Anita Hill didn't know how easy she had it. Compared with the women being manhandled every week in made-for-TV movies, Clarence Thomas' accuser got kid- glove treatment from the Senate Judiciary Committee. Consider just a few story lines from recent or soon-to-air network films:
-- An unmarried mother of three is sent to prison after being wrongly convicted of selling cocaine. There she grapples with the problem of trying to raise her kids from inside the slammer.
-- A female surgeon is raped by a man posing as a hospital employee. The police can't find the culprit, but she does -- when he turns up on her operating table.
-- A woman plans an extramarital affair with the help of her best friend. But the one-night stand goes awry, and when her friend is found dead the next morning, the adulteress is charged with murder.
-- A dental hygienist marries her boss, who turns out to be a class-A sleazeball. He beats her nearly to death on their honeymoon, finishes the job a few years later, then battles the woman's sister for custody of the couple's infant son.
Women certainly can't complain that TV is ignoring them. They are, in fact, the dramatic focus of an increasingly large proportion of prime-time fare. According to Nielsen figures, the adult audience on a typical fall evening is more than 58% female. For drama shows, the figure rises to 61%. Result: with a few hairy-chested exceptions (NBC's upcoming The Return of Eliot Ness), the vast majority of network movies and mini-series -- particularly during November's important ratings "sweeps" -- are aimed squarely at female viewers.
But such attention comes at a daunting price: the rise of the victimization drama. We're not talking about glitzy, Danielle Steel soap operas, or the traditional disease-of-the-week tearjerker. These are more "serious" dramas, frequently based on real-life news events and dealing with important issues. Stripped to their essence, however, they are about one thing: extravagant, glorious suffering.
The formula is depressingly familiar: a happy woman has her life shattered by a senseless crime, family tragedy or miscarriage of justice. From then on, society conspires against her with the intensity of the manhunt that pursued Thelma and Louise. Her enemies are smart and conniving, her allies weak and ineffectual. Her husband may try to help, but he is typically unreliable. Children, though loving, can be cruel. And everybody yells at her.
Even when misfortune befalls others, it is the woman who seems to bear the burden. In ABC's Stranger in the Family, a teenager is stricken with amnesia after an auto accident. But the drama focuses on his mother (Teri Garr) and her efforts to recapture her "lost" son. In CBS's My Son Johnny, Rick Schroder plays a small-time hood who has brutalized his younger brother from childhood. Again, Mom (Michele Lee) is the star sufferer: she is forced to recognize that she has raised a bad boy.
Then there is the woman as surrogate victim. In NBC's She Says She's Innocent, Katey Sagal is the mother of a teenager wrongly accused of murdering a classmate. In one scene, Mom pays a consoling visit to the dead girl's parents. "Your daughter murdered my baby!" screams the mother in reply. "Now there's only one thing I'm living for, and that is to watch you suffer!" Thanks, and have a nice day.