Wonderfalls is a show that has garnered a cult following. Following the exploits of young woman Jaye Tyler who is smart and witty, it at first glance appears to be a positive show with the right intentions. Jaye has a philosophy degree and seemingly the world at her finger tips, yet if we look a little closer we find that Jaye is working as a sales clerk and living in a trailer park. Her sister, who is a lesbian, and her mother who looks and acts like the perfect 1950s housewife are the only two women in the show with any success.
Note the devil horns above her symbolising her female-inborn sin. Please.
Yet Jaye isn't happy in her position of failure in life, so maybe it's not all bad? But alas, it is! In a fit of mental illness brought about by finding out that Alec, a young teenage boy in high school, was promoted instead of her, she begins talking to inanimate objects. Wait, this is still sounding very reasonable isn't it? This is the sort of injustice that woman suffer through every day of their lives.
Maybe her mental illness will inspire her to try that little harder (just as all woman must) to try and find some semblance of success. But no, instead it inspires in her her maternal instinct, encouraging her to help others, rather than develop the cut throat attitude required for women to succeed in a modern patriarchal society.
She sets about blindly following what these objects tell her to do, as if following her own instincts, and thus ignoring her rational female-mind. Meanwhile she meets Eric Gotts at a bar (Jaye is an alcoholic) and is immediately infatuated. The show goes on to reveal that Jaye has spent her life breaking men's hearts, yet it presents this in a negative way, while also using her relationship with Eric as a catalyst for her to 'mend' her ways and become a good little housewife, ready to ignore her own desires and needs for her man.
Ironically it is this love that the show says she needs to get her out of her slump�out of the trailer park and into the kitchen?�and find success. Indeed, when the conniving, brain dead bimbo wins back her husband, she falls into an even deeper stupor, spending the day crying and pining over her lost love.
Her love for him also seems to be more maternal than carnal, encouraging him to be happy even if it's without her, and the sex in the show (excluding sex involving her black friend Mahendra and a Russian mail order bride, I say excluding for a reason) is a scene in which Eric's wife is seen pleasuring a bellboy, thus showing that sex is something designed solely for a man's pleasure.
As you can see here she is leaning forward to ready herself to be 'punished' by her boss, and once again this symbolises that she does not in any way enjoy sexual intercourse, even with a younger man.
Yet when they do fall into each others arms by the end of the series we find that she has found happiness, and that there may be the opportunity for success, showing that only through a man could she possibly be able to be anything more than a sales clerk ordered around by teenage boys.
Her lesbian sister symbolises this in the basest of ways�if a woman cannot find success through a man, but still wants to find success, she must become a man to do so. But it's not just rampant sexism that Wonderfalls displays. I mentioned the mail order bride and black friend earlier.
Now, it goes without saying that a mail order bride is inherently sexist, but this mail order bride is one so stupid and desperate for love that she fell in love with the man buying and selling her like meat. And who was that man? A twelve year old boy. And what became of her? She ended up with his father�once again showing that a woman can only find happiness by fulfilling their most basest of instincts�maternity.
But she also enjoys sex, something only demonstrated with non-white females. Mahendra, Jaye's friend, also enjoys sex. Clearly demonstrating the belief that blacks are of an inferior race to whites and ruled by carnal desires. In fact, all the non-white characters in the show are portrayed in a negative light, from the abusive, obese black female police officer in Crime Dog to the young black thief in Caged Bird.
That's not your imagination. She does look like a sambo.
While Caged Bird does feature a bank robber who is white, it is worth noting that they state explicitly that he is not evil because he is an organ donor, yet none of the black characters are treated in such a way.
Not only that but in the episode Totem Mole native Americans are portrayed as greedy, money hungry, superstitious imbeciles. Indeed, the highly successful female native lawyer Deanna Lightfoot develops a delusion after Jaye's lesbian sister succumbs to her male instinct of violence and locks her in a sauna. After developing the delusion, she emerges nude from the sauna, much to the enjoyment of the lesbian and male onlooker, thus further demonstrating what a woman's worth really is.
Indeed, she then leaves her career as a lawyer to become a Native American seer and thus the heterosexual, unmarried, successful woman has successfully been put back in her rightful place in society, both as a native and woman.
This is the final nail in the sexist and racist coffin for Wonderfalls. The show is full of hatred and suppression and should not be seen by any clear-thinking woman, and should be rightfully shunned and detested.
Again with the devil horns. Apparently they've not heard of subtelty or cIass.
All is wonderful in Wonderfalls; but only if you are a misogynist, racist man. For once the highly sexist Fox network made a decision that actually benefited women, instead of further lining the pockets of their all male board.
And I didn't even mention the exorcism.