meirwen_1988 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
meirwen_1988) wrote2009-03-23 02:38 pm
meirwen_1988) wrote2009-03-23 02:38 pm
I wonder why
As I was driving in to work this morning I found myself thinking about television. Most specifically, probably because tonight is the six month anniversary of becoming one, I was thinking about widows. More specifically, I was thinking about widowers, because there seem to be an awful lot of them on TV at the moment.
Really--just take one network--CBS. On Tuesday at 8 you have NCIS where the lead is a 50ish, 4 times married, 3 times divorced widower (and the constant implication is that the divorces are what happened because he lost the love of his life). Then, at 9 on Tuesday, you have The Mentalist ("most popular new show"). Here the 30ish "hero" is also a widower, having lost his wife to a serial killer. Then you have Eleventh Hour on Thursdays at 10, where Rupert Sewell's intense, 40ish Dr. Jacob Hood is a widower who lost his wife to cancer. Even Jack Bauer (on FOX) in 24 is a widower, as got thrown in his face just last week.
Why are widower's so appealing on television? Do we blame Ben Cartwright? Did he set the model for the charismatic sexy widower (well, that, and that by the end of the series Adam, Hoss, and Li'l Joe were all widowers, too)? Lucas McCain from The Rifleman was another early model. Is it that by being defined as widowers these hunks hold out a tantalizing "marryin'-kind" aura with the cache of fidelity? Are they simultaneously figures women can want (as we must all want a character for it to be successful in the medium) and men want to be? Certainly there are more of them than there used to be. Is it because so many middleclass widowers were created in Oklahoma City and New York, and are being created (though without much attention, because that would be bad PR) in Iraq and Afghanistan?
And, just for the record, why do the widowers get to be hot and sexy and date? When was the last time you saw a widow on TV being anything other than pathetically noble (that's a description of the characterization usually seen on TV, not a comment about real widows) as a single parent struggling to make ends meet in a guest starring or supporting character-soon-departed way (thinking of Harm's brief love interest on JAG, among others)?
So, anyway, that's what I was wondering about on my way into work.
Just a thinky-thought.
Really--just take one network--CBS. On Tuesday at 8 you have NCIS where the lead is a 50ish, 4 times married, 3 times divorced widower (and the constant implication is that the divorces are what happened because he lost the love of his life). Then, at 9 on Tuesday, you have The Mentalist ("most popular new show"). Here the 30ish "hero" is also a widower, having lost his wife to a serial killer. Then you have Eleventh Hour on Thursdays at 10, where Rupert Sewell's intense, 40ish Dr. Jacob Hood is a widower who lost his wife to cancer. Even Jack Bauer (on FOX) in 24 is a widower, as got thrown in his face just last week.
Why are widower's so appealing on television? Do we blame Ben Cartwright? Did he set the model for the charismatic sexy widower (well, that, and that by the end of the series Adam, Hoss, and Li'l Joe were all widowers, too)? Lucas McCain from The Rifleman was another early model. Is it that by being defined as widowers these hunks hold out a tantalizing "marryin'-kind" aura with the cache of fidelity? Are they simultaneously figures women can want (as we must all want a character for it to be successful in the medium) and men want to be? Certainly there are more of them than there used to be. Is it because so many middleclass widowers were created in Oklahoma City and New York, and are being created (though without much attention, because that would be bad PR) in Iraq and Afghanistan?
And, just for the record, why do the widowers get to be hot and sexy and date? When was the last time you saw a widow on TV being anything other than pathetically noble (that's a description of the characterization usually seen on TV, not a comment about real widows) as a single parent struggling to make ends meet in a guest starring or supporting character-soon-departed way (thinking of Harm's brief love interest on JAG, among others)?
So, anyway, that's what I was wondering about on my way into work.
Just a thinky-thought.