What is it with women's roles on network TV? Especially, on network comedies.
Think about it. You've seen them, all those sitcoms featuring a guy who is far from being a chiselled hunk and is probably nobody's idea of a dreamboat, but his wife or girlfriend is always younger and gorgeous. The cliché was summarized here the other day by Julie Bowen, from Modern Family, as "fat guy, hot chick."
The guy on these shows is the star, the funny one. The woman wags her finger at him, rolls her eyes at his crazy-but-lovable ways and is required to wear lingerie at every opportunity.
Can't the public see attractive women on TV as the funny ones, the key character with the best punchlines? Does the TV industry use attractive female actors as garnish on a show that props up the egos of all those men who are plain, roly-poly and balding but need to believe that beautiful, younger women find them irresistible? Do women actors resent the limitations that TV seems to impose to satisfy viewers?
Those were among the questions raised at a panel discussion here the other day on the Twentieth Century Fox lot. The panel, part of the TV Critics' Tour, was called "Fox: The Funny Women of Comedy." Those taking part were, apart from Bowen, Martha Plimpton from Raising Hope, Lea Michele from Glee, Sofia Vergara from Modern Family, Jane Lynch from Glee and Alyson Hannigan from How I Met Your Mother. The moderator was a man, late-night host Jimmy Kimmel. It was Kimmel's job to keep things moving along and not allow things to get too serious.
Yet it did get serious a few times. These are smart women in a tough business. They've all specialized in comedy and faced the prejudice of the public and the bosses of the TV racket - the belief that few women are truly funny and that attractive women should concentrate on being attractive, not witty.
It was Bowen, though, who was the most direct. Best known now for playing Claire Dunphy on Modern Family, at age 41 she's had a long career, mostly in TV, and usually playing "the girlfriend" or the generic object of desire on such shows as Acapulco H.E.A.T., Ed and ER. In explaining her pleasure at playing a mom on Modern Family, she went so far as to use that toxic word (outside the TV racket), "bangability."
"I have played the girlfriend roles for years," she said. "And the finger-shaker, and I find it a relief to finally get to play a mom. "It's like, 'Wait. So you like something about me other than you might want to bang me?'"
Laughter ensued from the other panelists when she said this. But Bowen didn't stop there. "I mean, I want to be old, I want to get old in this business, and by 'old,' I mean really old, like saggy old and the face old and real things drooping down into my socks old and there's a handful of women who have done it. Betty White, Cloris Leachman. I'm sure you can name many more, but very few women have. And it's a terrible river to cross when you're crossing it because you're not sure if you're going to get to the other side. So finally playing a mother of teenagers makes me feel like I've got a shot. They like something about me other than prospective bangability."
When the question arose of whom "they" might be, Bower sort of snorted with derision. The implication was that "they" are the audience and those who produce and cast TV comedies.
Sofia Vergara, who plays the young Latina spitfire wife of Ed O'Neill's middle-aged character on Modern Family, was asked by Kimmel if that relationship doesn't fall into what Bowen called the "fat guy, hot chick" category. He tried to put it diplomatically: "Well, like, no offence to Ed, Sofia, but in real life, I wouldn't necessarily see that happening."
Vergara answered carefully. "Hmmm," she started. "You know, some women may find something in him. It's interesting. I never thought I would be with an older guy because he's like two decades older than me, but I can see it now that I'm in the show, the things they compliment each other with, the things that, you know, they do for each other. You know, whatever makes you happy."
This assertion lowers the volume on the issue of women being typecast as eye-candy for older and largely unattractive men. But Vergara later makes another point, one that delves back into the matter of women being true comedic stars on TV. "I think for a woman to be able to be funny, we have to let go of feeling beautiful or sexy or looking good or looking silly. I think you have to forget all of that to be able to be funny."
From there, the conversation veered to and fro. Martha Plimpton joked that she takes Xanax to go on late-night talk shows. Lea Michele said she feels lucky to be on Glee because most of her career on the stage has been in tragedies that drained her emotionally. Jane Lynch said that her agent specializes in insisting that Lynch be considered for roles that were originally written for men.
Still, what lingered afterward is the skepticism that these successful women actors have about the TV racket. They are all attractive and witty but they know they are lucky to be allowed to be both on TV. Like the viewers, they ask, "What is it with women's roles on network TV?"