Dominant roles in series reflect societal changes
This season, women rule TV dramas.
After last year’s success of “Desperate Housewives,” that development should
come as no surprise; TV executives always are eager to emulate recent success.
Although women have had prominent roles in TV since at least the 1960s, this
year there is a tangible difference: married women in the driver’s seat.
Mary Tyler Moore, a successful single, headlined a self-titled sitcom in the
1970s. Dana Scully, another successful single, was Fox Mulder’s equal in every
sense on “The X-Files,” a 1990s drama.
But the new trend elevates wives and relegates husbands to playing second
fiddle, particularly in prime-time dramas:
•On NBC’s “Medium,” Patricia Arquette plays the title role and gets the
majority of screen time.
•The disparity is more pronounced on CBS’ imitator, “Ghost Whisperer,” where
Jennifer Love Hewitt’s psychic is front and center while her paramedic husband
(David Conrad) appears less frequently to offer comfort and support.
•On CBS’ “Close to Home,” Indianapolis prosecutor Annabeth Chase (Jennifer
Finnigan) is the focus, while her husband is seen only in rare scenes.
•On ABC’s “Commander in Chief,” where first gentleman Rod (Kyle Secor) wins
more screen time than most of these other “plus one” guys, he still plays a
clear second to his wife, President Mackenzie Allen (Geena Davis).
The reasons for the shift are myriad: They’re economic and demographic,
they’re out of narrative necessity and they’re a result of the maturing of a
medium that mirrors changes in society.
Viewers have seen married women in leading roles in the past, especially on
sitcoms (“Maude” in the 1970s), but there are fewer examples in prime-time
dramas. It has happened from time to time (e.g. Mary Beth Lacey on “Cagney &
Lacey” in the 1980s), but usually the female leads in TV dramas are single, as
on “Ally McBeal,” “Judging Amy,” “Gilmore Girls,” etc.
In her upcoming book “Redesigning Women: Television After the Network Era”
(University of Illinois Press; April 2006), University of Michigan
communication studies assistant professor Amanda Lotz charts the rise of
female-centered dramas from 1945 to the present in nine-year increments.
Seven series fitting that description were made between 1975 and 1984 and more
than double that number from the mid-1980s to the mid-’90s.
The floodgates burst open from 1995 to 2004, when more than 35 female-centered
dramas were produced. Even then, many of those series starred young single
women (“Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “Felicity,” “Dark Angel” and more) and
aired on smaller networks or niche cable outlets. In time, TV shows with
female leads migrated to the larger networks, particularly after NBC’s success
with “Providence” in 1999.
“In the realm of television history, it is still pretty new,” Lotz said. “We
didn’t really (regularly) have women as leads of successful dramas until the
mid-to-late ’90s. … The fact that they were single women is significant as
part of the complicated history of feminism and how we understand it in
popular culture.
“Wrongly, it was assumed that women had to be single to be progressive female
characters. … It took the success of a number of single female characters in
these types of shows before taking the next step of female characters who are
also in committed and equal relationships.”
John Gray, executive producer of “Ghost Whisperer,” acknowledged the roles of
men and women in TV dramas are changing.
“We’ve reversed what we saw for so many years where women were just the grace
notes,” Gray said.
“Ghost Whisperer” writer/producer Emily Fox said she doesn’t think of Conrad’s
character as supporting.
“I think of him as a main character, but she is our point of view,” Fox said.
“It’s more recent that we’ve had dramas told from a female point of view where
females are doing something other than just looking for love – where they’re
cops, investigators and now ghost whisperers.”
And because the focus is on their jobs, Gray notes, their marital lives are in
the background. That presents a new challenge for TV writers who aren’t
accustomed to crafting secondary stories for male spouses.
Lotz pointed to “Medium,” which gives the husband more screen time because the
couple have three young children. On “Close to Home,” Annabeth and Jack
(Christian Kane) have a newborn.
“It almost feels like they don’t know what to do with the husband” on “Close
to Home,” Lotz said. “They want (Annabeth’s) personal life; it’s an important
part of her character to understand she’s a young mother, but it seems like
it’s difficult to blend those aspects (with workplace stories).”
She also notes that because it’s a workplace-centered procedural drama,
regardless of the gender of the lead, the show would have a 90 percent-10
percent balance of work-to-home scenes.
Garth Ancier, chairman of The WB, said television reflects American cultural
shifts.
“You’re in a workforce where almost half the workers are women,” he said.
The WB’s new drama “Related” focuses on four adult sisters; only one of them
is married, and her husband is a supporting character.
“The majority of women in this country are breadwinners for their families, so
you’re just reflecting society,” Ancier said.
Tina Pieraccini, professor of broadcasting at the State University of New York
at Oswego, agreed.
“Culturally it’s not politically correct anymore to have women put second,”
she said. “You can do that with men, and nobody’s going to complain. ... Look
at ‘Desperate Housewives’; all their husbands are either dying or in the
background.”
Married women in leading roles also mirrors the life changes for the targeted
18-to-49 female audience, said Sharon Ross, an assistant professor in the TV
department at Columbia College in Chicago.
“What happens next for all the women who grew up with shows about single
women? The logical trajectory is that those women get married and have kids,
and you can’t keep feeding them what you’ve been giving them,” Ross said,
pointing out that even at the end of its run, the women of “Sex and the City”
(more of a drama than a comedy by its conclusion) had all paired off and were
no longer single.
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