A Difficult Woman: Skyler White and the “Tip of a Very Big Iceberg”

–Nick Fleming

Among the many reasons to both celebrate and study television’s Third Golden Age, the last fifteen years has been further distinguished by the development of difficult women; women who’ve broken traditions and crossed boundaries once reserved for their male counterparts.  Unlike the lightweight, agreeable and ultimately benign TV wives of the past including: Donna Stone (The Donna Reed Show), Edith Bunker (All in the Family), and Carol Brady (The Brady Bunch), Carmela Soprano (The Sopranos) and subsequent difficult women have come to define women for the masses.  Written as morally ambiguous people, these characters are often, for better or worse, their husbands’ equal, and affect the trajectory of the plot in profound ways.  Nevertheless, they are held to a different standard; much like a woman is in all facets of life.