Leah Baack
Blog #1; TV Criticism
September 24, 2013
Gender Roles in “Weeds”
What
would you do if you discovered your own mother was a drug dealer? In the show Weeds, the main character Nancy Botwin,
played by Mary-Louis Parker, is exactly that. After the unexpected death of her
husband, Judah, Nancy is faced with the financial burden of maintaining the
suburban lifestyle that her family has grown accustom to. Her quick fix
solution? Becoming the neighborhood pot dealer. She may have started off small,
but that is no longer the case. She has not only grown and developed her own
strand of weed with her partner, Conrad Shepard, ironically called “MILF,” but
has quickly expanded the customer base throughout her suburban community. As
the show develops, Nancy becomes more involved with illegally activity, and
eventually finds herself in a situation that she can’t get out of (“About the
Series”).
One
of the reasons I decided to start watching the show was because after reading
the storyline, it struck me as being very out of the ordinary. It’s not
everyday that you see a show structured around a singer-mother gone drug
dealer. As I have continued to watch the show, one thing that comes to mind is
that it doesn’t demonstrate the typical traditional gender roles. The show not
only challenges the stereotypical gender roles of women, by having Nancy as the
upper-class mother, who is a drug dealer, but it also plays into stereotypical
roles as well. For example, Nancy is what society deems to be desirable for a
woman – white, thin, and beautiful. To outsiders, she seems to have everything
together, whether that be her designer handbags and clothes to her always well-kept
fancy house maintained by the maid. Nancy is a pro at leading a double life.
Not only does Nancy’s character reinforce dominant
stereotypes of women, but her over the top opinionated “friend,” Celia Hodes, does
too, in regards to her physical appearance and similar class status. In the
show’s opening scene, Nancy walks in on Celia leading the PTA meeting, where
both of their children attend school. It is blatantly obvious that, “it’s a no
man’s land” with the other women, “whispering gossip to one another or becoming
absurdly adamant about a minor matter affecting their own precious children”
(Franklin, 2005). This depiction of women only adds, “to the reinforce
stereotypes in the viewers’ minds, furthering negative assumptions about
subordinate groups,” which in this case, the subordinate group is housewives,
and their tendency to only sit around and gossip with other housewives
(Mittell, 2009, p. 309).
Another example of how Celia’s character reinforces
dominant stereotypes of women is how she continuously, and relentlessly
pressures her young daughter, Isabelle, to conform to society’s ideal image of
being skinny. She goes as far as putting laxatives in her food, and forcing her
to participate in exercise classes, talk about extreme.
The
ways in which the show resists stereotypical gender roles of women is through
Nancy’s somewhat secret profession of being a drug dealer and her personality. While
her profession is clearly out of the ordinary for a suburban single-mother, her
profession is not the only thing breaking dominant stereotypical roles of being
a woman. For example, when she’s not pretending to be her superficial self,
Nancy is strong-willed, independent, and has a ‘no tolerance for bullshit’ kind
of attitude. Even with her lack of work experience, she manages to start and
operate her own business, an extremely successful one at that. Ironically, all
her employees are men, which include the city councilmen of her picturesque
community, Doug Wilson, and a somewhat successful lawyer, Dean Hodes. She isn’t
afraid to stand up to male authority and because of this, it makes her a threat
to other drug dealers within her community. But, her stubborn personality also
blinds her from the dangers of her profession. For example, she often plays the
damsel in distress to get herself out of sticky situations and because of this,
it coverts back to dominant stereotype that woman are often clueless when
starting something new and have to be rescued. Nancy’s character switches
between both breaking and reinforcing stereotypical roles of women.
Another way in which the show resists dominant gender
roles is through the character of Nancy’s brother-in-law, Andy Botwin. His
character goes against the stereotype that men are suppose to be the majority breadwinners
of the family. Granted their family structure no longer fits that of a
‘traditional’ one, he still naturally assumes the dominant male figure of the
family since he unexpectedly showed up and announced he would be living with
Nancy and the boys. Instead of being the majority breadwinner, he assumes the
role of a ‘stay at father’ and looks after his two nephews, Silas and Shane,
while Nancy is off making all the money. In addition to being Silas and Shane’s
primary caregiver he also cooks and prepares meals for the family throughout
the week. While Andy gets involved with Nancy’s business for a short period of
time, he never earns more than she does and continues to be an unmotivated
freeloader after she fires him.
Through the show Weeds,
it demonstrates the complexity of gender roles by both reinforcing and
resisting dominate stereotypes through different character professions and
personalities. The show’s out of the ordinary storyline proves that in order to
break a traditional gender stereotype, switch-ups need to be made. By having an
upper class, single mother dealing drugs, the show accomplishes just that.
References
About
the series. (n.d.). Retrieved
from http://www.sho.com/sho/weeds/season/1
Franklin,
N. (2005, September 5). Dealing housewives. The New Yorker, Retrieved
from
Mittell,
J. (2009). Television and American culture. Oxford University Press,
USA.
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