The Reality Of It All: Biographical Dramas and Reclaimed Narratives

This paper examines on the recent spate of biographical television shows and films that focus on particular women (Monica Lewinsky, Katherine Graham, Phyllis Schlafly, Betty Ford, etc.) who have complex political reputations. These “biopics” are reclaiming the narrative for these women, examining their exercise of power, be it limited or expansive, and digging at the constraints that they faced. This examination is important given the toggling between fact and fiction and how these narratives shape ideas about women and power, and also our collective memories of individuals in political situations. This paper is part of our larger research stream that has indicated spaces or absences in the way that power and gender are examined; in examining popular culture representations of the hesitancy and anxiety around the gendered performance and use of power we find a lively arena to consider the reality of power in relation to gender and to “otherness.” We are exploring the feminine and feminist theories of power as they play out in the imaginative and theoretical space offered by contemporary popular culture. Numerous television shows have come to offer timely representations of women who have power. These representations matter because they are happening outside of actual campaigns, elections, and policymaking, in a space where writers, actors and viewers are free to create and re-imagine female identities and rework in art the choices made in sometimes real and sometimes fictional contexts. New options, different answers, and transformation of what it means to wield power in differently gendered bodies can be theorized and grappled with, in a variety of genres and tones. As more women run for and enter elective and appointive office these fictional portrayals also offer a feedback loop of options to real women leading off-screen lives. These representations also matter because of the broad reach of this theorizing. As these characters operate in sometimes normal and sometimes fantastic arenas, they give mass audiences an opportunity to engage in debate over thorny gender dilemmas and shape new definitions of power, gender, and identity and why we might be anxious about those who do or may hold power.