They’re recognizable by their outfits as much as their attitudes: black leather, tough talk, dark eyeliner. They’re enigmatic, street-smart.
And sexually confident.
The tough-gal sidekick is having her moment. She has emerged as a new breed in numerous modern TV dramas: wiser, more computer savvy, more competent than her peers. Sometimes gay-er, too.
Think Katherine Moenning, taking no prisoners as Lena on “Ray Donovan.” Cool, unemotional, impervious to come-ons, dressed to play dirty.
Or Katie Findlay who plays Rebecca in “How to Get Away with Murder,” all black-leather jacket and staccato sentences, never showing fear. “The Good Wife” employs the investigator Kalinda Sharma, played by Archie Panjabi. Tough doesn’t begin to describe these characters.
Similarly, Camren Bicondova, who plays Selina on “Gotham” (and will mature into Catwoman per the mythology) is all-leather, all-the-time as she slithers through the dark and grime of Gotham City. She can flirt as well as intimidate, but she’s more comfortable climbing walls, breaking in to the Wayne mansion via the windows.
An early example of this forceful female TV type was Angela Montenegro on “Bones.” Angela was considered Bohemian in her day — sexually adventurous, supremely competent, unashamed of her (bisexual) desires. Played by Michaela Conlin, Angela had trouble with commitment but no problem being proudly, prolifically sexual.
A forerunner was Eliza Dushku’s character Echo on the science-fiction series “Dollhouse.” Echo was a “doll” whose memories had been wiped but who, through the course of the series, developed a personality, self-awareness and free will — a tough babe claiming an individuated self.
“To me, the link is that they are not shamed for it at all. They are sexually confident characters, and sex is just part of their nuanced humanity,” said Jennifer L. Pozner, director of Women in Media and News and author of “Reality Bites Back: The Troubling Truth About Guilty Pleasure TV.”
She finds the fluid sexuality in some of these characters secondary to their fearlessness: “They have a willingness to push boundaries in ways male characters have always been written,” Pozner said.
The writers’ treatment of Kalinda’s bisexuality on “The Good Wife,” for instance, “doesn’t feel exploitative. The character is so in control,” Pozner said. “She doesn’t use sex to achieve an end. She has sex because she wants to.”
In TV terms, this dark sidekick can be seen as an update on the vintage wacky-neighbor trope. The strong and faithful single friend, always a staple, is having her moment, but on her own terms. From “Dollhouse” to “The Good Wife,” these characters represent a new wave of an old form: the hot but broken woman.
She’s still not quite fulfilled or happy, but she’s but light-years away from the whining, complaining, pity-party single who could never get a date.
They’re liberated Rhodas for the new millennium.
Kalinda on “The Good Wife” not only pushes storylines, but raises the stakes in terms of the sexuality guessing game. Depending on the episode, she’s in bed with male or female partners. Often in leather.
“Even those who don’t want Kalinda are in awe of her power,” Pozner said. (Kalinda’s days on the series are numbered; CBS has confirmed Panjabi will leave at the end of the season.)
These aren’t central characters, like Hayley Atwell’s title character in “Agent Carter” or Viola Davis’ law professor Annalise Keating in “How to Get Away with Murder” (although the prof sometimes wears red leather). These women aren’t vying for primacy. As secondary characters, the TV sidekicks can get away with being meaner, tougher and odder than the women in lead roles.
They are the spice, not the meat and potatoes, in current TV dramas. (Really, would an entire series built around Moenning’s character’s belligerence be tolerable?)
And they seem to be having more fun than their TV predecessors.
The tradition of sidekicks is well established, but not since Willow on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” has there been such a profusion of tough-nerd, babes-with-street-cred, sexually variable women.
Joanne Ostrow: 303-954-1830, jostrow@denverpost.com or
