Here are 10 blunt facts about the Golden Globe Award-winning series. Nancy just came out on the page. How do you convince yourself that you are still a moral person if you are doing something illegal? In a interview with the Toledo Blade , Kohan explained what the title meant. Mainly, though, it refers to hardy plants struggling to survive. The success of the female-led show caused the network to commission more woman-centric shows, such as Nurse Jackie and The Big C.
Sign up for the Weekly Reader:. Even in the beginning they relied on bad, racist stereotypes, as I would argue was evidenced by Heylia's pregnant out of wedlock daughter. That being said, I loved the Conrad and Heylia characters and wish the show had taken a much different direction.
In particular one that had retained these two awesome characters. Once Nancy burned down the house everything went to crap plot wise. What's wrong with having a child out of wedlock, exactly? Vaneeta was not a favorite of mine - I didn't think she was very well-developed - but considering that pregnancy is a common theme on Weeds and that pregnancy outside of marriage is not really moralized in any instance, I didn't see any problem with that.
She was pregnant, and there was nothing particularly significant about that in and of itself, which I liked in contrast with Nancy's pregnancy in the fifth season. The pregnancy gave an opportunity for Heylia and Vaneeta to have several conversations that passed both the Bechdel test and the Johnson test the Bechdel test for characters of color. She seemed to be a good mother and Heylia a good grandmother - certainly more considerate than Nancy. I'm not saying that there was no racism in the first three seasons, but I'm more troubled by, say, the characterization of South Asian students in the first season, or the framing of Celia's fling with Conrad.
The problem with out of wedlock pregnancy is in black women it's Precious and it white women it's Juno. It's not framed the same way, and the fact that it escaped your notice as problematic is exactly the problem.
There is a stigma of black women being baby machines that is so pervasive even black female CELEBS, positioned as "acceptable" to white audiences - like Halle - opt for unsatisfying marriages rather than the sting of having a child out of wedlock. It's not the feminist, neutral experience for black women that it is for white women.
I had a huge problem with that too. In addition to framing black women in stereotypical ways, it also does the same with black men. As a black woman who was raised by a black father who was highly educated, profession and kind of Cliff Huxtable-esque, I tend to bristle when I see shows go for the cheap shot, especially since using that "absent black father" framing tends to go down some really problematic roads.
But then I see nothing particularly useful or celebratory about the way in which Weeds positions black folks. It's just more of the same. Wow, black folks selling weed! How novel. Oh, they lure the nice white into it? Also the Bechdel test doesn't work for race, as it frames things from a perspective that erases how racially marginalized folks view what matter to them and maybe that's solely things pertaining to their race.
It also makes some assumptions about who is creating the content and would unduly penalize marginalized folks making movies about their lives that aren't necessary solely designed for white folks consumption. The out-of-wedlock daughter pregnancy isn't a stereotype, but an accurate reflection of the high, and continually climbing, rate of children born to unwed mothers in the black community, particularly among low-income women.
I pretty much gave up on Weeds after the first episode of the 4th season, because my only way of getting it was to pay for it on iTunes or to get the DVD, and that episode pissed me off. But I was recently bored and found that season 4 and 5 were on Netflix streaming so I went ahead and watched them.
I agree with the post I felt like we were supposed to have a lot more sympathy for the white characters while the rest were pretty much stereotypes. The other thing I hated was that Nancy, who otherwise is a pretty interestingly complex female character - complex, not entirely sympathetic, intelligent, highly flawed - always got out of trouble through sex or sexual attraction to her.
I haven't rewatched the first three seasons, but it seems like at least some of the time she actually used her intelligence to solve problems. You should definitely, definitely check back here, because this is essentially what I'm writing about next. Commenting note: If you've got something to say about Nancy's sexuality, I guess you can go ahead and put it in this thread?
Sigh, contradicting myself. Its charming satire of suburban life with touches of absurdism turned to a simply absurd "Let's throw every outrageous plot twist we can think of" soap opera sort of stuff Shane killing someone? I haven't rewatched the episodes in some time, but I remember liking Weeds' portrayal of race in the early season.
The black characters for instance, weren't walking stereotypes, and they weren't overly hygienic angels. They were black drug dealers, yes. They dealt drugs, but they searched for love, happiness, and fulfillment. They were strong personalities but also violently funny and emotionally vulnerable. The portrayals of Mexicans was one of the things that completely turned me off the show, along with the ridiculous excesses of the storyline. Why did the show go to such lengths to give well-drawn out, round, black characters, but then feel it was okay to trot a bunch of tired Mexican stereotypical 2-dimensional characters to either amuse or scare the audience.
It reeks of hypocrisy and racism. I really liked the portrayal of Nancy in the first two seasons. She was white mother who wasn't depicted as a complete angel. She made mistakes, regularly hurt her children's feelings, lost her patience, all while also showing love, affection, and some sound parenting. She's also single widowed and pursues her own sexual desire. There weren't too many TV moms like her that I can think of. That is until they turned Nancy basically into a pin-up girl sorry to jump the gun on you as well.
Not that I terribly mind seeing Mary Louise Parker in extremely sexy outfits, but they are wasting a very talented actress and a complex potentially interesting character. I thought that Shane killing her made sense within the context she was talking about killing them but it was the context that was the problem.
I felt like the show was very conscious about creating interesting characters of color and not reinforcing stereotypes in seasons - even with U-Turn, who was in many ways a negative stereotypes, had some transgressive charecteristics like his thorough attention to health. While I agree with your assessment, I think that there are some interesting things that they do with pregnancy and motherhood in seasons five and six - but it's more in the context of the first three seasons.
I think that the fourth season started out okay - again, I really liked Guillermo, and I liked the subtle foreshadowing of the maternity store. Thank you thank you for writing this. I stopped watching after season three. It just got pathetic.
I keep hearing tidbits of the current seasons, and it just makes me sadder. Shane dealing drugs? Nancy knocked up by a scary Mexican dealer? Who she ends up marrying? It just makes me so sad for the actors, the show- what on earth were the writers thinking? And she put WEED in it?! In my mind, Weeds ended at season three. To take a show with gems like "What do you call the thing between the dick and the asshole? I really have no idea what's going on with the show. I don't see how the quality and humor dropped off so steeply.
I agree. Weeds is in the habit of creating great characters and dropping them off unceremoniously, never to be heard from again. Example: Josh. Remember Josh? January 15, , PM. Is Conrad Returning To 'Weeds? In this article:. Entertainment The Wrap.
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