Spoiler warning – if you have not watched the final episode of the HBO series, Damages – DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER.
Please note: I watch selected TV series on DVD because I refuse to let TV schedule my life, so this discussion is not current to the latest programming.
Image Credit: David Russell/DirecTV
Damages has an engaging and twisting plot about two powerful and ambitious female lawyers.
After all is said and done and there has been considerable devilry and wickedness, we say goodbye to the two main characters securely fastening the white hat on one and the black hat on the other. The evil heroine is left to her fate- rich and alone, while the good heroine’s future is blessed with family and love but poor in monetary reward.
Rich and successful or poor and happy, are these our only options and if so does this portrayal of women’s choices in life do us a disservice?
I am the first person to say that my children are the greatest gift of my life but that is my experience not a universal truth. I agree that money cannot buy happiness but I am not prepared to say that all successful business women are miserable and lonely. I am uncomfortable with the monochromatic choices which are presented in the moral tale scripted for Damages.
Can a woman not be successful in business and rich in family too? Of course she can and we all know women who are living proof. It is sad to still be able to point out that generally men are not asked to make such choices.
OK, I agree I may be reducing the script of Damages to a simplistic argument and I realize that the sad lonely woman in the limo was also dishonest, unethical and, well, yes, she did have someone killed…
My point is this, if televsion wants to become our moral guide then it needs to work a little harder and craft more complexity into its endings. Happy ever after or miserable ever after are both lazy exits from a story which presented complex characters, real human beings, a little bit of good and a little bit of bad, tossed about in circumstances beyond their control, doing the best they can, even when that seems to be pretty darn pitiful.
Please, TV gods, after teasing and thrilling us with multi dimensional heroines do not try and pawn off a simplistic denouement of princes and wicked step mothers. We can handle a little uncertainty and mystery; after all we live it every day.
