Beautiful TV: The Art and Argument of Ally McBeal

5. Victim of Love: Ally McBeal and the Politics of Protection

early in the first season of Ally McBeal the law firm of Cage and Fish begins to gain a high profile in sexual harassment cases, and it maintains this specialty throughout the series. This narrow focus allows former lawyer and series creator David Kelley to explore fully the potential uses and misuses of the concept of sexual harassment, staging a public debate with himself between his liberal orientation and his fears about the expanding sphere of the law. The debate itself covers a remarkable range of positions from pro-sex feminism to pro-business laissez-faire policy, virtually assuring that everyone will be incensed by some portion of the argument. It thus demonstrates one way that narrative serial television can articulate a nuanced, elaborate, give-and-take discussion on a single issue. Again, my intent in the “argument” portion of this book is not to emphasize how Ally operates within the broader social discussion on political issues but to trace that debate across the serial, showing how it is made possible by the serial’s formal construction. The debate on Ally McBeal is carried out episode by episode through a series of legal cases. These provide the stimuli for characters to reevaluate their understandings of gender politics, which has a bearing on character growth, but I want to remain focused on the way this argument develops through the individual cases. Rather than use specific cases to reiterate and reinforce a basic stance on the issue of sexual harassment, Ally’s argument exceeds the debate depicted by individual episodes. Episodes present thesis and antithesis, contradictory arguments over the legal basis of sexual harassment laws and over the political consequences of applying them.1 The F IvE Victim of love Ally McBeal and the Politics of Protection 1 GreG M. SMiTh basic argument occurs not only within courtroom walls but also between conflicting episodes. Series Television and Serial Argument Several structural factors make it difficult for American primetime narrative television to address larger issues in an extended, deliberate manner. One of these is the relatively brief time allotted in standard programming to television series. A primetime hour slot of network television currently translates to 44 minutes of program and 16 minutes of commercials, while a half-hour television program has 22 minutes of programming. That is not a lot of time to raise an issue in the narrative, complicate it through debate, and resolve it by program’s end, and thus the pressure for closure significantly increases the difficulty of presenting a coherent debate. Admirably, many television shows have worked within the dual pressures of closure and time limitations to find narrational strategies for voicing political commentary: by returning to similarly themed situations (M*A*S*H’s emphasis on the cost of war); by positioning characters as opposing mouthpieces for standard ideological positions (conservative Alex and his left-wing parents on Family Ties); by changing tone and address radically for a single special episode about an issue (the birth of Murphy Brown’s child);2 by excising establishing shots and increasing the number ofscenestospeed thedeliveryofnarrativeinformation(the LawandOrder strategy); and by creating hyperarticulate characters who tend to speechify (The West Wing).3 Because of the commercial restrictions of primetime programming, narrative television’s most resonant social commentaries are often its least overtly argued: the chaotic portrait of parenting on The Simpsons , or the recasting of high-school-as-horror on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Certain kinds of complex issues, however, are difficult to convey implicitly ; they require extended, detail-oriented discussion and thus require more airtime. Longer television forms such as the made-for-television film4 and the miniseries are often the chosen mode for depicting the “problem of the week” or large historical actions. A central difficulty with these forms is that, unlike series television, they have to gain the audience’s sympathies for new characters before they make us care about their social or political dilemma. Series have the distinct advantage of calling on our previous experiences with beloved characters when they try to enlist our feelings for a character’s political plight, but these advantages must be weighed against the compunction to solve the problem in 22 (or 44) minutes. ViCTiM oF loVe 1 Serial television, while still bound by time slot restrictions, can explore issues in something approximating real time. Decisions about abortions or argumentsaboutthetreatmentofgayscangoonfordays,weeks,ormonths on a daytime soap opera.5 As we have...