Always a Bridesmaid, Never a Feminist

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You're [Slightly Less of a] Wonder, Wonder Woman!

Many people have asked me about DC Comics’ announcement that Wonder Woman will be significantly altered, at least for the short term. When you shamelessly appropriate a beloved character as your personal avatar, it is hard not to have an opinion about such things. The horrible truth is that, despite the image from the blog, I am on the fringe of the truly loyal comic fans. I did read Wonder Woman (and other) comics as a child in the late 1970s. More recently, I have kept up with Wonder Woman, especially after her relaunch four years ago.

For those of you who don’t know, DC Comics has published Wonder Woman #600 to commemorate the company’s 75th anniversary. This is a tricky numbering system for the Amazon Princess as DC has decided to mysteriously count multiple volumes of the superheroine to get this nice round number, but whatever.

What is making the most news is that the new series accompanies a major costume change for Wonder Woman. I have to say, the new Wonder Woman leaves me a bit sad.



The new costume presents Diana as if she has been shopping the clearance racks at Hot Topic. Not to mention they had the nerve to bring back the horrible WW symbol. Goddess, how I hate that WW. Is she a superhero or a spokesperson for Whataburger?

See, I do have strong opinions. The eagle WW from the relaunch made perfectly good sense to me. Indeed, this is what I wear to the gym these days:



Everybody knows exactly who that symbol represents. The simple WW? Not so much.

Now I know that I am in danger of sounding like every run of the mill whiny and entitled comic fan out there. Certainly there are a lot of knee jerk reactions on the internets. Let me note that the new costume has its supporters, including none other than Lynda Carter. “She’s got an attitude, and if this is the new thing she wants to wear, well by God she’s going to wear it,” Carter stated in a recent interview, “And I like that. And I hope somewhere in the story someone mentions, where’s the old one? And she says, 'Get over it.'”

Despite the endorsement, however, the costume change is getting mostly negative reviews. Taking a look at on-line polls and (*shudder*) comic discussion threads, a clear majority despise the new look. Fox News, never one to lose the chance of sounding shrill, has hinted that the costume change smacks of anti-American attitudes at DC.

I appreciate that DC is in kinda a tough spot with Wonder Woman’s costume. Let’s face it, her original outfit looked like a red-white-and-blue Playboy bunny costume. One isn’t sure if you are supposed to salute her or give her your drink order.



Even so, I just don’t like the new outfit. Still, I read with interest that the outfit emerged because the new writer, J. Michael Straczynski, “wanted to toughen her up, and give her a modern sensibility.” That sounded promising. Well, until they released the cover image for Wonder Woman #603, which then made those ideas ring a bit hallow:



Apparently “toughening her up” means that Wonder Woman’s breasts are the size of her head. I reject that tossing on some tight leggings is somehow making this character more sensibly dressed if every panel is centered around her cleavage.

Rumors abound that they are trying the costume change as a means to possibly sell a movie character. Let me tell you, it ain’t going to work. When people think Wonder Woman, they think star-spangled panties.

What I find more interesting, though, is that the costume change has overshadowed discussions of other major changes to the character. I’m less concerned about what is in Diana’s closet than the fact that she is now going to be weaker than her previous incarnations (thus no longer making her the peer of Superman).

What is astounding about this turn of events is that it has all happened before (and, as Peter Pan would say, it will all happen again). Unlike Superman or Batman, Wonder Woman has had her basic premise reworked more times than Joan River’s forehead. Granted, DC has been more than willing to pull similar stunts with those characters. Remember when Superman “died”? Or that weird cyborg Superman? Or when Batman broke his back? Or when Batman “died”?

Nonetheless, there seems to be some key differences in how Superman and Batman are treated when compared to Wonder Woman. Comic writers often speak of the other two (and Marvel’s Spiderman) as the holy grail of the industry. They all yearn to take a crack at the helm of those books. Meanwhile, writing for Wonder Woman is treated as a chore equivalent to comic jury duty.

Sales figures for Wonder Woman are also abysmal. Superman and Batman’s names can support multiple comic titles at the same time. Yet, Wonder Woman struggles to even keep her single book afloat. I can’t help but thinking it’s because she is a girl in a male dominated industry.



I am distressed by the details announced to “reboot” Wonder Woman. In this version of Wonder Woman, Paradise Island (aka Themyscira) is totally destroyed and all the Amazons are slaughtered – again. I will leave it up to the Freudians in my audience to determine why the male writers of Wonder Woman so often feel the need to demolish the matriarchal Themyscira and kill off the Amazons.

So now Wonder Woman is raised in the United States without knowing her ancestry or learning Amazon ways of peace and love. She also, for seemingly no reason, is much less powerful than the island reared Diana. Maybe those fresh Caribbean breezes give her a little extra oomph. Who can say?

Male writers of Wonder Woman always seem to imagine that they are doing women a favor by taking powers away from Diana. It is a nice piece of reverse logic, especially given that the Amazon character started out with the exact opposite in mind.

As anybody who is obsessed with Wonder Woman most people know, the psychologist William Moulton Marston created Wonder Woman in 1941 as a conscious alternative to the male superheros who had sprung up during the Depression. He expressed concern that young girls lacked any significant role model and were always sidelined as merely a plot twist or an object that needed saving. “Not even girls want to be girls,” he wrote a year after he introduced Wonder Woman, “so long as our feminine archetype lacks force, strength, and power.” His big idea was to create a woman hero as strong as Superman, but with traits he believed to be “innate” to women (love, compassion, etc.). Even from her start, then, Wonder Woman existed as a gender contradiction. She was the fiercest warrior, but only in the name of peace. Oh, and since Marston loved the S&M in his personal life, Wonder Woman’s plots often involved bondage and ritual spanking.



Wonder Woman fit well for the war years. Women were stepping into new jobs for the war effort and they craved images of a strong woman who also contributed to the Allied cause.

But what about her costume? Well, it was sorta loosely modeled after a Greek warrior, but still recognized as skimpy even by comic standards. One of the first issues even addressed Diana’s thrifty use of cloth:



After World War II, Wonder Woman began to hit hard times. Marston, whose queer ideas about gender and sex had driven the book, died in 1947. Matters became worse when a psychiatrist named Fredric Wertham created a minor frenzy after publishing Seduction of the Innocent in 1954. Comics, he claimed, were at the heart of every social ill from drug addiction to rape. He charged Wonder Woman in particular with turning young girls into lesbians. “The homosexual connotation of the Wonder Woman type of story is psychologically unmistakable,” he wrote, “For boys, Wonder Woman is a frightening image. For girls she is a morbid ideal... The attractive Wonder Woman and her counterparts are definitely anti-masculine. Wonder Woman has her own female following. They are all continuously being threatened, capture, almost put to death. There is a great deal of mutual rescuing... In a typical story, Wonder Woman is involved in adventures with another girl, a princess, who talks about ‘those wicked men.’” Yeah, where did Wonder Woman get off thinking that she didn't need a man to rescue her? She ought to get back into the kitchen making chicken pot pies where she belongs.

Faced with public backlash, DC responded by subtly altering Wonder Woman. A 1950s or 1960s version of Wonder Woman usually contained as many panels of Diana crying her eyes out over Steve Trevor as doing any actual work. She also lost all of her women friends, just to make sure that nobody could accuse her of being anything other than 100 percent hetero. Finally, she basically stopped battling human (male) villains and instead fought more mythical creatures.



By the end of the 1960s, Wonder Woman was, well, dull. DC attempted an almost identical shift in Wonder Woman’s storyline as the one they announced on Tuesday. Starting in 1968, Diana renounced her Amazon superpowers, watched as Paradise Island transferred to another dimension (or sunk into the water, or something), and ditched her swim wear for a white jumpsuit and other “mod” clothing. Like DC’s reaction to their announcement Tuesday, DC writers in the 1960s expressed surprise that feminists (including Gloria Steinham) saw robbing Wonder Woman of her powers as a betrayal. Gee, why would making a character less powerful not be seen as a step forward for women? Oh, and did I mention that she gave up her position as a ranking officer in the military in order to open a dress boutique? Without her superpowers, Wonder Woman, or, er, Diana Prince had to learn martial arts from an absurdly stereotypical character a martial arts master improbably named “I Ching” (To say that Wonder Woman and other DC comics had some problems grappling with race is a bit like saying BP dribbled some oil on the gulf).

This jumpsuit-clad Wonder Woman proved so unpopular that the return of the star-spangled panties in issue #204 included a total bloodbath of anybody associated with the previous version of the character. Everybody had to die so that the old-glory hot pants could return.



The 1970s era is one of my favorite for Wonder Woman, and not just for obvious nostalgic reasons. There is a certain period when the book allowed itself to be a bit more campy. I liked, for instance, that Diana spent some quality time debating her laundry’s freshness.



Even after the jumpsuit fiasco, the 1960s would not be the last time that an alternate version of Wonder Woman appeared. A year before the beloved Lynda Carter series started, ABC aired a pilot for Wonder Woman starring the very blonde Cathy Lee Crosby. In this version, Diana Prince worked as a secretary for a CIA-type organization. She ultimately became involved in spy work herself, put on an outfit that had little resemblance to the comic version, and seemed to mostly follow the martial arts era comics (without superpowers). Most people found it hard to see this characterization as having much in common with the character they knew as the Amazon princess.



Today, DC is again cutting down Diana’s powers and changing her wardrobe in hopes of spurring interest in the character. It seems to me that the approach smacks of desperation.

From the outside, one does get the impression that DC really wants Wonder Woman to succeed. They consider her part of their “trinity” of the three most recognizable comic characters: Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. They have also brought in some well known talent over the past few years to write for the series, including Jodi Pocoult (whose stories never quite worked) and the much beloved comic writer Gail Simone. The latter had some hints of great ideas (The Return of Reform Island!), but it never quite came together. Who can then blame DC executives for making the current ploy to generate interest in Diana? Let’s face it, this is probably the most people have talked about Wonder Woman in years. Still, I really don’t think making Diana weaker is the answer (or killing off the Amazons – again).



I just can’t figure out why it is so hard for DC to find a decent story arc for Wonder Woman that would renew her appeal. As I wander through Target and other shops, I am struck by how much the aisles are adorned by the many Disney Princesses. It seems to me that DC is missing real opportunities to market Wonder Woman to a younger generation. If I were a parent, I’d have a real problem buying books and dvd’s from Disney that depicted women doing nothing but sitting around singing about their hopes to find a man who could rescue them. Wouldn’t it be much better to have a woman who is strong, independent, and super smart like Wonder Woman (who also happens to be a princess)? Even if she does dress like she should be spending her days at the beach rather than fighting crime, she still has a better overall message about women being the equal of any man. But, DC is never wise enough to ask GayProf to consult on Wonder Woman’s future.

Boldly Going Where We Have Been Before

Star Trek’s latest incarnation warped into theaters this past week. Praised by critics, fans, and newbies alike, the film is more than successful in relaunching the venerable franchise. If you care about such things, spoilers are ahead.

Long time readers know that GayProf has been a die-hard trekker since he was GayFifthGrader. While I have never worn the ears, I will confess to having attended a Star Trek Convention shortly before becoming a teenager. My knowledge of the Trek “universe” would likely frighten the uninitiated. I have opinions on things that you don't want to know, like which was the "best" Enterprise.

Producers of the new Trek worked hard to lower expectations from die-hard fans before this film’s release. They noted it would be impossible to retain continuity with the original series and therefore weren’t going to bother. Instead, the film offers an “alternate time line” approach. All the adventures chronicled on the sixties television show, according to this gimmick shocking plot twist, are not to unfold in the same manner.



To make a long story short, a really pissed off Romulan mucked up the time line after an elderly Spock failed to prevent a super nova from destroying Romulus in the future. Of course, now that young Spock knows what will happen one hundred years in the future, he could work to prevent the destruction of Romulus in his old age. If successful, then the pissed off Romulan would not need to travel back in time and muck up the time line. This would then create a temporal paradox, but possibly erase the new time line and restore the first time line chronicled in the sixties t.v. show. Confused? Believe it or not, that’s considered a boilerplate narrative for the franchise.

Let’s be clear: I actually liked the new movie. While the actor playing Spock lacks Leonard Nimoy’s commanding voice (or presence), all the other actors filled the roles quite well. Watching Karl Urban mimic Deforest Kelley even bordered on the eery at times. Besides, after all of the disasters that were the Next Generation films, it was refreshing to see a Trek movie that wasn’t a total embarrassment. And yet. . .



You don’t keep coming back to CoG for sunshine and lollipops. Even though I like something, that doesn’t mean that it can’t be better. Or that I don't have a rambling blog post about it. I am inclined to criticize something I like even more than something that was simply “okay.” Just imagine what type of parent that I would be!

The biggest problem with the “updated” Trek is that it’s not very updated at all. Because Trek has become such a part of the nation’s cultural landscape, we tend to take for granted the many revolutionary innovations it ushered in when it premiered in 1967. Even in the midst of the Cold War, the Star Trek universe (occasionally) promised an end to capitalism and explicitly rejected the accumulation of wealth as a symbol of one’s social worth. It also presented a future peace for earth and an end to national borders. In the middle of the various civil rights movements in the U.S., the show offered an egalitarian future where racism was solved. The show even pledged an end to sexism – Well, sort of.



Despite the show’s credentials, its utopian ideals were obviously always filtered through the social lens of the era it was filmed. Limitations that could be partially justified in the late sixties no longer seem as dismissible in 2009.

As I have complained about in another post, Latinos only appeared as ancillary figures in the Star Trek universe. Aside from attending the convention, I will also confess to having written my own Trek fiction while in middle school. Though I haven’t thought about it in years (and those pages are thankfully lost forever), I do remember feeling the absence of Latino characters so strongly in the Original Series that I created a Latina captain in my fictional accounts. In those stories, she communicated to her crew entirely in Spanish. Given that I wasn’t actually raised in a bilingual household, it was an interesting choice on my part (and I can’t imagine what the Spanish-text even looked like. It’s funny what we internalize, isn’t it?).

Latinos aren't the only group that apparently doesn't exist in the 23rd Century. Producers of Star Trek also explicitly rejected adding any openly gay characters.

Hmm – Limited spots for Latinos and no openly gay people? The bridge of the Enterprise looks a lot like the Obama administration.

I won’t bore you with those complaints – again. This time, I want to talk more about gender in the Trek universe.

When Gene Roddenberry first filmed a pilot for the show, he did have a revolutionary idea for 1967: The second in command of the Enterprise would be a woman (known only as “Number One”). This first version of the show had Captain Christopher Pike commanding the famed ship along with the "logical" Number One as First Officer. That first episode showed Number One making life and death decisions and playing with really big guns. Alas, the network executives didn’t like the notion that an uppity woman would take over command of the ship whenever Captain Pike was in peril (They were even less pleased that Roddenberry was having an affair with Majel Barett, the actor who played “Number One”).



Thus, after a complete rewrite, Roddenberry’s ambitions for women on the show had been significantly altered. Kirk appeared as Captain and women were demoted to “more traditional roles,” such as yeomen or nurses. Instead of taking over command and making decisions for the crew, women on-board the Enterprise took the Captain’s messages and made him coffee. Majel Barett, no longer First Officer, assumed a role as Nurse Chapel who spent her days mooning over Spock and handing out aspirin.



Significantly, the show also “sexed up” the women’s uniforms. In place of Number One’s sensible turtle neck and slacks in the first pilot, women officers squeezed into ultra-mini skirts, go-go boots, and beehive hairdos. All of that, I am sure, was real practical for working in space.


Still, even with all those deletions, the show did push for an inclusive universe rarely seen on television to that point. The characters of Uhura and Sulu allowed actors-of-color to play characters that (mostly) avoided racial stereotypes. Most other representations of Asian men on television presented them as either meek flower gardeners or as treacherous (but easily defeated) villains. Lt. Sulu, in contrast, figured as an equally valued crew member.




Comparably, Nichelle Nichols portrayed Lt. Uhura, the most prominent woman on the original series (FYI: Nichols was the keynote speaker at that convention I attended – I got to ride in an elevator with her!). Uhura broke sixties-era boundaries by being a Black-woman bridge officer. Her character offered a much needed corrective to the usual assortment of maids that most African-American women had to play in sixties film and television. For once, a Black woman on television appeared to have more on her mind that scrubbing toilets, making pancakes, or ensuring that the house had a fresh pine scent.



Of course, Uhura’s role as a commanding officer was still heavily proscribed. Instead, her assignment was more-or-less presented as one of a space-receptionist who staffed an intergalactic switchboard. Uhura had little to say beyond “Hailing frequencies open.” Nichelle Nichols found the role boring and contemplated quitting the series after the first season. None other than Martin Luther King, Jr. intervened in that decision. King, who claimed to be a fan of the show, convinced Nichols to stay on board despite her limited role. He argued (apparently convincingly) that her mere presence on the bridge made an important statement about racial politics in the U.S.

Nichols stuck it out through the rest of the show, an animated series, and six films. Through it all, she always advocated for a more elaborate role for Uhura. In particular, she hoped for an opportunity for Uhura to take command of the ship (which she did in one episode of the Saturday-morning cartoon (but only after all the men on board became slaves to an all-woman planet who sought to drain them of their essence (don’t ask)).

The relaunch of the series therefore presented some significant problems to reforming a pretty dated character. Out of the eight main characters on the original series, Uhura was the only woman and one-of-two characters of color (Not even having a Mexican-born producer was apparently enough to add a Latino character to the latest film). Sadly, I have a fairly harsh assessment of Uhura’s new incarnation.

The new Uhura was given a bit more in the way of professional credentials. Rather than being somebody whose greatest accomplishment was mastering the use of a hold button, Uhura is now a skilled linguist. In the opening scenes with her, she also shows significant promise. Uhura deftly ignores the boorish Kirk, his clumsy passes, and a crude joke about blow jobs. It seemed possible that Uhura would be a significant equal of the Enterprise bridge crew. Then things kinda go off track.



Returning to the sixties model, Uhura mostly kept out of the way of the men on board, who clearly had important things to do. Her skills as a linguist were rendered moot as the Romulans jammed all the communications anyway. The difference between Uhura and one of the blinking bridge consoles thereby became minimal. She contented herself by looking pretty and flipping her long, straight hair as often as possible. While each of the men had some profound action sequence, Uhura’s major duty in life focuses on cheering Spock up. She does that task mostly by making out with him.

The implicit premise behind the egalitarian diversity of the original series was that each of the crew members was professionally respected as the best at their particular job. The new film inverted that professionalism by having Uhura be the only crewmember who has an affair with her instructor and her commanding officer, Spock. Apparently Starfleet forgot to write rules and regulations about sexual misconduct among officers (If Trek producers really wanted to push the envelope, they could have had cadet Kirk having an affair with his instructor and commanding officer, Captain Pike!).

The producers' clumsy decisions forever clouds Uhura’s representation of a professional Black woman. I am willing to not tred into the obvious stereotype of women-of-color’s bodies being always available for white men. Nonetheless, Uhura’s success on the Enterprise becomes irrevocably linked to her affair with Spock.


Indeed, the character of Spock even acknowledges this potential when Uhura complains that she was not assigned to Starfleet’s perpetual flagship, the Enterprise. It is her romantic relationship with Spock that initially sends her to another commanding officer to avoid the appearance of “favoritism,” but it is that same romantic relationship that allows her to insist that Spock return her to his command. Uhura becomes a bizarre combination of Spock’s available lover and space-mammy all rolled into one ultra-mini skirt (Which, along with knee-high boots, reappeared on the women in this Star Trek).



I don’t object to either Uhura or Spock having romantic relationships per se. Indeed, the original series suggested that Spock did have romantic entanglements while a young officer. The problem with this incarnation, though, is that Uhura becomes defined only by her relationship to Spock. In contrast, Spock’s relationship to Uhura is one of many elements of his history and character that we get to see on film. Lots of celluloid is spent charting Spock’s goals, childhood experiences, relationships with the other crew, and even his old-age shenanigans. Uhura’s needs or ambitions, meanwhile, are never explored. We are even unsure whether she wanted to be on board the Enterprise for the sake of her career or just so that she could whisper sweet nothings into Spock’s pointed ears.

Add onto that the fact that the only other woman in the film with any significance is Spock’s mother and we start to see some serious (and Freudian) problems here. After forty years, one would have hoped that Star Trek would allow more roles for women than as the mothers or lovers of the male leads. Turns out, not so much.



According to some reports, Paramount executives understood that Star Trek (and science fiction in general) has had a poor record for attracting adult women as audience members. They therefore charged the current Trek producers to solve that problem. How did they tackle this issue? Astoundingly they suggested their solution came from consulting their wives about what women wanted in a film. Yeah, ‘cuz asking your spouse over morning bagels is just as good as, you know, hiring a professional woman onto the writing/producing team. Wow, they really did master time travel and returned us all to 1967!

The new Trek makes it clear that the job of saving the universe rests exclusively with men, preferably white men. Indeed, Starfleet values white, male leadership so much that Kirk gets to skip up the ranks from Academy Cadet to Captain of his own Starship all in one go! Let me tell you, if I was on the Enterprise and had actually earned the rank of Ensign, Lieutenant, Lieutenant-Commander, or Commander, I would push for a mutiny against the woefully unqualified “Captain” Kirk.

Unlike 1967, it is no longer revolutionary to just acknowledge the presence of people-of-color or women. They can’t be the tokens who promise future inclusion, but then step aside when the “real” decisions need to be made. This new Star Trek only sneaked around questions of gender and racial equality. In the end, it is still a “boy’s” franchise that no longer wants to think about contemporary problems of racism and sexism.

Sexism in the City

One of the constant themes of this blog is that GayProf is absolutely no fun as a movie companion. My gravitas will largely overshadow any enjoyment of a film, especially if it involves a post-viewing critique. One shouldn’t be surprised, therefore, that I have some tart words for the Sex in the City film.

Let me be up front with the fact that I never actually watched the show when it was on the air. HBO wasn’t in my budget, so I missed its six-year run. It got to be so crazy popular among certain sectors of the straight-woman/gay man world, however, that I started to feel the need to feign interest in it. Even without premium cable, one couldn’t escape the show’s icons: cosmo cocktails, “Mr. Big,” and glossy scenes that are more about showing pretty, pretty dresses than actual plot or character development.

So when some gay friends suggested that we see the film this past weekend, I agreed. Heck, it was better than working on the Never Ending Research Project of Doom. Actually, having a catheter inserted would be better than working on the Never Ending Research Project of Doom.

For those (like me) who only had a vague sense of its composition, Sex and the City centered on four thirty-something (four forty-somethings in the film) white, straight women, each with their own personality quirks, seeking love and romance in New York.

I understand (or at least think that I understand) the appeal of the show/film for its target audiences of straight women/gay men. First and foremost, it is escapist fluff. The show/film is a consumer fantasy where money falls from the sky, fashion is everything, and the most complicated problem in your life is how to have a three-way without the nanny hearing or smudging your makeup. Given the crippling economic depression that is appearing in this nation, I am not surprised that many people want vicarious, carefree adventures involving the wealthy.

Like most HBO productions, it also relied on sexual titillation (heavy on the “tit”), but without the creepy violence of Oz. The show’s title was not a shy reference nor did it depend on mere sexual innuendo. From what I understand, many of the episodes would have made Helen Gurley Brown blush.

Sex and capitalism, despite what Fox executives might think, aren’t enough to make a show a hit (even in the U.S). So, why did so many women viewers become cult followers of Carrie, et al’s fictional love lives?



Unlike most representations of single women on television to that point, these women characters had active sex lives that they enjoyed without apology. Against gender stereotypes, the show said that women could be just as sexually adventurous, daring, and even raunchy as men (The show was often written by gay men – which is something for somebody else to explore).

It also showed a type of sisterly bond among the protagonists that had been one of the lost promises of second-wave feminism. They created their own support networks that were outside the scope of the men in their lives. Every week (day?), they met over drinks to discuss their latest romps or heartbreaks and shared their lives. It’s small wonder, therefore, that the show filled a much desired gap for its viewer ship. Many women were probably tired of characters like Ally McBeal, who seemingly only wanted to have sex and a relationship as means to end her spinsterhood and finally have a baby.

That’s all to the good, I suppose. Still, the Sex-in-the-City franchise is a poor substitute for actual sexual liberation or gender equality. The film more often reenforced the gender and sexual (and racial) status quo than challenged it (and I can only really talk about the film since, despite that exposition, I have never really seen the show (and I am willing to concede that the show might be substantively different than the film (but that would require me watching the six seasons of it, which I don’t want to do after watching the film))). I know, there will be immediate naysayers and scoffers. Heck, one of my film companions complained that “GayProf just didn’t get it.” A true statement.

Why didn’t I “get it?” Well, firstly there were the huge racist presumptions that went into the film. For a more careful reading, see Diary of an Anxious Black Woman (found via HistoriAnn). She succinctly explains the “Mammy 2.0" that appears midway through the film as “Louise,” Carrie’s assistant/wet nurse. That alone made my flesh crawl in the film. I am tired of the mainstream media serving up the same-old racist shit and having to pretend like it isn’t that big of a deal.



Before going to the big screen, the producers of Sex in the City recognized that their show had long been criticized for its lack of racial diversity (despite being set in one of the most diverse cities on the planet). One can imagine that somewhere in a board meeting, a [white] writer proposed the character of Louise as a solution to this quandary. “We need a woman of color to shut them up,” the producer exclaimed, “What do women of color like to do?” “Don’t they like to serve white people?” this writer offered, “At least until they get married and have babies?” “That’s brilliant! Write it up.”

My other major problem with this film is the way that it conformed to narrow views of sexuality, relationships, and marriage. Maybe I am jaded (What am I saying? “Maybe????”), but we don’t need another candy-coated celebration of heterosexual, monogamous marriage.

The heterosexual bit came in the total absence of lesbian characters (despite one of the main actors being a real-life lesbian) and the only cursory inclusion of gay men. If Louise was Mammy 2.0, then white gay men were Mammy 3.0. [white] Gay men existed flatly in this film to happily serve straight women in planning their wedding, giving advice, and offering snappy fashion quips. In an opening scene, they also offered a passing joke/titillation (low on the “tit.”). For a show written by gay men, it’s pretty homophobic.

More than that, though, the film played into some durable, sexist assumptions about heterosexual relationships. At its core, the film argued that, even when they are wrong, straight men are always right.

If we eliminated the fashion shows and extended shots of footwear, the film’s plot centered on three of the main characters facing problems in their relationships. Carrie wants to marry “Mr. Big;” Miranda discovers that her husband had a one-night stand; and Samantha feels unfulfilled in her monogamous prison relationship.

Let’s start with the last. On the surface, Samantha should be the critique of monogamy and traditional conceptions of marriage. Indeed, her character unmasks the tedium that is associated with monogamy (which she compares to chemotherapy). She faces daily temptation from a hot Los-Angeles neighbor, whose shower is apparently located outdoors. Ultimately, Samantha realizes that monogamy is not for her.



Potentially that decision could have been a bold statement in the film. Its execution, however, suggests otherwise. Samantha does not renegotiate her relationship with her current partner to something more open (Sex is sex, love is love -- Relationships don't have to be based on society's expectations of monogamy). That is ruled out even before it's mentioned. In Sex in the City, relationships are apparently all or nothing.

Instead, Samantha packs her bags and heads back to New York. We are never shown that she has a better life single and non-monogamous (or non-single and non-monogamous). We don’t even know if she lost all her frustration-weight! In the end, she is alone with her girlfriends celebrating her fiftieth birthday.

If Samantha’s resolution is, at best, ambiguous, the other dilemmas are much more clear cut. We are led to believe that it is entirely Miranda’s “fault” that her husband cheated on her. After all, she cared much more about her career and her child than satisfying him sexually. Plus, she stopped waxing her vagina! What was Miranda expecting? Even the best man is going to cheat under those circumstances.

The film never offered that the problem is bigger than Miranda or her slutty husband (who was presented as a saint). Maybe the problem is the expectation of monogamy? Maybe the problem is the way that marriage, in our society, presumes that one person belongs to another?

Nope, says Sex in the City, the problem is frigid, career-oriented women. These poor, delusional women think they can do it all: marriage, job, children. They are really nuts and selfish. Sadly, it’s their innocent men who suffer because of them.

After Miranda goes to therapy (not to deal with the obvious betrayal, but instead to figure out why she is so wrong in not forgiving her cheating dog of a husband), she reveals that she is afraid that she will be left by him. Being alone is a fate worse than death in Sex in the City. What is a woman without her man? Nothing -- That's what. Their reunion on the Brooklyn Bridge is the triumph of the heterosexual family.



Finally, Carrie’s storyline is all about conforming to gender expectations. Carrie and “Mr. Big” decide to get married early in the movie (maybe around the third catwalk of dresses). Mr. Big buys Carrie her dream apartment, complete with a walk-in closet bigger than my studio in Boston.

Carrie, though, has at least heard the word “feminism.” She begins to wonder if she would have any legal recourse should Mr. Big dump her and take away that fabulous prewar abode. They both come to the legalistic conclusion that marriage is really about property. So far, so good as far as GayProf is concerned.

Then things kinda go off track. Carrie starts trying on wedding dresses, hires a gay wedding planner (Mammy 3.0), and poses for Vogue magazine. Before you know it, her wedding plans make Princess Di’s look like the christening of a Greyhound bus. All the pomp and circumstance results in Mr. Big standing her up at the altar.

For the next hour and a half, we watch as Carrie puts her life back together (thanks, in part, to Mammy 2.0). When she finally is independent, however, Carrie returns to the house that Mr. Big built and realizes that she was the one who was truly in the wrong. Sure, he jilted her – but he was forced to do so by her greedy self-interest. Had she just recognized what a good provider he was, Mr. Big would never have left her.

While I am definitely on-board with the film’s message that people are spending too much on their wedding(s), I am not at all on-board with the film’s message that marriage is a necessity (unless you want to end up fat and alone like Samantha). I would have been much more satisfied if the film argued that sex and love don’t require a binding contract.



Sex and the City pulled off a neat masquerade. Nice clothes and great hair cloaked a retrograde message that happy relationships necessarily require women’s sublimation.

Starter? I Don't Even Know Her.

When I visited New York a few weeks ago, I could not enter a subway station or pass a bus without seeing Debra Messing’s smiling face pushing the television series The Starter Wife. Given that I teach classes on representations of gender and sexuality in the mainstream media, I consider it part of my job description to watch such media ploys. Hey – It’s dirty work, but somebody has to do it.

The massive publicity campaign (which began sometime in January) led me to expect that The Starter Wife would be a bit more, um, good. The promos implied that the program would consider the travails of marriage, divorce, and aging among women in this society. Okay – Maybe I had too lofty of expectations. At the very least, though, I expected some sort of vicarious revenge narrative involving a wronged spouse making her lying man come to terms. Instead, The Starter Wife managed to disempower just about everybody.

Perhaps its main problem was that it offered a remarkably unsympathetic heroine and a cadre of flat supporting characters. As the title implies, Molly, played by Debra Messing, finds out that her movie-executive husband has dumped her for a young starlet. Rather than being emotionally destroyed by his deceptions or heartbreak, Molly is mostly concerned about how it will impact her social standing. Indeed, she spends little, if any, time considering the demise of the actual marriage. While we are clearly supposed to hate her sleazy ex, we aren’t really given any indication that Molly ever thought of him as anything more than a means to her own ambition. Instead, Molly mourns that she can no longer attend the posh clubs or swank parties.

As a result, her liberation does not come through a rejection of the sexist Hollywood expectations that demanded physical perfection or slavish women (or through the lighting of her ex’s truck on fire (which I would have personally liked to see)). Instead, her alleged liberation comes through committing herself to even more self-indulgence. In one scene, Molly takes “revenge” on the Hollywood wives who snubbed her by becoming the arm-candy for another, more powerful, man. Yeah, there’s a feminist message that we can all get behind.

The Starter Wife acknowledges that society is built on a sexist patriarchy that keeps women in vulnerable and unfair positions. Molly’s ex husband, Kenny, personifies the worst stereotypes of heterosexual men. He is self-indulgent, sexist, cheats on his wife, and demeans all the women around him by making them do the most menial tasks imaginable. Yet, The Starter Wife also implies that sexist patriarchy is the only option out there and the only possible way that society could be organized. When men treat you like garbage, the show says, simply find another, more powerful man. Kate Millet would be so proud.



Given this message, it’s no surprise that Pond’s cosmetics sponsored this train-wreck of a series. Indeed, Molly spends a serious amount of film time in her bathroom engaged in methodical cleansing rituals that involve prominent Pond’s products. The message of “empowerment” is not a rejection of youth and beauty. Instead, it’s that older women need to fight to stay looking young and beautiful. There is hope for older women, but only if they slather their face with a jar of Time Rewind^© night cream.

Surrounding Molly are a crew of totally cardboard characters. Judy Davis appears as a friend named “Joan.” Really, though, Davis seems to be confused and apparently thinks that she is still playing Judy Garland. Joan drinks, makes a bitchy comment to Liza Molly, and returns to drinking some more.



Molly does get to show her magnanimity through a set of homeless characters. In one case, The Starter Wife makes a clumsy stab at racial diversity when Molly allows Lavender, the African-American security guard for Molly’s gated-housing complex, to move into her house. This sassy ghetto-girl might have the name of a stripper, but she has a heart of gold. Lavender lost her apartment when her mother refused to get rid of her yapping dog. Thanks to Molly, though, Lavender avoids homelessness and can keep attending UCLA. Well, as long as her mother agrees to clean Molly's house. Through the gentle generosity of white women like Molly, Lavender will eventually be a credit to her people. Hey, Starter Wife, welcome to the year 1935!



If that version of homelessness/economic-class-dynamics didn’t appear problematic enough, the miniseries includes the absurd character Sam. Repenting for his sin of drunk driving, Sam willingly chose to be homeless many years before meeting Molly. Yes – There is a character who has repudiated shelter from the elements. According to The Starter Wife, being homeless can be downright glamorous! Sam spends his days wandering around Malibu’s beaches without his shirt and sleeping with bored housewives. When he and Molly have sex in his "sleeping space," it looks a lot like an ad for Bombay Company.



Characters like Lavender and Sam make light of real economic injustice in this nation. In both instances, it was the personal choices of Lavender (refusing to toss the dog to the pound) and Sam (his desire for penance) that left them without a domicile. They weren’t homeless because of a crushing economic system, lack of health or psychiatric care, or even bad luck. Nope – They chose their fate.

Yet, even with Sam and Lavender’s poor choices, the wealth will trickle down just as Ronnie Reagan promised many years ago. Rather than pointing to the grotesque disparity between the rich (and exclusively white) people dominating Molly’s world and the nation’s poor, The Starter Wife gives hope that the wealthy will save the downtrodden. Indeed, helping the homeless is a little like hosting a slumber party for Molly.

Perhaps the most disappointing character of all, though, is Molly’s BFF: Rodney. The show’s official web-site describes Rodney as “Molly's dashing, loyal friend and gay interior decorator extraordinaire,” Consider him a cross between a golden retriever and Dorothy Draper.

Rodney puts a not-so-thick retread on some pretty worn-out stereotypes. I’ll pass on commenting on the obvious (“interior decorator extraordinaire”) and move directly to how Rodney is the new clichéd representation of gay men in film.

Increasingly, gay men exist in film and television as accessories for straight women characters. Unlike many real-life gay men who have strong and equitable friendships with straight women (including myself), the relationships depicted in films like The Starter Wife are decidedly one-sided. Gay men exist in these fictional friendships as selfless (though fussy) caretakers for their hetero gal pals. Rodney provides snappy zingers and expert advice on selecting shoes. He gives a shoulder for Molly’s ever plentiful tears (They, sob!, canceled her spa membership!). Characters like Rodney aren’t there to be real humans. Instead, they are presented as a means to show that the female character is both “hip” and “generous” enough to have a gay man as a friend. They are just mirrors to reflect the straight women’s coolness, wipe away their mascara stains, and highlight their heterosexual desirability.

Most times, gay characters like Rodney aren't even given much dialog. The director usually just tells that actor playing the gay best friend to stand in the corner while the rest of the cast talks about how gay he is. Unless, of course, he happens to be a good-looking actor. Then he will stand in the corner while the rest of the cast talk about what a shame it is that he is gay.



To their credit, the writers did attempt to give Rodney a slight side-story of romantic interest. That’s more than most gay men get on television (Think Debra Messing’s other series). Even if Rodney is allowed a romantic subplot, you get the distinct sense that the writers had no idea what happens when two men date each other. One can imagine the meeting in the writers’ room. “Well,” they would say, “What do gay men think is romantic?” “I don’t know,” another says, “How about criminal stalking?” “Yeah, that’s probably what they do. Let’s go with that. Write it up.”

So, even though Rodney makes it clear that he was not romantically interested in the guy, his accountant lurks around his house, secretly leaves him baked goods on his door, and shows up at his house uninvited (with dinner!). In the last episode, the accountant planned a weekend getaway together with Rodney without, you know, actually asking Rodney if it is okay. According to the show, Rodney seemingly sees this as taking charge and endearing.

Let me tell you, if a guy who I paid to balance my checkbook suddenly showed up at my door with a bag of groceries or booked plane reservations for the two of us without asking me, I would not consider that a romantic gesture. I would consider it a reason to put the police on speed-dial. Healthy gay dating doesn’t start with stalking – unless you are into that. I don’t judge.

Of course, Rodney is also portrayed by a self-identified straight actor. Hollywood still gets a kick out of a straight guy pretending to be gay. Actually, they seem to feel better knowing that the actor is just “pretending” and underneath he is pure heterosexual. A gay man portraying a gay male character apparently isn’t acting at all (because all gay men are basically the same – to be one is to know us all). And we all know that a gay male actor couldn’t possibly portray a straight man.

See – This is why I think Hollywood doesn’t have a clue about how superior gay men are as actors. What do straight actors do when they portray gay men? Well, usually they make lots of kissy noises, adopt a lisp, and add some type of flailing arm gestures. Then they call it a day.



Gay men often spend years studying how to pretend to be a straight man before they come out of the closet. Heck, I deserve an Academy Award for grades 8-10 alone. Because of this, we are also much more authoritative judges on who is portraying a gender that seems authentic to the character.

The Starter Wife ad campaign promised an escapist fantasy and quirky satire. Sadly, it just suggests how little television has advanced in terms of gender and sexuality in the last twenty years. The Starter Wife, in the end, is a not-very-interesting clone of Jackie Collins’ Hollywood Wives.