i am only on the first episode. i like the actress who plays sally, however the way that she is depicted in the show is kind of demeaning to me. they treat her like she is kind of "silly". is this just a sign of the times or does it get better later on?
shareDon't like then don't watch it.
shareyikes! i thought that the whole point of this board was to exchange ideas, questions and observations...
i was making an observation that the character is depicted in a less than favorable way. since this show aired at a time when women were often shown as intellectually inferior, i was asking if things get better later on when the actors and writers hit their stride or if this is just simply a relic from a time when things were polarized.
sign of the times , though it does get a bit better .
shareThe actress, Susan St James was very big at the time, she went on to get her own show, Kate and Allie. Mac is supposed to be old school, strong silent and smart. Sally was supposedly a free thinker ex hippie type. The show was centered around the differences in them. Leading ladies in the late 60's and early 70's were pretty much portrayed that way then. On most of the dramas they were only there to support the leading men. A case in point would be Ironside, the leading lady who was a detective was mostly tasked to making the coffee.
shareIt's definitely a sign of the times. If you're starting with the show, then you are at an early point, early seventies, when the woman was still a status symbol or object for the man to possess.
I wouldn't say Rock Hudson was the best for snappy repartee with any woman, tho if you check out McMillan, when he works with other females, you can see how he does, tho again, that was the late seventies, when women were making all these strides, so to speak.
But the deal is definitely Susan St. James maintained her believability, intelligence and charm, regardless of whatever approach anyone gives her. Granted of the regulars, you have Hudson (let's face it, he literally had to look down on everyone), Schuck, who plays a buffoon and Walker, who does work WITH St. James.
But it was the era. A wife of a police commissioner would be arm decoration, and might still apply today. Not my circle of expertise.
One of the most amazing 'transitions' for this period for me was Elaine Joyce, a staple of '70s tv and today married to Neil Simon.
She was always the sassy, brassy blonde of the game shows in the '70s, so I was surprised to see her in a failed spinoff toward the end of Green Acres (which would be about '71), as the bubbly blonde airhead. Some of these were the last clinging remnants of that ditzy female era, but they still surface.
And I have also grown very amazed at the episode of Superman, from the '50s, when Lois Lane dreamt she married Superman and the men, Clark included, all stood around laughing at her. That silly little female!
Granted, that's an earlier era.
But as for McMillan and Wife, I'll say enjoy. When Hudson died, they spoke to St. James about him, obviously because she had worked with him, so she clearly got to know him.
I remembered McMillan and Wife when I was little (and do recall the bug fumigating episode very well), but am only now getting to see them better. I watched her more on Kate and Allie.
ITA with the poster. I am catching up with McMillan & Wife since I rarely saw it as a kid in the early 70s. The character Sally seems flaky and silly as we watch her in 2015. Yet there were very few dramas that featured dramatic actresses in the 60s and early 70s. In 1965 thru 1975, the Emmy Awards only had 3 contenders in the Best Actress in a Drama category. Anytime Barbara Bain who played Cinnamon Carter in Mission: Impossible won three consecutive Best Actress emmys which these days was clearly a best supporting actress role, something was missing - good female dramatic leads. When more dramatic roles appeared on TV for women, Susan St. James, Peggy Lipton (Mod Squad) were competing and of course lost to meaty roles played by Glenda Jackson (PBS Elizabeth R) and other prestigous series female charaters. Later women's roles in dramatic series grew and the emmy categories were re-designed accordingly.
share