The Amazingly Misandrist Mrs Wainwright (contains spoilers)
Given the breadth and depth of some of the reviews of The Amazing Mrs Pritchard, one is shocked not to find a single reference to the treatment of the sexes in this series—and specifically to the treatment of men. In the six-part British 'dramadie' created by Sally Wainwright (Jane Hall; At Home with the Braithwaites), characters of the male persuasion are either evil, weak, or absent.
Consider Britain’s new ‘first gentleman’, Ian Pritchard. No Sir Denis Thatcher he, the mild-mannered accountant proves morally challenged and weak, ultimately despised and bullied about by his 19-year-old daughter, Emily. Of course, we’ve become accustomed to characters' representing big business being vilified in these types of programmes (try finding a businessperson who is also a decent human being in any episode of the American Law & Order, for example). But what about those in government—the main focus of the series?
Sorry—men don’t fair any better in this sphere. One of the few other male characters, twenty-something speech writer Ben Sixsmith, is a boy-toy for the powerful Chancellor of the Exchequer, Catherine Walker. He shows a bit of backbone in the series finale (only after Catherine has a termination without having informed him that she was pregnant), but ultimately his powerful paramour stands him down.
Deep inside Number 10, Richard, Mrs Pritchard’s assistant, is competent, helpful, and loyal, but his position as a distinctly non-political advisor to the PM means that a contribution of any substance is rare. Though a good actor, Jonathan Aris’s character is a charming robot. We find no more male presence, let alone substance, in the thoroughly feminized cabinet meetings. There are a few token male cabinet ministers present, but not a single one is given a word of dialogue.
Though the female characters—Ros included—are hardly morally blameless, they are, for the most part, strong characters. But with the male characters in The Amazing Mrs Pritchard, strength equates with moral turpitude. Only the odious Paul Critchley and his misogynist cronies represent maleness in Mrs Wainwright’s fictionalized parliament, and it is a picture neither of strength nor of virtue. As if his present-day machinations weren't enough, we learn in the finale that Critchley had cheated on Catherine Walker with his secretary when the two were courting decades earlier.
So what’s the problem? Well, for my part I don’t know what bothers me more: the condescending, dismissive depiction of men in the Amazing Mrs Pritchard or the fact that no one seems to have noticed this. If you don’t find this troubling, just imagine that the depictions of both sexes in this series were reversed. Would there not have been vehement protests and all manner of vitriol thrown at the series? Could it even have been be produced at all?
‘But that would be business as usual’, some would say, reflexively citing thousands of years of patriarchal monopoly. Such a response misses the point. You might have noticed some changes in society since Simone de Beauvoir, provided you’d looked closely enough. One thing I will say in defence of the series is that Mrs Wainwright's script does not support the tired old canard that if only women could be in charge, the world would be a kinder, gentler, better-run place. The utopian pretensions of the ‘Purple Alliance’ are short lived.
But a ‘hegemonic femininity’ dogs this piece to its bitter end. Down to the final scene of the series, men are trivialized and marginalized. Having made the decision that will determine what future awaits her husband, her career, and her country, Ros Pritchard summons Ian to her office by leaving a two-word note in the residence for him to find: ‘See me’. Such an imperious tone—even when used by a Prime Minister—would justifiably rile the feminist sensibilities of viewers if it were a note written from Tony to Cherie, for example. Ian walks into his wife’s office, stoop-shouldered, like a cross between an eight-year-old boy sent to the headmaster’s office and a 21st century Willy Loman. We don’t know what Ros will do, but the implication seems to be that she will heed Chancellor Catherine’s advice and divorce him (my inference is based largely on the cabinet members' failure to look at Ian as they leave).
One of the reasons Americans watch so much British television is that some of us regard it as a step or two (or three) above American dreck. But unfortunately, The Amazing Mrs Pritchard takes a page from the American sitcom father-as-dolt-or-worse playbook. Reflecting on Pritchard, I couldn’t help but recalling the trajectory of the Prime Suspect franchise. The first couple of installments featured Helen Mirren’s character, DCI Jane Tennison, confronting and gradually overcoming sexist attitudes and practices in the London Metropolitan Police force. Part of the brilliance of that series was that it didn’t pretend that the obstacles in Tennison’s personal and professional life would forever consist solely of the Old Boy Network, but that she would battle a more formidable enemy in the form of a strong woman: herself. And in the culmination of a brilliant character arc to which we are treated in Prime Suspect’s final episode, Tennison is reunited with former nemesis Sgt. Bill Otley, who undergoes a redemptive catharsis, ultimately sacrificing his own life to save his former boss. One hopes that if there is a Series 2 of The Amazing Mrs. Pritchard, there might be some redemption for at least one of its male characters.