A&E
Women to Watch: Powerful Female Characters on Television
By Ally D’Antonio ’20
October 27, 2016
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TV Show: Grey’s Anatomy (2005-)
Network: ABC
Seasons: 1-13
Actress: Chandra Wilson
Background Info:
Whoever you are and wherever you are from, you have most likely heard about Grey’s Anatomy. The ABC drama has been on the air since 2005 and is currently in its 13th season. The show centers around the doctors at a teaching hospital in Seattle, watching their personal lives unfold while also telling the stories of their charges in a patient-of-the-week format. While the premise is not unique, and the stories can sometimes seem overwrought with drama, the actors give this show life and have kept it going for 13 years, with no signs of stopping. Some of the female characters that make the show so wonderful are the amazing Miranda Bailey, Calliope (Callie) Torres and Lexie Grey.
Why You Should Watch:
Let’s start with Miranda Bailey, the badass doctor who starts off as the guide to our main characters, and quickly wins all of our hearts as we see her be a surgeon, a boss, a friend and a mother, all while refusing to compromise herself or what she knows that she deserves. Audiences even see her grapple with mental illness and figure out how to accept that she needs treatment and that it is alright to ask for help, an important message often ignored on TV.
Moving on, there is an orthopedic surgeon, Callie Torres, who joined the show in the second season. Callie is a character who is often defined more by her private than her public life, as she has to figure herself out several times through the series. She struggles early on with fitting in at her new job in the hospital, then about how to deal with her relationship with her subordinate and then how to deal with being married to said subordinate. After that, being a divorcee, living alone, and realizing the fact that she is bisexual gave her new challenges. Also, she had to come to terms with her desire to be a mother. Finally, this lead to her consideration of how to take care of herself and her child . This often meant choosing what’s best for her child. Callie refuses to let herself be seen as a one-dimensional character, and instead shows the challenges and the blessings that come along with the life that she finds herself living.
Lastly, we have Lexie Grey, the younger half-sister of the show’s titular character, Meredith Grey. Lexie, introduced in the fourth season, is the product of a happy childhood, which makes her dramatically different than most of the other characters on the show. However, Lexie does not have a perfect life. She tries to be a good student, a good sister and a good friend, but she goes through horrible things while she is learning to become a doctor. She is in a less than healthy relationship for a while, and then she is involved in a mass shooting, the death of her mother and a plane accident. Because of these events, she and her family are all greatly affected, with Lexie suffering severe trauma from the events. However, none of these events make her appear weak, instead showing how strong she is. These characters, along with many others, make the show compelling, and they are the reason that people keep coming back to the show, season after season.