The West Wing
Jan. 23rd, 2013 12:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ivyficCurse Netflix streaming! If you stream on your computer, it starts up the next episode after you finish one without you having to do anything. This is a way of saying my long weekend was mostly swallowed by West Wing. I was doing stuff at the same time but--I watched a lot of West Wing.
I had been warned about Sorkin's problematic portrayal of women, and boy howdy. In particular, it is the sexism of a writer who thinks he is not being sexist.
- All of the assistants are women, with the exception of the personal assistant to the president. In the first season, the president's PA gets a storyline. None of the other assistants do. What they do is henpeck their bosses. They direct their love lives, criticize and control their eating habits, and otherwise act like fifties housewives. When they have conversation for themselves, it is inevitably about how many calories are in a muffin or about makeup or shows or celebrities. The two most prominent are Donna, Josh's assistant, and Margo (Marge?), Leo's. Both are used as comic relief. As in, they burst in on their bosses when they are thinking weighty, manly things, and tell awful jokes or admit they brought down the entire building's email system, or whine about what present the boss is getting them.
I have been told Donna has more of an arc, but so far, these character exist to point out how unprofessional they are compared to their bosses. And the fact that they are all women and their bosses are all men? I do not say this lightly, but Mad Men does a less sexist portrayal of a secretarial pool, if only because it's aware that it's being sexist.
- In maybe the fourth episode, President Bartlet gives a speech--a speech so important it's in the title of the episode, "These women"--standing at a social event and remarking to two other guys about how incredible "these women" are. Here's a hint. If you have a male character talk about how incredible his women are? He is automatically being a patronizing asshole. I'm sure Sorkin was giving himself a pat on the back, saying look! I wrote strong female characters! Only he took the knees out from that argument by having the men stand around and admire how good a job they've done letting women work with them.
I had been warned about Sorkin's problematic portrayal of women, and boy howdy. In particular, it is the sexism of a writer who thinks he is not being sexist.
- All of the assistants are women, with the exception of the personal assistant to the president. In the first season, the president's PA gets a storyline. None of the other assistants do. What they do is henpeck their bosses. They direct their love lives, criticize and control their eating habits, and otherwise act like fifties housewives. When they have conversation for themselves, it is inevitably about how many calories are in a muffin or about makeup or shows or celebrities. The two most prominent are Donna, Josh's assistant, and Margo (Marge?), Leo's. Both are used as comic relief. As in, they burst in on their bosses when they are thinking weighty, manly things, and tell awful jokes or admit they brought down the entire building's email system, or whine about what present the boss is getting them.
I have been told Donna has more of an arc, but so far, these character exist to point out how unprofessional they are compared to their bosses. And the fact that they are all women and their bosses are all men? I do not say this lightly, but Mad Men does a less sexist portrayal of a secretarial pool, if only because it's aware that it's being sexist.
- In maybe the fourth episode, President Bartlet gives a speech--a speech so important it's in the title of the episode, "These women"--standing at a social event and remarking to two other guys about how incredible "these women" are. Here's a hint. If you have a male character talk about how incredible his women are? He is automatically being a patronizing asshole. I'm sure Sorkin was giving himself a pat on the back, saying look! I wrote strong female characters! Only he took the knees out from that argument by having the men stand around and admire how good a job they've done letting women work with them.