This is Not a Romance Novel: Thoughts on Scandal
Up until a few days ago, Shonda Rhimes was someone I admired greatly without really liking anything she did. One of the few women (and people of color) to gain entry to the small and exclusive group of superstar TV producers, what sets Rhimes's series--juggernaut Grey's Anatomy , its less successful but still long-running spinoff Private Practice , and also-ran Off the Map --apart from the crowd is their being, by and large, the stories of women. And more importantly, of a broad variety of women, many of whom don't often get their stories told on TV: fortyish and middle-aged women, women of color, gay women, women who don't look like runway models. Despite that fact, and despite finding Rhimes's shows compelling--when I come across an episode of one while channel-flipping I almost always end up watching it to the end--I've never been fannish, or even particularly interested, in any of her series. That's less because of their romance slant--though the fac