A Nanny In Charge Of The State?

Strange Days at 10 Downing - WSJ.com (sub req):

With a title reeking heavily of the feel-good, and a veritable sitcom of an opening episode that delivers same, "The Amazing Mrs. Pritchard" (beginning Sunday, 9-10 p.m. EDT on PBS; check local listings) looks far from promising -- a look not to be trusted, as it turns out. Nor is there in this five-part "Masterpiece Theatre" drama, about a supermarket manager from West Yorkshire who becomes prime minister, much that's amazing about its improbable heroine.

There is, at most, something odd about writer Sally Wainwright's decision to model Mrs. Pritchard on a character by now rather well worn -- the feminist superwoman, late 1970s model -- and there are speeches to match. To hear Ros Pritchard (Jane Horrocks), mother, wife and head of staff at the Greengages Superstore, declaim on all the ways in which men are inferior to women and incompetent to run the world -- women are more reasonable, truthful, peaceful, don't need to be right all the time, etc, etc. -- is to feel the decades roll away. In somewhat the same way time seemed to stop during last month's Emmy Awards -- no work of fantasy -- when Sally Field declared, in her acceptance speech, that " ...if the mothers ruled the world there would be no [expletive] wars in the first place." Ros Pritchard wouldn't, to be sure, be caught dead using profanity of this sort, at least prior to her rise to power, though by the time she's established as PM, and busy pushing bills in the interest of goodness and truth, her husband has to caution her to please stop using the F word in front of the children.

Thanks God it's only a television series. Seriously, can you imagine anything more frightening than a mother in power "pushing bills in the interest of goodness and truth"? At least with President Hillary we'll be getting a woman far more interested in the naked pursuit of power than trying to apply maternal instincts to the political arena. Yes, that is far less dangerous.