A SCREEN OF ONE’S OWNHeather Osborne-Thompson, editor, Spectator 25:2 (Fall 2005): 49 - 60.49

Don’t Call me “Action Woman!”The Female Director and Quality Television

Kimberly Owczarski

Handpicked by cinematic “genius” and box office champion Steven Spielberg, Mimi Leder made her Hollywood film directorial debut with The Peacemaker in 1997—a sprawling, big-budget action film starring Nicole Kidman and George Clooney. Leder impressed Spielberg with her critically acclaimed work on the NBC television series ER (1994-present), a series that a subsidiary company of his—Amblin Television—co-produced. The hopes and expectations that surrounded the production of The Peacemaker made it an exceptionally stressful venture. As the first film produced and released by Dreamworks SKG, the newest Hollywood studio, the success or failure of The Peacemaker would portend the studio’s chances in a market dominated by super-conglomerates like Disney and Time Warner. But as one of only a few women to ever helm a big-budget Hollywood action film, the stakes were particularly high for Leder. At that time, the project boasted the largest budget ever secured by a female director, and many in the industry hoped that the film’s success would be a gateway for other women who wanted to direct films with higher budgets, regardless of the film genre.1 With the success of this film, and the production of her next two large-scale projects—the disaster film Deep Impact (1998) and the melodrama Pay It Forward (2000)—Leder carved a space for the female director in mainstream, high-budget Hollywood film.

As her film work indicates, Leder has straddled the line between the traditionally “masculine” cinema of action films (The Peacemaker) and the traditionally “feminine” cinema of the melodrama

(Pay It Forward). In Deep Impact the two genres merge. As a disaster film with a philosophical and emotional sensibility, it is an example of “hybrid” cinema reminiscent of recent television serials, especially if you compare it to the reception of the competing asteroid disaster film in theaters that summer, director Michael Bay’s Armageddon. Whereas Deep Impact “emphasizes feelings over firepower” and exhibits “a distinct womanly touch” for the action genre, Armageddon is a “testosterone attack” which “consists of watching things get blown up to an amped-up soundtrack.”2 While Armageddon earned more at the box office, Deep Impact received the critical praise in large part due to the “womanly touch” Leder brought to the genre.

It is this same relationship of action with a “womanly touch” that dominates discourse about “quality” television. In “Once in a Lifetime: Constructing ‘The Working Woman’ through Cable Narrowcasting,” Jackie Byars and Eileen Meehan claim that today’s most successful prime-time television shows merge “elements of serial melodrama into traditionally males (sic) genres” and thus become hybrids geared for both male and female viewers.3 The hybridization of the action genre with the melodrama in Leder’s films is not surprising given her prior work on television. As a director for such shows as China Beach (ABC 1988-1991), ER, and John Doe (Fox 2002-2003), as well as for several made-for-TV movies, Leder’s television work has floated between these two genres, often combining action and melodrama within the same shot.

What I am particularly interested in is how critics position texts created by a female

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director—especially one as powerful and admired as Leder—within these two (gendered) genres of action and melodrama and the relationship of these generic notions to what is deemed “quality” television. While I will not argue that Mimi Leder is necessarily the author of ER—a title perhaps better suited for show runner John Wells4—or of her other television serial endeavors, I believe that the television director does have some creative control over his or her end product. With four Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Directing in a Drama Series and one win—becoming only the second woman in the Awards’ history to do so5—Leder has proven herself to be not only a critical success, but also a woman whose television work continually ranks with the best of any given year. Both China Beach and ER have been deemed “quality” television by a number of critics, and it begs a question: Is this success due to the contributions of female directors like Leder? And, if more recent television is a hybrid as Byars and Meehan claim, is it because of the influx of women in powerful positions? Certainly these are not easy questions to answer, but by looking at the critical

discourse surrounding Leder’s television work, I intend to demonstrate how gender and genre shape notions of the female television director and what is deemed “quality” television.

Quality Television and Gender

Many attempts have been made to define “quality” television as a style, in an attempt to differentiate it from traditional programming—considered banal, unintelligent, and unimportant. One of the strategies used to enhance the reputation of television programming is to construct television “auteurs,” usually producers, whose distinctive voices elevate television shows to the status of art. According to John Caldwell in Televisuality: Style, Crisis, and Authority in American Television, auteur-driven shows are important because they suggest

an air of selectivity, refinement, uniqueness, and privilege . . . Programming’s cult of sensitivity may involve the kind of spectacular cinematic spectacle more typical of loss-leader event programming, but it also may involve more restrained forms of drama, writing, and cinematography–subtle orchestrations of televisual form that create the defining illusion of a personal touch.6

In a collaborative medium like television production, “a personal touch” may be an illusion, but it is an illusion with a critical function. This strategy becomes important, Caldwell argues, “to cut through the televised clutter” and to suggest to viewers a unique and more meaningful viewing experience.7 “Personal touch” becomes part of a televisual style necessary to compete with the increasing number of television programs available to the audience.

Because of industry-wide economic and technological changes, Caldwell argues that this televisual aesthetic style emerged in the 1980s, coinciding with the development of what others call “quality” television. In Television’s Second Golden Age: From Hill Street Blues to ER, Robert J. Thompson sketches out a profile for

Above: Director Mimi Leder behind the camera. Opposite: Part of the ensemble cast of the Mary Tyler Moore Show.

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“quality” television which includes the following characteristics: an aspiration towards realism; a large ensemble cast; highly desirable demographics; complex writing; controversial subject matter; critical acclaim; and character development during the progression of the narrative, to name but a few of these characteristics.8 None of these qualities are necessarily due to gender influences, but also listed among these characteristics is genre blurring, particularly with the soap opera:

The “quality dramas” of the 1980s . . . were perhaps the greatest beneficiaries of [prime-time soap opera] Dallas and its imitators. As the Golden Age of television was rooted in the legitimate stage, quality dramas were rooted in the soap opera. Hill Street Blues, St. Elsewhere, thirtysomething, and L.A. Law all employed continuing story lines and, though less like soap operas, Cagney & Lacey, Moonlighting, and China Beach still built heavily on previous episodes.9

For Thompson, the proliferation of these “quality” television shows—not only dramas, but also sitcoms like Cheers—led to a Second Golden Age of television, heavily influenced by the soap opera and its conventions. In Thompson’s view, “quality” television and gender are, at least, implicitly linked through the influence of the soap opera.

In Kirsten Marthe Lentz’s work on The Mary Tyler Moore Show (hereafter, TMTMS), the link between “quality” television and gender is made much more explicit.10 With its focus on an independent, female protagonist, TMTMS mirrored the concerns of the liberal feminist movement of the early 1970s. TMTMS differentiated itself from previous sitcoms in an attempt “to improve the television text aesthetically,” often critiquing “bad” television through the depiction of its inept newscast.11 TMTMS was “touted as more ‘literate,’ more stylistically complex, and as offering more character development than most sitcoms,” particularly in

contrast to other popular 1970s sitcoms produced by Norman Lear.12 Lear’s focus on racial politics rather than gender politics was deemed more “relevant” than TMTMS because series like All in the Family dealt more directly with (messy) social and political issues. TMTMS was continually described with terms like “expensive, … literate, … subtle, … gentle, and … respectful,” aligning the show with “quality,” whereas Lear’s sitcoms were described as “cheap … , illiterate … , obvious … , satirical … , and alienating …”13 In this regard, the critical responses surrounding these two shows, in particular, associated “quality” with gender and “relevance” with race.

Certainly, as Byars and Meehan point out, the production of “quality” television has to do with attracting desirable demographics. Both TMTMS and more recent dramatic serials in this vein attempted specifically to attract working women, whose discretionary income has grown substantially over the years. With the competition that cable networks now provide the major networks, television series that can bring in both men and women—of certain economic standing, of course—are highly desirable. And while auteur-driven style, “quality” elements such as complex characters, and genre hybridization certainly make television series more attractive to both male and female viewers, Byars and Meehan, Caldwell, Thompson, and Lentz tend to downplay the importance of women directly involved in

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the production of these shows. Given the large number of female writers, producers, and directors who worked on these “quality” and hybrid series, it seems likely that part of the equation for their success lies not only in their ability to attract audiences of both men and women, but also in the influence women yielded behind-the-scenes.

Leder’s significant work on a number of the shows Thompson identifies as “quality” television points to the importance of women behind the scenes.14 As a producer and one of the key directors for China Beach, a drama about military nurses set during the Vietnam War, and as a co-executive producer and one of the key directors for early seasons of ER, a drama centered on an inner-city Chicago emergency room, Leder’s contributions to making them “quality” series can hardly be ignored.

If dramas such as China Beach and ER are considered recent examples of “quality” television according to critics, the other television genre Leder specialized in—the made-for-TV movie—embodies the opposite end of the spectrum. Made-for-TV movies have never had the distinction of being anything but “trashy, sentimental, sensationalized tearjerkers plagued with everything from wooden acting to poor production values,” in sharp contrast to the attributes of “quality” television.15 They are continually gendered as feminine, where “quality” television is merely feminized. Building directly from the soap opera, made-for-TV movies foreground issues related to women, “posing certain dilemmas of female experience without resolving them ideologically, although they do resolve them emotionally.”16

Yet, while made-for-TV films are seen to “reinforce the most traditional meanings of womanhood”—as mothers, as wives, as victims—they do so within different generic schemata.17 Not all made-for-TV movies embodied the “tearjerker” mold they have neatly been packed into. Critically acclaimed and popular made-for-TV movies include Brian’s Song (1971), which centered on an interracial friendship between two football players as well as how lung cancer affected their lives; The Day After (1983), which posited what might happen if a nuclear war occurred; and Roe v. Wade (1989), which documented the well-publicized Supreme Court battle to legalize abortion. While each of

these films does have “tearjerker” moments, and while they may address some women’s issues, they were not directed solely to female viewers, nor were they only intended to be “tearjerkers.” In each of these made-for-TV movies, social and political commentaries were just as important, if not more important, than the emotional center of the narrative. While “quality” television shows may introduce controversial topics like AIDS, abortion, or rape into their storylines, it is always within a safe sphere of subtlety, respect, and gentleness. In contrast, like Lear’s sitcoms of “relevance,” made-for-TV movies addressed social and political issues directly, often quite messily and emotionally.

The Female Director: Gender, Genre, and “Quality” Television

Both modes that director Mimi Leder has worked in—the “quality” television series and the made-for-TV movie—have been feminized or gendered feminine either in their address, topicality, and/or inclusion of soap opera elements. While “quality” television is elevated as higher art and made-for-TV movies are derided as low-class entertainment, substantial similarities occur between dramatic serials and the made-for-TV movie. The infusion of action and melodrama and the use of similar camera work and plot devices in both of their narratives have particular resonance when looking at whom these genres address and how critics respond to them. Mimi Leder’s work in both modes thus provides an interesting case study of the critical responses shaping notions of female authorship in television production in terms of gender and genre.

Made-for-TV Movies

Like the responses for most made-for-TV movies, the criticism for Mimi Leder’s “tearjerkers” is loaded with derision toward the more soap opera elements of the genre. In a review for the Los Angeles Times of Woman with a Past (1992), a film where a woman’s troubled past as an escaped convict threatens the suburban life she has carefully crafted with her second husband, Lynne Heffley’s dislike for the genre is evident

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almost immediately. Claiming that Woman with a Past “is yet another hankie-wringer about a woman who did wrong and must pay, pay, pay,” she positions the made-for-TV movie as an intensely emotional victimization of women.18 At the end of the review, she asserts that Pamela Reed, who plays the “woman with a past,” is too good an actress for this material, that she “can do more than wade through the suds,” again deriding the genre as something a serious actress does not need to do. Similarly, in a review for People Weekly, writer David Hiltbrand criticizes Baby Brokers (1994), a film in which a single woman desperate for a child falls prey to an adoption scam, for being too emotional by “grinding our tender parental feelings through the wringer for two solid hours” only to conclude “happily as [actress Cybill] Shepherd gets a baby, a boyfriend, a rapprochement with her mother and just about everything else her little heart has ever desired, this side of Bruce Willis,” alluding to the “quality” television serial Moonlighting (ABC 1985-1989) in which they both starred.19

Even if the critics’ comments are not meant to be negative about the movie, or the genre as a whole, the privileging of emotion in these films is always the central aspect of the critique. Ray Loynd’s review of A Little Piece of Heaven (1991) for the Los Angeles Times calls it “a two- or three-hankie movie” that is “warmly touched” and which never “gets saccharine.”20 His entire review centers on how the film works as a heartwarming Christmas tale based on its emotionality rather than the potential social commentary of a story that focuses on an orphaned teenager who kidnaps two troubled children so that his disabled sister will have playmates for the holiday. In a similar review for There Was a Little Boy (1993), Loynd again discusses the movie in terms of its emotional effects—its “tear-eyed conclusion,” its “wrenching opening,” and its “emotionally savage resolution,” after a baby boy is kidnapped and finds his “real” parents again as a troubled teenager.21

In each of these reviews, the emotional or “tearjerker” aspects are highlighted above everything else—including the action sequences

Leder at work on the 2000 melodrama Pay it Forward.

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that most of these films feature, and which work side-by-side with the melodrama to create their lasting emotional power. In There Was a Little Boy, for example, the wayward teenager (Jessie) confronts his (unknowing) birth mother (Julie) through a mixture of frenzied action and emotional outburst. Smashing objects around her spare bedroom, the camera follows Jessie as he rushes about the room, both the camera and character stopping briefly to linger for a conversation with her. As he learns that her baby boy was kidnapped some fifteen years ago, and not abandoned, he drops the baseball bat and reaches into his coat. Shoving several objects into her hand as he hugs her, Julie screams, “What are you doing? Stop that!” just as her husband Greg enters the home. Racing upstairs to find a strange boy “attacking” Julie, Greg starts to beat Jessie. As they scuffle, Julie looks at the objects Jessie has thrust into her hand—only to find her missing son’s bib, blanket, and pictures. Before she can alert her husband to Jessie’s identity, the boy has run out of the house. In an emotional embrace of joy and sorrow, Julie shows Greg the artifacts and screams, “It’s Robbie! Our son!” Combining intense emotion and action, as well as some intricately choreographed camerawork, this scene works not only because the protagonists are all “teary-eyed,” but also because of the reliance on the frantic action to heighten the drama. In many of Leder’s made-for-TV movies—including Woman with a Past, A Little Piece of Heaven, and Baby Brokers—the combination of violence (usually in the form of domestic abuse) and tears work together to create the heart of the story.

In contrast to reviews of the Leder-directed “tearjerkers” that rely on melodramatic conventions such as high emotion and the suffering of the female protagonist, reviews for Leder’s more action-oriented made-for-TV movies tend to foreground the power of the films’ action sequences. This is made explicit in Ray Loynd’s review of The Innocent where he claims, in this TV movie, “what sparks the plot is not sentimentality but … [the] pitched series of chase scenes between the mad dog killers … and the silent witness who can finger them.”22 In Rick Kogan’s critique of Woman with a Past, he finds only the sequences which feature the domestic abuse of Virginia

Porter and her descent into crime to be of note: “The gritty portions of the film tell a much more interesting tale.”23 The family melodrama, which frames the “gritty portions” he prefers, does not hold up to the action-infused flashback sequences in the movie.

Despite critics’ refusal to envision emotion and action as equals in the same filmic space, Powers Booth, the star of Marked for Murder (also known as The Sandman, 1993), heralded director Leder for combining the action and emotional sequences in the film so seamlessly. As a particularly violent made-for-TV movie, Marked for Murder follows a convicted killed who joins a special unit of the Philadelphia police to fight the city’s toughest criminals. After Booth’s initial hesitancy for a female director helming an action movie, he told the Chicago Sun-Times, “Mimi was the dead-on right choice … Too often directors focus on the action and not the characters. To be effective, action must evolve from the characters. Mimi did the action scenes extremely well because she stayed in touch with the relationships. She was fabulous.”24 In what is a departure from the norm of the made-for-TV movie—an action-filled police story—Marked for Murder provided ample depictions of violence, sexual titillation, and action geared for male viewers. Yet, like in most of her made-for-TV movies, Leder combined action and melodrama, appealing to both male and female viewers in a genre typically derided as being for women only.

“Quality” Television Dramas While Leder’s made-for-TV movies routinely combined action and melodrama, and their reviews varied according to which dominated the narrative, ER and other “quality” television shows centered on the complex interplay of the two generic elements often as if they were inseparable. ER is an ensemble medical drama that follows the lives of several doctors, nurses, medical students, and physician’s assistants who work at an inner-city Chicago emergency room. Because of its intense medical setting, ER allows for frantic action during moments in which cast members attempt to save patients and emotional drama when they experience the loss of loved ones and patients.

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Having been in the top ten of the Nielsen ratings every year since it has been on the air, ER remains both a commercial and critical hit—“quality” television that attracts key demographics of both young men and women.

Subsequently, when Spielberg chose Leder to helm The Peacemaker, he did so based on her directorial performance on ER: “When he offered me [The] Peacemaker, I asked him, ‘Why do you think I can do action?’ He said, ‘Well, you do it every day on ER.’”25 As a co-executive producer, and head of the show’s directors, Leder was responsible for the choreography of the show’s action sequences—“After a script is completed, she marks it up to add as much hospital action as possible.”26 In particular, Leder was in charge of the use of the steadicam—deeming where its use would be appropriate and figuring out the logistics of its use on the set.27 According to Jefferson Graham of USA Today, the steadicam is “used for 80% of ER’s footage.”28 The steadicam is a camera held by the cameraperson, which allows for substantial range of movement, especially where tracking shots prove impossible.

As a handheld instrument, however, the steadicam allows more closeness to the characters in the actual emergency sequences. In Leder’s own words: “We can shoot low and aim the camera up and see the great ceilings and architecture, or wind around the multilayered hallways. It’s the only way to go. You feel a sense of reality and immediacy, as if you are really there. You feel like you’re part of the action and that you want to be with these people.”29 The quick-paced emergency situations in the episodes were “perfectly designed for the remote-controlled cable era . . . [they] moved so fast, you didn’t need to change the channel because it [ER] kept doing it for you.”30

For example, in the February 2, 1995 episode of ER entitled “Make of Two Hearts,” the steadicam follows an injured man from his arrival in the ER on a gurney to his transfer onto the examination table in one of the rooms—a shot which takes over a minute to complete. Starting with a close-up focusing on an outside door, the steadicam pans right as Lorenzo’s gurney busts through. As the patient Lorenzo passes by, his left arm is raised above his head—a meat hook imbedded deep in the upper arm. Positioned slightly behind the

action, the steadicam follows Lorenzo, the doctors and the EMTs pushing the gurney until they stop to make a turn. At this point, the camera rushes past the gurney and the action is seen head-on until the gurney arrives at its final destination, where the camera pauses outside the room as Lorenzo is wheeled past. Once Lorenzo is on the table, frantic cuts range from close-ups of the doctors working on him to a medium shot of Lorenzo lying on the table, calling for his injured son—all steadicam shots which follow the action of the characters. In this brief scene, the movement of the steadicam allows for an emotional and immediate connection with both the character of Lorenzo and the doctors who help him.

Additionally, while the steadicam used by Leder and other ER directors injects the viewer directly into the action, moments of melodrama—highly intense emotional moments—also draw the viewer into the story. According to Leder,

one of the things I find interesting about ER is that it’s nonstop movement and emotion—and then everything stops and we take a moment and we see a man kiss his dead wife and say good-bye to her … There’s a lot of juxtaposition in the storytelling that is very visual and visceral emotionally. I think that’s an important element of the show.31

For example, in the October 6, 1994 episode “Hit and Run,” medical student John Carter witnesses his first death in the Emergency Room. An unidentified teenaged boy is brought into the ER after a hit-and-run accident. The steadicam follows the gurney through the halls, finally stopping when the boy is lifted onto the examination table. The frantic camera movement follows each of the doctors and nurses as they attempt to save the boy and fail. A camera lingers on Carter’s face as he holds an I.V. pole for support, trying not to faint or vomit. As his eyes well with tears, a nurse tells him reassuringly, “You get used to them over time,” then walks out of the room, leaving Carter to contemplate the dead boy alone. This juxtaposition—from the frantic efforts to save him to the quiet, contemplative shot of Carter’s face—emotionally draws the viewer in

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because of the stark contrast between the action and the melodramatic framing.

However, Leder’s direction often includes scenes that combine melodrama and action without such stark contrasts or juxtapositions. In “Make of Two Hearts,” Lorenzo screams for his injured son as doctors attempt to rescue his arm and his son’s life. Intercut with the frantic measures of the doctors, Lorenzo’s teary-eyed plea to “save” his son places the heightened emotion associated with melodrama at the center of the scene. Likewise, the sobs of a Russian girl who witnesses the two men’s gruesome procedures alerts Nurse Hathaway, who immediately runs over to soothe the little girl’s pain, embracing her and cooing maternally, “He’s going to be just fine.”

In the March 9, 1995 episode “Love’s Labor Lost”—for which Leder won her Emmy Award for direction—the camera plays a different role in

achieving the melodramatic aspect of the narrative. Walter Parkes, a producer of The Peacemaker and an executive at Dreamworks, claims that Leder “turns dialogue scenes into action scenes with her camera … She uses the camera to energize scenes.”32 In this episode, the camera creeps with Doctor Mark Greene as he walks down the hall to a waiting room. He gently knocks on the door and walks inside to a father rocking his newborn baby. The camera remains outside of the door, peering through the glass, as Greene tells the father the bad news: his wife, despite all of their efforts, died in the ER. The dialogue is never heard, nor does the camera ever cut inside the room. The moment remains private between Greene and the father.

According to Byars and Meehan, in hybrid series, “the male genre generally dominates; melodrama is typically subordinated and functions as a way to develop the main characters by giving

A private moment of grief between Mark Greene and a new father/widower in ER’s “Love’s Labor Lost”

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them lives beyond what is strictly necessary in terms of the dominant genre.”33 Yet, as these episodes of ER demonstrate, both action and melodrama are central to the events that happen within the ER. Hence, in any given episode of the program, action and melodrama may both be present in a single shot. In December 8, 1994’s “Blizzard,” the steadicam follows Doctor Doug Ross as he rushes to save a patient down the hall. Instead of following him, the camera changes direction to follow a nurse who sings gently to a scared little girl. Eschewing the more action-oriented narrative, the melodrama is privileged. In a show as complex as ER, the elements that make it “quality” television (the melodramatic elements) are just as important and integrated as the dramatic (action) serial.

Don’t Call Me “Action Woman!”

While action has been a significant part of her career—both on television and in feature films—Mimi Leder objects to being seen solely as an action director: “I don’t consider myself an action director. I can direct action. But I don’t want to be labeled as an action director. I just want to be called a director.”34 For Leder, the association with a genre that places explosions and fights above story and character is troubling: “I’m really not much of a fan of action movies. Too many of them have no story, no reality. They’re so far-fetched you have nothing to dig into. Cartoon characters are what you see. I must have a story, I must have a plot.”35 What is interesting is how the press continually aligns her with action, even with her background in made-for-TV movies, and with the influence of melodrama on the two most acclaimed serials she primarily worked on as a director: China Beach and ER. Like many of the reviews for her made-for-TV movies, the melodramatic elements either disappear (in the case of more action-oriented films) or enhance the action elements, but are not taken seriously on their own. This may partially explain the intensely negative reviews she received for Pay It Forward, her third Hollywood feature film, which is clearly situated as a melodrama, rather than the action hybrid of Deep Impact or the action-oriented The Peacemaker.

Since her most recent film Pay It Forward was a failure both at the box office and with critics, Leder has produced two short-lived television programs and currently has one show on the air (though, due to low ratings, it too may be short-lived). After several delays, The Beast was finally put on ABC’s schedule during the summer of 2001 but only five episodes aired before it was cancelled. The Beast followed the crew of a twenty-four-hour news channel whose every action behind the scenes is broadcast via the Web. As executive-producer and director for half of the produced episodes, Leder set the tone for the program, particularly with her energetic camerawork which earned comparisons with ER. Her next venture as executive producer and director, John Doe, lasted a full season but was not renewed by Fox for the 2003-04 year. The title character is an amnesiac trying to determine his identity who, along the way, becomes a crime fighter. Like the reviews for The Beast, Leder’s high-energy camerawork is often acknowledged, especially in Doe’s point-of-view shots which are shot in black-and-white. Though acclaimed, the show suffered from low ratings throughout the season. Her most recent series, Jonny Zero (Fox 2005- ), has many similarities to John Doe in that the title character inadvertently becomes a crime fighter (although this time as a private detective), but he is trying to escape his criminal past rather than learn about it. Both of these shows point to Leder’s continued interest in the action genre, and may indicate a re-focus since the back-to-back failures of Pay It Forward and The Beast. Though none of these three shows quite fit the “quality” television category, the frequent comments by critics about Leder’s unique and energizing camerawork reiterates the “personal touch” discussed by Caldwell, and the “womanly touch” discussed by film critic Janet Maslin, and elevates otherwise routine fare to watchable material.

Whether female directors like Leder work in television or film, then, I would argue that certain constraints regarding action and melodrama govern their assessment by critics. Critics prefer action with “a womanly touch,” as evidenced by the reviews for Deep Impact and the acclaim for “hybrid” and “quality” programs. The reason that China Beach and ER are considered

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Mimi Leder Television Filmography

As Director:

“100 Klicks Out,” China Beach, ABC, June 11, 1991.“After It Happened,” Midnight Caller, NBC, December 13, 1988.“Ashes to Ashes,” John Doe, Fox, February 14, 2003.Baby Brokers, Perf. Cybill Shepherd, NBC, February 21, 1994.“Blizzard,” ER, NBC, December 8, 1994.“Blood Lines,” John Doe, Fox, September 27, 2002.“Cherry,” China Beach, ABC, February 1, 1989.“Crossing the Great Water,” China Beach, ABC, February 8, 1989.“Day One,” ER, NBC, September 22, 1994.“Days Like This,” ER, NBC, November 2, 1995.“Everything Old Is New Again,” ER, NBC, February 18, 1995.“Fictional Family,” The Beast, ABC, Unaired.

“quality” television is because of the inclusion of both action and melodramatic elements in their storylines. Much like the reviews that praised Deep Impact and The Peacemaker, the combination of action with melodrama is seen as a healthy direction for the action genre. However, genres that are more melodramatic in nature, like the made-for-TV movie—even when they include action sequences—will be derided for placing emotion at the center of the narrative. For female directors, it seems that the press and critics want to place them squarely within the action mold—the accepted mold—even if that is not how they see themselves.36 In this regard, notions of (gendered) genre, along with critical response, shape female directors into a “quality” television (or film) mold that allows for an integration of action and melodrama, but only if action is placed first and foremost at the center. The male genre indeed is privileged in critical discourse, even if the television program or film owes much of its art from the conventions of female-oriented genres.

Kimberly A. Owczarski is a doctoral candidate in Radio-Television-Film at the University of Texas at Austin. Her areas of interest include authorship in contemporary media, the contemporary film industry, and issues of gender and media.

In Mimi Leder’s case, her success at bridging the two gendered spheres of action and melodrama in her television work is an important aspect of what makes “quality” television. Her influence on individual episodes of ER (including episodes she did not direct) as well as her direct control over several made-for-TV movies demonstrates her ability to fuse these poles in a way that few other individuals have done so successfully. Yet, her participation in the shaping of the “quality” serial, along with many other women involved in the key shows of the tradition, has rarely been acknowledged. The extent to which hybrid series function as a collaboration of (gendered) genres and audience-building is highly dependent upon women’s roles in television production. As such, more investigation into how women shape “quality” television is a necessary step to understanding the critical and popular success of the tradition.

The author wishes to thank Mary Kearney for her assistance with initial drafts of this paper.

59A SCREEN OF ONE’S OWN

KIMBERLY OWCZARSKI

“Fifty Ways to Floss Your Lover,” L.A. Law, NBC, February 19, 1987.“Healers, The,” ER, NBC, February 22, 1996.“History Part II – She Sells More Than Sea Shells,” China Beach, ABC, October 6, 1990.“Hit and Run,” ER, NBC, October 6, 1994.House of Secrets, Perf. Melissa Gilbert, Bruce Boxleitner, and Cicely Tyson, NBC, November 1, 1993.“I Did It All for the Nooky,” Jonny Zero, Fox, February 11, 2005.“Independence Day,” China Beach, ABC, October 25, 1989.Innocent, The, Perf. Kelsey Grammer, Polly Draper, and Dean Stockwell, NBC, September 25, 1994.Little Piece of Heaven, A, Perf. Kirk Cameron and Cloris Leachman, NBC, December 2, 1991.“Love’s Labor Lost,” ER, NBC, March 9, 1995.“Magic,” China Beach, ABC, January 3, 1990.“Make of Two Hearts,” ER, NBC, February 9, 1995.Marked for Murder, Perf. Powers Boothe and Billy Dee Williams, NBC, January 17, 1993.“Miracle Happens Here, A,” ER, NBC, December 14, 1995.“Mourner, The,” John Doe, Fox, December 13, 2002.Nightingales, Perf. Susan Walters and Chelsea Field, NBC, June 27, 1988.“Oy Vey! Wilderness!” L.A. Law, NBC, April 2, 1987. “Phoenix,” China Beach, ABC, March 21, 1990.“Pilot,” John Doe, Fox, September 20, 2002.“Pilot,” Jonny Zero, Fox, January 14, 2005.“Price, The,” The Beast, ABC, June 13, 2001.“Rewind,” China Beach, ABC, July 9, 1991.Rio Shannon, Perf. Blair Brown and Michael DeLuise, ABC, August 14, 1993.“Rising, The,” John Doe, Fox, April 25, 2003.“Skin Deep,” China Beach, ABC, September 27, 1989.“Thanks of a Grateful Nation, The,” China Beach, ABC, February 28, 1990.There Was a Little Boy, Perf. Cybill Shepherd and John Heard, CBS, May 16, 1993.“Travinia … Life Is But a Dream,” The Beast, ABC, July 18, 2001.“Welcome Back, Carter!” ER, NBC, September 21, 1995.“Who’s Your Daddy?” Jonny Zero, Fox, February 4, 2005.Woman with a Past, Perf. Pamela Reed, NBC, March 2, 1992.“X-Mas Chnbch VN ’67.” China Beach, ABC, December 21, 1988.“You, Babe,” China Beach, ABC, October 13, 1990.

As Producer:

Beast, The, ABC, 2001, Executive Producer.China Beach, ABC, 1988-1991, Supervising Producer.ER, NBC, 1994-96, Co-Executive Producer.John Doe, Fox, 2002-03, Executive Producer.Jonny Zero, Fox, 2005, Executive Producer.

60 FALL 2005

DON’T CALL ME “ACTION WOMAN”!

Notes

1 Amy Wallace, “Shooting for a Role in a Male Film Genre,” Los Angeles Times, September 25, 1997.2 Janet Maslin, “How Do You Reroute a Comet? Carefully,” review of Deep Impact, New York Times, May 8, 1998; Jay Carr, “Armageddon is Just Another Cataclysm,” review of Armageddon, Boston Globe, July 1, 1998, respectively.3 Jackie Byars and Eileen R. Meehan, “Once in a Lifetime: Constructing the ‘Working Woman’ through Cable Narrowcasting,” in Television: The Critical View, Sixth Edition, ed. Horace Newcomb (New York: Oxford, 2000), 151.4 According to critic Andy Meisler, “show runner” is the entertainment industry’s trade name for the person “responsible for what viewers see on the screen.” Usually listed as an executive-producer, and predominantly coming from the ranks of writers, show runners are the ultimate “guiding force” behind a TV series. “The Man Who Keeps ER’s Heart Beating,” New York Times, February 26, 1995.5 Karen Arthur was the first woman to do so, for directing an episode of Cagney & Lacey in 1985. Leder received two nominations apiece as a director for China Beach and ER.6 John T. Caldwell, Televisuality: Style, Crisis, and Authority in American Television (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1995), 105-6.7 Ibid., 105.8 Robert J. Thompson, Television’s Second Golden Age: From Hill Street Blues to ER (New York: Continuum, 1996), 12-15.9 Ibid., 35.10 Kirsten Marthe Lentz, “Quality vs. Relevance: Feminism, Race, and the Politics of the Sign in 1970s Television,” Camera Obscura 43 (2000): 45-93.11 Ibid., 46.12 Ibid., 48.13 Ibid., 64.14 In her early television career, Leder worked as a script supervisor on L.A. Law and Hill Street Blues, two shows deemed by Thompson to be “quality” television programs. See the filmography below for Leder’s work on other “quality” programs, as well as her made-for-TV movies.15 Elayne Rapping, The Movie of the Week: Private Stories, Public Events (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1992), ix.16 Ibid., 90.17 Ibid., 97.18 Lynne Heffley, “Cast Can’t Save ‘Woman with a Past,’” review of Woman with a Past, Los Angeles Times, March 2, 1992.19 David Hiltbrand, review of Baby Brokers, People Weekly, February 21, 1994, 17.20 Ray Loynd, “ ‘A Little Piece of Heaven:’ A Nice Little Slice of Capra,” review of A Little Piece of Heaven, Los Angeles Times, December 2, 1991.21 Ray Loynd, “CBS’ ‘Little Boy’ a Potent Drama,” review of There Was a Little Boy, Los Angeles Times, May 15, 1993.22 Ray Loynd, “Autistic Boy’s Skills Finger the Killers,” review of The Innocent, Los Angeles Times, September 24, 1994.23 Rick Kogan, “ ‘Woman with a Past’ a Terrible Waste of Talent,” review of A Woman with a Past, Chicago Tribune, March 2, 1992.24 Quoted in Lon Grahnke, “Action Hero Trusts a Woman’s Touch,” Chicago Sun-Times, January 17, 1993.25 Quoted in Jay Carr, “Mimi Leder Makes Her ‘Impact,’” Boston Globe, May 7, 1998.26 Jefferson Graham, “The Urgency of ‘ER,’” USA Today, February 2, 1995.27 Leder was the first woman accepted into the cinematography program at the American Film Institute. 28 Graham, “Urgency of ‘ER.’”29 Quoted in Janine Pourroy, Behind the Scenes at ER (New York: Ballantine Books, 1995), 33-34.30 Thompson, Television’s Second Golden Age, 188.31 Pourroy, Behind the Scenes at ER, 61-62.32 Bernard Weinraub, “Wears No Army Boots, But Does Call ‘Action!’” New York Times, September 20, 1997.33 Byars and Meehan, “Once in a Lifetime,” 163.34 Douglas J. Rowe, “A Break in Action is Perfect for Leder,” Chicago Sun-Times, May 17, 1998.35 Weinraub, “Wears No Army Boots.”36 As a contemporary of Leder, Kathryn Bigelow has also experienced much of the same critical discourse surrounding her work in Hollywood. Although more of her work may be considered action than Leder’s, she nonetheless has denounced the title “action director” in several interviews.