The Kelley Gang: Ally McBeal

This article first appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald on June 10, 2000

David E. Kelley is one of the most successful producers in American television history. He was the first producer to win Emmy awards for best drama series ("The Practice") and best comedy series ("Ally McBeal") in the same year. In previous years he has won Emmys for "The Practice," "Picket Fences" and "L.A. Law." He is also the producer of Chicago Hope.

At forty-three, he is impressively young to have so many runs on the board. His fascination with law shows is partly explained by the fact he was a lawyer himself, a Princeton graduate, no less. In Australia, Ally McBeal and The Practice are currently two of Channel 7's highest rating shows. Cause for even more jealously among some would be the fact that he is married to Michelle Pfieffer, and rumor (though it is just that) has it that Ally McBeal, his most successful creation is based on Pfeiffer. Certainly there is a physical resemblance.

There was a lot of hype around the launch of Ally Mcbeal in particular. Was Ally a bad role model for women? Did her arrival mean the death of feminism? We've all heard these kinds of circular debates before, but I became curious, and decided to watch the first episode of Ally McBeal. I had seen The Practice, which was already running, a few times before.

For all the talk about a new complexity in the way women and men are represented, and innovative new drama it seemed really obvious to me: David E. Kelley is a very confused man. He doesn't like women, and isn't so sure about men, either. The problem with the way Kelley represents women is much larger than the fact that the women in these shows, particularly on Ally McBeal, are neurotic and obsess about getting a boyfriend. It is true that woman can be both feminists and strung out about their love life. And, like McBeal, women can be anxious about the old tick tock of the biological clock. Kelley's women, however, are verging on insane: self-absorbed in the extreme, weird about sex, and several are anorexic.

The women's long speeches about the right to freedom of expression are presented as feminism, when it seems to me like narcissism. Much as the Glenn Close character in Fatal Attraction talked convincingly about women's rights just before she killed her lover's family rabbit and put it in a cooking pot. Confusion, neediness, inappropriate work behavior (such as women punching male colleagues in the face in unisex bathroom when they are stressed), being sexually predatory - all this is celebrated as 'individuality'. Feminism and self-centeredness are different things, but Kelley, and many of his reviewers/critics collapse the two together. Some call this post-feminism, whatever that means. I would argue it is nothing to with feminism at all.

They men in these shows are all, understandably under the circumstances, bemused. Their constant confusion around the overpowering female characters, make them look pretty thick, with the possible exception of Dylan McDermott's Bobby who manages to hold his own in The Practice. Like their female co-stars, they are obsessed with the notion of true love, sex, and where the twain meets. More so (I think, I hope) than is the general public. Both the men and women are so obsessed with each other you are left wondering when they ever get any work done.

There are articles aplenty on whether or not stars Lara Flynn Boyle (The Practice), Calista Flockart and Portia de Rossi (Ally McBeal) suffer from eating disorders. Certainly you could see through any of them if you held them to the light. Courtney Thorne-Smith, who plays Georgia in Ally McBeal has talked about the obsession with weight on the set of the show. This obsession isn't just in the media's reporting on the private lives of the actresses it is played out in the various court cases that loop through both shows in which clients (male and female) obesity has to be defended.

There is one character, who is not anorexic, Ellenor, played by Camryn Manheim, who recently won a Golden Globe for her role in The Practice and whose casting has been reported as a breakthrough for the representation of big women. There was even a plot development where a man wanted to sleep with her. Ellenor was amazed that anyone could find her attractive and she was right to wonder - the bloke was mad, dressed as a nun and cut off women's heads. I suppose you've got to take what you can get if you weigh 70kgs or more.

Here's another taboo Kelley tackles: there is the welcome development of an attractive, libidinous older woman, Judge Kittleson, on The Practice. Unfortunately she begins to sexually harass male colleagues and use her power in the courtroom as a judge to wreak revenge on men who have knocked her back. She is not sexually autonomous but sexually monstrous. These two positions are never distinguished.

Certainly Kelley is hip to what current controversial issues are floating around the ether. He is of the age of many men who grew up trying to absorb the impact of feminism and this is reflected in his anxiety about gender issues and associated debates about romantic love and the meaning of family. The lawyer in him lends to an interest in legislation and what were once considered private issues: death, physical appearance, and sexuality. Can women sexually harass men? Can you be larger than size 10 (make that size 8) and sexy? Can you be old and sexy?

He's also onto the fact that women kissing women is good for the ratings. To quote the McBeal website regarding a recent episode: 'back at the firm, Ally and Ling find themselves locked up in a room. Their curiosities have become too overwhelming and they finally kiss. This wasn't a quick peck on the lips either. They passionately went at it and also went for seconds. Later on, Ally and Ling agree that they still like men because of that one extra variable men possess. Ally also promises Ling that she will never kiss another woman.'

As an article on Kelley published on Salon.com last September [I need to get the journo's name for you] says: 'I don't know how anyone could mistake "Ally McBeal" for a "women's show" -- it's purely a freewheeling, male workplace fantasy.'

Here are a few of the plot lines from both shows. The murder trial of a man who is sexually aroused by women in high-heels crushing cockroaches (it's a mother thing). A man sues his ex-fiancée because she loved him, but wasn't in love with him, a woman sues McBeal, for maliciously destroying her marriage (McBeal had been the bridesmaid, slept with the groom, fessed up at the altar), Renee, a prosecutor and McBeal's housemate has enormous breasts and likes to hang them out. When she is asked to wear less revealing clothes to court we are subjected to a series of monologues her rights to freedom of expression. Judge Kittleson starts to harass the Practice's senior partner, Bobby and giving blowjobs to Bobby's colleague, Jimmy. The senior partner in the firm McBeal works for, Richard Fish, has a fetish for the 'wattle' (Sagging flesh and skin) on older women's necks. A woman sues her employer who sacked her for being so sexually attractive the other women in the company felt threatened. A man accused of flashing attempts to prove his innocence by showing his penis to the jury (it's big, the flashers' was not). Nelle on Ally McBeal almost drops the biscuit (her boyfriend -the firm's leading barrister) because he tries to spice up their love life by spanking her with a hairbrush. Jimmy defends in court, but is privately outraged by, an ex-girlfriend's decision to sell her reproductive eggs. Apparently the season opener of "Chicago Hope" in the States last September centered on a priest whose penis was severed under mysterious circumstances.

As Salon.com puts it, "If you've never seen any of these shows, you might wonder, what's the difference between Kelley and Jerry Springer?"

I wouldn't care if the shows were as tacky, fun and full of stereotypes, as any good old-fashioned Darren Starr soapy (90210, Melrose Place, Sex in the City). In the confessional style celebrated in these shows let me declare here and now - I was a Melrose Place addict. Starr creates worlds where men are stupid and don't wear shirts (it's hot, it's LA) and the women are conniving bitches in really short skirts. Everyone knows where they stand. In Sex in the City he's upped it a notch with more sophisticated characters and scripting. While the women on that show all obsess about their sex lives and men, there is a self deprecating irony to character Carrie Bradshaw's (played by Sarah Jessica Parker) voiceovers which makes the show smarter, and funnier than Kelley's could ever be. Helped, possibly, by the fact that the screenplay is based on a book by a woman (Candace Bushnell) and Sarah Jessica Parker has a production credit.

Kelley's work can trigger a bizarre fascination, there is no doubt about that. Many people I know talk about watching "Ally McBeal" despite themselves, as if they have been brainwashed by a higher power. A sucker for a good death scene, I tuned in for the recent death of Billy Thomas, McBeal's great love who dies in the tradition of many modern love stories: of a brain tumor. Billy's hallucinations as he got sicker were sexually obsessive in the extreme (women walking around the office nude, nurses offering him oral sex), as he himself was aware. It would be too much to say that Kelley was parodying his own style at this point, but it is ironic that one of the show's main characters dies because he has so much sex on the brain it almost literally explodes.

The shows ratings have been dropping in the states because of these increasingly ludicrous plotlines. Let's hope he gets the point. As Kelley's style gets more personal, people are voting with their remote control. His new project is a school drama that is told from the teachers' perspective from a public high school, possibly to be called "Boston Public". Will the teachers indulge in a series of lurid fantasies about their students? About each other? Or will they, in a radical a turn around on his recent dramas, actually do some work?

Posted by Sophie at 03:38 PM