Never Getting It Right

Well, Grey’s Anatomy is back. The two-hour season premiere (Sept. 22) focused on a couple who literally fell into a sinkhole while having an argument as they drove down a Seattle street. The medical part of the episode’s narrative was about saving them, while “sinkhole” was a not-so-subtle metaphor for where the doctors’ personal lives were at.

As expected, Meredith was in deep trouble for messing with Derek’s clinical trial. Early in the show, the hospital board fired her, which led to repercussions in their effort to adopt one of the orphans that Karev brought from Africa. Meanwhile, Cristina and Owen were on the outs over her desire to have an abortion.

April is now chief resident, and her first day didn’t go so well. Newlywed Teddy had a meltdown when the guy she married, and then decided she loved, had minor surgery. At least Miranda Bailey, now one of the regular doctors, was doing well—liberated from the pressures of being chief resident and wanting no part of holding April’s hand.

Looking at this critically, the Meredith-Cristina paradox over motherhood is obvious. Meredith, raised by a mother who wanted a career rather than a child, deeply regrets jeopardizing her own chances at keeping baby Zola. Cristina, portrayed as an overachiever, is pregnant but doesn’t want to be. Meredith herself sees the similarities between her mother and Cristina. Raised by “a Cristina,” she tells Owen, she knows what it’s like to be a child unwanted by a mother who is afraid she’ll lose her career.

Could this be any more heavy-handed? Although it’s a good thing that the writers let a woman say that she honestly didn’t want to be a mother, it seems they are still stuck on career versus motherhood. This is straight out of 20th-century media anxieties over “two-job wives” and “superwomen.” As in the past, it makes “work” and “woman” opposites. And that’s troubling, particularly when fatherhood makes new (or potentially new) dads Derek, Mark, and Owen more appealingly without harming perceptions of their commitment or competence—playing into stereotypes about fatherhood and careers.

The subplots about April and Teddy bothered me more. April, who got the head resident job in part because she made soup for a patient, can’t get people to listen to her and messes up the surgery schedule. Teddy, the heart surgeon who is Cristina’s mentor, is called “cute” when she worries about Whatshisname that she married.

There’s something troubling going on at the intersection of race and gender construction here. White women, it seems, can never get it right. Meredith is a flake, April is an incompetent, weak-voiced airhead, and heart surgeon Teddy is a basket case over minor subcutaneous surgery. In contrast, Miranda and Cristina know exactly what they want and mince no words.

It's important to remember that oppression has historical roots. For white women, it's (in part) the "Angel in the Parlor" and the "Cult of True Womanhood" from the 19th century. For all the show’s good efforts to give major roles to racial minorities and to gay-lesbian characters, it seems to play out at the expense of white women, whose traditional (flaky, cute, angelic, airhead) femininity is safely reaffirmed. This is classic Woman as Exception.

I’m happy for Miranda and for Cristina for knowing what they want and saying so. And I see that Cristina is portrayed as an Asian stereotype. But I have to ask: Would one of the white female characters be allowed to be so plainspoken? It seems not, and I have to wonder what that’s about.