TV's fall line-up: Progress or problematic for women/

National NOW Times, Summer 2000 by Farmer, Rebecca, Bennett-Haigney, Lisa

NOW put primetime network television programming in the spotlight with the May release of the Watch Out, Listen Up! results. Cheers and jeers went out to ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC based on program content.

Response to the campaign was huge and mostly positive. NOW chapters across the country held actions to bring attention to violence and sexual exploitation of women on TV. Many people wrote and called to say how frustrated they are with the portrayal of women in the media and the limited roles they occupy.

Future targets of the Watch Out, Listen Up! campaign may include television advertising, radio and the Internet.

Primetime Update

As summer draws to a close, the networks are announcing their fall line-ups with new shows that could make or break their grade in NOW's media watch. Here's a network-by-network look at what this fall's new shows hold in store for the feminist TV audience.

ABC ABC came in third in NOW's Feminist Primetime Report, but its lineup includes such feminist favorites as Once & Again and The Practice. Gender composition and social responsibility were this network's high scores in the report, but it looks as though the new ABC programs will not all meet this standard.

Promising: ABC's dramas have been winning points for the network, but one new comedy looks promising. The Geena Davis Show features a career woman who enters a relationship with a widower and father of two children. Her success as a professional, independent woman could provide a great role model, if the Davis lead character isn't confined to the stereotypical woman-as-nurturer or supermom role.

Business As Usual: Madigan Men and The Trouble with Normal have been marketed as male-dominated shows-like much of primetime network programming. The Trouble with Normal's woman character stands alone in boy-land, while Madigan Men is an all-male cast whose only diversity is an inter-generational component-a grandfather and a grandson who try to find a woman for their middleaged son/father. If you're looking for programming that includes women of color or diverse sexual orientations, ABC's new fall shows are not the place to turn.

It All Depends: Gideon's Crossing, another addition to the medical drama genre, features an African American doctor in the lead role, but only two women in a cast of ten lead characters. If the show gives prominent play to these women doctors and continues ABC's attention to important social issues, feminist viewers may stay tuned.

CBS Last season CBS, which ranked second in NOW's analysis, introduced several new programs that performed well in NOW's Watch Out, Listen Up! analysis-- shows like Judging Amy, Family Law and City of Angels. This season may also have a few stand-outs that deserve a look. The casts appear to be more diverse than usual, in both race and age. Male cast members still outnumber women, but it appears there may be some new entertainment for the feminist viewer on CBS.

Promising: Bette, starring Bette Midler, and Welcome to New York, starring Christine Baranski, both feature mature female stars in roles as successful women. Baranski is the real-life producer of her own program and has already promised not to play the cliched hysterical female executive. Let's hope these two strong performers demand material that rises above the usual sit-com level. That's Life-with four female stars, including the esteemed Ellen Burstyn-sounds interesting: a blue collar woman calls off her engagement and decides to goback to school where she encounters the privileged set.

Business As Usual: Even the title of Yes, Dear sounds stereotypical, as does the description of the lead characters: a working dad and a neurotic stay-at-home mom. CBS says that the father's most difficult job "may be keeping his wife calm. . ." The Fugitive is a remake of the original 60s series and the popular movie. Although there is racial diversity in the cast, the lead characters are all male and the plot still revolves around a murdered woman.

It All Depends: In CSI, a show about crime scene investigators, the female lead is the great Marg Helgenberger from China Beach. But the program is another focusing on violent situations. As we've seen with shows like NBC's Law & Order, a crime show can mostly avoid exploitation and address important social issues. CSI might be a respectable pot-boiler or it might choose to wallow in blood and guts. The District has a racially diverse cast (as any show set among the local city-workers of D.C. should), but only two women are listed in the cast compared with five men. The potential here for covering social issues is great. The plot description, however, sounds more like Walker, Texas Ranger than NYPD Blue, and the premise, a white police chief coming in to root our corruption in a majority-Black department, could be problematic if not handled carefully.

FOX NOW named FOX a Network of Shame when it ranked last in the Watch Out, Listen Up! analysis. The X-Files, Party of Five and That 70's Show are three FOX programs that did make the grade with NOW's content monitors. If the new fall line-up follows in the footsteps of these shows, with impressive gender composition, social responsibility and positive female role models, FOX may redeem itself from its bottom-of-the-barrel status.