Mad Men vs. Lipstick Jungle and Funny Ladies

Reading Marcotte's article, "How to Make a Critically Acclaimed TV Show About Masculinity", made me realize something that I haven't really noticed before--I couldn't think of any TV shows that revolve solely around a woman or a group of women and their struggles.  I am sure there must be some show out there, but when I think of TV shows I mainly think of either a show revolving around a group of both men and women or shows that have men as their main characters.  This made me think of the show Lipstick Jungle, which ended after its second season in 2009 and was about a group of three powerful women in the workforce in New York City.  The show was about their struggles involving work life, their families, romance and other daily dilemmas.  Lipstick Jungle feels like a modern day version of Mad Men, in which women have full representation in the work place and they hold very high positions, along with the men.  Mad Men to me is a very interesting example of masculinity in the media and the male's struggle to deal with "the fantasy of patriarchal power" versus newly evolving male and female societal roles.

The article also made me think about the fact that many times, popular media that revolves around women is comedic.  Marcotte's point that "Perhaps the absurdities of being female in this modern era don't lend themselves well to drama, but have to be approached sideways, through comedy" was really interesting to me, because it seems like comedy is a way in which women have broken through and been able to be represented in the media, but that is just one way.  Thinking back on the "Funny Ladies" presentation, I was reminded of Bridesmaids and how it is completely about women and their lives, but it is presented to us through comedy and makes us laugh at some of the gender ideas in the movie, such as the scene we watched in class when they are all in the bridal shop.

"I can do anything you can do, better. I can do anything, better than you?"

Based of the article by Bielby & Bielby’s Women and Men in Film 

What struck me the most about this article was the belief that female actors can’t carry a big budget film and that women are better suited for writing ‘women’s films.’ I would of course argue that while this might be true, it certainly is not because of a lack of skill from females, but rather an institutionalized belief, or ideology, that genres in particular have to be gendered. It didn’t surprise me much that female writers aren’t expected to write action or thriller films, or that when a female presents those sorts of projects to a production company, they often aren’t thought of in big budgets or blockbusters; they are given less money because it’s believed that they won’t make as much money. I liked the point about the difference between the way television structure and film structure changes the ways in which female writers can move up, or even get hired in the two industries. In television, it’s much easier (relatively speaking) to move up to a position of large creative control. This would allow for more females to be hired by females and for a female writer’s career more longevity because television series last longer than one film. Conversely, television industry makes it easier to justify the typecasting of females because television success is measured by the kinds of people that watch, not just the amount (like in film) making it easier to justify why women might be better suited for things like day time programming and children’s programming.

An interesting comparison that immediately popped into my head while reading this article is the movie Bridesmaids written by Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo and starring five lead females. This movie, directed by Paul Fieg and produced by Judd Apatow, has been gaining a lot of attention from awards season and is currently nominated for best original screenplay and best supporting actress at the Academy Awards. I’ve heard, more than once, that this film finally proves that women can be funny and that an R rated comedy aimed at women can be successful. I think in a lot ways this is true. This film is raunchy and sexualized and down right funny (check out the bloopers here), and in the hands of Judd Apatow, known for his success with Superbad and Knocked Up, it’s interesting that a dominate male director in the comedy genre would take on a female dominated film.