Call the Midwife is BACK! Viewers of PBS in the United States are just starting the third series of this show, which is growing on viewers in a major way. And while the programme revolves around the lives of women in London’s East End, it would be a mistake to think of it as ‘women’s programming,’ though many people do, and tend to dismiss the show’s largely female fan base. This betrays a popular perception in media and pop culture that media about women is for women, while media about men is, of course, for everyone—contrast the response to this show with the near-universal excitement over Mad Med, which returns in the US very shortly.
What’s the difference between the two shows? Both are historical dramas, often featuring very heavy subject matter, though Mad Men is much darker in parts—Call the Midwife has a more hopeful, optimistic feel, even in times of darkness. But it’s by no means sunbeams and unicorns, as it doesn’t flinch away from the brutality of life at the time, including sexual assault, horrific childhood diseases, deaths in labour and delivery, and infant mortality.
Mad Men is a tale of one man’s drama, and is in essence a tale of the unbearable man pain involved in being Don Draper. Call the Midwife, on the other hand, features a collective of women working together and supporting each other as they work in solidarity towards a common goal: improving health and wellbeing for women in their impoverished community. One is considered a universal narrative, though, while the other is light stuff for women to view, as babies are evidently the responsibility of ladies.
Both, though, feature complex narratives. Both have a meticulous attention to detail in costuming, sets, and other historical details. Both feature complex plot arcs that unfold over the course of one or more seasons, including plots that touch on third rail issues of the time (and now), like abortion. Both even offer the soapy, churning storytelling techniques that viewers have come to expect, where characters are constantly tumbling from one drama to another, in a style that drives the plot forward but also creates a tangle of events for the viewer to remember.
Both also feature stellar casts, with fantastic acting skills as well as the looks to make them seem as though they stepped right out of 1955, or 1965, for that matter. Whether on Mad Men or Call the Midwife, the characters have a certain carriage, diction, and polish that makes them stand out, a combination of skilled acting and storytelling and some innate traits that are brought out by superb directing. Both programmes also use intriguing camera angles and lighting to set moods and create fascinating scenery, though Mad Men is perhaps more artistic.
It is Don Draper, of course, whom we are supposed to see as deep and appealing and complex, while the women of Call the Midwife are just puttering about doing girl things like delivering babies, organising charity events, and settling in to marriages. Yet, I would argue that Call the Midwife is a much more honestly universal and telling story, because it is about an experience that many of us go through: all of us at some point or another were born, but many of us will also become parents, partners to parents, supporters to parents. Some will even choose to become midwives, obstetricians, obstetrical nurses, doulas, and other labour and delivery professionals, bringing new life into the world.
This persistent attitude that media about women is for women and has no universal appeal is yet another reminder of the social position of women. The ‘everyman’ is, literally, a man—many of the ‘classic’ works of literature are male-focused, the modern fiction deemed ‘edgy’ and ‘adventurous’ is written by men and focuses on the lives of men, while female-led creative works and pop culture are deemed frivolous. This creates a fundamentally skewed version of the world, particularly for young men who grow up absorbing these attitudes and religiously avoiding media ‘for girls,’ because they assume it’s not interesting and not relevant. And, critically, they don’t want to be caught watching and then publicly humiliated for enjoying things meant for girls. Meanwhile, girls learn that their lives aren’t important or universal.
As Call the Midwife returns to US screens, I long to see it growing a huge and devoted following in a new sector of the pop culture audience, among men. While some men certainly do watch and enjoy the show, seeing larger numbers of them getting into it would betray an actual interest in the lives of women, and an acknowledgement of the universality of women’s lives—most men interact with women, many men work closely or form romantic relationships with women, and to discard the lives of an entire class of people as boring or not worth following is also to discard those people themselves, which is a deeply depressing state of affairs.
For all our shared experiences as human beings, there is no ‘universal’ experience‐and creative works provide but a glimpse into some singular experiences, not a complete picture. It’s telling that two fantastic television programmes with similar characteristics (historical dramas, focused around specific professions) are received so radically differently by society as a whole, isn’t it?