The other day we saw this post on the blog Shakesville:

Quote of the Day
| posted by Melissa McEwan | Thursday, March 27, 2008

"The few strong women in Hollywood movies and TV are safely located in an unreal world: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Xena: Warrior Princess. The closest to an unapologetic feminist is Lisa Simpson—and she is eight years old, and a cartoon."—Johann Hari, in The Independent, in a piece titled "Where have all the strong women gone?"

The Bears thought there might be at least one on TV right now so we made this comment:

There is a successful television show on now with a very strong female lead. In fact, she is the only star of the show which is unusual today when ensemble casts are the rule. Especially for female characters who usually have a sidekick at minimum.

This lead character deals with the issue of the week mostly by herself because she is strong, smart, resourceful and empathetic. While the character works mainly alone, she is willing to ask for help from her friends or her loving spouse when she needs it. All-in-all she comes off as a strong feminist character with admirable qualities you would think might be held up as a good example.

But you'd be wrong. This show has good ratings and the network suits like it well enough to renew it again for next season. So it is clear the show is a success. Yet this show and the lead character have been consistently panned from the beginning by critics who often appear to not have even watched a whole episode. And, outside of fans sites, the lead actor has probably never been noted as creating a strong feminist character.

The name of the show has not been mentioned because there are lots of reasons to dislike a particular show or its star and that’s understandable. Considered in the abstract, though, a character with these qualities on a successful show ought to be admired. So why not? Likely because of a common prejudice against women. You’ll know what the prejudice is when you figure out the name of the show and the actor!

We revealed the name of the show in a comment a couple of days later which we will soon post (but you probably already know what show we are talking about ).