Kick-Ass - Women Shows

[Cat]

If you go all the way back to the 50's, you see that women were mostly housewives, if they got a show of their own to begin with. I think Annie Oakley was the exception to the rule. The Sixties were not much different, but in the 70's we at least started seeing some shows like Police Woman, Wonder Woman and a ground breaking show like Alice - where a woman was divorced and raising a kid on her own.

Come the 80's though, we got Cagney & Lacy, women in war like on China Beach, Murder, She Wrote and a plethora of Sit-Coms showing not just young women (Golden Girls) Kate & Allie, Roseanne, in work mode, raising families.

The 90's started showing women in much more powerful positions but it wasn't until the new millennium that we got Dark Angel! She was synthetically enhanced but she still beat the crap outta men, and that was something very new!

What are your favorite POWERFUL women, and why?

[Juli]

I'll go with
Army Wives - Just love those women and the story lines
The Closer - Because of the cool way she plays it
Saving Grace - though the smoking gets to me, she's amazing
Damages - Out for blood
Dirt - shouldn't have been canceled
Ghost Whisperer (female lead - I am an addict)
Lipstick Jungle (it's the closest we will get to Sex and the City)
Sex and the City - Women doing there thing
Weeds - she did what she had to do
Dead Like Me - combo cast - but the lead, Ellen Muth was the "cat's meow" of that show - I still watch it in reruns

Then you have female directors, writers - creators, you may not watch her, but Agnes Nixon sure is a heavy weight

Who's producing these days? Seems to me that Ellen is a strong fit for production values and you didn't say night or day, which also makes me think of Ida Lupino who directed a lot of early t.v.

Good topic, since so many women are bitching about not much being out there - how interesting that so many are coming back to television. Interesting, huh? Who was I watching the other night as a guest shot? forget at the moment.

This should be a lively chat fest.

[Opinionated Gal]

It was exactly the situation you mentioned that made Annie Oakley my first role model. What else was there? Della Street? Lucille Ball? Child, please ...

[Cat]

I think you're absolutely right! While Della might have been a 50's working woman, she always took a back seat to Perry and wasn't much of a role model. I think she was portrayed as a woman in love with a man she couldn't have, but stayed with him anyway. Lois Lane on Superman came out better than Della. As for Lucy, I cringe to think that women could have emulated either her or Ethel!

Nope, Annie was the epitome of power women, for many years to come.

[Juli]

I don't think I had a tv role model.

[Cat]

Yeah, that's the problem we were just bitchin' about. There really was nobody to look up to and say, yeah, I would like to take up a career in XYZ because she looks so happy and powerful in the position!!!

[Juli]

Maybe it's because I wouldn't look up to anyone and happy being me - almost, I wish I had Streisand's voice. Why that woman is so afraid to perform (I know they all get prestage jittters) but really, the woman can sing. Along with such talent comes a different living quality - now that I wouldn't mind, especially since Barbra, Shirley MacLaine and I share the same birthday -- why oh why didn't God bestow on me solid talent that I could have made a living at? OKay, so I guess maybe that's what I look up to talented women. Period.

[the Captain]

You've forgotten 1964-- Honey West (private investigator)--starring Anne Francis--she had an Ocelot as a pet!

[Juli]

I remember that show, but I would still say I don't have a role model. Maybe at one point I was like MTM when I worked for KNXT now known as KCBS in Los Angeles.

[the Captain]

Yes--at one time the affiliate in San Francisco owned the KCBS call letters , didn't they? I guess they thought their flagship O&O on the West Coast should bear a more definite mark of the network! I wonder what Bill Paley woulda thought?

[Juli]

Not to my knowledge they didn't. I don't know how they could have because it wasn't an O&O station. Been so long since I lived in the Bay Area, I can't remember. We didn't have a television part of that time, either.

[Margarita McCall]

The nineties had a ton of shows with strong women. My favorite was Xena, but there was also Sarah Michelle Gellar in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Aeryn Sun of Farscape, Peta Wilson of La Femme Nikita, and even Pam Anderson in the campy, but good, V.I.P.. Some more down-to-earth heroines could be found in the Australian series McLeod's Daughters.

(note: there was a show called Julia, that was about a single African American mother, that predates Alice. It's also notable because it was the first non-stereotypical role for an African American woman.)

[Juli]

And I almost forgot - Holly Hunter, Saving Grace. What a crazy role that is. And of course, Glenn Close in Damages and too bad they canceled Dirt, now that was a gritty role.