Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman And The State Of Period Dramas
Perhaps the show felt it could get away with tackling some of these issues due to its portrayal of femininity; Michaela was established as a Boston native and part of a well-off eastern family. Seymour herself, a British national, was a former Bond girl who took her stage moniker from a former queen of England and posed for Playboy–but not in the nude.
Despite taking on touchy subjects, the show made them easier to digest for its viewers by wrapping it in privilege and traditional womanhood. Any incidents that occurred were, more often than not, far easier for Michaela to recover from than for, say, an African-American or Native-American character. With a white woman helming the show, Dr. Quinn was able to do a good thing by exploring these topics, but the effects never had to carry over and continue to have an affect on the main character. This allowed the show to jump from issue to issue on a weekly basis. The progressive portrayal of women on the show is a double-edged sword in that regard, but one probably considered a necessary condition by network executives.
Whether we realize it or not, period television concerning American history tends to situate itself in a male Manifest Destiny mindset. From acts of gratuitous violence on shows like Boardwalk Empire and Deadwood, to the technically period-accurate acts of racism and sexism on Mad Men, American takes on period television present an unapologetic view of America’s upbringing. Instead of ever trying to challenge the actions (justifiably so) of our forefathers, current period dramas glorify them.
Racism, sexism, and violence on Dr. Quinn, while not always to the level of “The First Circle,” occurs often, but is almost never unquestioned. On the more critically acclaimed western Deadwood, Al Swearengen’s problematic behavior is easier to overlook or even enjoy because it’s part of by a Shakespearean-esque local dialect and contextualized as necessary to building the American West.
And unlike on Dr. Quinn, where incidents of casual racism are almost always rebuked or at least shown in a poor light, exchanges between Mad Men’s Don Draper and Roger Sterling–”Have we hired any Jews?”/”Not on my watch!”–are meant to elicit an awkward laughter from the audience, until they realize that everyone else is laughing, too, so it’s okay. It’s all entertaining because this is, supposedly, the way things were and not the way things are. Besides, the theory goes, this is how the greatest country in the world was forged.
While ABC’s period drama Pan Am failed after one season, CBS is trying again with Vegas. Meanwhile, the most successful of recent period dramas have all appeared on cable networks, like Mad Men, Boardwalk Empire, and Deadwood along with Magic City on Starz. AMC’s Hell on Wheels, the newest period Western (which I have yet to watch), was just renewed for a third season and comes on the heels of the History Channel’s successful Hatfields & McCoys miniseries. Any social issue that goes deeper than an effect on white womanhood tends to be off limits on these shows. The History Channel’s new drama/documentary hybrid, The Men Who Built America, seems to have even decided that those men were all white. Black folk haven’t had a positive television period moment since Roots, nevermind Latinos, Asians, or Native Americans.
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