The new fall television season is upon us and with it comes the good, the bad, the new, and the tired. However, one show I’m excited about seeing return is The Good Wife, a CBS drama about a lawyer’s wife who stood by her philandering husband. The Good Wife has received critical acclaim for Julianna Margulies’ performance as Alicia Florrick, as well as the way the show balances procedural elements with intense dramatic storytelling.
The Good Wife is worth discussing because its portrayal of men and women, many of who are middle-aged, stands apart from what is usually seen on network television. The Good Wife allows for complex, multi-faceted characters living out real-life situations and dealing with real-life crises. Network television isn’t really known as a bastion for cutting edge shows, so it’s even more remarkable that The Good Wife is on CBS, a network better known for crime dramas like CSI and banal, embarrassing reality shows like Big Brother.
Before the show premiered in 2009 there weren’t many shows on television geared toward women over 30. Much of TV’s female-focused programming runs in the vein of the CW’s vampire bodice-rippers for teenage girls or soap opera dram-edys like Desperate Housewives and Grey’s Anatomy. The Good Wife is a show that falls into neither of those categories.
What has proven fascinating is how the show, and especially Margulies’ Alicia Florrick, has evolved over the course of two seasons. Alicia has gone from being a meek, co-dependent woman unable to leave her cheating husband to a fierce associate taking control of all elements of her existence, from her family to her newly rediscovered sexuality. And when was the last time you saw a television show or film about a woman in her 40s exploring her new life during the dissolution of her marriage? It’s much more common to see an uninteresting, one-dimensional middle-aged woman dating some new hunk across the street after her divorce has been finalized (I’m looking at you, Teri Hatcher). The Good Wife has showed us the various twists and turns of the Florricks’ slowly crumbling marriage and the raw emotions and feelings of all those who are involved. And the best part? Stay tuned because it’s not over yet.
Most of us watch television to escape, to see something silly, or to laugh at ridiculous situations. But The Good Wife is important because of its ability to have an impact, which I’ve witnessed myself. I’ve seen how my mother, a woman going through something similar to Alicia Florrick, has realized that life doesn’t end if you’re 40, 50, or even 60 and your decades-long marriage ends. If there’s a show out there that depicts the struggle of a realistically written middle-aged woman rebuilding her life I think that makes it easier for women like my mother to move on. I’d venture to say this show lets women know a new life doesn’t have to revolve around sticking by their man and being the consummate “good wife,” as many women of the baby boom generation were raised to believe. I find it insulting (and depressing) to insinuate that a middle-aged, newly separated or divorced woman is only interested in finding another man to attach herself to. What about her job, her family, her social life?
The Good Wife is about more than Alicia Florrick’s journey. The other characters are all playing roles that are on the cutting edge of culture. The Good Wife is about Alicia’s boss and newfound lover Will and his insecurities about relationships; it’s about powerful female attorney Diane and how (and even why) she has to sacrifice her personal life to get to the top; it’s about Alicia’s friend Kalinda struggling with commitment and the bisexuality Kalinda uses to get whatever she needs. Each character’s struggle seems to stretch the boundaries of television stories.
It was the ads for season 3 that initially piqued my interest in writing this article. They depict Margulies in a sexy black dress as if in the throes of passion. The tagline? “Don’t let the name fool you.” Now, this could mean the writers are going to take us the traditional television route of a middle-aged woman becoming obsessed with finding a new man, but I don’t think this is the case. I’m hopeful these ads indicate that Alicia Florrick will now be breaking away from the moniker of the good wife that’s been assigned to her — sexually, emotionally, socially, and mentally — in order to become the empowered woman that we’ve seen flickers of over two seasons.
Robert and Michelle King, the show’s creators, want to push the boundaries of a lawyer show and to this point they’ve done it with some success. The ads for season 3 are the first that have focused solely on Margulies’ character, without nodding to the men in her life. I think the writers are saying, “This season is all about Alicia.” Not about her new job. Not about her firm. Not about her husband and definitely not about her husband’s career. This sole focus serves to reinforce what I think is the show’s powerful message: that women, even women over a certain age, are worthwhile, interesting, complex, and worth your attention.
Cat Scott is an entertainment/lifestyle blogger and first-year law student at Northeastern University. She works out of her home in Somerville, Massachusetts, where she loves living with her two perfect cats and good, but not as perfect, boyfriend. She loves reading, going to the theater, catching up on missed television, and has recently taken up running. She blogs at Cinnajoon, contributes weekly to film blog , and tweets from @CatMarieScott.
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