The Diplomat is a new and captivating show on Netflix. The credits show that it was conceived by Deborah Cahn and it featured a woman who succeeded as a U.S. Ambassador (to the Court of St. James, no less, in the United Kingdom) by being successful at governing if not always so successful at displaying established gestures of diplomacy.
It stars Keri Russell as Ambassador Katherine Wyler, and Russell too does a good job of bringing this refreshing character to life, matching the writing and the direction in the first episodes.
Until the fourth episode, anyway. Then she just became one of the boys.
Not unique, not so different any longer. She had sex just like the men do; she apparently could not restrain herself, this formerly one-of-a-kind character tiring herself out with all that truth. It was fitting – and symbolic -- that the sex scenes came at the end of the episode.
The fourth episode was the first appearance of Amanda Johnson-Zetterstroem in the credits. She showed up as the scriptwriter for that episode. I did not notice it in the credits, but imdb.com shows her as the producer of The Diplomat.
Being a producer means bringing money to the production, either your own money or, more often, other people's. It looks like she threw her money weight around to include what she apparently thinks of as an obligatory sex scene. Just like the men.
Whether that's what happened or not, it's a revoltingly sexist view to portray a successful woman as never being successful just because of the value of her brains or the merits of her personality. Those are never enough, unfortunately, because in this unrealistic view, she must display intercourse to be entertaining. Or it won't sell and they won't make enough money, or so it goes.
The Writers' Strike which began the other day may have a positive effect here, who knows; at least for the short term we may not have more of this writing anytime soon. I understand that The Diplomat has been renewed for another season, but I doubt it's because of the intercourse portrayed at the end of the fourth episode. More like in spite of it. We need more of The Diplomat the way it was written in the opening episodes, not less.
I'll try the fifth episode, but if it's more of the same, it was fun to cheer for The Diplomat while its original spark was still burning.
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