Showtime's Weeds Research Paper
Abstract: | In recent seasons, two popular Showtime series have introduced enterprising and transgressive heroines. On Weeds, Nancy (Mary-Louise Parker) is a white suburban mom turned drug dealer; her supplier is an inner-city African-American woman. The hardened Heylia (Tonye Patano) doles out advice with Nancy’s weekly purchase, helping her evade arrest and (literally) dodge bullets. Heylia’s troubled world contrasts with the upscale family life that Nancy struggles to preserve. However, their relationship also frees Nancy from a stifling suburb where, the theme song informs us, people live in “little boxes” and “all look just the same.”
On The L Word, wealthy white Helena (Rachel Shelley) escapes from similar constraints. When a series of misfortunes lands Helena behind bars, she pursues a lesbian affair with her steely, muscular black cellmate. When she is released on bail, Helena rejects her family’s protection, choosing instead to live on the lam with her lover. As in Weeds, it is an encounter with a street-smart African American woman that enables the sheltered Helena to assert herself. This plotline also follows The L Word’s tendency to grant minority characters greater strength and sexual prowess than their white counterparts.
Clearly, these series place women of color in limited and stereotypical roles: Heylia plays the sharp-tongued Sapphire, and The L Word’s Latina and African-American characters are often oversexed and exotified. The familiar figures of drug dealer and prisoner also associate minority communities with criminality. While my paper attends to these stereotypes, I am most interested in exploring the narratives’ construction of white femininity and the broader implications of these interracial encounters. In both series, white women enact rebellion not only though crime but also their willingness to cross race and class divides. Their minority counterparts impart survival skills, display physical and sexual power, and model
On The L Word, wealthy white Helena (Rachel Shelley) escapes from similar constraints. When a series of misfortunes lands Helena behind bars, she pursues a lesbian affair with her steely, muscular black cellmate. When she is released on bail, Helena rejects her family’s protection, choosing instead to live on the lam with her lover. As in Weeds, it is an encounter with a street-smart African American woman that enables the sheltered Helena to assert herself. This plotline also follows The L Word’s tendency to grant minority characters greater strength and sexual prowess than their white counterparts.
Clearly, these series place women of color in limited and stereotypical roles: Heylia plays the sharp-tongued Sapphire, and The L Word’s Latina and African-American characters are often oversexed and exotified. The familiar figures of drug dealer and prisoner also associate minority communities with criminality. While my paper attends to these stereotypes, I am most interested in exploring the narratives’ construction of white femininity and the broader implications of these interracial encounters. In both series, white women enact rebellion not only though crime but also their willingness to cross race and class divides. Their minority counterparts impart survival skills, display physical and sexual power, and model