Ages?

[ziggy]

Jun 2, 2014 16:12:20 GMT wildhorseannie said:

Yay, that's at least four votes for the female reporter!

ziggy, feel free to join in as often as you can! We love to hear different opinions...it just makes the conversation that much more interesting. I try to keep up on conversations too, but I'm so far behind everyone else in terms of episodes watched, that sometimes it can seem like I'm a little "out of the loop." But I don't let that stop me!

Thanks Annie. I’ll try and participate as often as I can though it’s a very busy board here. Hard to keep up with things.

And I’ll surprise snacky one day by opening a thread. I first have to decide whether to start with something that will cause a “hoopla” or something everyone will agree on.

[ziggy]

Jun 2, 2014 16:56:33 GMT snacky said:

Jun 2, 2014 8:40:20 GMT ziggy said:

I would welcome a new female character but not if she is brought in as a love interest for one of the policemen like I think they did with Emily. It gets too much like the show is about the lead characters and their intimate relationships with eachother. It doesn’t make for good viewing for those fans like me who are more interested in the murder mysteries than in a soap opera. Since the George/Emily ship didn’t quite sail, they don’t know what to do with Emily. Her presence at the morgue displaced Julia (I quite liked Julia in the morgue) and that whole situation with the women is all over the place.

I do like the idea of a female reporter should they have room for one.

If the female reporter were brought in as a love interest that would free Emily to be the Awesome Independent Woman she should have been from the start.

Emily can be free now to be her own woman. She does not need to wait for a love interest for George.

I would love to see a couple more female casts in the show though, but not if they are there as love interests for the policemen. The idea that women can only look good or be respectable if they are with men didn’t hold much power even in those days. Julia already has broken down that barrier for us along with the likes of Ms Pensell and Dr Bajjali who all command respect and power even in the workplace full of men. Of course the women can have their own families but they should keep their relationships off screen.

[wildhorseannie]

The love interests definitely add a bit of spice to the plots, but I think the writers have done a good job bringing in "independent" women. Even when these women are linked romantically to the officers, the still do a good job of standing on their own. Anna and Enid come to mind. They were both "involved" with William, but Anna owned her own business and Enid worked full time while supporting her son. That ability to be a strong woman and yet have the tender, romantic side is something I've always found appealing in the Murdoch women.

[snacky]

Jun 3, 2014 23:36:15 GMT ziggy said:

Jun 2, 2014 16:12:20 GMT wildhorseannie said:

And I’ll surprise snacky one day by opening a thread. I first have to decide whether to start with something that will cause a “hoopla” or something everyone will agree on.

I vote for hoopla! And mayhem!

[snacky]

Jun 3, 2014 23:43:55 GMT ziggy said:

I would love to see a couple more female casts in the show though, but not if they are there as love interests for the policemen. The idea that women can only look good or be respectable if they are with men didn’t hold much power even in those days.

Julia said it all when she said she shouldn't have to be defined through her relationship with a man. But sadly, she is locked into a relationship in MM and pretty much defined by it!

Emily should be the Independent Woman, and she should have been from the beginning. This whole George detour was an awkward mistake, all the more egregious because it was a William/Julia do-over without the right personality dynamic place.

Get George back together with Tess (he wants love!), and let Emily get back to exploring the uncanny borders between life and death.

[snacky]

Jun 4, 2014 3:40:13 GMT wildhorseannie said:

The love interests definitely add a bit of spice to the plots, but I think the writers have done a good job bringing in "independent" women. Even when these women are linked romantically to the officers, the still do a good job of standing on their own. Anna and Enid come to mind. They were both "involved" with William, but Anna owned her own business and Enid worked full time while supporting her son. That ability to be a strong woman and yet have the tender, romantic side is something I've always found appealing in the Murdoch women.

I was reading about a poignant side to this. When men ran off for the gold rush or to work on the rail road, they often never came back. Women were left to fend for themselves and support their children on their own. No wonder a lot of independent women emerged during that era!

Can you imagine a woman with 12 children, abandoned by her husband? Perhaps he didn't die, but gambled away his gold dust every night in a saloon.

[wildhorseannie]

Which, of course, is why the "career woman" truly began to skyrocket after the World Wars ravaged entire generations and left women to run not only households, but the operations of entire nations.

[snacky]

Jun 4, 2014 4:02:12 GMT wildhorseannie said:

Which, of course, is why the "career woman" truly began to skyrocket after the World Wars ravaged entire generations and left women to run not only households, but the operations of entire nations.

It's happened all along. Women in leadership positions were called Queens. Victoria was the last one left standing. XD

[wildhorseannie]

Jun 4, 2014 4:26:40 GMT snacky said:

Jun 4, 2014 4:02:12 GMT wildhorseannie said:

Which, of course, is why the "career woman" truly began to skyrocket after the World Wars ravaged entire generations and left women to run not only households, but the operations of entire nations.

It's happened all along. Women in leadership positions were called Queens. Victoria was the last one left standing. XD

Haha...I have to give major props to the current queen.  She's in her eighties and still rides horses every chance she gets...I wanna be like her when I grow up 

[snacky]

Jun 4, 2014 5:00:30 GMT wildhorseannie said:

Jun 4, 2014 4:26:40 GMT snacky said:

It's happened all along. Women in leadership positions were called Queens. Victoria was the last one left standing. XD

Haha...I have to give major props to the current queen.  She's in her eighties and still rides horses every chance she gets...I wanna be like her when I grow up 

She better hold on for as long as she can. The successor would bring disaster upon the monarchy.

[wildhorseannie]

She seems like a tough old bird...much like the lady whose name defines Murdoch's era

[ziggy]

Jun 4, 2014 3:40:13 GMT wildhorseannie said:

The love interests definitely add a bit of spice to the plots, but I think the writers have done a good job bringing in "independent" women. Even when these women are linked romantically to the officers, the still do a good job of standing on their own. Anna and Enid come to mind. They were both "involved" with William, but Anna owned her own business and Enid worked full time while supporting her son. That ability to be a strong woman and yet have the tender, romantic side is something I've always found appealing in the Murdoch women.

I agree with everything you said here. I am not against love or romance or the characters having their “heart flutters”. I quite like it but not when it becomes the big issue of a murder mystery show. Anna and Enid are very good examples of “independent” women that were involved with a main character without taking over the show. If the main characters and their love interests are the ones working and playing the love scenes as well, it loses its appeal as a murder mystery show. It is a soap opera. Asking to bring a female character in as a love interest (first and foremost) to play a regular role isn’t exactly bringing her in as an independent woman. They still only have 45 minutes of screen time to share between all these characters and the mystery itself. Like snacky remarked, look what it’s done to Julia. Everyone forgets the talented and intelligent doctor she is and her valuable contribution to the constab’s fight against crime. She is defined by her relationship with William to most observers to the point that even William is not seen as an individual anymore. She literarily engulfed him after season 5. That is not necessarily a good thing for the supposed lead character either.

[ziggy]

Jun 4, 2014 3:42:41 GMT snacky said:

Jun 3, 2014 23:36:15 GMT ziggy said:

I vote for hoopla! And mayhem!

Haha, I thought you might. I am sure Annie never thought a simple question about age would grow legs but here we are, 8 pages down the road, we sure covered some ground. I dare to think that my participation spiced things up a bit with my contrasting views at times. But thanks to you both for dragging me along.

[ziggy]

Annie, no pressure....take as much time as you need but hurry up with your catching up, lol! I'm curious to hear your initial thoughts on the remaining seasons.

[snacky]

Jun 5, 2014 11:02:01 GMT ziggy said:

 Everyone forgets the talented and intelligent doctor she is and her valuable contribution to the constab’s fight against crime. She is defined by her relationship with William to most observers to the point that even William is not seen as an individual anymore. She literarily engulfed him after season 5. That is not necessarily a good thing for the supposed lead character either.

This is the point Julia was making in The Filmed Adventures of William Murdoch (though note the show is the Murdoch Mysteries, not the Ogden Mysteries). An independent woman woman isn't one who is defined through a man.

I don't think it's the ongoing relationship that has reduced Julia's "action" role, though. I think an ongoing relationship is necessary in order not to reduce MM into a series of a comic sketches. There is of course the danger of veering the other direction into the "soap opera'. It's up the writers to put the mystery first, and keep the balance in the show, while respecting William's relationships (including the main romantic one) as part of his character development.

IMHO, what did shove Julia into the background was her switch to psychiatry, which is a "softer" science, and affords less opportunity for field work and "action". While the turn of the century was the time to get into psychiatry with the coming of Freud and Jung and all - very exciting intellectually - I don't think it gives Julia a strong role in MM. Too bad Dr. Roberts was frozen: I miss his creepy alienist ways! Julia seems more like a modern therapist than someone who might be keeping a Somnambulist in her closet.

I vote that Julia should have some traumatic experience with a patient or disgruntling experience with the field (perhaps Freud should dis her as a woman or something) and she should re-open her women's clinic. When she's actively trying to help people in the community she will find herself more involved in situations and more of a partner to William.