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rfmcdonaldAt The New Republic, Lee Siegel examines the new ABC show Commander in Chief. Siegel's conclusion? That President MacKenzie Allen would be a foreign-policy catastrophe for the United States.
Siegel goes on to wonder whether the show's writers are intentionally going over the top, trying to portray a woman president who isn't stereotypically feminine. As Siegel might have gone on to add, this feeds into the whole question of whether female heads of state in real, non-TV drama, life are forced to act in hypermasculine manner. The examples of Indira Gandhi in India and Margaret Thatcher in Britain could be read that way, as demonstrating that power structures founded by men selects people on the basis of their ability to conform to certain gendered notions of power. Alternatively, it could be read as proof that regardless of the nature of the organization involved, women and men will tend to exercise power in similar ways. Quite possibly the true answer lies somewhere in between these two extremes.
In the first episode, she summons the Nigerian ambassador to a meeting. He thinks it's just the two of them but when he enters the room, he sees that the meeting is with the president and the entire Joint Chiefs of Staff. Surprise, Mr. Ambassador! Allen then informs him that she is sending a strike force into Nigeria to "extract" a woman about to be stoned for adultery. "No woman is going to be executed for adultery on my watch," she informs him, or something like that. Then she sends him on his way.
In the second episode, she responds to the murder of nine DEA agents by destroying much of some South American country's coca fields and thus its entire economy. Following that deft initiative, she appears on television to urge the overthrow of that country's dictator. Riots in said country ensue. Next, she humiliates the Russian prime minister in front of his aides at a meeting, then in front of the television cameras at a news conference when she challenges him to release "dissident journalists" (an anachronistic term, incidentally). We are talking about the Russian prime minister. Then she violates Lebanese airspace to destroy a terrorist training camp without being sure that the terrorists she's looking for are even there. You have to ask whether the character of Mackenzie Allen is acting tough to prove that she's not a feminine softie, or whether the show's creators are making her act tough to prove that they haven't created the stereotype of a feminine softie.
Siegel goes on to wonder whether the show's writers are intentionally going over the top, trying to portray a woman president who isn't stereotypically feminine. As Siegel might have gone on to add, this feeds into the whole question of whether female heads of state in real, non-TV drama, life are forced to act in hypermasculine manner. The examples of Indira Gandhi in India and Margaret Thatcher in Britain could be read that way, as demonstrating that power structures founded by men selects people on the basis of their ability to conform to certain gendered notions of power. Alternatively, it could be read as proof that regardless of the nature of the organization involved, women and men will tend to exercise power in similar ways. Quite possibly the true answer lies somewhere in between these two extremes.
