Unapologetic women, "Comic Men" and feminine spectatorship in David E. Kelley's Ally McBeal

Abstract

–This essay examines how the narrative structure of the Fox primetime television hit Ally McBeal opens the text to a feminist reading. Despite critics' charges to the contrary, I argue that producer/screenwriter David E. Kelley's teleplays construct a preferred feminine spectator position that appropriates dominant male gazes in three ways: the feminine setting of the law firm, the refusal of women characters to yield to the male gaze, and the “comic spectacle of maleness.” Ally McBeal's preferred feminine spectatorship stance is articulated through comic strategies in which gender ideals are questioned through mockery, thus opening a safe space for viewers to reject dominant patriarchal meanings and to experience a feminist epistemology.