by “The TV show Ally McBeal really grinds my gears … because it had potential to portray strong, badass women, but completely dropped the ball.
The concept: Ally McBeal is a lawyer and the show follows her as she takes on both serious and wacky court cases. So far, so good. But then the show had to go and fixate on her love life…Literally every episode was about her romantic feelings towards someone. ‘Does he really like me?’ was all her character was concerned about.
Okay, but the other characters, were they any good then? The show had a lot of female lawyer characters, and most of them were described as the best in their field. That is all well and good, until you realize that this meant that they were all portrayed as cold, heartless machines driven by a desire to win any case. However, they all had one weakness: men, and these ice queens would thaw immediately when given the chance to go one a date with someone.
This show had the potential to explore cool themes. Ally could have been a great character who evolved from a man-obsessed push-over to a strong, independent professional woman, teaching her daughter to be independent as well. Oh well, so much potential lost…”
