Television
The introduction of television in the 1950s transformed American life. Audiences no longer imagined pictures in their mind when listening to radio dramas, comedies, and mysteries; rather, television delivered the images right into audiences’ homes. Although women’s lives were still relegated to the domestic, television was a window into the world and a glimpse of how other people lived.
As time passed and women’s rights became a more prominent issue in American society, however, television increasingly emerged as a cultural touchstone for understanding the frustrations, fears, demands, and dreams of women from all socioeconomic backgrounds. Using both humor and drama, diverse television programs such as I Love Lucy (1951–1957), Maude (1972–1978), Murphy Brown (1988–1998), Roseanne (1988–1997), and Ellen (1994–1998) explored and commented on momentous changes in women’s lives during the second half of the 20th century, just as shows like Parks and Recreation (2009–2015), How to Get Away with Murder (2014), Inside Amy Schumer (2013–), and Orange is the New Black (2013–) have done for audiences of the 21st century.
Television has played an important role in transforming American culture and the reimagining of gender roles. Despite the splintering of television audiences as technology and creators deliver multiple options and channels for audiences’ viewing pleasure, the small screen remains a force in U.S. culture as a vehicle for potential political and cultural change.
The Goldbergs was an American situation comedy about a Jewish immigrant family living in a tenement in the Bronx, and was popular in the 1950s, during television’s infancy. Creator, writer, and star of The Goldbergs, Gertrude Berg (neé Edelstein; 1899–1966) was the force behind a multimedia entertainment empire forged in her likeness: by the time of the 1950s television show, her Jewish immigrant matriarch character, Molly Goldberg, had captured hearts for decades in a variety of formats and genres. The Goldbergs was originally a radio show, and Berg’s durable characters went on to populate not only television but also a Hollywood film, a Broadway show, and commercial products ranging from cookbooks to coloring books and puzzles.
Berg’s subject was American immigrant life from the Depression to the post-war era, and her fan base was legion. At the height of its popularity, the program was viewed by 40 million people a week.
The Molly Goldberg character was developed from skits about fictional Jewish immigrant Maltke Talnitzky, created by a teenaged Berg to occupy guests on rainy days at her father’s Catskills resort. Berg’s natural skill with dialogue, keen sense of dramatic structure, and sensitivity to cultural issues served her well when she adapted the skits for radio and television. Talnitzky eventually evolved into Molly Goldberg, a loving matriarch whose quaint customs and humorous malapropisms were matched with a fierce intelligence and an open-minded worldview.
Each episode of The Goldbergs opens with Molly Goldberg leaning out her tenement window and shouting “Yoo-hoo!” to her neighbors, before directly addressing the audience with a pitch for the program’s sponsor. After speaking with her television audience family, Molly retreats into the apartment to join her television family: her doting husband Jake, who gives her the run of the household; her brother Uncle David, whose old-world charm creates a perfect comic foil for Molly’s explorations of American culture; and Sammy and Rosie, two accent-less children who are fully assimilated into the burgeoning youth culture of the American 20th century. The program also featured a seeming cast of thousands playing neighbors, shopkeepers, bellboys, and the like; Berg’s ear for language and eye for television imagery led her to hire widely from her New York life, making the show’s secondary characters into a realistic representation of mid-20th-century American life.
The story of The Goldbergs followed the story of the United States: its industrial and cultural shifts mirrored those in the world both inside and outside radio and television. When CBS reported the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, the news broadcast was followed immediately by an announcement that thanked “Oxydol, sponsor of The Goldbergs.” When the actor playing Sammy was drafted, the character was drafted too, and a special episode was recorded at Grand Central Station. The program responded to the brutal devastation of Kristallnacht by airing an episode in which a brick is thrown through the Goldbergs’ window during a Passover Seder. And the show was pulled from the air for a year when Berg refused to fire Philip Loeb, the actor who played Jake, when he was identified as a Communist in Red Channels: The Report of Communist Influence in Radio and Television.
Berg made inestimable contributions to 20th-century entertainment media. In addition to being the face and voice of The Goldbergs for decades, she wrote an episode each morning before making her family breakfast, eventually penning more than 10,000 Goldbergs scripts. As a pioneer in the world of both radio and television, Berg understood that entertainment media is a balancing act between performers, producers, and sponsors. Her autobiography vividly describes her performing all these roles: while acting and cueing her fellow actors, Berg would also be improvising on the fly in order to conform to the sponsor’s mood and to the ticking clock of the live broadcast. The Goldbergs’ witty banter, focus on family dynamics, and foregrounding of sponsored products established televisual conventions and industry practices that are still in use more than 60 years after Molly gave her first “Yoo-hoo!”
Leah Shafer
FURTHER READING
Berg, Gertrude. 1961. Molly and Me: The Memoirs of Gertrude Berg. New York: McGraw Hill.
Smith, Glenn D., Jr. 2007. “Something on My Own”: Gertrude Berg and American Broadcasting, 1929–1956. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press.
THE HAZEL SCOTT SHOW (1950–1959)
The Hazel Scott Show was a variety show that premiered in the United States in July 1950 on the DuMont Network, to critical acclaim. The 15-minute program was broadcast three times weekly and hosted by renowned jazz artist Hazel Scott (1920–1981), an accomplished pianist and performer in movies and radio. As a black woman, her starring position was notable during a time when the roles of both women and blacks in broadcasting were minimal. Her appearance as an intelligent and sophisticated woman was also a challenge to prevailing stereotypes of blacks. The program showcased Scott’s musical skills, setting her in a luxurious penthouse, wearing elegant clothing. The show was canceled on September 29, 1950, largely due to Scott’s blacklisting because of false accusations of ties to the Communist Party. None of the episodes are known to exist today and are presumed destroyed.
As suggested by the show’s title, Hazel Scott had a recognizable name in the entertainment industry. A piano prodigy, she was known for “swinging the classics,” or giving jazzed tones and beats to classical works. This unorthodox practice was popular, but also a subject of debate. In Scott’s case, the criticism was twofold. She was accused of “corrupting” a high art form and failing to perform “authentic” black culture, as well as of co-opting white culture to fit into white society. She was also critiqued for her physical performance, particularly her intensity while playing, which was considered more appropriate for male entertainers.
Scott had the reputation of being very outspoken about her social views. Her onscreen characters in film matched her stage persona—dignified and cultured—and she refused to play stereotypical black submissive roles. A proponent of civil rights, she was one of the earliest artists to refuse to perform for segregated audiences, and her promotion of racial integration made her a progressive symbol. Overall, her status as host on her own show contrasted with stereotypical representations of black women, such as the black domestic.
In June 1950, Scott’s name appeared in Red Channels, a right-wing publication that listed names in the entertainment industry and their supposed affiliations with Communist and Communist front organizations. Nearly all of those listed were politically progressive, but many, like Hazel Scott, did not identify as Communist (Stabile, 2011). This was during the height of the Hollywood blacklist, when artists were barred from employment due to suspected affiliation with the Communist Party. The rationale for blacklisting was an underlying fear that media for public consumption, like cinema, radio, and television, could contain underlying subversive and anti-American messages. Although Hazel Scott voluntarily defended herself before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) and denounced Red Channels, the show’s sponsors pulled their support, resulting in its cancellation. The accusations not only instigated the end of her show but her career on the American screen as well. Film historian Donald Bogle has suggested that had The Hazel Scott Show survived, popular black images might have changed altogether to reflect emerging progressive attitudes (Bogle, 2001: 18–19).
Monica Murtaugh
FURTHER READING
Bogle, Donald. 2001. Prime Time Blues: African Americans on Network Television. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Mack, Dwayne. 2006. “Hazel Scott: A Career Curtailed.” Journal of African American History, 91(2): 153–70.
McGee, Kristin A. 2009. Some Liked It Hot: Jazz Women in Film and Television, 1928–1959. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.
Stabile, Carol. 2011. “Women and the Broadcast Blacklist.” Communication Currents, 6(5): 266–85. https://www.natcom.org/CommCurrentsArticle.aspx?id=1705.
The Beulah Show was a half-hour comedy series aired by the American Broadcasting Company (ABC). The show centers on Beulah, a black domestic servant for the Hendersons, an archetypal white suburban family. The standard plot formula in this episodic series often entails a family problem or conflict that is eventually resolved—although not without first getting magnified—by Beulah’s cleverness and genuine desire to set things right. Beulah was played by three prominent female black actors during that time period: Ethel Waters (1896–1977), Hattie McDaniel (1895–1952), and Louise Beavers (1902–1962). Although the show garnered some accolades, it also received much backlash for its stereotypical portrayal of black characters. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) requested local stations and sponsors to boycott it. Only four episodes have been made publicly available, and many more are presumed lost.
Like many other early television shows, The Beulah Show originated as a radio series in 1945. Beulah was voiced and created by Marlin Hurt, and briefly by Bob Corley (both white and male actors), before Hattie McDaniel, the distinguished first black actor to win an Academy Award, took over the role. Hurt and Corley performed the role as part of their specialty in dialect humor. Having white actors portray black characters was a staple in pre–World War II American comedy, with roots in the minstrel shows, or minstrelsy, of the 19th century. Minstrelsy is a form of comedic variety entertainment performed by black actors or, more typically, by white actors in blackface, establishing recognizable caricatures of black people that carried over into modern media. Such denigrating black stereotypes served as models for comedic representations of blacks, pitting them as distinct “other” and objects for white entertainment. Although the radio show was critiqued for its use of stereotypes, a 1950 review of the television series found similar faults with the show’s “stereotyped” concepts (Gould, 1950: 46).
The televised version of The Beulah Show, although notable for featuring a black woman as the leading star in her own weekly network series, is still accused of perpetuating black stereotypes. Historians have pointed out that Beulah’s character as a domestic servant is a typical stock representation of blacks, and particularly black women, in media. One common stereotype of black domestic roles, including Beulah’s, is a lack of family or life outside of her work, which reduces domestic characters to mere extensions of the family they are serving rather than independent persons (Berger, 2010: 21–22). Essentially, Beulah represents an anachronistic fantasy image of black womanhood as the always-helpful caretaker of the white household. Nevertheless, it has been observed that the female actors who took on the role of Beulah succeeded in bringing their own lives and personalities to the character, making Beulah more than just a flat caricature, as well as in showcasing blacks in black roles (Bodroghkozy, 2012: 21–29).
Monica Murtaugh
FURTHER READING
Berger, Maurice. 2010. For All the World to See: Visual Culture and the Struggle for Civil Rights. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Bodroghkozy, Aniko. 2012. Equal Time: Television and the Civil Rights Movement. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press.
Bogle, Donald. 2007. Brown Sugar: Over One Hundred Years of America’s Black Female Superstars. New York: Continuum.
Gould, Jack. 1950. “Billy Rose Gives First Show on TV.” The New York Times, October 4.
I Love Lucy starred real-life couple Lucille Ball (1911–1989) and Desi Arnaz (1917–1986). The situation comedy centers on the lives of club singer and bandleader Ricky Ricardo (Arnaz) and frustrated housewife Lucy Ricardo (Ball), who live in a New York City apartment building. Throughout the series, Lucy often finds herself involved in screwball antics due to her insatiable appetite for adventure. The couple’s neighbors, landlords, and best friends, Fred (William Frawley, 1887–1966) and Ethel (Vivian Vance, 1909–1979), are another mainstay of the show, and they are regularly involved in the weekly storylines. Ethel frequently finds herself involved in Lucy’s high jinks, with Ricky and Fred often bailing the duo out of trouble.
Originally a serious film actor, Ball gained attention for her comic talent in her role as a wife in the radio comedy My Favorite Husband (1948). Broadcast network CBS approached her about developing a show for television, but Ball would only do it if her husband Arnaz could play her television husband. When CBS resisted, claiming that audiences would not accept a Cuban foreigner with an accent, Ball and Arnaz took a vaudeville show on the road to persuade the network to think otherwise. Eventually, CBS gave in. In addition to starring a multiethnic couple, the show was groundbreaking in several other ways. Ball and Arnaz were not only the stars, but they were actively engaged in the production of the show and insisted on the use of film, which provided greater visual quality, as opposed to the less expensive live broadcast standard of kinescope. To make this happen, Ball and Arnaz agreed to pay cuts, but they also retained creative control and full ownership rights to the show, which led to the launch of their own company, Desilu Productions. Capturing the series on film also allowed for syndication, unlike most other shows from the time period of which no recordings were made. The show also veered from traditional production methods at the time by including Ball’s preference for a live studio audience instead of a canned laugh track. Additionally, the show was one of the first on American television to include Spanish dialogue.
One of Madame Tousauds’s most popular wax images is television icon Lucille Ball as her character Lucy Ricardo in the critically acclaimed I Love Lucy. Ball was an entertainment trailblazer on screen, as well as behind the scenes. In addition to multiple self-produced sitcoms, Ball was the first woman to run a major television studio, Desilu Productions. (Jvecc1/Dreamstime.com)
During the course of the show, Lucille Ball became pregnant with her second child. Her pregnancy was written into the script, but the network banned the use of the word “pregnant” and instead insisted on the use of the word “expecting.” This was only the second time in television history that a woman was shown pregnant on a television show, the first being Mary Kay and Johnny (1947–1950). Similarly, and also typical of the time, scenes in the bedroom restricted the couple to separate twin beds instead of a double bed.
The chemistry among the show’s stars, and especially Ball’s impressive physical slapstick comedic talent, led to a successful six seasons and numerous Emmy Award nominations and wins. Desilu Productions went on to produce other groundbreaking television hits, including The Untouchables (1959–1963), Star Trek (1966–1969), and That Girl (1966–1971). After the couple’s divorce in 1960, Arnaz sold his share of the company to Ball, who then became the first woman to head a major studio. Ball would continue to work in television, starring in a variety of self-produced sitcoms, until 1986. I Love Lucy is considered one of the most successful and groundbreaking television sitcoms of all time, and Lucille Ball remains a celebrated and revered comedic talent.
Ann M. Savage
See also: That Girl.
FURTHER READING
Ball, Lucille, Betty Hannah, and Lucie Arnaz Hoffman. 1996. Love, Lucy. New York: Putnam.
Banks, Miranda J. 2013. “I Love Lucy: The Writer-Producer.” In How to Watch Television, 244–52. Edited by Ethan Thompson and Jason Mittell. New York: New York University Press.
Edwards, Elisabeth. 2011. “I Love Lucy”: A Celebration of All Things Lucy: Inside the World of Television’s First Great Sitcom. Philadelphia: Running Press Book Publishers.
Landay, Lori. 2016. “I Love Lucy: Television and Gender in Postwar Domestic Ideology.” In The Sitcom Reader: America Re-Viewed, Still Skewed, 2nd ed., 87–97. Edited by Mary M. Dalton and Laura R. Linder. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Starring Marlo Thomas (1937–) as aspiring actor Ann Marie, That Girl was one of the first sitcoms to center on a single woman living alone. The storylines focus on Ann’s pursuit of an acting career, picking up temp jobs to support herself, her relationship with her longtime boyfriend Donald Hollinger (Ted Bessell, 1939–1996), and her mischievous efforts to challenge the sexist status quo. The show’s opening scenes typically set up scenarios in need of a bold young woman, and when the question is posed, “What woman would or could possibly accomplish such a thing?” the response was always That Girl.
When the show debuted in 1966, women on television were almost exclusively seen as supporting characters. If a woman was a lead in a show, too often her relationship with a man—whether as a wife, secretary, or girlfriend—was the primary element around which the program orbited. Moreover, if a female character was single, the husband was typically presented as deceased in order for audiences to accept such an unmarried status. A young woman living alone was viewed as unseemly and improper.
As an aspiring actor, Thomas kept receiving scripts in which female characters always served as an appendage to a man and never as the lead. Disappointed with such options, Thomas actively sought scripts that featured a woman as the center of the show and did not focus on the woman’s need to establish some sort of relationship with a man. In fact, during the development process for That Girl, broadcast network ABC pushed for an aunt to live with Ann Marie, but Thomas kept pushing back. Eventually, ABC agreed to the character living alone on the condition that boyfriend (and eventual fiancé) Donald Hollinger had to leave her apartment at the end of every episode. There could never be the appearance of the couple sleeping together. Additionally, the character Ann Marie could never dismiss the idea of marriage or declare that she never intended to get married. ABC insisted that the script include the words “just yet” whenever Ann Marie declared her reluctance to get married, as in “I don’t want to get married just yet.”
The response to the show was overwhelmingly positive, with Thomas often receiving letters from viewers who identified a “that girl” in their own families. The series aired during the height of the Women’s Liberation Movement and the development of what is now known as the second wave of feminism. Thomas also regularly received letters from women seeking to escape abusive relationships, and she was disheartened to learn that there were no safe houses or pro bono law services available to women at risk. Through her experience of working (and producing) the show, as well as the letters she received from women throughout the course of the show, Thomas began to identify as a feminist. As the series neared its end, the network pressured Thomas to end the show’s storyline with a wedding, but she refused. Instead, the final episode has Ann Marie taking boyfriend Donald to a women’s liberation meeting.
Ann M. Savage
FURTHER READING
Conaway, Cindy, and Peggy Tally. 2014. “Friendship and the Single Girl: What We Learned about Feminism and Friendship from Sitcom Women in the 1960s and 1970s.” In How Television Shapes Our Worldview: Media Representations of Social Trends and Change, 107–28. Edited by Deborah A. Macey, Kathleen M. Ryan, and Noah J. Springer. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
Lehman, Katherine J. 2011. Those Girls: Single Women in Sixties and Seventies Popular Culture. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas.
Pilato, Herbie J. 2014. Glamour, Gidgets, and the Girl Next Door: Television’s Iconic Women from the 50s, 60s, and 70s. Lanham, MD: Taylor Trade Publishing.
Thomas, Marlo. 2010. Growing Up Laughing: My Story and the Story of Funny. New York: Hyperion.
In 1968, the NBC television network debuted the situation comedy Julia, the first sitcom to feature a black family. Created by white, liberal writer-producer Hal Kanter (1918–2011), Julia starred Diahann Carroll (1935–) as a middle-class widowed mother to Corey, her six-year-old son. Following the death of her husband in the Vietnam War, Julia takes a job as a nurse at the health clinic of an aerospace company and moves into an integrated apartment building in Los Angeles. The show’s premise revolved around Julia’s efforts as a working single mother and the experiences she and Corey faced with the white world in which they lived, both good and bad. Though Julia and Corey had white friends on the show, their experiences with bigotry were thinly veiled attempts to blend entertainment with teachable moments about contemporary race issues.
The sitcom attempted to portray lighthearted situations concerning race issues; however, viewers wrote to Kanter protesting that Julia’s representation of a middle-class single black mother living in a posh apartment on a nurse’s income did not accurately portray the “real” black experience. Many white viewers contested the accuracy of Julia, claiming that the lead character demeaned white motherhood because she was portrayed as more beautiful and smarter than Marie Waggedorn, Julia’s white neighbor. In contrast, black women argued that Julia was unrealistic in other respects. They asserted that Carroll’s character did not illustrate the race struggle that many blacks of the 1960s were fighting to overcome. Many also contended that presenting Julia as a widow undermined the role of black men in the family and society in general, and that it perpetuated the stereotype of black households being fatherless and run by overbearing matriarchs. Although Kanter aimed to introduce the first show about African Americans, critics claimed that he overlooked some harsh actualities of black family life, especially those that involved gender and class factors.
Cries for a more realistic representation of a black family rang loudly in fan mail, the popular press, and in public critiques of Diahann Carroll. By season three, Kanter attempted to respond to viewer criticisms by taking the show in a more pragmatic direction and introducing Steve Bruce, Julia’s steady boyfriend, played by Fred Williamson (1935–). Kanter wanted to incorporate a black father figure by having Steve and Julia wed in the fourth season, and intended to dramatize the conflict of Julia wanting to maintain her career while married; however, the show’s ratings continued to drop, and NBC cancelled Julia at the end of its third season.
Kate L. Flach
FURTHER READING
Acham, Christine. 2004. Revolution Televised: Prime Time and the Struggle for Black Power. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Bodroghkozy, Aniko. 2012. Equal Time: Television and the Civil Rights Movement. Chicago: University of Illinois Press.
Shabazz, Demetria Rougeaux. 2005. “Negotiated Boundaries: Production Practices and the Making of Representation in Julia.” In The Sitcom Reader: America Viewed and Skewed, 151–164. Edited by Mary M. Dalton and Laura R. Linder. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW (1970–1977)
The Mary Tyler Moore Show is considered one of the greatest sitcoms of all time, and it played an important role in increasing public acceptance of women in the workplace and as independent individuals. The show centers on actress Mary Tyler Moore’s (1936–2017) character, Mary Richards, who, after a broken engagement, moves to Minneapolis to take a new job at WJM, the lowest-rated local television station. As an example of the morality of the time period, in the original script Mary moves to Minneapolis as a divorcée, but CBS network executives were so worried that mainstream America would not be accepting of a divorcée that they insisted the storyline be changed. Although Mary applies for a secretarial position, she is hired as an associate producer. Mary’s stint at WJM starts off rocky as she clashes with her cantankerous boss, news director Lou Grant (Ed Asner, 1929–).
The second main setting of the show is Mary’s apartment, where she develops friendships with her landlord, Phyllis Lindstrom (Cloris Leachman, 1926–) and another tenant, Rhoda Morgenstern (Valerie Harper, 1939–). The show focuses on Mary as she navigates her career and personal life in a time when women’s roles in society are moving away from the more conservative and traditional role of a homemaker.
The Mary Tyler Moore Show addressed many issues in relation to women’s changing role in the culture at the time. As one of only a few sitcoms with a focus on a single woman living alone and pursuing a career, the show is still considered groundbreaking in challenging traditional views of women in contemporary society. The show addressed topics such as birth control and premarital sex, equal pay for women, homosexuality, divorce, addiction, and sex work. The show was also trailblazing in its portrayal of the affirming relationships Mary develops with other women. The character arc of Rhoda Morgenstern decidedly follows the arc of the 1970s Women’s Liberation Movement. The show was also pioneering in terms of who was behind the scenes. By 1973, at a rate still rarely seen today, 25 out of the 75 writers on the show were women.
Lasting for seven seasons, The Mary Tyler Moore Show was highly acclaimed and won numerous awards, including 10 Emmys, several Golden Globes, and a Peabody Award. Feminist actor, writer, and producer Tina Fey and media mogul Oprah Winfrey have both cited The Mary Tyler Moore Show as being influential in their lives and careers. The final episode of the series, in which new management at the fictional television station fires the majority of the staff, prompting emotional farewells, is still cited as one of the best finales in television history.
Ann M. Savage
See also: 30 Rock.
FURTHER READING
Bodroghkozy, A. 2004. “Where Have You Gone Mary Richards? Feminism’s Rise and Fall in Primetime Television. Iris, 49: 12.
Crozier, Susan. 2008. “Making It After All: A Reparative Reading of the Mary Tyler Moore Show.” International Journal of Cultural Studies, 11(1): 51–67.
Dow, Bonnie J. 1996. Prime-Time Feminism: Television, Media Culture, and the Women’s Movement since 1970. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Films for the Humanities & Sciences (Firm), Films Media Group, and Public Broadcasting Service (U.S.). 2011. Independent Woman. New York: Films Media Group.
Landay, Lori. 1998. Madcaps, Screwballs, and Con Women: The Female Trickster in American Culture. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Moore, Mary Tyler. 1995. After All. New York: Putnam.
Maude centers on the life of audacious and brash self-identified liberal feminist Maude Findlay (Bea Arthur, 1922–2009) and her life in upstate New York with her fourth husband, Walter Findlay (Bill Macy, 1922–) and daughter, Carol Traynor (Adrienne Barbeau, 1945–).
An unapologetic advocate of gender and racial equality, Maude is a dedicated progressive who often has the last word in arguments with her husband, with the phrase “God’ll getcha for that, Walter.” As is typical for other shows crafted by Maude writer and producer Norman Lear in the 1970s, the sitcom deals with topical social issues and includes storylines about alcoholism, domestic violence, rape, equal opportunity employment, birth control, mental health, and suicide. With lyrics comparing Maude to Lady Godiva, Joan of Arc, and Betsy Ross, the theme song is arguably a feminist anthem, with the phrase “That uncompromisin’, enterprisin’, anything but tranquilizing, Right-on Maude.” At the same time, however, the show also rightly portrays the progressive Maude as being blind to her own status and racism. She is a white upper-class liberal who sometimes comes off as patronizing and as the righteous “savior” of people of color or the working class. Jokes are often made at her expense in her inability to see her own contribution to social hierarchies and inequality.
A decidedly feminist character, Maude finds herself pregnant at 47 years old in season one, and she decides to have an abortion. Although abortion was legal in New York at the time, the episode aired just two months before the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that made abortion legal in all 50 states. Decades later, Maude is still one of only a handful of American television series to ever have a character confront her unintended pregnancy by opting for an abortion. Most unwanted pregnancies on television tend to end in miscarriages. Titled “Maude’s Dilemma,” the watershed episode was pre-empted by 30 stations.
Maude was one of several successful spinoffs of the popular and top-rated, groundbreaking Norman Lear sitcom All in the Family. All in the Family centers on the home life of a white, blue-collar, cantankerous bigot named Archie Bunker (Carroll O’Connor, 1924–2001) and his dedicated wife, Edith (Jean Stapleton, 1923–2013); their liberal daughter and son-in-law; and the comings and goings of neighbors, friends, and extended family members. Maude is Edith’s cousin, who only appears twice on All in the Family. However, Maude’s progressive politics coupled with her bold and forward style erupt in sparks when engaging in conversation with conservative Archie. These entertaining clashes, coupled with actor Bea Arthur’s unquestionable talent, led Norman Lear to offer her a sitcom of her own.
Ann M. Savage
See also: Women’s Liberation Movement.
FURTHER READING
Dow, Bonnie J. 1996. Prime-Time Feminism: Television, Media Culture, and the Women’s Movement since 1970. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Lentz, Kirsten Marthe. 2000. “Quality versus Relevance: Feminism, Race, and the Politics of the Sign in 1970s Television.” Camera Obscura, 15(1): 44–93. https://muse.jhu.edu.
McGee, Dyllan, Rachel Dretzin Goodman, and Public Broadcasting Service (U.S.). 2014. Makers Episode 1: Women in Comedy. San Francisco: Kanopy Streaming.
Tally, Margaret J. 2004. “Television Women from Lucy to Friends: Fifty Years of Sitcoms and Feminism.” The Journal of American Culture, 27(2): 253–55.
One of the first television shows to prominently feature a divorced working mother with children, One Day at a Time centered on the lives of Ann Romano (Bonnie Franklin, 1944–2013) and her two teenage daughters, Julie (Mackenzie Phillips, 1959–) and Barbara Cooper (Valerie Bertinelli, 1960–). The apartment building superintendent, Dwayne Schneider (Pat Harrington, 1929–2015), also played a lead role in the sitcom, mostly providing comic relief. Created by Whitney Blake and developed by renowned writer-producer Norman Lear, the show dealt with a variety of topical social issues as single mother Ann struggled to support her family and raise her two teenage girls. Storylines included such controversial topics as teen sex, teen suicide, birth control, and alcohol and drug use.
Mirroring the 1970s Women’s Liberation Movement, the show explored changing gender roles and addressed contemporary political issues of the time. Having married at 17, new divorcée and feminist Ann relocates with her teenage daughters to Logansport, Indiana, in hopes of a fresh start. She takes back her maiden name and for the first time in her life sets out in search of a full-time job. She struggles to make ends meet, faces sexism in her job search and everyday life, and tackles a variety of challenges that come with raising two girls during their tumultuous teen years. Ann finds herself balancing her own embracing of the changing roles of women with her daughters’ rebellion, particularly older child, Julie, who pushes cultural norms further and faster than Ann is comfortable with. Julie challenges Ann with her interest in premarital sex, dating older men, and drug use. Over the course of the show’s nine-season run, the characters deal with many life changes: marriages, job changes, death, and births. By the end of the series, both girls marry and have children of their own while mother Ann moves to London with her new husband Sam (Howard Hesseman, 1940–).
The show was positively received by viewers, and its creators were inundated with letters from women who declared a clear identification with the storylines and characters. As made clear through the lyrics in the theme song, “Hold on tight, we will muddle through, one day at a time,” many women identified with the struggles Ann went through. Although the show was progressive, the three assertive female characters ultimately move into traditional normative roles of wife and mother by the end of the series. The show was also plagued by Mackenzie Phillips’s drug and alcohol addictions, a situation that forced writers to write the character Julie in and out of the show on several occasions.
Ann M. Savage
See also: Women’s Liberation Movement.
FURTHER READING
Dow, Bonnie J. 1996. Prime-Time Feminism: Television, Media Culture, and the Women’s Movement since 1970. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Fortini, Amanda. 2013. “Bonnie Franklin.” The New York Times Magazine, December 29, P30.
Spangler, Lynn C. 2003. Television Women from Lucy to Friends: Fifty Years of Sitcoms and Feminism. Westport, CT: Praeger.
Roseanne is one of the few shows in television history to focus on a working-class family with overweight parents, living in a modest home, who consistently struggled throughout most of the series to make ends meet. Set in a small fictional town in Illinois, the show centers on wisecracking mother Roseanne Conner (Roseanne Barr, 1952–); her husband, Dan Conner (John Goodman, 1952–); and their three children, Becky (Lecy Goranson, 1974–, and Sarah Chalke, 1976–); Darlene (Sara Gilbert, 1975–); and D. J. (Michael Fishman, 1981–). Roseanne’s sister, Jackie Harris (Laurie Metcalf, 1955–), is another prominent character. The show was based on the stand-up comedy of Barr, who found herself often battling with Roseanne’s producers to ensure that the show maintained a feminist working-class ethic. Storylines grappled head-on with domestic violence, birth control, sexual abuse, worker’s rights, and inconsistent employment. The show was also one of the first to include recurring gay characters as well as have an on-screen lesbian kiss.
Comic, actress, and producer Roseanne Barr at a book signing. Roseanne is best known for her role in the sitcom of the same name, which centered on the working-class Conner family. (Turkbug/Dreamstime.com)
One of the unique things about Roseanne was the amount of screen time spent on working-class concerns and especially family economics. Throughout the series, both parents cycle through a variety of different and transient jobs as they struggle to make ends meet. In all of her jobs, Roseanne consistently challenges her bosses regarding unfair working conditions and unreasonable expectations. While working at a plastics factory, for example, Roseanne challenges her boss to remove production quotas. When he breaks his promise to do so, she walks off the job, eventually followed by her sister, Jackie, as well as several other coworkers. When working at a diner in a shopping mall, Roseanne consistently pushes back on her boss’s confining rules.
As a feminist, Barr also insisted that storylines on Roseanne address gender inequality in the home as well as more broadly. One story arc focuses on the complexity of domestic abuse through Jackie’s relationship with a boyfriend. In another episode, Roseanne’s teenage daughter, Becky, approaches her in need of birth control. After some debate and lots of humor, Roseanne supports Becky in her choices with her own body. At one point, the series even addresses the issue of child sexual abuse. As a child, Roseanne was molested by her father, and when he passes away, audiences see Rosanne grapple with complex emotions as an adult. Roseanne successfully addressed complex and difficult social issues, all the while emphasizing comedy over drama.
In Roseanne Barr’s pursuit of delivering a show with a feminist working-class sensibility, though, she was often at odds with the show’s producers. In the press, Barr was portrayed as an overbearing and difficult woman to work with, and the public largely bought this image of her. She paid a public and personal price to keep the show true to her vision. Although the show was critically acclaimed and consistently at the top of the ratings, it was never nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series. However, the actors, including Roseanne Barr, did win a total of four Emmys. Additionally, the show was recognized by the Golden Globe Awards and Screen Actors Guild Awards, and it won a Peabody Award in 1992.
Ann M. Savage
FURTHER READING
Films for the Humanities & Sciences (Firm), Films Media Group, and Public Broadcasting Service (U.S.). 2011. Independent Woman. New York: Films Media Group.
Gilbert, Joanne R. 1997. “Performing Marginality: Comedy, Identity, and Cultural Critique.” Text and Performance Quarterly, 17(4): 317–30.
Karlyn, Kathleen Rowe. 1995. The Unruly Woman: Gender and the Genres of Laughter. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.
The sitcom Murphy Brown starred actor Candice Bergen (1946–) as the title character, an investigative journalist who works as a news anchor for FYI, a fictional CBS television news magazine show. Created by Diane English (1948–) as a decidedly feminist sitcom, the show centers on recovering alcoholic Murphy Brown as a career-driven, hard-hitting reporter who attains great success in a male-dominated profession. After a stint in rehab at the Betty Ford Clinic, Murphy Brown returns to the network. Her coworkers include anxiety-ridden producer Miles Silverberg (Grant Shaud, 1961–); perky reporter Corky Sherwood (Faith Ford, 1964–), whose job seems to be mostly based on her good looks rather than her talent; old-fashioned hard-news anchor Jim Dial (Charles Kimbrough, 1936–); and her longtime investigative collaborator Frank Fontana (Joe Regalbuto, 1949–). A consistent and memorable part of the series is the revolving door of oddball applicants for the position of Brown’s secretary. English orchestrated this scenario as a way to include a diverse array of celebrity guest stars, including Bette Midler, Rosie O’Donnell, and Sally Field. As a sitcom centered on a news magazine show, many of the show’s storylines focused on current events and used Murphy Brown’s sarcasm as a form of political satire.
The series is representative of 1990s feminism: a working baby-boomer woman, who is comfortable with her success, not helpless or naïve, enjoys sex, and who has multiple sexual partners through the course of the series. The series garnered the greatest national attention at the end of the fourth season in 1992, when Murphy finds herself pregnant and chooses to become a single parent. At a public event in May of that year, Vice President Dan Quayle criticized the character Murphy Brown, during a speech on family values, for choosing to be a single parent. “Bearing babies irresponsibly is, simply, wrong,” Quayle told his audience. “It doesn’t help matters when prime-time TV has Murphy Brown—a character who supposedly epitomizes today’s intelligent, highly paid, professional woman—mocking the importance of fathers by bearing a child alone and calling it just another ‘lifestyle choice.’ ”
Quayle’s critique was widely reported and triggered a national debate on single parenthood and family values. Stunned that the vice president was making an example of a fictional television character, creator Diane English addressed the matter at the start of the next season. In an episode focusing on Murphy Brown’s preparation of a segment on the diversity of the American family, the fictional news magazine incorporated actual television footage of Quayle’s comments.
The critically acclaimed show earned 62 Emmy nominations during its run, winning a total of 18. Candice Bergen became the only actor in television history to win five Emmys for playing the same character. The show won numerous other awards as well as a Peabody in 1991.
Ann M. Savage
Douglas, Susan J. 2010. Enlightened Sexism: The Seductive Message That Feminism’s Work Is Done. New York: Times Books.
Dow, Bonnie J. 1996. Prime-Time Feminism: Television, Media Culture, and the Women’s Movement since 1970. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Films for the Humanities & Sciences (Firm), Films Media Group, and Public Broadcasting Service (U.S.). 2011. Independent Woman. New York: Films Media Group.
Walkowitz, Rebecca L. 1997. “Reproducing Reality: Murphy Brown and Illegitimate Politics.” In Feminist Television Criticism: A Reader, 325–36. Edited by Charlotte Brunsdon, Julie D’Acci, and Lynn Spigel. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
THE WOMEN OF BREWSTER PLACE (1989)
The Women of Brewster Place, based on Gloria Naylor’s 1982 eponymous novel, was a 1989 American television miniseries that explored the lives of African American women living in a housing project on Brewster Place. The series was so well received that it led to a weekly TV show, Brewster Place, which was short-lived due to low ratings.
Brewster Place explored the diverse experiences African American women can face even within the same community. Mattie (Oprah Winfrey, 1954–) moves to the neighborhood in old age when she loses her house after her son skips bail; Ciel (Lynn Whitfield, 1953–) suffers post-traumatic stress when her toddler daughter fatally electrocutes herself; Cora (Phyllis Yvonne Stickney; no birth year available) struggles as a single mother to raise six children by different fathers; Sophie (Olivia Cole, 1942–) gossips maliciously about the neighborhood’s lesbian couple, Lorraine (Lonette McKee, 1954–) and Theresa (Paula Kelly, 1943–); and Melanie “Kiswana” Browne (Robin Givens, 1964–) moves to Brewster Place to reconnect to her African roots.
The primary threats to the Brewster women are men, who are generally depicted as either absent or violent. Every child is fatherless. The men who do not leave are often vicious, such as C.C. Baker, who brutally rapes Lorraine. (In Naylor’s novel, C.C. and his friends gang-rape Lorraine, but such violence may have been deemed too graphic for television.) An exception is Brewster’s handyman, Ben, who is both present and kind, but he is killed by Lorraine when she discovers him in an alleyway after her rape. Lorraine may be so traumatized from her assault that she believes Ben is her rapist, or she may not know whom she attacks. Ben’s murder may also be a metaphor for the need for women to dismantle the patriarchy (which Ben, at that moment, embodies). The episode presents a more sanguine alternative: instead of killing individual, innocent men (as Lorraine does), women unite to smash systemic patriarchal oppression (as Mattie does when she leads the neighborhood women in tearing down the wall against which Lorraine was raped). The series presents communal sisterhood as the answer to the violence men visit upon women. As Mattie reflects in a voiceover, “We did a lot of laughing here and some crying. Most important, though, we learned that when women came together, there was power inside us we never felt before.”
Eden Elizabeth Wales Freedman
FURTHER READING
Bobo, Jacqueline, and Ellen Seiter. 1991. “Black Feminism and Media Criticism: The Women of Brewster Place.” Screen, 32: 286–302.
Christian, Barbara. 1990. “Naylor’s Geography: Community, Class, and Patriarchy in The Women of Brewster Place and Linden Hills.” Reading Black, Reading Feminist, 348–73. Edited by Henry Louis Gates Jr. New York: Meridian/Penguin.
Glickman, Marlaine. 1989. “Black Like Who?” Film Comment, 25(3): 75–76.
Naylor, Gloria. 1982. The Women of Brewster Place. New York: Penguin.
Predated only by Mr. T and Tina’s short run of five episodes in 1976, All American Girl was the second sitcom centered on an Asian family and starring an all-Asian cast. The show was promoted as based on the comedy of feminist Margaret Cho (1968–), whose work included stories about her family, particularly her mother; their life running a bookstore; and the cultural gap and struggles between immigrant parents from Korea raising American-born children. Set in San Francisco, the show finds Americanized and rebellious daughter Margaret (played by Margaret Cho) often at odds with her traditional mother Katherine Kim (Jodi Long, 1954–). Father Benny Kim (Clyde Kusatsu, 1948–) often acts as mediator between Margaret and her mother, and eccentric grandmother Yung-hee Kim (Amy Hill, 1953–) provides comic relief. Younger brother Eric Kim (J. B. Quon, 1980–) and obedient and reserved older brother Dr. Stuart Kim (B. D. Wong, 1960–) provide contrast to Margaret’s antics. Much of the series focuses on Katherine’s displeasure with Margaret’s rebellion against tradition as well as her choices in suitors. Katherine’s preference is for Margaret to take the more traditional route by settling down with a professional and polite Korean American man.
At just 26, Cho found herself at the center of a national network sitcom and felt responsible for the success of the show. But she did not have the level of creative control she would have preferred. As a result, Cho was often at odds with network executives who consistently rejected storylines based on her comedy. Cho also widely detailed in the media an incident in which network executives told her that her face was too big for the camera and requested that she lose weight in order to achieve what they deemed an acceptable look for primetime. Eager to keep the show, Cho went on a drastic and unhealthy diet and nearly died after losing 30 pounds in just two weeks. Cho also found herself being criticized for being both “too Asian” and “not Asian enough.” Cho also wrangled with executives about the perpetuation of Asian stereotypes. The show and Cho faced criticism from the broader Asian community about what many saw as clichéd representations of Asians—particularly the roles of Katherine and Stuart. Korean Americans in particular were critical of the show’s poorly spoken Korean dialogue. None of the writers had Korean backgrounds, and Cho was the only Korean American cast member.
All American Girl star Margaret Cho on a red carpet in 2009. Cho, an outspoken feminist, is candid about the pressures television executives put on her about not only her appearance, but also the direction and content of the show. (Aaron Settipane/Dreamstime.com)
The show was canceled after just one season, but Cho went on to have a successful career in stand-up as well as acting. She has completed numerous successful stand-up comedy tours around the country and has written two books. Cho is politically active and has been a strong advocate for gay and women’s rights. She has also spoken openly about her difficult experience working in the entertainment industry. In both her memoir, I’m the One That I Want, and her stand-up routines, Cho has chastised the entertainment industry for its racism and sexism and its partiality for thinness and whiteness.
Ann M. Savage
FURTHER READING
Cho, Margaret. 2001. I’m the One That I Want. New York: Ballantine Books.
Cho, Margaret. 2005. I Have Chosen to Stay and Fight. New York: Riverhead Books.
Karlyn, Kathleen Rowe. 2011. Unruly Girls, Unrepentant Mothers: Redefining Feminism on Screen. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.
Lee, Rachel C. 2004. “ ‘Where’s My Parade?’: Margaret Cho and the Asian American Body in Space.” TDR, 48(2): 108–32.
Mizejewski, Linda. 2014. Pretty/Funny: Women Comedians and Body Politics. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.
After years of speculation and months of anticipation, in April 1997 Ellen DeGeneres’s (1958–) character Ellen Morgan came out as lesbian in a two-part episode of the sitcom Ellen, titled “The Puppy Episode.” When DeGeneres’s character came out of the closet with a love interest played by actor Laura Dern (1967–), it was widely described as a groundbreaking moment in television history. The highest-rated episode of the series, with 42 million viewers, “The Puppy Episode” went on to win a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series, as well as a Peabody Award. Just one year later, however, the show was canceled because of declining ratings, due in part to the failure of audiences to accept storylines centered on a lead lesbian character.
DeGeneres started her career as a stand-up comic. Eventually she caught the eye of a producer of top-rated late-night talk show The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. After she concluded her stand-up routine on the show, legendary host Carson called her over to the couch next to him (usually reserved for guests rather than comics paid for stand-up routines). DeGeneres was the first woman to receive the much-sought-after invitation. Her success on The Tonight Show led to several comedy specials and, in 1994, the development of a sitcom for ABC. At first titled These Friends of Mine (the name of the series was changed to Ellen beginning in the second season), the Ellen Morgan character was seemingly heterosexual and dating men. Eventually, as DeGeneres considered coming out in real life, she also began to consider having the character Ellen come out on the television sitcom. Although the network promotions for “The Puppy Episode” never explicitly indicated that the character would be coming out, DeGeneres made many pre-broadcast hints about this possibility. In the highly anticipated episode, Ellen meets a lesbian played by Laura Dern and begins to have feelings for her. Eventually, Ellen comes out to Dern’s character in a more public way than she anticipated, by declaring her sexual identity through an airport microphone. Although the ratings were high and there was a positive response, ABC chose to start the episode with an “adult content” warning, and several advertisers pulled out of the episode. Soon after, the ratings of the show declined, with some attributing this to the show being too much about Ellen being a lesbian as well as ABC’s discomfort with the content. The show was eventually canceled at the end of the fifth season in 1998.
The dual coming out—Ellen as character and Ellen in real life—was greeted with a great deal of media attention, including appearances on top-rated talk shows, in news magazines, and elsewhere in the press. DeGeneres appeared on the cover of the April 1997 edition of Time Magazine with the headline “Yep, I’m Gay.” After revealing her lesbianism, it took years for DeGeneres to get another job. In 2001, she attempted a second sitcom titled The Ellen Show, which lasted only one season. In 2003, she launched her daytime talk show The Ellen DeGeneres Show, which has been on the air for more than 13 years and has won numerous awards and accolades.
Ann M. Savage
FURTHER READING
Dow, Bonnie. 2001. “Ellen, Television, and the Politics of Gay and Lesbian Visibility.” Critical Studies in Media Communication, 18(2): 123–40.
Herman, Didi. 2005. “ ‘I’m Gay’: Declarations, Desire, and Coming Out on Prime-Time Television.” Sexualities, 8(1): 7–29.
McCarthy, Anna. 2001. “Ellen: Making Queer Television History.” GLQ, 7(4): 593–620.
Peterson, Valerie V. 2005. “Ellen: Coming Out and Disappearing.” In The Sitcom Reader: America Viewed and Skewed, 165–76. Edited by Mary M. Dalton and Laura R. Linder. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
The L Word was “the first prime-time commercial television drama to focus on the lives of lesbian and bisexual women” (McFadden, 2010: 1). Airing on the premium cable network Showtime, The L Word followed the lives of six core female characters in West Hollywood, California, as they coped with the everyday life challenges of love, break-ups, pregnancy, marriage, bigotry, and death. The main cast members included Shane McCutcheon (Katherine Moening, 1977–), a heartthrob/womanizer hairstylist; a biracial couple consisting of an art curator turned university dean named Bette Porter (Jennifer Beals, 1963–) and Tina Kennard (Laurel Holloman, 1971–), a movie executive; Bette’s famous older half-sister, Kit Porter (Pam Grier, 1949–); and writer/radio host Alice Pieszecki (Leisha Hailey, 1971–). The first season centers on Jenny Schechter (Mia Kirshner, 1975–), a young writer who moves to California with her boyfriend and ends up falling in love with a woman. Upon The L Word’s success, creator Ilene Chaiken (1957–) subsequently produced three seasons of the reality show The Real L World, which aired on Showtime from 2010 to 2012.
In an interview, Chaiken, who also served as executive producer of the series, explained that she always intended for The L Word to run on Showtime as she did not want to be constrained by the regulations of broadcast television. Depictions of queerness on television had been introduced in the 1970s; however, most representations centered on the experience and visibility of gay male characters (consider, for example, Will & Grace). The L Word gave visibility to the gay female experience, and the show was greeted with much praise. It is often credited with playing a pivotal role in the mainstreaming of gay rights. However, the show also received recurring criticisms for its lack of diversity in the cast and an unrealistic representation of lesbians’ lives. Critics pointed out that the characters all lived in upper-scale areas of West Hollywood but were rarely depicted working. Likewise, the show privileged femme cisgender (a person whose self-identity corresponds to her biological sex) representations in all its main cast members and ultimately failed to show the full gender spectrum, including the symbolic absence of masculine “butch” lesbians.
Despite these perceived shortcomings, The L Word’s influence in popular culture is impossible to ignore. At the annual 2016 Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation awards, actor Ruby Rose related the major role that The L Word played in her life: “When I was young, 12, I came out. I couldn’t see anybody on the screen that was anything like me. I couldn’t find anyone gay. It was before The L Word.” She credited the show with saving her life and said, “It made me feel like I existed.” Her statement underscores the importance of mediated representations of identity for viewers across the world. The L Word continues to have a large following online. There are multiple fan sites dedicated to the show, and Showtime reports continued stable viewership.
Giuliana Sorce
FURTHER READING
Cefai, Sarah. 2014. “Feeling and the Production of Lesbian Space in The L Word.” Gender, Place & Culture, 21(5): 650–65.
McFadden, Margaret. 2010. “ ‘L’ ” is for Looking Again: Art and Representation on The L Word.” Feminist Media Studies, 10(4): 421–39.
McFadden, Margaret T. 2014. The L Word. Detroit: Wayne State University Press.
On Top Magazine Staff. 2016. “Taylor Swift Presents Ruby Rose with GLAAD Media Award.” On Top Magazine, April 3. http://www.ontopmag.com/article/22537/Taylor_Swift_Presents_Ruby_Rose_With_GLAAD_Media_Award.
Tina Fey (1970–) was a popular cast member and first female head writer of the long-running variety show Saturday Night Live (SNL). In the early 2000s, she teamed with renowned SNL producer, Lorne Michaels (1944–), to develop a sitcom that centered on television show producer Liz Lemon (played by Fey), who works on a show not unlike SNL. The show’s other characters included eccentric actors Jenna Maroney (Jane Krakowski, 1968–) and Tracy Jordan (Tracy Morgan, 1968–), even odder show writers, and a self-absorbed network executive, Jack Donaghy, played by frequent SNL guest star Alec Baldwin (1958–). Fey’s Lemon is a quirky but appealing nerd with a strong neurotic streak.
A self-identified feminist, Fey used her positions as producer and writer on 30 Rock to parody the absurdity of female stereotypes, particularly through the Jenna Maroney character as well as her own character’s obsession with age. Fey’s show not only forefronted female storylines, it consistently raised feminist issues related to women in the workforce, gender norms, body ideals, and gender double standards. In one episode, for example, Liz Lemon lobbies for the use of “herstory” instead of history when arguing with Jack Donaghy. In another episode, when Liz asks Jack for his signature, instead of the usual colloquialism of asking for his “John Hancock” she instead asks for a “Lucretia Mott,” referencing the influential 18th-century suffragette. When Jack refers to a woman as a businessman, Liz responds with “businesswoman.” Challenging the cultural secrecy and shame surrounding menstruation and feminine hygiene products, Liz deliberately drops tampons on the floor and demands that people “deal with it.”
Saturday Night Live alum, comic, and writer Tina Fey with 30 Rock co-star Alec Baldwin at the 59th Primetime Emmy Awards in 2007. Fey’s character, Liz Lemon, is often at odds with Baldwin’s conservative, profit-minded, television executive Jack Donaghy. The show won a total of sixteen Emmys. (Featureflash/Dreamstime.com)
Fey’s Lemon feminism (sometimes referred to as Lemonism in popular culture press) was of course limited, representing a privileged form of feminism from the perspective of a white, middle-class, heterosexual woman who did not have to worry about or choose to campaign for other more marginalized groups such as transgender people, people of color, or the working poor. Although the show received criticism for perpetuating the tropes of women as baby-crazy and relationship-focused, there was no question that this was Tina Fey’s work, even if it was not the most progressive form of feminism.
30 Rock won the Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series for the first three years of the series, three Emmys for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series, and several acting Emmys. The series was honored with multiple Golden Globe Awards and Screen Actors Guild Awards as well as a Peabody.
Ann M. Savage
Davidauskis, April. 2015. “ ‘How Beautiful Women Eat’: Feminine Hunger in American Popular Culture.” Feminist Formations, 27(1): 167–89.
Fey, Tina. 2012. Bossypants. New York: Back Bay Books/Little, Brown.
Mizejewski, Linda. 2012. “Feminism, Postfeminism, Liz Lemonism: Comedy and Gender Politics on 30 Rock. (Essay).” Genders, 55: NA.
Mizejewski, Linda. 2014. Pretty/Funny: Women Comedians and Body Politics. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.
PARKS AND RECREATION (2009–2015)
In this critically acclaimed comedy series, SNL alum Amy Poehler (1971–) starred as Leslie Knope, a determined and idealistic mid-level bureaucrat in the Indiana Parks and Recreation Department in the fictitious town of Pawnee, Indiana. Set in the offices of the neglected and underestimated parks department, altruistic Leslie works tirelessly on behalf of the community to mold Pawnee into a crown jewel of Indiana. Her disinterested, antibureaucracy, libertarian boss, Ron Swanson (Nick Offerman, 1970–), and her under-qualified and apathetic staff tend to provide inconvenient and unintended challenges in her efforts to attain her goals. Sarcastic office assistant April Ludgate (Aubrey Plaza, 1984–) tries to avoid working as much as possible, and media mogul wannabe Tom Haverford (Aziz Ansari, 1983–) has little interest in his job as second in command to Leslie. Naïve, childlike Garry Gergich (Jim O’Heir, 1962–), endlessly teased by his coworkers, is earnest but unaccomplished. And longtime parks department employee Donna Meagle (Marietta Sirleaf, 1970–) is more interested in dating and her Mercedes than helping Leslie move projects along. Other characters include dim-witted shoe shiner Andy Dwyer (Chris Pratt, 1979–); Leslie’s best friend, nurse Ann Perkins (Rashida Jones, 1976–); Leslie’s love interest and eventual husband Ben Wyatt (Adam Scott, 1973–); and obnoxiously upbeat state employee Chris Traeger (Rob Lowe, 1964–). Despite their shortcomings, Leslie’s coworkers often end up rallying in support of her lofty goals.
A single-camera mockumentary sitcom, Parks and Recreation had storylines that often included social commentary and references to current events. Leslie, who unapologetically loves public service, is pro-woman, pro–Equal Rights, and determined to do things equitably. As an admirer of women in politics, her office is decorated with photos of Madeleine Albright, Hillary Clinton, Sandra Day O’Connor, Michelle Obama, and Nancy Pelosi. The names of feminist icons such as Naomi Wolf, Laura Mulvey, Susan B. Anthony, and Gertrude Stein also were mentioned in episodes throughout the series.
Leslie is not afraid to challenge the status quo, especially when it comes to gender and women’s rights. When she finds herself as a voting member of Pawnee’s anachronistic beauty pageant, she tries to overthrow the process by lobbying for a win for the most educated and community-minded contestant versus the traditional focus on the superficial. When a girl isn’t allowed to join the boys-only Pawnee Rangers, Leslie establishes the Pawnee Goddesses in an effort to challenge exclusionary barriers and gender roles. By the end of the episode, the Pawnee Rangers folds, and all genders are welcome to be a part of the Pawnee Goddesses. In another episode, Leslie and April take jobs as garbage collectors to prove that women can do any job men can do. In a challenge to Valentine’s Day, Leslie introduces Galentine’s Day as a holiday for women to celebrate other women. When she decides to marry, Leslie refuses to change her last name. She consistently challenges the patriarchy and successfully makes progressive change.
Although she was not the originating creator behind the sitcom, feminist Poehler did help shape the show. She often provided creative input and wrote four episodes of the series. The show garnered 10 Primetime Emmy Award nominations, several Golden Globe nominations (with one win for Amy Poehler), and a Peabody Award. Poehler has gone on to act in films as well as to launch Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls website. Smart Girls’ aim is to create an online community that celebrates imagination and intelligence over fitting in and encourages girls to get engaged in activism, volunteerism, and the arts.
Ann M. Savage
FURTHER READING
Engstrom, Erika. 2013. “ ‘Knope We Can!’ Primetime Feminist Strategies in NBC’s Parks and Recreation.” Media Report To Women, 41(4): 6–21.
Galo, Sarah. 2015. “How Parks and Recreation Served up Prime-Time Feminism amid the Laughs.” The Guardian, February 24. https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2015/feb/24/parks-and-recreation-prime-time-feminism-laughs.
Ryan, Maureen. 2015. “What ‘Parks and Recreation’ Taught My Son about Feminism (And So Much Else).” The Huffington Post, February 23. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/23/parks-and-recreation-finale_n_6732338.html.
Thompson, Ethan, and Jason Mittell. 2013. How to Watch Television. New York: New York University Press.
Scandal centers on Washington, D.C., political crisis manager Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington, 1977–), a former White House aide who runs her own public relations firm, Pope & Associates. Considered the best in the business, fierce and strident Olivia manages crises for the powerful while trying to manage her own personal and professional life and that of her staff through the series’ run. In the first season, Olivia helps struggling candidate Fitzgerald Grant III (Tony Goldwyn, 1960–) win the presidency, and soon after they begin an affair that is on-again, off-again throughout the series.
Scandal is one of the few dramas in television history to star a highly accomplished and bold professional African American woman as the lead, and producer Shonda Rhimes (1970–) is the first African American woman to create and produce a Top Ten network show. Inspired by real-life Washington, D.C., Republican crisis manager Judy Smith, producer Shonda Rhimes deliberately set out to create a show representative of the diversity of America.
Although broadcast networks have traditionally steered clear of anything that might be perceived as undesirable or not of interest to a white, middle-class audience, Rhimes’s success with television hit dramas Grey’s Anatomy and Private Practice gave her the clout to persuade ABC television network executives to give the green light for Scandal. Not only does the show have a rarely seen professional and sexual black woman as the lead, but the vice president is a woman, the Republican chief of staff is gay, and Olivia has an interracial affair with Fitzgerald. Most notably, this less typical casting is portrayed as merely ordinary rather than as a central theme of any storyline.
Television writer and producer Shonda Rhimes with one of her five NAACP Image Awards. Rhimes pushed television boundaries by casting women of color as the leads in shows such as Scandal and How to Get Away with Murder. (Carrienelson1/Dreamstime.com)
Rhimes skillfully weaves in social justice storylines throughout the show. Self-identified feminist Olivia actively seeks to challenge traditional gender norms and break barriers. When Fitzgerald refers to a woman as a bitch, Olivia swiftly reprimands him and asks him to consider how his word choice would be different if he were referring to a man. She challenges a senator when he victim-blames a rape survivor. Mirroring real-life politics, another storyline focuses on a female senator filibustering against efforts to defund women’s health care provider Planned Parenthood. In the same episode, and without any handwringing or expressions of regret, Olivia unapologetically has an abortion. Among many other progressive storylines, the show also addresses equal pay for women and challenges the double standard women face when it comes to appearance.
Although it is widely celebrated and stridently feminist, some have criticized various elements of the show. Some feminists see Olivia and Fitzgerald’s relationship as perpetuating myths of passion. The obsessive nature of the relationship and aggressive sex scenes are portrayed as desirable rather than as potentially dangerous or as signals of an abusive relationship. With the portrayal of all its diverse characters as successful, some have criticized the show for perpetuating the myth that hard work is all you have to do to succeed, without addressing how minorities regularly face obstacles of racism, sexism, or homophobia. The most common criticism is that most of the show’s diverse characters are Republican when in reality the Republican Party lacks diversity and often blocks progressive policies. Despite these criticisms, the series has won numerous awards from Black Entertainment Television and the NAACP, as well as Primetime Emmy Awards and a Peabody.
Ann M. Savage
See also: How to Get Away with Murder.
FURTHER READING
Dolan, Jill. 2013. The Feminist Spectator in Action: Feminist Criticism for the Stage and Screen. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Goldman, Adria Y. 2014. Black Women and Popular Culture: The Conversation Continues. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
Silva, Kumarini, and Kaitlynn Mendes. 2015. Feminist Erasures: Challenging Backlash Culture. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.
Spark, Clare. 2015. “SCANDAL’s ‘Inclusive’ Feminism.” YDS: The Clare Spark Blog, November 21. https://clarespark.com/2015/11/21/scandals-inclusive-feminism/.
ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK (2013–)
The Netflix comedy-drama series Orange Is the New Black (OITNB) is loosely based on the memoir Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison (2010) by Piper Kerman (1969–). The series begins with the imprisonment of white, middle-class Piper Chapman (Taylor Schilling, 1984–) in a minimum-security prison for criminal drug activity she engaged in 10 years earlier. As the series develops, audiences follow the lives of a racially and sexually diverse group of women in the fictional prison of Litchfield in upstate New York. Prominent figures in the series include African American transgender woman Laverne Cox (1984–) as Sophia Burset, the prison’s hairstylist, and African American Uzo Aduba (1981–), who plays the innocent yet erratic Suzanne “Crazy Eyes” Warren.
When the series begins, Piper appears as a wholesome woman thrown into the unruly world of prison. As the series unfolds and Piper morphs into a prison regular, the other inmates’ backstories are revealed, and the characters become more fully developed and multidimensional. Poverty, poor choices in men, and lack of opportunity surface as the major themes leading to their lives in prison. Series storylines address individual struggles of the various inmates while simultaneously unpacking social justice matters such as racism, transphobia, solitary confinement, overcrowding, and prison privatization as well as issues that plague female inmates specifically, such as pregnancy and childbirth in prison.
The show has been critically acclaimed and has received numerous awards, including several Primetime Emmy Awards, a Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) award for Outstanding Comedy Series, and multiple Screen Actors Guild Awards as well as a 2013 Peabody Award. The show has also received NAACP Image Awards nominations
Despite the show’s accolades for its breadth of diversity, many rightly point out that one of the few times the media represents so many women of color is when they are imprisoned. Another oft-criticized and highly problematic storyline appears in the fourth season, when rape survivor Tiffany “Pennsatucky” Doggett (Taryn Manning, 1978–) not only forgives but begins to have romantic feelings for her rapist, a prison guard. Some also criticize the show for perpetuating stereotypes by focusing on a white woman inmate with a “fish out of water” storyline.
Ann M. Savage
FURTHER READING
Artt, Sarah, and Anne Schwan. 2016. “Screening Women’s Imprisonment: Agency and Exploitation in Orange Is the New Black.” Television & New Media, 17: 467–72.
Belcher, C. 2016. “There Is No Such Thing as a Post-racial Prison: Neoliberal Multiculturalism and the White Savior Complex on Orange Is the New Black.” Television & New Media, 17: 491–503.
Enck, Suzanne M., and Megan E. Morrissey. 2015. “If Orange Is the New Black, I Must Be Color Blind: Comic Framings of Post-Racism in the Prison-Industrial Complex.” Critical Studies in Media Communication, 32(5): 303–17.
Schwan, A. 2016. “Postfeminism Meets the Women in Prison Genre: Privilege and Spectatorship in Orange Is the New Black.” Television & New Media, 17: 473–90.
Two years into the critically acclaimed show Inside Amy Schumer, comedian Amy Schumer (1981–) skyrocketed to fame in 2015 when she starred in her first feature film, Trainwreck; won Glamour magazine’s Trailblazer Award, and hosted the MTV Movie Awards. Acerbic, smart, sex-positive feminist comic, Schumer started with stand-up before landing the show Inside Amy Schumer on cable channel Comedy Central. With Schumer as creator, star, writer, and executive producer, the topical skit comedy show features a blend of comedy sketches, Schumer’s stand-up bits, interviews with everyday people, novelty stars, and other comics. The skits target a variety of feminist-themed topics, including rape culture, women’s tendency to over-apologize, beauty standards, and government encroachment on reproductive rights. In a culture where women are expected to be “shy” about their own desire for sex, Schumer is unapologetic about her own healthy sexual appetite, often referencing masturbation, one-night stands, and STDs.
In a 2015 spoof on the 1957 classic film Twelve Angry Men, the series addresses lookism and sexism in Hollywood as a group of men debate and deliberate on whether Amy Schumer herself is attractive enough to even be on television. This skit, as well as others, references an issue that Hollywood, in addition to the general culture, has been plagued with for decades. In another sketch, Schumer comes upon an outdoor luncheon with actors Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Tina Fey, and Patricia Arquette debating the age when female actors find themselves viewed as too old and “unattractive” by Hollywood. In yet another sketch, Schumer addresses the epidemic of rape in the military when she joins her boyfriend in a first-person shooter, role-playing video game and her character faces a variety of obstacles as well as ridicule when attempting to report a rape.
Despite Schumer’s willingness to tackle topical gender issues, however, she has been accused of having a blind spot when it comes to race. Schumer has been known to make jokes that perpetuate problematic stereotypes of people of color. Schumer quickly responded to such criticisms by insisting that although she will likely no doubt make jokes that offend people, she is not racist. Many found this response defensive, with some critics describing her as another white feminist who fails to accept her white privilege. In August 2015, a gunman with a history of violence against women entered a Louisiana theater screening of Schumer’s film Trainwreck, killing two people and injuring nine others. The shooting motivated Schumer to advocate for stricter gun control laws.
The show has been recognized with Primetime Emmy wins as well as a Peabody Award. The future of the series remains unclear. Although Comedy Central has green-lighted a fifth season, Schumer indicated on social media that there were no plans for production to begin in the near future.
Ann M. Savage
FURTHER READING
Bilger, Audrey. 2015. “Inside and Out.” Ms., 20 (Summer).
Marx, Nick. 2016. “Expanding the Brand: Race, Gender, and the Post-Politics of Representation on Comedy Central.” Television & New Media, 17(3): 272–87.
Vagianos, Alanna. 2016. “Amy Schumer Nails the Absurd Difficulties of Shopping While Female.” The Huffington Post, May 13. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/amy-schumer-nails-the-absurd-difficulties-of-shopping-while-female_us_5735d853e4b060aa781a07cc.
HOW TO GET AWAY WITH MURDER (2014–)
How to Get Away with Murder is a popular television show produced by the ABC, ShondaLand Productions, and NoWalk Entertainment. The part-thriller, part-legal drama follows Annalise Keating (Viola Davis, 1965–), a criminal defense attorney and professor who selects five of her students to work at her firm as interns. Annalise’s team often defends well-known clients notorious for their alleged crimes. While investigating the murder of Lila Stangard, Annalise discovers that Stangard was her husband’s mistress. Through flashbacks and current-day scenes, the audience learns that Sam Keating (Annalise’s husband, played by Tom Verica, 1964–) is murdered, and the interns are involved in disposing of his body. How and why these events come to pass is a mystery sustained well into the second season.
Actress Viola Davis won the 2015 Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series for her portrayal of law professor Annalise Keating in ABC’s How to Get Away with Murder. Davis’s acceptance speech included a jab at a New York Times writer who dismissed her beauty as less than ideal. (Jaguarps/Dreamstime.com)
The show has received many accolades. Notably, lead actress Viola Davis won an Emmy, People’s Choice Award, and two Screen Actors Guild Awards for her role as Annalise Keating, a powerful, complex character described as an antiheroine. The series also won a GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Drama Series and an American Film Institute Award in 2015 for Best Television Program of the Year.
How to Get Away with Murder has received praise for racial, gender, and sexual diversity in its plotlines and cast of characters. Vanity Fair called the show “the boldest, nerviest show on television at the moment” for its depiction of complex, flawed, and powerful characters and for being “unafraid of diversity, strong women, and gay sex” (Lawson, 2014). The show features two actors of color in leading roles, and prominent gay characters. Creator Peter Nowalk explains that “writing some real gay sex into a network show is to right the wrong of all of the straight sex that you see on TV” (Dos Santos, 2014). Nowalk’s comment speaks to the normalization of heterosexual intimacy in mainstream American television and film. The inclusion of same-sex intimacy has sparked criticism from some viewers, however. In a comment typical of other critical viewers, one Twitter user called these scenes “too much.” Shonda Rhimes, the show’s executive producer, responded: “There are no GAY scenes. There are scenes with people in them.”
Although the show has been described as breaking new ground in its depiction of sexuality, the series is also known for its diverse cast. During her acceptance speech at the 2015 Emmy Awards, Viola Davis thanked the show’s writers and Shonda Rhimes for “redefin[ing] what it means to be beautiful, to be sexy, to be a leading woman. To be black.” Davis is the first black actress to win an Emmy for Lead Actress in a Drama, illustrating the scarcity of roles historically available for black women—a dearth in representation that the show is rectifying.
Emily L. Hiltz
See also: Scandal.
FURTHER READING
Dos Santos, Kristin. 2014. “Why There Will Be Plenty of Gay Sex on How to Get Away with Murder,” September 25. http://www.eonline.com/news/582921/why-there-will-be-lots-of-gay-sex-on-how-to-get-away-with-murder.
Lawson, Richard. 2014. “Is How to Get Away with Murder the Most Progressive Show on Television?” October 16. http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2014/10/how-to-get-away-with-murder-gay-sex.
Lowder, J. Bryan. 2014. “What’s with All the Bottom-Shaming in How to Get Away with Murder?” October 28. http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2014/10/28/why_are_how_to_get_away_with_murder_s_gay_sex_scenes_full_of_bottom_shame.html.
O’Connell, Michael. 2014. “How to Get Away with Murder Breaks DVR Records,” September 30. http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/how-get-away-murder-breaks-736778.
Jane the Virgin (2014–) is a U.S. television series airing on the CW network. The comedy-drama follows the story of Jane Gloriana Villanueva (played by Gina Rodriguez, 1984–), a 23-year-old Venezuelan virgin who becomes pregnant when she is accidentally artificially inseminated during a routine gynecological exam. This surprising turn of events sends Jane’s well-planned life into disarray. While Jane’s complicated story is at the center of Jane the Virgin, three generations of women in her family are at the heart of the show: Jane; her free-spirited mother, Xiomara (Andrea Navedo, 1977–); and devout grandmother Alba (Ivonne Coll, 1947–). The series brings women of color to the foreground on primetime television by focusing on multidimensional, multigenerational Latina characters. Jane the Virgin directly engages with issues of gender, race, class, sexuality, nationality, and the law.
Jane the Virgin is adapted from the Venezuelan telenovela Juana la Virgen (2002). The telenovela television genre blends comedy and drama in serialized storylines—storylines that carry over from one episode to the next—prominently featuring women in plots that revolve around heterosexual love, marriage, and family. Although internationally popular, telenovelas are not widely seen by English-speaking audiences in North America.
Jane the Virgin borrows some telenovela conventions yet also subverts the genre’s standards. For instance, the show focuses on female characters, but their stories are not limited to their relationships with men and the nuclear family. Although some critics feel that Jane’s love triangle and decision to have the baby outweigh the subversive possibilities, the narrative of Jane the Virgin is still predominantly driven by women’s experiences. Additionally, the series does not shy away from critiquing gender roles. Jane negotiates societal expectations surrounding her position as a young, unmarried-yet-expecting woman of color. She struggles with “having it all” and balancing her personal goals against a child she wants, but who was not in her plan.
Jane the Virgin also engages with contemporary issues about race, ethnicity, and U.S. law. When Alba is hospitalized after being pushed down the stairs, doctors inform Xiomara that they intend to report Alba to Immigration and Customs Enforcement because she is in the country illegally. Xiomara protests, “That can’t be legal!” The scene pauses, and the show’s narrator interjects with text reading, “Yes, this really happens. Look it up. #immigrationreform.” Audiences are reminded that issues like citizenship and immigration reform are matters impacting real people.
Jane the Virgin has achieved considerable critical success. It has been honored by the American Film Institute and the Peabody Awards, as well as acknowledged by the Golden Globe Awards, Critics’ Choice Awards, and Primetime Emmy Awards. These accolades are especially notable because Jane the Virgin is the first show focusing on Latinas to receive critical and popular acclaim in the United States.
Katie Sullivan Barak
FURTHER READING
Lang, Nicole. 2015. “Abortion and ‘Jane the Virgin’: Ultimately, Giving Birth Is the One Choice That Matters on This Show,” Salon, November 2. http://www.salon.com/2015/11/02/abortion_and_jane_the_virgin_ultimately_giving_birth_is_the_one_choice_that_matters_on_this_show.
Martinez, Diana. 2015. “Jane the Virgin Proves Diversity Is More Than Skin Deep,” October 19. http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/10/jane-the-virgin-telenovelas/409696.
Transparent is an Amazon Studios television series created and directed by Jill Soloway (1965–), who was inspired by her father’s real-life transition from male to female. The series follows the Pfefferman family as they learn that the patriarch they knew as Mort, played by Jeffrey Tambor (1944–), identifies as transgender and begins her journey to become Maura. In the first season, the show’s narrative moves between the present and 20–25 years into the past, weaving radical gender politics and Maura’s changes and growing pains seamlessly with the mundane ins and outs of a tight-knit Jewish family in Los Angeles. Marrying “the marginalized idea of gender transition to the familiar American concept of reinvention,” Maura’s coming out and subsequent journey into hormone replacement therapy and trans support groups serves as a catalyst for the other Pfeffermans to do some much-needed growing and exploring of their own (Levy, 2015).
The show’s influence is largely marked by its departure from previous media depictions of transgender characters as sick villains, tragic victims, or laughable punch lines. The trans characters on the show are rich, complex human beings, with the attendant diversity of backgrounds and perspectives. Furthermore, Soloway explores many real-life political and personal issues confronting transgender people (trans-exclusionary radical feminist spaces, decisions about medical/surgical interventions, etc.) without preaching to her audience or detracting from the larger narrative. She has used the show’s media spotlight to call attention to the lack of support given to the transgender community, calling it “a trans civil rights problem” (Berman, 2015).
The series has met with both critical and popular acclaim, with Soloway and Tambor receiving multiple award nominations and wins. Despite this praise, critics have skeptically noted the underrepresentation of actual transgender people onscreen and in the show’s writers’ room. The second season sought to remedy this shortcoming by increasing the number of transgender actors on the show (Alexandra Billings, Trace Lysette, and Hari Nef all have recurring roles in season two) and adding a transwoman to the writing team (Our Lady J, whom Soloway trained in a workshop explicitly geared toward developing writers with a transfeminine perspective). Additionally, “[e]very decision on the show is vetted by [trans activists and artists] Rhys Ernst and Zackary Drucker,” who ensure that the representation of trans characters is authentic and avoids the easy pitfalls of familiar stereotypes (Levy, 2015).
Casely E. Coan
FURTHER READING
Berman, Eliza. 2015. “Jill Soloway’s Emmy Speech: ‘We Have a Trans Civil Rights Problem.’ ” Time Magazine, September 20. http://time.com/4041908/emmys-2015-jill-soloway-trans-civil-rights-problem.
Levy, Ariel. 2015. “Dolls and Feelings.” The New Yorker, December 14. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/12/14/dolls-and-feelings.
Maciak, Phil. 2014. “That’s Not the Way It Feels: Transparent’s Ensemble.” The Los Angeles Review of Books, September 26. https://lareviewofbooks.org/essay/transparent-season-1.
Rochlin, Margy. 2015. “In ‘Transparent,’ a Heroine Evolves Further Still.” The New York Times, November 27. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/29/arts/television/in-transparent-a-heroine-evolves-further-still.html?_r=0.