I don't watch much TV, and by that I mean almost none at all. Yet I have fond memories of the Bionic Woman (in reruns), so hearing there would be a new version I was excited. Apparently, too excited. Producer David Eick, who has some awesome female characters in Battlestar Galactica, decided to turn the butt kicking Jamie Sommers into a puppet.
If you haven't watched the new series here's a brief spoiler. Sommers is now a lowly paid bartender, pregnant, and about to marry her rich boyfriend, Will Anthros. Who, by the way, only likes her because it ticks off his dad. Suddenly the world has one less strong female role model on TV. Oh, but it gets worse...
Not even her new bionic powers can give her control of her own life. After her near fatal accident the boyfriend slips her away to his secret labs where he saves her, and then wakes her up to let her know that it's millions of dollars of his equipment inside her so she better do as he says. Sure, he says it in a much nicer way, but the point is still clear. He saved her, he repaired her, and now he owns her.
My mind immediately went to the new Chevron ad campaign. The ones where they brag about how they are moving towards being to "environmentally friendly". Grist has a great article on them that really explains how not green Chevron really is. They say in their ads "Sure, we're an oil company, but..." then they go on to share all the amazing new ways they'll be helping the earth. Because they just figured out that, hey, they have to live here too. And while there's a profit to be made on oil right now, thre's a growing profit to be made on other power sources too. So cashing in on the trend now, all in the name of "saving the environment", means they'll still get to own a chunk of the money and power when the oil runs out.
In one moment Will owns Jamie as the pretty bauble he can hang on his arm and piss off his dad with. Suddenly he's faced with the threat of losing that and must find a new way to own her. Of course, under the plot of saving her life.