I've been watching an exorbitant amount of television. Mostly on DVD or Netflix. I rewatched all the seasons of The Sopranos. I usually watch at least one episode a day of 30 Rock or The Office. I also dabble in a little Sports Night. Despite my parents' warnings about how television would turn my brain to mush, all this TV watching is making me think. I think about what's funny and why. I try to decide how feminist my favorite shows are. I make excuses when they're not. (I'm really trying to stop that.) It also makes me think about what kind of person I am, in particular, what kind of woman I am. It makes me think about what kind of woman I want to be. I've decided I am a Lemon, hoping to someday be a Whitaker. Allow me to break this down.
Liz Lemon:
Head writer of The Girlie Show (or, as it is eventually known, TGS with Tracy Jordan.) In her mid-to-late thirties and isn't really sure what she has to show for it. Described by her boss as "New York third-wave feminist, college-educated, single-and-pretending-to-be-happy-about-it, overscheduled, undersexed, you buy any magazine that says 'healthy body image' on the cover and every two years you take up knitting for...a week." I have so much in common with this woman. Where do I begin?
1. Tries (and sometimes fails) to present herself as an assertive, confident woman. Evidence: Season 1, Episode 14 "The C Word", in which one of Lemon's writers calls her a cunt. She decides it's more important for her employees to like than to bust their asses for slacking off. She, inevitably, becomes a human doormat. After becoming more and more fed up with their treatment, she reaches a breaking point while watching a "Designing Women" marathon. Running on no sleep and the kind of rage only Delta Burke can tap into, Lemon flips out on her writers, screaming "You will never alter drapes in Atlanta again, because you do not cross a Sugarbaker woman!" She's a wreck of a human being, but the point is made. Women in positions of authority constantly have to watch their step. Too nice, you're played for a fool. Too hard, you're a cunt. Lemon is constantly trying to navigate this sucky terrain.
2. Socially awkward/romantically challenged. Evidence: She's been sexually rejected by two different men who later went on to clown college. She wasn't sexually active until the age of 25, though she has a lifetime of experience dating closeted gay guys. She dated a man who called himself "The Beeper King", who later ended up on Dateline because he was a sexual predator. And finally, in "The Head and the Hair" (Season 1, Episode 11), she accidentally dates her cousin.
3. Her life is a mess. Evidence: every episode of every season ever.
4. She loves food! Evidence:
"I love producing Sports Night. I live from eleven to midnight and the rush is so huge, I don't come down 'till three o'clock in the morning."
Season 1, Episode 14 "Rebecca"
"I have a job that involves me, and stimulates me, and rewards me, and takes up a lot of my time, and I'm not willing to do my job just a little bit. I want to do all of it. It's a part of me and I'm different without it."
3. She's quirky in a very lovable way. Evidence:
Season 1, Episode 23 "What Kind of Day Has it Been?"
Jeremy: What ever happened to the ninth inning rally?
Dana: Yeah, and why don't we use semicolons anymore?
4. She can admit when she is wrong, something I always find incredibly admirable. Evidence:
Season 2, Episode 11 "The Cut Man Cometh"
"It was never my intention to make you feel like there was something wrong with you that needed to be fixed. It was regrettable that I did that."
Now, this isn't to say that Dana doesn't have her faults. She gossips too much, is scatterbrained, and can be a little insensitive. In "Mary Pat Shelby", she almost sells out a friend who has been sexually assaulted in order to boost ratings. (Thankfully, she sees the error of her ways before it is too late.) But Dana is a great character. She's talented and dedicated. She's kind of everything I want to be in life. I don't want to be rid of all my flaws and eccentricities. But I wish I knew how to reconcile them with my desire to be taken more seriously. I wish I could still be me, but a better me. I think I have just what it takes to watch enough television to figure out how to do that.
Season 1, Episode 14 "Rebecca"
"I have a job that involves me, and stimulates me, and rewards me, and takes up a lot of my time, and I'm not willing to do my job just a little bit. I want to do all of it. It's a part of me and I'm different without it."
3. She's quirky in a very lovable way. Evidence:
Season 1, Episode 23 "What Kind of Day Has it Been?"
Jeremy: What ever happened to the ninth inning rally?
Dana: Yeah, and why don't we use semicolons anymore?
4. She can admit when she is wrong, something I always find incredibly admirable. Evidence:
Season 2, Episode 11 "The Cut Man Cometh"
"It was never my intention to make you feel like there was something wrong with you that needed to be fixed. It was regrettable that I did that."
Now, this isn't to say that Dana doesn't have her faults. She gossips too much, is scatterbrained, and can be a little insensitive. In "Mary Pat Shelby", she almost sells out a friend who has been sexually assaulted in order to boost ratings. (Thankfully, she sees the error of her ways before it is too late.) But Dana is a great character. She's talented and dedicated. She's kind of everything I want to be in life. I don't want to be rid of all my flaws and eccentricities. But I wish I knew how to reconcile them with my desire to be taken more seriously. I wish I could still be me, but a better me. I think I have just what it takes to watch enough television to figure out how to do that.
