REGRESSIVE

Fall TV Is a Step Back for Women

Despite more female producers, directors, actors.

This year's fall television lineup might feature more female producers, directors, and stars than ever before, but watching the shows, you'd have a hard time believing there had ever been a feminist movement, writes The Washington Post's Hank Stuever. “It's all bunnies, baby dolls, and broads,” writes Stuever. NBC's The Playboy Club and ABC's Pan Am revel in nostalgia for the patriarchal era rather than critiquing it, while NBC's sitcom Whitney, with Whitney Cummings, breaks down social norms only to rebuild them more rigidly in the last minutes of an episode. Cummings's other show, 2 Broke Girls, features two women who could be the granddaughters of the bunnies and stewardesses. But, says Stuever, “I doubt the older generation would be all that impressed with what they call progress.”