Quote: (02-08-2016 02:17 AM)John Quincy Wrote:
One thing that annoys me is the desire among producers of such shows to make the women look more masculine and bad-ass. The primary way they do this is by making the female characters use a ton of bad language. I lost track of the number of times the women used fuck in the third episode. I found this to be the case in Ballers as well.
It just doesn't work. And it reinforces what is common knowledge here on RVF - that Western women don't have an ounce of feminine behavior left in them. Billions would work just fine without fuck and twat being used every 3 minutes.
I agree. However, at the same time, Axelrod's wife, Lara, might use bad language to make her seem tough, but her toughness is in full support of her husband. She absolutely has his back 110% (at least in the episodes so far). While expecting women to be as capable as she is may be a considerable stretch, it's nice to see a woman on TV who supports her husband.
The show Power, for example, has a wife character who meddles, manipulates and lies, but not in support of her husband.
The wife character in Power is poorly acted and is made to seem more credible than she actually is by surrounding her by week and idiotic male characters, but she brings nothing to the screen and her character is not credible because we never actually see her doing anything that would suggest intelligence.
Lara, from Billions, however, is shown creating and clearly executing plans of action that do suggest she has actual intelligence, as does the wife of Chuck Rhoades.
I don't mind strong female characters as long as they aren't given super human strength and the ability to crush the balls of every man they encounter. In Billions, the strong female characters always have a strong man they report to. Even though Lara and Chuch Rhoades sexual relationship suggests that he prefers to be subservient, the most recent episode (number 3) showed us that it's nothing more than a means of distraction from reality.
Verdict: I don't view this show as a victory for male/female depictions on TV, but it's a cut above 99% of other shows out there.