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Saturday, Jul 4, 2009
At a party to celebrate the debut of "Commander in Chief" feminists hissed, cheered and even got a little weepy.
Sep 29, 2005 | The Tuesday night debut of ABC-TV's "Commander in Chief," a weekly series starring Geena Davis as the president of the United States, was a Super Bowl for feminists. The White House Project, a group dedicated to promoting women to positions of political power, had arranged "house parties" for people around the country to get together to watch the premiere. The New York party was at Caroline's Comedy Club, which was filled to capacity with a mostly female, mostly white, mostly over-50 crowd of excited fans.
They milled and mingled, eating chips and guac and drinking wine and white Russians while a soundtrack of tunes by Shania Twain, Pink and Nancy Sinatra blared. Outside the club, a hirsute guy in a pink Chanel-knockoff suit, strappy sandals and Bill Clinton mask was holding a sign that read "Bill for First Lady 2008." He wasn't connected to the screening, just joining the fun. Inside, the tables were covered with "Hello My Name Is ... Ms. President" stickers, White House postcards bearing stamps with Geena Davis' face on them, and piles of chocolate bars in "Commander in Chief" wrappers.
They must not have had time to get the special labels onto the Midol bottles.
A funny thing has happened in this country in the past year. It seems we've made an unspoken but collective agreement -- like when we silently decide that peasant skirts are fashionable again -- that 216 years after swearing in George Washington we're finally ready to consider a woman for the job.
It can't just be about Hillary and Condi; we've had Pat Schroeder, Geraldine Ferraro and Elizabeth Dole before them. Perhaps it's the realization that irrational fears about government headed by a chick pale in comparison to the reality of one headed by a turkey.
Whatever the sociological winds, they have now delivered unto us "Commander in Chief," and women were coming out in droves to celebrate. As Tina Turner's "Simply the Best" played, there was a shift in the murmuring. Gloria Steinem had walked in and taken a seat in the front of the room.
White House Project head Marie Wilson took the mike and kvelled over the "Commander in Chief" ad campaign, which has recently asserted on billboards that "This fall, a woman will be president..."
"Isn't that the best thing that ever happened?" asked Wilson, adding that her organization has spent years pleading with Hollywood honchos to write shows about a female president, only to be turned down. Then the one year the group did not lobby Hollywood, "The Contender" writer and director Rod Lurie created "Commander in Chief." Tinseltown's contribution is so vital, Wilson argued, "because we know that you can't be what you can't see."
Before the screening began, there was a taped message from Davis herself, wishing the White House Project well and making a lame gag about how she'd love to be at the party in person, but that "being leader of the free world is a tough gig." Ba-dum-bum. "We Americans love to think of ourselves at the top of any list," Davis continued, "but we are 61st in the world in female representation in government, behind Rwanda and India and Slovakia. We can do better."
By the time the hourlong show started, the crowd was pumped to respond to the story of Davis' Mackenzie "Mac" Allen, an Independent (read: Democratic) veep to Republican prez Teddy Roosevelt Bridges, who suffers a brain aneurism and tells her -- in a helpfully lucid moment just before he kicks it -- that he wants her to step aside as president because "we just see a different America." This is the kind of fundamental difference that really should have been considered when Teddy picked Mac to run with him. Instead we're shown a flashback of that moment, and we learn that Mac spent four years in Congress before becoming chancellor of a major university. "How many Nobel Prizes have you won?" Teddy asks Mac over their get-to-know-your-running-mate lunch, before assuring her that her "expertise in Middle Eastern politics is impeccable."
