Claire Huxtable in The Cosby Show
Jezebel, a popular Gawker blog that features “celebrity, sex, fashion for women,” recently published a blog post on “20 Feminist TV Characters.”
Tracie, the author of the post, was quick to point out that “unfortunately, all of [the characters] — including the animated ones — are Caucasian.” Her list included characters such as Maude Findlay of Maude (which I’m actually quite curious about and would love to get my hands on…), Lisa Simpson of The Simpsons, Roseanne Connor of Roseanne and Miranda Hobbes of Sex and The City.
As a woman of colour, I found Tracie’s disclaimer to be insincere. She profiled characters who “more openly flew their feminist flags…[speaking] openly about being feminists or feminism.” Isn’t the answer to Tracie’s so-called difficulty with coming up with female characters of colour obvious? She was explicitly looking for feminist characters, disregarding the fact that some women of colour, while embodying all sorts of politics and values that can be found in what some of us know as “feminism,” may not identify with this Western notion. What many of us know as feminism in North America has had a long and painful history of exclusion and oppression, specifically by heralding gender inequality as the prime form of oppression that all women should gearing their energy towards.
I wasn’t just disappointed and frustrated with Tracie; not many comments were inspiring. In knowing that she might have missed out on some characters, Tracie asked readers to comment and include the ones she had forgotten. Many of the readers simply reproduced what Tracie was doing with her original post. One commentator said,
“I came here looking for two specific women: Janet from Three’s Company and Elaine from Seinfeld. Bonus point for actually having the words ‘feminist’ ‘women’s rally’ and/or ‘pro-choice’ in their dialogue.”
While I don’t watch much TV, the first strong woman of colour character that comes to mind is Betty Suarez of Ugly Betty. Betty is from a working class, Mexican immigrant family which she is working her butt off to help make ends meet. She is the central figure in making sure everything at work and at home are balanced and running smoothly, while at the same time slowly learning to take care of her own needs and dreams. Betty is caring, bold, shameless (yes, I’m using the term very seriously and because she is so worth the title).
I got some friends to help me out with the list and between everyone, we came up with our own list:
1. Bette Porter of The L Word
2. Claire Huxtable of The Cosby Show
3. Rochelle of Everybody Hates Chris
4. Miranda Bailey of Grey’s Anatomy
5. Ana Lucia of Lost
6. Cristina Yang of Grey’s Anatomy
7. Harriette Winslow of Family Matters
Please feel free to add any characters I’ve missed out on!
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nine comments
I'm so glad you posted about this stupid list. It's such bullshit on so many levels. For anyone that is a great devotee of TV, this just looks like some crap that Tracie came up with five minutes before deadline without really thinking about it. The Borg Queen was more of a feminist than some of these characters. I mean, Donna's mom from "That Seventies Show"? Really? The most shocking inclusion for me is Janice from The Sopranos. Janice WAS NOT a feminist and the example they give of her allegedly "feminist" behavior is horrible. That she lets men fuck her with a loaded gun held to her head makes her a feminist? If anyone is a feminist in that example, it's Carmela Soprano, who was always trying to assert her independence from Tony, and who was always trying to push Meadow to be a strong, intelligent young woman and not just some Mafia wife.
I like your list. I would definitely agree with Claire Huxtable and Miranda Bailey. Bette Porter talked a big theoretical game, but when it came down to it, behaved like a controlling, abusive asshole towards her own partners. I would nominate Kit Porter to the list instead.
Posted by Michelle
June 5, 2009, 10:33 AM
How about Angela Montenegro (Michaela Conlin) and Cam Saroyan (Tamara Taylor) on Bones? They both play strong-willed, independent women who won't be told how to feel or act by the boys. I am not a huge fan of the show these days, but I have always liked those two characters.
Posted by Stark
June 5, 2009, 10:36 AM
Shakima Greggs - The Wire
Posted by Guiermo
June 5, 2009, 10:45 AM
Eeewww, Janice from the Sopranos? Really? Look, just because a character identifies as a feminist out loud, doesn't mean they're not written as a vile parody of ideology crossed with like total narcissism and manipulation. Janice is what people who grab onto any "ism" to make themselves seem smarter and more legitimate are like. Sorry, I take this personally. Janice is total swine.
I'm surprised the list didn't include any characters from Six Feet Under - Claire, Brenda, even Ruth, who would never claim to be a feminist but fantasizes about shooting her clinging, babyish menfolk with a rifle. Vanessa is maybe a feminist of colour, but she's one of the more superficially-written characters on the show so I'm hesitant to give the writers a lot of credit for creating a strong woman of colour in her.
Posted by Anna
June 5, 2009, 10:58 AM
In any case, the shortness of the list you came up with and my difficulty in coming up with people to add to it indicates two things to me:
1) TV writers and producers need to step up their game. Having a woman in a 'fro pop in the door, yell "You go girl!" and then leave does not a diverse cast make.
2) Mainstream TV is not a place we're likely to find strong and inspiring role-models who look or act anything like us.
Oh yeah, and cool as Bea Arthur is, and as rad as it is that they addressed abortion on Maude, it seemed to me that her feminism was played for laughs a lot of the time, in a sort of "she tries, the little dear, she really does" way.
Posted by Anna
June 5, 2009, 11:05 AM
My choices here reflect a future vision that I hope we can get to. There are issues, always are, but what I like is they are icons of what is possible. Feminism that never needs to speak its name, because there's no question of "whether she can be good enough."
I am also looking a bit at the age-old stories underpinning these two choices.
**Zoe on Firefly.** (argh I hate fox) Warrior woman, she exhibits what we aim for - women who simply *are*, competent, strong. Living feminism. Re old stories, her friendship with the Captain is really interesting because it is not a sexual-tension thing that seems to drive so many shows. Yes, it is possible to have close buddies and comrades and NOT sleep together! Who knew? (yes I realize this is more the overall writing, but you see where I'm going). Seriously, this is a huge thing that needs to be tackled in our culture.
And yes Zoe acts as a military subordinate to Mal, but that is never because he is inherently 'better' than her.
**Sharon Agathon (Athena) on Battlestar Galactica** - the "other" Sharon that married Helo. Controversial choice, perhaps, but she was strong, competent in all sorts of situations, and importantly made a conscious decision to go against her model's programming (parallel to gender schemas anyone?). She was slated to suck Helo in with that old standard, a pregnancy - but realized she valued him/them as people instead of scripts, and consciously tossed out the whole plan, turned away from her entire race to do so. Later, despite imprisonment, etc she make a choice to be a person. I don't mean that she joined the humans, not at all, but that she consciously made a choice and stuck with it. Honour, commitment, competence. She is clearly Helo's equal. She speaks to me of the price of feminism, sometimes, in our time - to break those scripts we might end up having to turn away from family, community.
Of course Boomer is the opposite of that, set up to be the prevaricator and betrayer, looking for the next powerful man - that's how I read her joining Cavil. Again a very old story.
Also juxtaposed (sadly) against Callie, who turned into useless mush with the birth of their son and was written as if she suddenly stopped being a top deck mechanic and the woman who bit that guy's ear off in season one. Athena is a mother but that's not her sum total. She delights in her child, literally sacrifices her life (tho not as big a deal since she downloaded at the time) but you see what I mean. A roundedness not allowed Callie.
(Note I haven't actually seen the last two episodes!! so if I'm missing some big divergence from these points, sorry!)
Posted by minerva
June 5, 2009, 5:11 PM
i guess it also depends on what you're defining as feminist....
i mean kima from the wire is an amazing and complex character...a sharp, queer woman of colour but also engages in police brutality.
and i agree with michelle -- bette porter was abusive and cheated on tina all the time. but hell to the yes, c'mon jezebel! get it together.
Posted by michelle
June 6, 2009, 11:51 AM
I think they should rename Grey's Anatomy "Yang's Anatomy." I know, it would ruin the textbook-riff, but she's a much more more interesting and relatable character than Meredith Grey, who spends the entire show having personal drama and fighting with her boyfriend.
Posted by Cate
June 6, 2009, 12:36 PM
Ha ha ha.. I had to stop reading the description of Sharon/Boomer because I didn't want to ruin the rest of the episodes.
I think trying to separate the great women of television on the basis of their adherance to feminist values is a bit strange in the first place.
I don't fall in love with characters because they share my political values, or express them, but because they seem so well-crafted.
That being said, I agree with Anna that the problem is that characters who represent minority experiences are not as often expressed truly or well.
Anyways, here is my addition to the list of kick-ass ladies on TV:
Heylia James from Weeds. Probably she wouldn't be calling herself a feminist, and then again there is the collection of episodes where she starts dating a Nation of Islam guy and starts getting all wimpy.. Still she's a tough-ass.
Posted by Miriam
June 8, 2009, 4:01 PM
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