The Good Wife and pregnancy

Regular readers know that I’m a bit… driven…. When I get into something, I get into it. Well, for the last god knows how long, I’ve been into “The Good Wife.” I can’t fucking stop watching.

I don’t love it so much – it’s nothing like “The Americans,” which I enjoyed more than any TV show other than “The Wire” or “The Sopranos.” “The Good Wife” is more like a guilty pleasure, along the lines of “Scandal.” It’s plot-driven. It never makes me think about anything.*

But I can’t look away.

  • It’s not, strictly speaking, true that it never makes me think about anything. Here are a few things it’s made me think about:
  • Why the hell did they put Julianna Margulies in that ridiculous wig?
  • Does anyone perceive sexual chemistry between even one of the couples that are supposed to have sexual chemistry?
  • Kalinda’s easy on the eyes, sure, but why does she walk as if she has diaper rash? And what is it that keeps her from being even half as sexy as she might be?
  • Why do NYC cabs still have the horrific backseat TVs so mercilessly – and accurately – lampooned in this scene?

5goodwife14screencap1

And, more than anything, why is it that, best I can tell, I’m the only viewer/critic who’s even noticed the writer’s seeming obsession with pregnancy as an annoyance in the professional world, and a ploy used by women? I googled “The Good Wife and pregnancy” and came up with literally no one who seemed perturbed by the show’s cartoonish depiction of pregnancy. Perhaps because everything about the show is cartoonish. And the truth is, I wasn’t that perturbed when it was just one pregnancy, in one character. But then there were two….

First, Patti Nyholm (Martha Plimpton), whose pregnancy – and whose child – seem to exist in her life – and the show – primarily as excuses she uses for unavailability, interruptions, or her general pain-in-the-ass-ness.

tumblr_lkwda9bl621qb9tp3o1_1280

And then, Marilyn (Melissa George), Peter Florrick’s prissy ethics watchdog, has a pregnancy that is both inconvenient (she’s constantly vomiting, and at all times of the day – more than any woman with morning sickness I’ve ever seen) and suspicious.

the-good-wife-season-5-ep-6-ladies-room-a

I’ve witnessed morning sickness, and the inconveniences that pregnancy and children can present, both in life and in work. But the show’s depiction of them is ridiculous, even offensive.

One comment

  1. Well, it seems that our society is still driven by men for men, and women doing women things are obviously not fitting in properly.
    I must say though that I’ve had morning sickness at all times of day for a few of my children, partly because I had to take some hormones to aid the pregnancies. And a friend of mine was sick for months on end. I mean, vomiting several times a day, which is highly inconvenient as a teacher. No, you don’t want to know how she dealt with it.
    The mere fact that some men realize that a series being written this way is highly gender biased is a step forward I want to say. Which in a way goes to show that we have a long way to go as a society still!

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.