Poor Geena Davis

Ah, Geena. I remember, lo these many years ago, when you first got onto television as a maid on Family Ties. Tall, sweet, and gawky, I thought for sure you'd have a great career ahead of you as a comic actor. Alas, it was not to be: 20+ years and a bunch of bad movies later, your career is in need of a serious makeover. Enter Rod Lurie, producer of your new television drama Commander-in-Chief, in which you play an independent-party VP who takes over the Oval Office when the sitting president has a massive stroke. In all honesty, the commercials haven't made the show look all that great, but I figured I'd watch because, hey: female president. That's cool. Or at least, that's what I thought until Ms. Musings pointed me to this WaPo article. Seems that producer Lurie has some ... er ... well, frankly bizarre opinions on women, politics and history. On the difference between CIC and The West Wing:

While "West Wing" deals with specific political issues that are "rather arcane," "Commander-in-Chief" will deal with such issues as how to get the First Kids to school, how to take the First Kids trick-or-treating, how state dinners are run from A to Z -- a lot of East Wing stuff, Lurie explained.

Whew. I mean, I don't know how much more of that "arcane" stuff like, um, the president's MS or his daughter getting kidnapped by terrorists I could take. Plots hard! Brain hurt!

That's probably because while [Geena Davis] is president of the United States she's also a mother and "if there's one thing history has taught us," it's that while women can become prime ministers or heads of Fortune 500 companies, they almost always remain the primary caregivers of their children, he said.

Boy, you got that right! And if we ever get an actual female in the Oval Office, she'll have to be a real "Enjoli" type of gal: Bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan, and never forget how to satisfy her man.

But here's where it gets truly wacko:

Lurie thinks it a shame there are no "iconic" women in history because women do have greatness in them. Apparently he skipped the Elizabethan era in English history, but we took his point that there are fewer such women than men. Lurie named George Washington, Martin Luther King, Albert Einstein and Abraham Lincoln as examples of iconic men.

So far so good.

If only he hadn't followed it with:

"Try to find an iconic woman. There aren't any. The most iconic woman is Oprah Winfrey, and she deserves it."

Um, what? No, really, what? I mean, I know Hollywood types aren't supposed to be long on the intellect, but my seven-year-old nephew could come up with a better example than Oprah Winfrey. I love Oprah and all, but hello, Joan of Arc? Boadicea? Martha Washington? Mother Theresa? I mean this isn't even a little bit hard! So, Geena, sorry hon. I don't think this is going to do the trick. Maybe you should get back in touch with Michael J. Fox. And ABC - what are the chances you could get Lurie to wear, say, a ball-gag for the rest of the press tour? Mmmm?