Category: TV Commentary

This year, it feels safe to say, has been a real humdinger.  I have taken to my bed and my Netflix on a fairly regular basis.  My husband can attest to that. Soft pants and quality entertainment FTW!  I am grateful the subscription service has come through for me, time and time again, and for so much less than cable at that.

• When I don’t understand the politics of dear friends or family or neighbors, there is “House of Cards” to help me feel less alone (but away with you, Kevin Spacey.  Robin Wright is going to take it home from here.).
• When the budget at my son’s public school got slashed again and again and again, there was “Stranger Things” to keep me company.
• When the anxiety and hardship of putting my Dad’s financial estate to rest were a bit much, I clicked on “The Crown” to remind myself that all families have struggles.
• When the reality that the majority of white women were comfortable voting for men accused of pedophilia (if they had an R after their name) hit home not once, but twice, well, “Dear White People” and “Master of None” helped me get more woke.
• When the tragedy of mass shootings became humdrum and National Parks came under fire, “Godless” helped reinforce why I really and truly don’t like guns and why I love and value and visit our national park lands.

The $6 billion investment Netflix made in original programming and the 1,000 hours of original content it provided was so appreciated and, well, it turns out a necessary tool for coping with a world that feels increasingly chaotic and scary and unrecognizable to me.  I needed escapism and entertainment to numb me.  Netflix is a lot cheaper than a therapist and less worrisome than drugs or alcohol.  It’s been a good alternative to the doom and gloom of social media and too many articles about the end of the world.

You can find a list of most of the original series from 2017 at Netflix HERE, and while I don’t agree with the rankings, it’s handy to have the offerings in one place for reference.  My favorites, in addition to the series listed above, include:

• “Mindhunter” – a show about the FBI’s first profiler of serial killers;
• “Orange Is the New Black” – women’s prison never looked so hip;
• “The Keepers” – if you like true crime, this is your go to.  It is a documentary about the murder of a nun in 1960s Baltimore;
• “Glow” – 1980s women wrestling.  Need I say more?
• “Ozark” – Justin Bateman caught looking less wholesome than he normally does.  So good.
• “Narcos” – a crime show about the rise and fall of Columbia’s notorious Pablo Escobar.
• “The Fall”  – sexy, creepy, captivating.

Full disclosure, I really didn’t like “The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” and was underwhelmed with “Bloodline” and while “13 Reasons Why” was watchable, I found it’s glorification of teen suicide highly irresponsible.    Pffft.  Mistakes happen.  And, more truth, there are lots of shows available that I simply haven’t gotten to.  Yet.  Oh!  And how could I forget the content Netflix runs that was produced by another outlet?  Do not miss “Halt and Catch Fire” or “Being Mary Jane” — seriously.

So, thank you, Netflix, for saving my sanity.  You are like a cup of hot cocoa in January and a cool breeze in August.  You made my life better this year, and in 2017, that counts for something.

Being a 47 year old American woman means that I grew up watching Wonder Woman, Lynda Carter style.  That gal flew around in her invisible airplane and lassoed up all the bad guys and villains in her path.  She was a bicentennial bitch of the highest order, badass and gorgeous, resplendent in her red, white, and blue.

When you are a five and six and seven and eight year old girl and turn on the teevee every week to watch shows with women kicking ass and taking names, well, it’s safe to assume where my feminist beliefs had their roots.

Charlie’s Angels and the Bionic Woman and Mary Tyler Moore and yes, Wonder Woman all represented to me that women were perfectly capable of keeping the world safe and good and informed and gorgeous, too.

As an adult now, and a mom, it isn’t lost on me that none of these gals had children.  They were not mothers.  They were too busy saving the world, carving out a career, feathering their hair, and fighting crime to change diapers or worry about what’s for dinner. Huh.  I never made that connection until just this moment, but I wonder if that’s what contributed to me not ever really being interested in child rearing or motherhood when I imagined myself as a grown up.

When I was a girl, 27 was always my ideal age.  The adult version of myself would be living in a high rise, something sleek that required an elevator, with sliding doors and a balcony.  I would wear my slacks tucked into knee high boots, even in the summer, because I would be cool.  Independent AF.

A man was never really on my radar.  The imaginary me was always alone, arriving home after a long and satisfying day at work. Sometimes I was a flight attendant, sometimes a magazine editor, sometimes an advertising executive.  A career was a necessity in my idealized adulthood, but that career was flexible and open to possibilities.

As I hit rewind in my memories and think back to those things that influenced me, shaped my sense of what it was to be a woman, I am struck by the accessibility of strong female role models in pop culture.  In the mid-1970s, the glass ceiling was getting close to showing some cracks, but it was still a solid double-paned barrier.  These teevee characters, strong and capable, were a whisper of what was to be for women.

I wonder if it was watching these shows, seeing women perform and excel, that led me to ask the priest at my Catholic school why girls could not be altar boys.  “Tradition,” he said, before changing the subject.  Even at such a young age, I knew his answer was weak.

It never occurred to me that a woman was not capable of running  a business or a country, let alone a fictional detective agency or a newsroom. Golda Meir and Margaret Thatcher were part of my consciousness, even at a young age.  Being strong and being a woman were not mutually exclusive.  Being a leader and having breasts and a vagina were not mutually exclusive.  Confidence and skill and a voice were  as feminine as halters and strappy sandals and lip gloss.

When I think about my childhood, I feel grateful for the era in which I was raised.  It’s easy to over-romanticize, of course, but as a white girl in the 1970s, I got to see powerful representations of what was possible for myself just by turning on the teevee.  And every week I got the message that I could be strong, independent, beautiful, smart, talented, respected, honorable, and essential.

Those are some important messages for a young girl.  Hell, those are some important messages for a middle aged mom.