Circle of Friends

I was watching a show today and found myself getting very annoyed by the end of it because actions taken by one of the characters basically destroyed the only female/female friendship on the show. The friendship, although brief, had been full of complexity and a lot of potential to really become a great dynamic. But they killed it, mostly because it seems that shows directed towards a male audience have a fear of female friendships.

Really, why is that? I see this all the time on TV shows and in movies. We'll have a huge cast of a lot of men and maybe one or two women. The women, unless they are related, are usually completely isolated from each other.  If they do meet, they either fight or just discuss the men . . . or both. However, most of the time, they don't meet at all. It's like there is some kind of law that states that women should only talk to the men in the story.

This is so crazy far from reality. On a daily basis, I talk to far more women than I do men. In fact, I usually just talk to one man and I live with him. If I didn't live with him, I'd probably only talk to males like once or twice a month. I'm talking about social communication here, not situations where someone is fixing my car or  running a cash register. I talk to women a lot. And we talk about a wide variety of topics, not just relationships, men, shopping, children, and gossip.

I don't think I'm alone here either. Clearly the women in my life have other women they mostly talk to, with perhaps one or two males somewhere in the mix who get spoken to as well. I really doubt just my circle of people are an isolated and strange example here. My guess is that most women talk to other women a lot more than they talk to men. Many of them have had the most complex and profound discussions in their lives with other women. Yet somehow, this just isn't translating to our media?

And yes, I know there are exceptions to this. I'm sure you are thinking of tons of examples where we DO see female friendships and yes, this makes me very happy. More and more shows are featuring women's friendships as part of the show.  However, usually those shows are geared towards a mostly female audience, not an audience for men or for both genders. In the later two cases, we usually only see women talking to men or men talking to men. Men have friendships with men and women. Men and women have romantic relationships with each other.

I hope the show I am talking about doesn't destroy this friendship completely. I hope it develops into something realistic and supportive. I hope the friendship is a way for both characters to grow and mature. I doubt that will happen, but it would be quite refreshing if it did. I also think it would serve to make the show stronger.