When I read stories about dads-to-be distracted by Monday Night Football in delivery rooms, I thank God for a show like Ally McBeal. I know, she wears Melrose micro-minis, she doesn't like fat men, she'd sometimes like to be homeless except that "then I wouldn't get to wear my outfits." But what's football — Plato? This isn't supposed to be Ms. Magazine, it's just vicarious thrills for those of us who don't get our kicks from football.
Joyce Millman in Salon finds David Kelley's show to be "a male wish-list kind of feminism where women are independent and strong — within reason, of course — and looking foxy counts for 75 percent of the total grade." Maybe your average female graduate of Harvard Law School isn't as adorable as Calista Flockhart's Ally. But this is TV, where everyone gets to be good-looking — not just lawyers, but doctors and cops and even the reporters on CNN.
Girls on Film's Karina finds Ally's "startled looks and stammering, drifting sentences" unbearable, and assumes she must win cases with "those big eyes and girlish pout." But this show never claimed to be about the law, it's about — according to Fox — "what goes on inside a woman's head." And let me tell you, what goes on inside a woman's head is rarely as organized or polished as a closing argument. I'd venture the same is true for a man's head.
Certainly, this show does not withstand a feminist analysis, but it's trying really hard! Ally left her first job because of sexual harassment. The first case she wins is defending a middle-aged female anchor who is fired because not enough male viewers wanted to sleep with her. And if you watched the show last week, you'll remember that Ally's antics and personal crises do not go unnoticed — she was brought before the State Bar Review for her lack of polish. It's too bad this episode was titled "One Hundred Tears Away" — referring, of course, to how far Ally is from happiness, despite being a successful lawyer babe, because she can't have her man.
Feed's Amy Sohn finds Ally to be a shallow nitwit, mentally stuck somewhere in high school: "If Murphy Brown was our Susan Faludi, then Ally's the Katie Roiphe of prime time." (I assume she's not a Roiphe fan!) To place Ally in the ranks of the post-feminists (or the do-me feminists, the me-me feminists, or wherever you place Roiphe in the spectrum) is an interesting commentary on the show. I find Katie Roiphe's writing to be unprofessional, unresearched, and self-absorbed, but she has certainly inspired meaningful debate about the role of feminism today. I can only assume (from the sheer number of rants out there) that Ally McBeal will do the same for Must She TV.
Emma Taylor is the editor of Tripod's Women's Zone. Her e-mail is [email protected].
