Feminine Wiles: Empowered Women, Heroic and Evil

FEMININE WILES: EMPOWERED WOMEN, HEROIC AND EVIL

Dr. Kate Kane of DePaul University presided over a panel that included Yvonne Craig, who played librarian Barbara Gordon and her alter ego Batgirl on the Batman series; Dr. Julie D'Acci of the University of Wisconsin -Madison, who researches television from a feminist perspective; Erin Gray, Col. Wilma Deering on Buck Rogers in the 25th Century; Julie Newmar who was Rhoda the robot on My Living Doll and Catwoman on Batman; and Ronald Smith, author of Sweet- hearts of 60s TV.

JULIE D'ACCI: The TV industry had always claimed that male viewers would not watch shows that had women as heroes, that had a woman as the primary protagonist. But as the 60s wore on and the sexual revolution heated up and as people like Helen Gurley Brown in 1962 wrote Sex and the Single Girl, the industry became more interested in trying to feature women in leading roles. One of the first women to break the barrier was Anne Francis in Honey West in 1965. The reason she was able to be the lead in a drama program was that ABC was the fledgling network at the time and was trying to go out and attract an audience that CBS and NBC were not attract- ing. ABC was willing to take a risk with a woman as a hero. But the contradictions are very evident, because the industry wouldn't let her star by herself. Even ABC, which was willing to take the risk with a sexualized woman lead, decided almost at the last minute that she had to co -star with a man. So they put John Ericson with her, who played Sam Bolt against her Honey West. The character was originally written to be a heroine who was totally adept at martial arts, and did a lot of physical derring -do. But as the series progressed she became more of a sex object. She became more conventionalized and Sam started to do a lot of the last- minute rescues. She became the woman in distress, much more than the original concept. But, nonetheless, this program broke the barrier of having a woman as a star in a dramatic series. HON SMITH: I think the 60s was the decade when women on television really took off. Elly May was stronger than Jethro Diana Rigg as Emma Peel on The and Samantha could turn her husband into a Avengers