TGIT!
Or “Thank God It’s Thursday”!
It might seem a simple mispronunciation of TGIF, the expression coined in America with the intent to celebrate the end of a week of hard work and the beginning of the weekend, but it’s actually much more than that: it’s the slogan under which the three series of the ShondaLand production company are grouped.
Because when you are Shonda Rhimes, you can give your company such a name without being laughed at and you can also bend such an idiomatic expression to your liking.
When you are Shonda Rhimes, you have so many awards that you most likely don’t remember half of them, but the only victory you truly deem is the desperation of your faithful followers to what you decide to do to your characters.
When you are Shonda Rhimes, you’re one of the greatest exponents of the power of women in pop culture.
Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal and How to Get Away With Murder came into our lives exactly in this order [Grey’s Anatomy eleven years ago, Scandal three and How to Get Away With Murder only last year], and in this order they are broadcasted by the US network ABC. Since last week, tens and tens of million of viewers from all over the world have been virtually (re)meeting, gluing themselves to the sofa every Thursday, while eagerly waiting to spy on the lives of Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo), Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington) and Annalise Keating (Viola Davis).
But what’s the secret? What’s the ingredient that has turned these series into a real cult object? It’s the fans who ask themselves this question, and even more it’s the agents who are probably hoping to find some sort of a “magic formula for success” to be applied to their own shows.
Many different answers have been given, but somehow the aforementioned female power always ends up in the middle.
Yes, because it doesn’t matter if the stories don’t take place in the operating rooms of a hospital in Seattle, or in the rooms of a problem-solving agency in Washington, or in the university classrooms and courthouse of Philadelphia: a woman is always the centre of attention.
Phenomenal in her work but not immune to mistakes or willing to give up on affections; strong enough to be able to accommodate her own fragility and attend the mingling of tragedy and comedy that is her life.
A woman… normal, even though extraordinary. Or rather, normal precisely because extraordinary.
Of course, there is enough exaggerated dramatization and surreal situations to characterise the fiction, but this is not the point.
What is truly remarkable of these shows is that these fake stories of these super heroines are simply a pretext to shed light on many true stories.
Shona Rhimes and her staff have brought to our homes for many years a wide and constant representation of the LGBT community, ethical issues (from euthanasia, to abortion, to death penalty) as well as problems one has to talk about (such as political and judicial corruption, domestic and sexual violence, alcohol and drug addiction, every type of discrimination, and countless types of mental illnesses).
What is even better is the fact that it’s enough to simply reflect for a moment to realise that, actually, most of these issues are dealt with through the eyes of the male characters. Who have a rich past and are full of sentiments, just as the female characters.
Here it is. Perhaps this is it then, my answer to those questions.
The magic formula possessed by Shonda & Co., contrary to popular belief, goes far beyond high budgets and attractive actors: these people have understood before anyone else that male power and female power are two sides of the same coin and not two options to choose from, and to tell the stories of women they don’t have to, actually they can not, exclude or belittle the stories of men.
HAVE A GOOD THURSDAY EVERYONE!
