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I owe people comments and interview questions, I also need to catch up with my own rewatch of China Beach (and let us all pause for a moment that, yeah, I can manage to fall behind on my tv watching even when I set it up in the first place...worst. media. fan. ever.)
But, anyway, I am thinking about China Beach and, in particular, something it brings to the table that is so frustrating to me in it's lack in so many shows, even in...maybe especially shows I love. The fact that there are women at the center of the story, women who TALK to each other OMG (yay Bechdel!) is amazing. But there's something else too. These women also come from somewhere. And it matters where. Cherry's sheltered upbringing is not the same as Colleen growing up the only girl and youngest in a large Catholic family is not the same as Laurette's growing up in foster care and feeling trapped in a small town is not the same as KC's escape from poverty and abuse is not the same as Lila's coming of age during WWII.
And these things are not merely slap on backstories, they influence the decisions they make, the way they see the word, the responses they have, the relationships they form, in tangible and complex ways. The events of the series do not simply happen to them, but are the result of the interaction of who they are as people to where they've been, where they are, and where they are going. And because there are so many of them, no one bears the burden of Representing The Female Experience, so instead we get a tapestry of human experiences that belong to women. HOT DAMN, Y'ALL.
Not that CB doesn't have it's flaws or fall down sometimes on any number of issues..it does, of course. But...*points* up, *look where it starts from*. That I can still find this refreshing or even remarkable twenty years later is, well, kinda depressing.
But, anyway, I am thinking about China Beach and, in particular, something it brings to the table that is so frustrating to me in it's lack in so many shows, even in...maybe especially shows I love. The fact that there are women at the center of the story, women who TALK to each other OMG (yay Bechdel!) is amazing. But there's something else too. These women also come from somewhere. And it matters where. Cherry's sheltered upbringing is not the same as Colleen growing up the only girl and youngest in a large Catholic family is not the same as Laurette's growing up in foster care and feeling trapped in a small town is not the same as KC's escape from poverty and abuse is not the same as Lila's coming of age during WWII.
And these things are not merely slap on backstories, they influence the decisions they make, the way they see the word, the responses they have, the relationships they form, in tangible and complex ways. The events of the series do not simply happen to them, but are the result of the interaction of who they are as people to where they've been, where they are, and where they are going. And because there are so many of them, no one bears the burden of Representing The Female Experience, so instead we get a tapestry of human experiences that belong to women. HOT DAMN, Y'ALL.
Not that CB doesn't have it's flaws or fall down sometimes on any number of issues..it does, of course. But...*points* up, *look where it starts from*. That I can still find this refreshing or even remarkable twenty years later is, well, kinda depressing.