale, I knew I had to get there.  Somehow, I convinced my dad to take me and buy those jeans on a Sunday morning instead of going to church (I just knew they would be out of my size should we wait until afterward).  At last!  No more bell bottoms.  Unfortunately, some of my peers were quick to discern that I was wearing the same pair of jeans every single day and called my (and everyone else’s) attention to it.  When parents attempt to comfort you by saying nobody notices fashion faux pas but you, rest assured they know nothing about the scrutiny of teenage girls.       

The shame and humiliation of not having the right clothing, along with not having the right parents who understood this, has followed me.  I remember the first time I was able to wear a different pair of pants every day of the week.  I was like, “Take that, bitches.”  By then, though, it didn’t matter. 

My clothing and fashion woes continue.  I am truly my father’s daughter, in that I can’t find it in my heart to spend full-price on any clothing item, unless there’s a special occasion and I’m desperate.  The thing that gets me now, though, is the pace of the trends.  I can’t keep track of which color is in, and which season you can wear it.  I was also a little late with the longer hems on pants, and still haven’t figured out where my dresses and skirts are on the continuum between hussy and prude.  The rules changed once I hit my 40’s, but since I didn’t know what the rules were in the first place, I’m not sure how. 

All of this indecision—along with a loathing for trying on clothes--led to a glut of stuff that doesn’t fit right, look right, or is possibly out of fashion (not that I would know).  Thus, there are now five giant garbage bags full of said clothing destined for a spring garage sale.  This Great Purge, though, is apparently not great enough.  I still have two small closets and two dressers filled with clothes, most of which fit into three categories:  running, yoga, or school.  It would be easy to just stick with the basics—white t-shirts and khaki shorts for summer, black for school—but I haven’t given up on the fantasy that someday I will wake up and know what’s in fashion, what looks good on my particular frame, and what’s cool but appropriate for women in their 40’s.  I welcome any help, but if you’re like me, you might want to check out our garage sale in May.         

Identity Crisis or Ability Crisis?

There’s going to be a day when I wake up and I’ll pack up my shoes and I’ll be done…I don’t want to go and run a 21 minute 5K.

                                    Sheri Piers, 41 year old American elite runner

If you have run a 5K and you’re over the age of 30, or even if you’re not, you know that running 3.1 miles in 21 minutes, in which you would run each mile in less than seven minutes, is pretty great.  Depending on how big your local race is and who competes, it’s certainly possible, even likely, that you would win your age group, especially if you are a woman. 

I myself have barely scraped under 27 minutes, and that was just once, on a course that was probably short.  Now, I realize it’s completely unfair to compare myself to Sheri Piers, who was recently on the cover of Running Times (www.runningtimes.com), and the top American finisher at the Boston Marathon last year.   It’s like comparing most high school swimmers to Elizabeth Beisel or local softball players to the Boston Red Sox.  We are engaging in the same sport, but it’s at completely different levels.  That’s not my real objection to Piers’ comment.

Instead, I wonder at someone who would give up a thing that is a huge part of her identity and life—she runs between 90-130 miles a week and only takes a couple of days off a year—because she couldn’t run a certain time. 

In contrast, the next article in that issue of Running Times had exactly the opposite message.  David Alm writes about what he learned from training for a week before a half-marathon (13.1 miles) with some of the fastest runners in the world, mostly from Kenya and Ethiopia.  David knew he couldn’t keep up with them, but these runners didn’t treat him any differently.  The race was hot, hilly, and grueling, and everybody ran slower times than they were used to.  You’d expect elite athletes to be very disappointed—after all, these times are of public record and can have an impact on sponsorships. Instead, David writes, “But to them, none of that mattered.  Our times were numbers, nothing more.  And no one seemed disappointed—with themselves or with me.”  In contrast, when Piers had a bad race, she said, “I was so sad, and so mad.  I just felt like it was my last chance to do it.  Being in the shape of your life doesn’t happen all the time.” 

I wonder if Sheri’s all-or-nothing attitude, reflective of American ideals, is one reason why many students don’t feel valued in schools.  They know they are measured by their scores on tests.  As Ernest Morrell told 200+ English teachers today at Rhode Island College, kids know that education is valuable.  What they don’t know is how valuable they are.  Morrell argues that we don’t have an ability crisis; instead we have an identity crisis.  Motivation is the result of value (kids valuing what they are learning) plus expectancy (they believe they can succeed). 

It seems that Sheri Piers, who is not just a runner, but a parent, partner, and nurse practitioner, connects a certain 5K time to her self-worth.  While I admire her work ethic, stamina, and commitment, I hope that she won’t give up running just because she might lose a race to the likes of me. 

Unfortunately, this same kind of narrow measuring stick is at work in our schools.  I hope that students are given the message that standardized tests, and even course grades, unfold within a larger context; some of which they have control over, and some of which they do not.  Performance on those arbiters is not just about effort and ability—there is always a complexity of factors at work. 

And I hope teachers understand these same complexities.  Of course, we must always do our best to ensure our kids’ learning through motivation, engagement, and the teaching of necessary skills.  But we can’t lose sight of how, as the African runners suggest, we must value every runner’s [student’s] efforts, success, and potential.