Jeremiah and I were watching television, as we tend to do, when on came a commercial for Covert Affairs (at a volume factor of 120 times the level of the show it interrupted…you know that’s why the adjective commercial became a noun, right? It’s an interruption for commerce; a commercial interruption, if you will. There you are—your new fact for the day. I may have made it up, but it certainly sounds plausible, so I’m going to purvey it as truth). Now, this happened right in the middle of an episode of In Plain Sight, the witness protection series, and I was a little excited. Until I saw the CIA field operative, played by Piper Perabo of Coyote Ugly near-fame, in a grey pencil skirt and stilettos. In three or four scenes. Most of which involve rolling or squatting or running of some kind.
So the premise of the show: baby CIA trainee Perabo is turned into field operative/bait for exboyfriend now wanted by CIA. She is apprenticed to a former operative blinded in the field (Tiresias of Thebes, anyone?), flirted with by her boss, and supervised by the King and Queen of two arms of the CIA who also happen to be married. The series was written by either Sophocles or Euripedes, though the debate’s still out on that one. Unfortunately, the person it was not written by is the one who should have written it: Joss Whedon.
Why is this a fauxmenist rant, you ask? Actually, it might be an actual feminist one, but the meat of the matter is that one running incident in a skirt I can understand. Two is possible, but after the second one? You’re wearing slacks and some lug-soled pumps, not 4 inch stilettos. It’s just dumb. If you’re not smart enough to dress for work, you are not smart enough to work for the CIA. I wholeheartedly support the strong woman who can still be feminine (Mary Hart of In Plain Sight, for example; a little distant, but still reasonable, able to do a “man’s” job without sacrificing her uterus but also without wearing it on her sleeve, which is gross) but I absolutely abhor a “dude’s eye view” of what a strong woman should be, as though making concessions to practicality were somehow unattractive.
Wear a skirt or not—you can still be feminine, but there are certain things that are just dumb: if a woman works in a field where she’s going to be in hand to hand combat? She doesn’t wear her long, flowing locks down. Weakness, duh! (Am I right, oh bunned Belves?) She wears a jacket to hidea sidearm, and the jacket's loose enough to hide said gun. She wears shoes she can run in or she shucks the suckers the second there’s a chase. Turning an ankle chasing terrorist makes you a liability, not a field operative.
The reason I vote for Joss on this one is simple: Buffy. Strong woman in a ridiculously fictionalized world. Because she doesn’t operate in a realistic world, she’s allowed to monologue while she fights. She’s allowed to have witty repartee with the undead right before she stakes them. She’s allowed to fight in miniskirts (miniskirt, btw, is better than pencil skirt because it actually frees the leg for both ogling and roundhouse kicks to the face, throat, and undead groin) and wear long hair and never smudge her makeup because the writer has placed her in a world in which said fights happen like choreographed scenes in a musical and look like choreographed scenes in a musical and sometimes are choreographed and musical (don’t believe me? Watch the episode Once More, With Feeling). The world in which she functions is itself impractical, and so is her premise: cheerleading vampire slayer. She doesn't have to be practical.
This CIA agent, though—she’s taking herself seriously, and so is the show as a whole. She purports to function in our world of slowly-shattering glass ceilings, and she’s having risqué flirty conversations with the womanizing boss. I haven’t seen the show yet, but I’m already crafting my post about the casual acceptance on TV of workplace harassment. She works in intelligence as a field operative and not only has really long hair, curling several inches past her shoulders, but she wears it down at work. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, but I think of the kind of person who could do that kind of job as a military-esque mindset kind of person: hair either cut or styled above the collar. Practical and feminine. And the shoes. The SHOES.
Strong women are attractive. Stupid women are not. Stop showing foolish women on television and portraying them as what strong women should be—it pisses me off. Make them foolish in their personal lives, but stop making it look like the view of their legs as they chase a criminal is more important than whether or not they catch the guy/girl, and stop making it look like that’s what they themselves believe. Sacrificing the skirt is not sacrificing her femininity—she’s a woman, whether in skirt or slacks. Make her strong, and make her smart, and you’ll make a fan out of me.
Stockholming, Week 10…11?
I love the shoes, for the same reason I’m also unsure that they look good on me: soooo much unfettered toe room. It’s exquisite, but my toes tend to sprawl. But they’re comfy heels (and appropriate for work because I rarely, if ever, chase criminals or flee from firefights during the work day) so they remain part of the work wardrobe. Overall, I dig this look. The only thing I hate is that as I slim, my problem areas become even more obvious. When everything is chubs, the individual chubsy areas are less blatant than they are when other areas tighten up. Cruel, cruel catch 22! Will check in again in a week. Ish. Maybe.
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