Dress like a bimbo sting like a lawyer
(Yes I do wonder now why I wrote this pap)
The show Ally McBeal is hugely popular and televised in many countries. It deserves scrutiny because, although it may be constructed as entertainment, the show has important messages and ideas with social relevance to modern sexual politics. It has been regularly called a "post-feminist" program because of the fact that McBeal comes across as the new bimbo, wearing clothes designed to attract men and yet with a professional career. There are a host of other themes that seem to ignore the political agendas of feminism and its ideal woman.
But there is far more to the character and her cultural meaning than this. Several of the episodes reveal complex indications of the modern mode of sexual interaction between men and women. Furthermore, in some ways McBeal is actually an archetypal feminist educated woman, operating in the real world of a career based lifestyle. The creators of the show, while having generated a mythical woman and plot developments, have no doubt both tried to tackle real issues and personalities, but also been influenced by contemporary aspirations and beliefs about sexual behaviour. These pervade the characters and themes of the show.
A few examples of these features deserve analysis. For example, McBeal is portrayed on the one hand as ditsy as well as man-hungry. Yet at the same time she is extremely critical of men. She, as well as the scriptwriters, frequently sees men as pathetic and deeply flawed beneath their immaculate exterior. Though the men she dates wear suits, at dinner time in a restaurant her male companion dribbles his food and so he is condemned as incompetent, clumsy and not a good catch.
What we see in this show is a female hero, a product of the feminist era, volatile, critical, neurotic, precocious, ambitious in every way... and powerful.
The advertising around the show is also intriguing. As the program seems largely pitched to women, advertising in the intervals plays on the notion of the modern confident woman treating men as sex objects. One Diet Cola ad shows women in an office nudging each other and oggling when a solidly built window cleaner appears outside the building stripped to the waist. These women are not only interested in men but appear to be "objectifying" the male.
One of the points that the show reveals is that women's ordinary interaction with men in general do not indicate fear of men. Women do not relate to men commonly in a relationship of intimidation and subjugation. In fact women in the show seem to spend a lot of time suing every man that looks at her for sexual harassment.
The new woman
Ally represents a female ideal and also a feminist ideal. Many women would envy her position. She is educated. Her job is not routine. She earns bucketloads of money and she dates a series of attractive professional men. Ally is partly also a feminist ideal. This is simply because she has achieved a professional career in what was formerly a bastion of male employment. Yet ironically the reality of legal life is vastly different from that portrayed in the series. According to the account of female lawyers the hours of work are extremely long, often as much as 60 hours a week. Several female lawyers in their 30's wonder aloud how they could possibly have babies when they now have no private life and they live for the law firm. The lawyer is at the beck and call of clients and legal partners. Many report that their personal relationships suffer as a consequence of their obsession with work. Poorly functioning marriages and office affairs are rife.
The above observations are not designed to discourage women from entering the professional realm. However there is a need for a realistic perspective to such career lifestyles. Ally McBeal mainly glamorises it.
Some additional points
When I decided to do the research on this subject I felt that I had to take a look at another episode to see how the show is developing in its current season. I was actually shocked by what I saw. A few months ago we were witness to the controversy around the alleged anorexia of the lead actress Calista Flockhart. The pictures depicting her at a Hollywood opening suggested that she was sickeningly thin. Program executives went into spin mode to deny the obvious and Flockhart herself claimed that the media was obsessing about her diet. However seeing this episode gave some indication that her "illness" has had a profound effect on the show. Flockhart looks decidedly emaciated compared to what could be described in the first series as merely waiffishness.
In this episode she looked not only physically undernourished but presented a depressing, morose personality underneath the façade of bubbly neurosis that she is supposed to portray. The actor was looking bleak and skeletal even in her facial features, while the other female actors appeared upbeat, strong and virile. This may even explain why a new actress has entered the show, the Australian who presents a strong personality. Essentially the main focus of the show, Ally has started to fade away, no doubt creating great concern for the producers who have banked on her central role.
