love in the living room

: Gabrielle Anwar

Remember when Gabrielle Anwar was the ultimate ingénue? She played sweet but determined young-lady characters like nobody’s business, and everyone seemed to be in consensus that she was the prettiest girl in the world. (People magazine even made it official by including her in their 1993 list.)  As a tween viewer in 1991, Anwar’s tomboy look and courageous horse-diving in Wild Hearts Can’t Be Broken made me a lifelong fan. And then there was her seminal appearance as the burrito-loving ice-skater on Beverly Hills, 90210. (Apparently the 9-0 writers liked The Cutting Edge almost as much as I did.)

But after the famous tango scene in Scent of a Woman, Anwar’s career went B-list, and then C-list. And, as with so many other ultimate ingénues, no one seemed to notice. There must have been a new prettiest-girl-in-the-world that year. Maybe Neve Campbell?

So imagine my delight at seeing Anwar return to the small screen as Fiona Glenanne on Burn Notice. Fiona’s got more of an edge than Anwar’s earlier characters. She’s a morally ambiguous former IRA agent who dates the protagonist, but has a greater passion for shooting bad guys.

It’s always refreshing to watch a female character in an action show who matches the male protagonist in skills, smarts, and plain old bad-assery. It’s even more refreshing that Burn Notice casts age-appropriate actresses across the board. As a low-budget USA series about spies, it could easily have gotten away with having a 20-year-old woman play opposite a 30-something dude (hell, high-budget action movies do it almost every time). But Burn Notice eschews the cult of the ingénue in favor of more experienced actresses of an appropriate age (who, for the record, are still crazy good-looking). It’s a smart move -- Anwar’s gumption and gravitas have only increased with age, and she brings a lot more to Fiona than just a pretty face.

With a recurring role on The Tudors as well, you might say Anwar is getting better parts than she did in her first blush of fame. And that makes the world seem a little more right.

: Clair Huxtable

In the history of family sitcoms, has there ever been a woman so intelligent, so poised, and so willing to deliver impassioned monologues about gender equality as Clair Huxtable? As a kid watching The Cosby Show -- the only primetime program my parents permitted back in the ‘80s -- I was completely in awe of her. As an adult who’s watched many, many hours of TV since (I do what I want!), I’m more impressed than ever.

Even in reruns, Clair plays like a modern woman. She has a full-time career that’s never presented as being at odds with her family life. (In fact, being a lawyer actually helps her be a better mom! Remember when she put Theo on trial in the living room? Classic.) She openly discusses gender issues with her kids. She’s never afraid to assert herself, and she never loses her composure when she does. 20 years after The Cosby Show’s peak, Clair is still more progressive than most of the TV moms who’ve succeeded her.

The Cosby Show has been criticized for ignoring issues of racism in it’s portrayal of a very successful Black family, but Phylicia Rashad’s performance as Clair is, in my opinion, beyond reproach. She brought a new perspective to the “strong Black woman” archetype that had been a staple of Black sitcoms of the ‘70s. Her multi-faceted interpretation of the role showed that women of color were just as capable of being educated and successful as they were of being feisty and outspoken.

From 1986–1990, The Cosby Show ranked #1 in the Nielson Ratings. No show with a Black cast has come anywhere close to that kind of popularity since. In fact, are there any predominantly Black shows on network TV right now, or have they all been relegated to BET?

Clair Huxtable may have been a trail-blazing character, but very few have followed in her footsteps, and none have met with the same success.... Or have they? Please tell me I’m wrong! In the meantime I remain in awe of Clair, my crush nonpareil.

[Original version posted on January 17, 2009 at bitchmagazine.org]