The Compromises of '90s TV

Back amid the mostly "new network," cable and syndication-based '90s boom in science fiction television some have spoken of as a "golden age" for the genre in that medium--though one might do well to remember that this was, from the standpoint of those who value science fiction's more cerebral uses, at least as much a matter of quantity as of quality, there having been a plenitude of fare that was more lowbrow in nature. Indeed, in 1998 Gardner Dozois remarked in the "Summation" of the "year in science fiction" with which he introduces the editions of his annual Year's Best Science Fiction anthologies that the principal theme of science fiction television at the time seemed to be "Beautiful Women Kick Male Butt," for even as an identity politics-minded Hollywood's attempts to make female-led action movies a commonplace at the level of big-budget feature film fizzled (exemplified by Geena Davis' two flops, 1995's Cutthroat Island and 1996's The Long Kiss Goodnight) there was an abundance of such material on the small screen. As Dozois' phrasing in regard to "Women Kick Male Butt" indicates, this meant, from those more favorably disposed to the development, shows about "strong" and "empowered" women defying gender norms as they gave what some held to be an underserved female audience action-adventure "in their own flavor," with protagonists to which they could relate and who could embody their fantasies--all as those less favorably disposed (less often heard from in the "respectable" mainstream) saw this as a stridently "political" presentation of stories and images of "masculinized" women constantly fighting, defeating, dominating, humiliating males physically and in other ways amid much feminist Rah-Rah, with this not only going for their enemies but the helpmeets to which the "good" male characters were emasculatingly reduced in a misandrist and man-bashing spectacle. Still, along with the "Women Kick Male Butt" aspect there was the matter of the Women doing the Kicking being "Beautiful," with feminists delighted at the kicking of male butt by women less delighted at the way that the women doing the kicking so consistently conformed, often in very great degree, to conventional standards of feminine beauty and sexual attractiveness--the more in as many men were not unappreciative of the fact.

Thus looking at the combined package--"Beautiful Women Kick Male Butt"--it would seem no one was completely happy, but at the same time there was "something for everyone," and pleasing all of the people some of the time was what mattered in that media market. Thus did the vampire-slaying Buffy Summers' being a blond "Valley Girl," and the Warrior Princess Xena by any standard a very beautiful woman who was by no means desexualized, not bar feminists from singing hosannas over both characters--to the point of, in Buffy's case, starting a whole academic field in honor of the phenomenon! Meanwhile, if the gender politics were not what men might generally prefer, it was still action-packed television that didn't take itself too seriously, with a plenitude of "eye candy" for the male viewer, and as a result a fair number of men did watch.

Of course, such please-all-of-the-people-some-of-the-time compromises today seem a thing of the past. There is the fragmentation of the media that has producers so often going for a deep appeal to a narrow part of the audience--pleasing some of the people all the time--with changes in mainstream feminism factoring in here. If feminism would have been happier about "Women Kicking Male Butt" without the accent on the "Beautiful," and indeed even in the '90s sometimes quite vocal about disliking particular developments from that standpoint (they were delighted when the Star Trek franchise made the captain of the Voyager a woman, but rather less pleased when Jeri Ryan joined the crew in a catsuit in season four) male gaze-quashing feminism has become hegemonic within the mainstream media post-#MeToo. The particular concession to male viewers that was making the female protagonist of a show which might otherwise have had questionable male appeal conventionally sexy was thus far less acceptable to the makers of respectable opinion, and less often seen in an era in which less a Buffy the Vampire Slayer than a Bridgerton seems to exemplify the female-led and female-oriented small screen hit--the more in as action-adventure, even if there is still plenty of it about on television, just doesn't make the splash it used to, regardless of the gender politics of a given show. Part of that may be the media's fixation on Midcult "prestige TV" as the "cool thing" for a quarter of a century now, part of it the fact that really big new franchises have become impossible to launch in the current long tail-crowded, hyper-saturated, ultra-fickle and risk-terrified media environment, and part of it, I should think, that action movies are so abundant and easy to access these days, all as there may be a sense of exhaustion about the form given how much of it we have had, and how little innovation it has seen in a long time. Thus it seems exemplary of the situation that the tiresomely ubiquitous Phoebe Waller-Bridge (The Suits like her! They really, really like her!) is working on a new iteration of Lara Croft for the streaming market--but also exemplary that whether it is well-received or not in the present milieu it is hard to picture it making the same pop cultural splash that, for example, Waller-Bridge's Fleabag did, for better or worse.