BWW TV World is thrilled to present our weekly Critic's Cut: slicing the best (and the worst) moments of pop culture into ten little digestible pieces.
Critic's Cut runs every Friday, presenting television's 'Best Of' moments, characters, shows, and more!
This week's edition presents the women that moved televised feminism forward. These ladies (and those that played them) aren't just admired for their acting prowess. Those featured had a stake in making TV no longer a man's world - they were embodiments of the best that humanity had to offer, genderized roles be damned.
10) Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker)
SEX AND THE CITY
The Manhattanite at the center of THE SEX AND THE CITY, Ms. Bradshaw, will never win a Nobel Peace Prize for her fornication-focused column. But the fact that she questioned everything - literally everything - and found a way to live with the answers, even when she didn't like them, was a lesson many learned right alongside her. She's no activist, but it would be absolutely ridiculous to claim that Bradshaw wasn't a source of empowerment for women (and a lot of men) in the late 90s with a premium cable package.
9) Mary Richards (Mary Tyler Moore)
THE Mary Tyler Moore SHOW
Anyone can make it! Equal pay, discrimination in the work place, Mary Richards rose above it all. She was a proud, intelligent single woman, one of the first on TV, and proved that the whole 'man's world' business is just a load hock.
5) Dr. Cristina Yang (Sandra Oh)
GREY'S ANATOMY
Dr. Cristina Yang is a divisive character. She's a double-doctor, a woman who doesn't adhere to what society expects her to do; she knows what she wants, and is, yes, a little bit ruthless. Her decision to get an abortion, because she didn't want a child in season 8, divided audiences. But Shonda Rhimes wrote in one of the most honest, admirable storylines for one of television's most remarkable characters in all of the medium's history. Cristina Yang is Cristina Yang, and she won't ever apologize for it.
4)Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay)
LAW & ORDER: SPECIAL VICTIM'S UNIT
Procedurals get stale. If they have any hope of remaining somewhat fresh, they've got to have some fantastic characters driving the drama, and drawing viewers back in. SVU got it perfect with the ultra-dedicated and ultra-strong Detective Olivia Benson. She lets cases get to her, she's complex. But she's human, and, Hargitay does an exemplary job of pulling that from the script.
1) Jessica Fletcher (Angela Lansbury)
MURDER, SHE WROTE
Without everyone's favorite substitute-teacher-turned-mystery-author/PI, there would have been no Benson. There would have been no Veronica Mars, no Buffy Summers. Angela Lansbury and her grandma-kookiness kept networks pushing for more female badassery - not only to be featured, but to lead the shows. Plus, there's something so charming about Fletcher riding her bike around Cabot Cove to the show's theme song.
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