Word: allen
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What will the first female president of the U.S. be like? Very tall. Thus predicts ABC, which cast six-footer Geena Davis as Mackenzie Allen, a Vice President who comes to power when the President dies of a stroke, in the drama Commander in Chief, debuting Sept. 27. That's fair enough. Given the prejudice she would face, the nation might feel safer with a female leader possessed of great height, athleticism (Davis nearly represented the U.S. in Olympic archery) and robust, bee-stung lips. I look forward avidly to the Jolie Administration...
...Allen is a first in another way: she's the first President of the U.S. whose party status is independent -- a university chancellor recruited to give media attention to a G.O.P. ticket. Well, that's convenient, right? TV is a numbers game: Why alienate half the audience? But Commander in Chief doesn't seem to be worried about neutrality. Its bad guys are all Republicans, from the vile Speaker of the House Nathan Templeton (Donald Sutherland) to the White House staff members who urge Allen to resign, saying the world is not ready for a painted fingernail on the nuclear...
Obviously, the show is on President Allen's side. The problem is that by giving her no party, no positions, no platform, it ends up defining her--like many strong women on TV--mainly by her gender. Sure, it would be naive to pretend that her sex would never be an issue. But real women pols are defined by their beliefs, not just their chromosomes. We have no idea what Allen stands for; she just stands against the obtuseness of men. In the pilot, she threatens military force to save a Nigerian woman from being stoned for adultery; Templeton sniffs...
...course President Bartlet on The West Wing is free to thus sully himself. Even on a show with a feminist premise, it seems, TV is not quite ready to treat powerful women as it treats powerful men. The show's creator, Rod Lurie, probably just meant to make Allen the enemy of politics as usual. But it's a rough message to send to Hillary--or Condi Rice or any other woman who will have to rely on politics as usual, not a contrived TV plot, to become President. And who faces the sexist paradox: if you get ahead...
Maybe, someday, President Allen, who seems headed for success in her fictional world at least. At the end of the pilot, she gives a speech so melodramatically stirring that even Templeton's Grinchy heart swells three sizes bigger. Perhaps a year from now she'll be just another tall, telegenic politician who made it to the Oval Office, needing neither to prove nor apologize for her femininity. Let's just hope she never...