When I grow up, I don't wanna be a doctor, I just want to play one on TV
Um, I'm wondering about my pension plan?
Jane Espenson, a writer for three of my favorite television series of all time ("Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "Gilmore Girls" and "Firefly") muses in the LA Times on whether or not a female television character's career choice (or in Buffy's case, fate) can lead to more workplace equality in the real world (As an aside here, let me note that the double use of the word 'soul' in the headline is an error on the part of LATimes.com. To LATimes.com's Human Resources Department -- CALL ME.):
Then there's Buffy, the teenage "vampire slayer." A woman warrior, she refused to answer to her profession's stuffy, male-dominated Counsel of Watchers. She had the power, she reasoned, and that gave her the authority to decide how to use it. She didn't figure it out overnight or without a struggle, but after seven TV years, she had learned how to make it in the graveyard.
Espenson says that more important than the career you choose for a character is the content of that character's, erm, character. (Would you believe me if I said I didn't feel like searching for a thesaurus right now? Yeah, you would.) But she still hopefully concludes that -- by endowing characters with a hearty dose of humanity, coupled with a passion for what they do, whether housewifing or vamp-slaying -- maybe television can inspire the littlest women.
Buffy was at her best when she made decisions using both her girliest qualities and her supernatural abilities. Lorelai Gilmore, the mom of "Gilmore Girls," loves to buy shoes but only those made for walking -- with authority and decency as she runs her own inn and refuses to sell out to corporate types.
Now, using Espenson's piece as a segue (a not-very-subtle segue in which I refrain from using the word segue), I'll say I'm indubitably (told ya I wouldn't bust out the thesaurus, choosing instead to use words preferred by turn-of-the-century detectives) pleased with the choice of Buffy creator Joss Whedon to pen and direct the film adaptation of "Wonder Woman." In all his projects, Whedon endows the female of the species with vivid personalities and realistic faults and flaws. People talked about how much "Sex and the City" represented women as they really are, but I always felt that -- supernatural powers aside -- "Buffy" did a far better job. How Whedon puts Wonder Woman's Lasso of Truth to work promises to be far more entertaining than any number of SATC's Manolo musings...
posted by imp @ 10:03 PM
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