You Are Among Friends

I sobbed for just a second during tonight's episode of Parks and Recreation. The series has really raised the bar for itself this season, and watching that has made me realize how much I admire the work Amy Poehler does. In her interview in this month's Bust magazine (by Rachel Dratch!), she mentions meeting with Greg Daniels and Michael Schur and discussing how to create an ambitious, optimistic lead female character. Over the past season, as Amy has worked at shaping Leslie Knope, the whole rest of the show has revolved around her. There were a couple episodes riddled with growing pains, but now the masthead of the whole thing is this ambitious, optimistic female character.

I've spent most of the last ten or so years learning to disregard the fact that most of the female characters on popular TV shows are written through distorted lenses, that they are inexplicably married to oafish, bumbling men, that they are often shown as either quiet and mysterious or harping and shrill. That there aren't girls on television who really remind me of myself or the women I admire, beautiful because they're wise and funny and unique. As a girl, I learned to acclimate myself to that demented reality, even though I knew it was no real mirror to my own.

And then when a woman does try to stand out above the sitcom crowd, we--the female audience--are often so quick to shred them with scrutiny, a cruel learned behavior. If I believe that I am not good enough until I am perfect, until I impossibly own it all, then I will hate other women for their successes.

Meanwhile, men went to work, saved lives, had affairs, criticized dinner, ogled the girls, got the big laughs.

The recent rise of these hilarious, smart women in pop culture and Must-See TV lately really makes me feel better. There was a joke on Parks & Recreation earlier in the season about how it was a dealbreaker that a potential date of Leslie's didn't know who Madeline Albright was. The friendship between Leslie and Ann (Rashida Jones!) is realistic and loyal; they care about each other and encourage each other, with no petty overtones played for laughs. This kind of writing is revolutionary to me. It makes me cry. Well, okay. First, it makes me laugh hard. And then, it makes me cry just a little.

Bravo, Amy! Call me. I am totally down for a walk-on.*

*An intriguing yet torturously brief walk-on that leads to a cult following of unusually passionate fervor, the lengths and breadths of which have never before been seen by such a passing interlude, which clearly leads to a role as a charming series regular and also possibly co-writer? Just thinking thoughts. Anyway, I'm in. And Smart Girls at the Party? Don't even get me started.