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The fine whines of women dominate TV
The News and Observer - November 3, 1999
BY KINNEY LITTLEFIELD
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
The Eye has it. So does the Mouse.
It sounds like a disease. It's the disease that apparently pleases.
It's Whiny Women Syndrome, the hot fall phenom showcased on the new hit series "Judging Amy" and
"Family Law" on CBS and "Once and Again" on Disney-owned ABC.
Welcome to the world of mature, fetching but kvetching single females, complaining and commiserating in different
settings but to the same strident, grating - and girl, let me tell you all about it - effect.
Not that their complaints aren't justified. Single womanhood ain't easy. Just watch TV and see.
"Family Law's" legal eagle Lynn Holt (Kathleen Quinlan) was dumped by her lawyer-hubby who took most of
their joint practice with him. She was already a killer marital lawyer. Now she's on the warpath double-time.
"Judging Amy's" novice judge Amy Gray (Amy Brenneman) is insecure about her own abilities. She is also a
single mom who lives with her fault-picking, scolding, whiny mother, Maxine (Tyne Daly). And Daly is a master. She
honed the high art of whine on "Cagney & Lacy."
Worst of all, though, is Lily Manning (Sela Ward), the main single mom on "Once and Again."
Lily is gorgeous for any age group. Her kids are cute and cool. Hunky single dad Rick Sammler (Billy Campbell) seems
to love her truly-madly-deeply. She has an apparently rewarding but undemanding job working in a bookstore.
Yet Lily is constantly rejecting her own happiness, endlessly driveling to Rick about how their blissful new
relationship isn't-couldn't-shouldn't be working.
She's determined to self-snafu. Besides, her tongue is quick and easy filler between what viewers want to see even
more - Sela and Billy in bed.
A female thing, the prime-time whine. We don't often see single guys crying "poor me" on prime-time
dramas. Not manly. Not a guy thing except on sitcoms where the male whine is the butt of all jokes because it's so
un-manly - whether uttered by simpleminded blue-collar lug Doug Heffernan (Kevin James) on CBS's "The King of
Queens" or effete psychiatrist Frasier Crane (Kelsey Grammer) on NBC's "Frasier."
But women - it's OK for them to be drama queens on dramas. They can dither endlessly about their undeserved
happiness, their questionable value, their self-worth.
Viewers seem to love a girl beatin' up emotionally on herself.
That's one reason they never bonded well with Christine Lahti's supremely arrogant surgeon Kate Austin on
"Chicago Hope." Too "male." She mostly complained about those "male" things - career
and professional advancement.
Sure, we've tasted whiny women before. TV movies dote on them. Ally McBeal (Calista Flockhart) - one whiny chick.
And Lifetime's "Any Day Now," the well-crafted female-bonding series that also explores racial issues, has
made female yak-about-it fashionable. On the reality side, so has ABC's daytime chick-yak show "The View."
But now we're in a new wave of whine. "Judging Amy," "Family Law" and "Once and Again"
are not yet blockbusters the way "Friends" or "ER" used to be. But so far they smell like hits.
For Oct. 4-10, "Judging Amy" ranked No. 10 among U.S. viewing households. "Family Law" was No.
18 and "Once and Again" was No. 24. Out of 130-plus prime-time shows, that's darned good.
Copyright © 1999 The News and Observer. All rights reserved.
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