Maisel is not a perfect show. I have frustrations regarding its casting. I think much of the criticism it receives is justified and thoughtful. I agree with many of the points made here. But I find your excoriation of Midge herself, and the ideas you claims she represents, bizarre.
What exactly is "girlboss feminism" to you? I know you think you explain it, and I don't entirely disagree with you, I guess -- I'm also no fan of corporatized pop feminism. But this show tells a story about a woman who is, from the first episode, dealing with systemic oppression that ripples throughout the show. Yes, I know she is rich. It is still systemic – and I don’t think I need to go on a tear, on this website, about how wealth has never ultimately protected Jews from antisemitism. The minute Joel leaves, she loses all control over her life – control she lacks, as women did in that era (and still do), because it made them easier to exploit. The show is a comedy, it’s not depicting this with a side of Clara Leimlich quotes, but this theme is indisputably present. In fact, one of the most central conflicts of the show is Midge vs. money: She does not control her money, and has very few ways of making any significant amount of it on her own, because she is a woman. Rose ends up having to face this too. Sure, they have nice shoes. They also have no way to keep their husbands -- as Rose herself points out, I think, in the end of season 3 -- from upending literally everything about their lives because of selfish whims, because they are an exploited class. This is to say nothing of the fact that the show literally constantly portrays Midge dealing with sexual harassment, underpayment, and blacklisting in the comedy circuit -- and moreover, usually drawing strength from/appealing to other women. All of these are systemic issues we’re discouraged from openly depicting, to this day. This is still a big deal: one of the functions of patriarchy is to keep women’s oppression private, and not discussed on, say, TV shows. And for goodness’ sakes, the show does this while making its central relationship the bond between Midge and Susie, a poor butch lesbian (though yes, I wish like hell they hadn't shied away from that until this point). Exactly how often do we see that? A show that tackles the themes I just laid out, that roots itself in a female relationship between two Jewish women? Susie is a SHOCKINGLY rare sort of character, and her struggle – especially her poverty – is literally always present. She is shaped in substantive ways by being butch, working class, and female. And she’s one of the most major characters.
What about this is "girlboss"? Where is the hyper-individualistic, capitalistic, fuck-you-got-mine Lean In spirit in that? Is "girlboss" just the label we use now, for shows about women who try to find literally any kind of professional success, express pride in their achievements, and sometimes fuck up? Because yeah, she fucks up with Shy. The apology isn't amazing. Sometimes fiction is about troubling characters! You're theoretically okay with that, hence your Breaking Bad/Sopranos comparison, but quite frankly, as a fan of all these shows, I think you're cutting the ones about men an immense amount of slack. They "know" they're bad, but they also relish how fucking cool it is to watch the big bad dangerous men do their thing. Maisel never even does that -- the worst thing Midge does, the Shy thing, is really fucking bad...and it torpedoes her career, and she has to eat shit about it later. The show never extensively glories in it the way Sopranos/BB love to portray Tony/Walter being total badasses. Yeah, it's not an amazing apology, and yeah, she gets to indulge in some self-pity blindness early on. But that does not compare to the kind of Emmy-winning monstrousness male characters get to pull for multiple seasons, which networks/merchandising/etc play up as Ultra Cool for $$$, and which is tied to just as many, and almost always more, brutal real-world realities. Why is that okay, when we’re allegedly discussing the way media can impact real-world oppression? Why can a female character not be fucked-up and still the main character, whom the show is on the side of? Why do we seem to trust men to separate fiction from reality, but not women? Why does women-centric media that doesn’t add in constant disclaimers about how they know other people have it worse and the character is behaving in a way no one ever should, earn our ire so readily? Are people bringing this same energy to Succession, which sympathizes with literal oligarchs as often as it satirizes them? How about The Plot Against America – were people bringing up Phillip Roth’s disgusting misogyny all the time when it was on the air? Are we decrying Don Draper as “boyboss” pabulum, because he treats lots of people like shit and is sad about growing up in poverty, without first making it clear that it couldn’t have been THAT bad, because at least he was a white dude?
Zoom out for a minute. How many shows are there about Jewish women? Two Jewish women, one of whom is poor and gender non conforming? Two Jewish women living in an unapologetically Jewish world? One created by a Jewish woman? I know the world rewards women for getting over our ardently feminist phases asap so we can move onto Being So Over It, but take a moment to look around. Are things really so fucking amazing and improved for women today, as opposed to the grievous world of early 2010s feminism you invoke, that this show isn't groundbreaking? Can you direct me to the plenty of other shows about Jewish women living Jewish lives I can watch? It's really not worth playing coy anymore, so I won't: I think most criticism of pop/girlboss/whatever feminism going around is shallow, reactionary intellectualization of plain old misogyny. I think “actually, feminism is bourgeois” is a very old bit of backlash that never actually accomplishes much – I say that as one of those female Jews of color people always claim to want to be speaking for when they do this. It’s not about centering my experiences of shitty health care and intergenerational trauma: It’s about getting women to shut up. I think suddenly finding stories about women vaguely cringe, and manufacturing that into criticism of bold, flawed female characters as being somehow worse than vicious male characters who are actively glamorized by real-world men (who never receive this sort of scrutiny) because they don’t caretake literally everybody on the planet before they tell their own story, is bullshit. I think Joanna Russ wrote an entire book about in “How To Suppress Women’s Writing.” You invoke the specter of Daenerys' hideous fans -- a character who gets dissolved into Crazy Bitch Who Needs To Be Put Down By A Man by male showrunners, in episodes that aired just a few years ago. Does the presence of some girls in Khaleesi shirts, the fact that Maisel exists at all, and “Boss Bitch” mugs in the hands of women who are still, I promise you, dealing with abuse, shitty health care, harassment, pay gaps, and everything else, really mean that a show about Jewish women, CREATED by a Jewish woman (which is, as a Jewish woman in a creative field, I can tell you, STILL VANISHINGLY RARE), suddenly ho-hum? Dislike the show. Find Midge annoying. Develop criticism about things like the portrayal of Joel’s family. Bring attention to work made by and about other marginalized people. But don’t start thinking the world is rosier than it is for the sake of dunking on a show that is, in many respects, literally unparalleled.
Maisel is not a perfect show. I have frustrations regarding its casting. I think much of the criticism it receives is justified and thoughtful. I agree with many of the points made here. But I find your excoriation of Midge herself, and the ideas you claims she represents, bizarre.
What exactly is "girlboss feminism" to you? I know you think you explain it, and I don't entirely disagree with you, I guess -- I'm also no fan of corporatized pop feminism. But this show tells a story about a woman who is, from the first episode, dealing with systemic oppression that ripples throughout the show. Yes, I know she is rich. It is still systemic – and I don’t think I need to go on a tear, on this website, about how wealth has never ultimately protected Jews from antisemitism. The minute Joel leaves, she loses all control over her life – control she lacks, as women did in that era (and still do), because it made them easier to exploit. The show is a comedy, it’s not depicting this with a side of Clara Leimlich quotes, but this theme is indisputably present. In fact, one of the most central conflicts of the show is Midge vs. money: She does not control her money, and has very few ways of making any significant amount of it on her own, because she is a woman. Rose ends up having to face this too. Sure, they have nice shoes. They also have no way to keep their husbands -- as Rose herself points out, I think, in the end of season 3 -- from upending literally everything about their lives because of selfish whims, because they are an exploited class. This is to say nothing of the fact that the show literally constantly portrays Midge dealing with sexual harassment, underpayment, and blacklisting in the comedy circuit -- and moreover, usually drawing strength from/appealing to other women. All of these are systemic issues we’re discouraged from openly depicting, to this day. This is still a big deal: one of the functions of patriarchy is to keep women’s oppression private, and not discussed on, say, TV shows. And for goodness’ sakes, the show does this while making its central relationship the bond between Midge and Susie, a poor butch lesbian (though yes, I wish like hell they hadn't shied away from that until this point). Exactly how often do we see that? A show that tackles the themes I just laid out, that roots itself in a female relationship between two Jewish women? Susie is a SHOCKINGLY rare sort of character, and her struggle – especially her poverty – is literally always present. She is shaped in substantive ways by being butch, working class, and female. And she’s one of the most major characters.
What about this is "girlboss"? Where is the hyper-individualistic, capitalistic, fuck-you-got-mine Lean In spirit in that? Is "girlboss" just the label we use now, for shows about women who try to find literally any kind of professional success, express pride in their achievements, and sometimes fuck up? Because yeah, she fucks up with Shy. The apology isn't amazing. Sometimes fiction is about troubling characters! You're theoretically okay with that, hence your Breaking Bad/Sopranos comparison, but quite frankly, as a fan of all these shows, I think you're cutting the ones about men an immense amount of slack. They "know" they're bad, but they also relish how fucking cool it is to watch the big bad dangerous men do their thing. Maisel never even does that -- the worst thing Midge does, the Shy thing, is really fucking bad...and it torpedoes her career, and she has to eat shit about it later. The show never extensively glories in it the way Sopranos/BB love to portray Tony/Walter being total badasses. Yeah, it's not an amazing apology, and yeah, she gets to indulge in some self-pity blindness early on. But that does not compare to the kind of Emmy-winning monstrousness male characters get to pull for multiple seasons, which networks/merchandising/etc play up as Ultra Cool for $$$, and which is tied to just as many, and almost always more, brutal real-world realities. Why is that okay, when we’re allegedly discussing the way media can impact real-world oppression? Why can a female character not be fucked-up and still the main character, whom the show is on the side of? Why do we seem to trust men to separate fiction from reality, but not women? Why does women-centric media that doesn’t add in constant disclaimers about how they know other people have it worse and the character is behaving in a way no one ever should, earn our ire so readily? Are people bringing this same energy to Succession, which sympathizes with literal oligarchs as often as it satirizes them? How about The Plot Against America – were people bringing up Phillip Roth’s disgusting misogyny all the time when it was on the air? Are we decrying Don Draper as “boyboss” pabulum, because he treats lots of people like shit and is sad about growing up in poverty, without first making it clear that it couldn’t have been THAT bad, because at least he was a white dude?
Zoom out for a minute. How many shows are there about Jewish women? Two Jewish women, one of whom is poor and gender non conforming? Two Jewish women living in an unapologetically Jewish world? One created by a Jewish woman? I know the world rewards women for getting over our ardently feminist phases asap so we can move onto Being So Over It, but take a moment to look around. Are things really so fucking amazing and improved for women today, as opposed to the grievous world of early 2010s feminism you invoke, that this show isn't groundbreaking? Can you direct me to the plenty of other shows about Jewish women living Jewish lives I can watch? It's really not worth playing coy anymore, so I won't: I think most criticism of pop/girlboss/whatever feminism going around is shallow, reactionary intellectualization of plain old misogyny. I think “actually, feminism is bourgeois” is a very old bit of backlash that never actually accomplishes much – I say that as one of those female Jews of color people always claim to want to be speaking for when they do this. It’s not about centering my experiences of shitty health care and intergenerational trauma: It’s about getting women to shut up. I think suddenly finding stories about women vaguely cringe, and manufacturing that into criticism of bold, flawed female characters as being somehow worse than vicious male characters who are actively glamorized by real-world men (who never receive this sort of scrutiny) because they don’t caretake literally everybody on the planet before they tell their own story, is bullshit. I think Joanna Russ wrote an entire book about in “How To Suppress Women’s Writing.” You invoke the specter of Daenerys' hideous fans -- a character who gets dissolved into Crazy Bitch Who Needs To Be Put Down By A Man by male showrunners, in episodes that aired just a few years ago. Does the presence of some girls in Khaleesi shirts, the fact that Maisel exists at all, and “Boss Bitch” mugs in the hands of women who are still, I promise you, dealing with abuse, shitty health care, harassment, pay gaps, and everything else, really mean that a show about Jewish women, CREATED by a Jewish woman (which is, as a Jewish woman in a creative field, I can tell you, STILL VANISHINGLY RARE), suddenly ho-hum? Dislike the show. Find Midge annoying. Develop criticism about things like the portrayal of Joel’s family. Bring attention to work made by and about other marginalized people. But don’t start thinking the world is rosier than it is for the sake of dunking on a show that is, in many respects, literally unparalleled.