Ali Goldstein / NBC
Everything I Know About Being a Single Woman I Owe to Liz Lemon
A friend of mine has a theory that every 20-something girl in the city believes she is Liz Lemon. It's hard to argue with his thinking, since Tina Fey's character on 30 Rock demonstrates such an array of awkward vulnerabilities and embarrassing hang-ups that all of us relate to at least a few.
The show concludes its seven-season run today, leaving a legacy of sitcoms with female leads primarily characterized by their quirks and flaws, such as Jess Day on New Girl and Mindy Lahiri on The Mindy Project. Today's leading lady also builds on those of the past – Ally McBeal and Mary Tyler Moore, among many others – in her fairly honest depiction of a life when no day is without failure and no woman truly has it all together.
Everyone can relate to failure, but it's how today's TV woman deals with failure – resolving itself hilariously by the post-credits coda – that often teaches us about managing life, or at least how we're supposed to manage it according to Hollywood's creative powers-that-be.
Funny as they are, these fictional women also set some cultural expectations for women, especially for the type they portray: the post-graduate woman who lives in a city, seeking self-sufficiency and fulfillment in her career and personal life. This season of life actually exists for many women, including me, so it's no wonder this is becoming such a common set-up on TV. Their familiarity gives them the power to sway us to think, "Perhaps this is how everyone lives." Even the characters of HBO's Girls, the post-recession Sex and the City that I am told constantly is the "cultural weather vane" for my generation, regularly hobble along on the same well-worn crutches that TV teaches us all women use.
For one: the one-night stand to recover from hardship. For these ladies, there is no retreating to a quiet place to pray; difficulties trigger a quest for external distraction. The TGS crew once colluded to essentially trick Liz Lemon into a one-night stand for the sole purpose of improving her mood. Even New Girl's Jess Day, a character criticized for her 13-year-old girly-girl schtick, jumped into a sex-only "relationship" in order to get over losing her job. (There are a couple of virgins on TV, but as Salon's Willa Paskin put it last year, "Shame-free virginity: not currently a fictional TV offering." But that's a whole different post.)
For another: the self-soothing chat with friends. True mentors are few and far between on TV. It seems my generation, and the characters that reflect it, is obsessed with self-analysis through "talking things out" with a group of peers. There is no seeking out wisdom from elders, pastors, a higher power, or parents, who are usually peripheral characters, if mentioned at all. Mindy banter-argues her problems into submission. Jess re-filters hers through the male perspective of her roommates. Liz Lemon breaks this type somewhat by frequently consulting her boss Jack Donaghy who, while not exactly "wise" in the biblical definition of the term, at least doesn't parrot all her own assumptions back to her and call it advice.
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Comments
Devon torchiana
I actually just blogged about this the other day, so I found this article especially applicable to my life right now. I see these same patterns of thinking in my own life and in the lives of my friends. I think we are afraid that if we give up on these distractions, we will have nothing left to hope for, nothing or no one left that will love us. When we take our eyes off of God, of course we are disappointed, but keeping our eyes there takes an discipline that has to be cultivated and practiced. http://hopefullydevon.blogspot.com/2013/03/no-fear-in-love.html
Frank Keefe
Its heartening to read such positive posts from Christian women..Here in the UK its sex 24/7 even in the daytime shows its why my country is in such an immoral mess.
Anne Acker
"'Shame-free virginity: not currently a fictional TV offering.' But that's a whole different post." Oh please, write that post. We need to have a discussion about that media stereotype. I call it the Myth of the Forty-Year-Old Virgin. You know, we're all neurotic, socially maladjusted losers who can't get a date, and that's why we live in our parents' basement playing video games and collecting sci-fi memorabilia. Our culture is so accustomed to think of losing one's virginity as a rite of passage to adulthood that virginity has become synonymous with arrested development.
Laura Stammberger
Last week I borrowed the first and only season of The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency from my library and was completely bowled over. It is a completely winsome depiction of a young woman, having been well raised by her father, striking out on her own and winning the respect of her community. She wins the heart of a man not by her flirtatious manner, but by her intelligence and kindness. I heartily recommend it and recommend writing HBO to bring it back.
Karen Smith
Where are the good sitcoms? I haven't found any good ones in years! Why don't we have a show like "The Cosby Show" on the air right now? Why no "M*A*S*H" equivalent? Where are the shows that educate families - adults as well as children - while entertaining them? Almost every sitcom is about single people, workplaces discussing topics that would usually get them fired, or about revolving relationships. Where are the shows about the loving couples and families? The closest thing to a family sitcom on TV now is The Simpsons.
Kathi Vande Guchte
If young, single women want to gain understanding about how to remain pure, they should consult the 40-something single women - those who are still virgins, and those who are not. TV/movies are not a good place to receive guidance about life, because what they depict is not real life. The shows in my day - the 80's - were pathetic enough, but today's shows have only one resolution to EVERYTHING: sex. "How I Met Your Mother" is a funny show, but it is also a pit of a show, considering the dynamic among Charlie, Robin, and Ted. I haven't watched the Mindy Project and New Girl, because they're just stupid, shallow shows. The only other option is non-humor, such as Criminal Minds which has such awful story lines I wonder about the writers and their ability to continue writing about violent content - mostly against women and children - year after year after year. Go out for coffee with your girlfriends. Spend time with your parents, siblings, nieces/nephews. Life goes so fast.
Gina Dalfonzo
Fantastic analysis, Alicia!
JANET W
1. As christians we shouldn't be drawing our role models from secular sitcoms. 2. Secular sitcoms view the world through a no-God lens -- and it seems obvious to me that OF COURSE, these people will be desperately searching for something to fill their lives with, because they don't have GOD.
Amy Peterson
I think this is a pretty good analysis of the ways in which our tv heroines fail to offer helpful examples. I'm not sure what plot lines make you think Jess organizes her life around wardrobe and vintage stores, though- the most satisfaction she gets comes from being an inspiring teacher! (She's still my least favorite of those three, though.) But the best parallel to Tina Fey is Amy Poehler! She's my real favorite.
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