Photograph: Chuck Hodes/AP
With the end of Mad Men this summer, the melancholy and self-destruction that accompanied fictional male pro-/ antagonists like Don Draper, Walter White and any other main character mentioned in Brett Martin’s Difficult Men (a great read, thank you kindly) died as well, effectively making room for strong leading women who refuse to play second fiddle to another dude in crisis. Empire’s Cookie Lyon (Taraji P Henson), Scandal’s Olivia Pope, and Brooklyn Nine-Nine’s Rosa Diaz, Amy Santiago and Gina Linetti have risen up to offer us a reprieve from the winter of our (male-led) discontent. Now, in the words of Cookie herself, these women are taking what’s theirs. And through that, they’re offering us a pop culture palette cleanser – even if Empire might have looked a lot different if Henson had gone with her initial instinct.
“I was like, this is stupid,” she told W, recalling her first impression of the series. “But then I started to think, Cookie is going to piss so many people off! She hits her son with a broom; she talks back. Clearly, this was a challenge.”
Therein lies the biggest difference between the Sad Men of TV past and the defining women of TV present. Cookie slaps back. Cookie doesn’t internalize. Cookie will not apologize for surviving by any means necessary – and, unlike with Don Draper, we don’t get any shots of Cookie curled up on the couch, retreating from her at-times questionable decision-making. She doesn’t trip over her words – she barges into meetings and insists on being treated like a partner. Empire is her company, too, so she’s going to fight for it. This is why she doesn’t need to morph into a drug lord to become the person she wants to be – she just is. Henson herself describes Cookie as “the American Dream”. And the result of seeing characters like Cookie is huge: the season two premiere of Empire swelled to 22.5 million viewers – compared with Mad Men’s season finale, which tapped out at 3.3 million.
Don’t get me wrong: Mad Men was brilliant, and the narrative trajectory of characters like Joan Harris, Peggy Olson and even Sally Draper evoked more emotion than the last image we saw of Don himself, meditating on a hill in Cali. But for so long we’ve been focused on the struggle of so-called “complicated” men who were simply the victims of their own circumstances. After all, Don Draper’s legacy was one of terrible choices – and Walter White didn’t have to sell meth. (Or more specifically, he didn’t have to sell it for so long.) Tony Soprano was involved in the mob (which takes some work), and Boardwalk Empire’s Nucky Thompson willingly took bribes from criminals for years. Sure, they were all interesting and compelling characters, but their hardships eclipsed and manipulated the stories of everybody else. In fact, Skyler White was villainized by fans because she wanted Walter White – her abusive husband – to merely stop being a drug lord.
But the landscape has finally begun to shift. While Empire is officially the story of Lucious Lyon, his sons, and his record label, it’s his estranged wife, Cookie, who’s stolen the show by asserting her power and establishing herself as the hero we need and deserve. Similarly powerful is Olivia Pope, whose mantra of “It’s handled” reaffirms the approach female leads have taken to their stories, with each character observing a situation and fighting to reclaim it as her own. Sure, Cookie’s approach to parenting is controversial and Olivia’s faced her own share of grief (due largely to the relationship between herself and the president), but their decisions have been their own. And, most importantly, they’ve faced the consequences of their bad decisions head-on, acknowledging accountability when the moments are right. (Which is more than we can say for the majority of TV’s sorrowful gentlemen, who don’t accept accountability at all.)
Of course, there’s a gap between the most recent batch of infamous male characters and the women ruling TV now. Aside from Homeland’s Carrie Mathison – whose life is in danger constantly, who consistently puts herself in harm’s way, and is arguably the keeper of all secrets, ever – few match the likes of Walter White’s sense of self-destruction (or transition from mild-mannered schoolteacher to kingpin of the meth world). But that isn’t a bad thing: as proven by the likes of Orange Is the New Black, we’re at no loss for intensity, or for storylines so stressful that it’s physically hard to watch the program.
And this trend – this recognition and increased presence of smart, assertive, independent and no-nonsense female characters – hasn’t been restricted to dramas. The Mindy Project’s Dr Mindy Lahiri is a woman who openly and enthusiastically takes the reins of her own life, acknowledging flaws and mistakes (like all humans do), but also refuses to apologize for being a growing, evolving and strong person. Veep’s Amy Brookheimer is one of the most sought-after women in Washington. Brooklyn Nine-Nine’s Rosa Diaz offers constant reality checks to the men and women around her, Amy Santiago’s professional clout rivals that of the series’ lead (and her eventual love interest), and Gina Linetti at no point conforms to anybody’s expectations but her own.
What makes this newest batch of characters refreshing is how they’ve been given the necessary space to have their stories told and celebrated. Despite the success of Grey’s Anatomy upon its premiere in 2005, it has taken the success of Scandal and most recently, How To Get Away With Murder to see showrunner Shonda Rhimes cited as the future of television. The ratings of Scandal’s season premiere made it Thursday’s biggest scripted success – which came days after Viola Davis made history with her Emmy win for her turn in How To Get Away With Murder. On top of that, the women of Shondaland are on the cover of EW, with Ellen Pompeo, Kerry Washington and Davis using the opportunity to share the experiences they have working for a woman who trusts women. Add to this the success of Transparent creator and showrunner Jill Soloway (who recently won an Emmy for the series) and the fever around Jenji Kohan’s Orange Is the New Black, and it’s proven: if you give female writers/directors/producers/actors enough space to move, they’ll do remarkable things for both women in television, and television in general.
