Bionic Woman or Jack Bauer?
by Maggie Van Ostrand
From Bionic Woman to mattress salesgirl, Lindsay Wagner has run the gamut from Nielsen numbers to Sleep Numbers. It must be hard for her to accept that her old 70s show, The Bionic Woman, is having a makeover by NBC/Universal Studios with David Eick, the writer-producer who changed Battlestar Galactica from a rather nothing sci-fi show into a pretty good space drama.
This time around, The Bionic Woman will be dealing with a rebellious teenage sister who lives with her and, according to the producers, there will be other changes from the old show. In this version, they say, she will be thoroughly modern, and manages to do it all.
Bionic's lead role of Jamie Sommers, onetime gal pal of the Six Million Dollar Man, has not yet been cast, but never fear. Any Beverly Hills woman could try out for the role, and the producers wouldn't have to supply prosthetics. Today's women come well supplied with body hardware as functional as that of any cyborg.
Many of the women in Beverly Hills are already equipped with spare parts: chin implants, breast implants, calf implants, butt implants, cheekbone implants, tooth implants and new noses. Ribs are removed for smaller waists, and hair removed for higher foreheads. Hair is added for fullness and hair extensions for greater length. There is no length to which some women would not go, for three reasons: emulating celebrities, landing a man, and having fifteen minutes of media fame. Why should we watch a bionic woman on TV when we can see the same thing on Rodeo Drive?
TV producers would do well to remember the history of the Stepford Wives, about robot-like women, which was a huge hit when it originally came out in 1975, and a flop remake in 2004. The times, they've been achangin'.
Women are no longer captivated by such role models as The Bionic Woman, Charlie's Angels or Wonder Woman. They're not powerful enough. We have our own heroes who can outdo everything they did.
Look at Rosie O'Donnell, who can outlast, outpunch, and outshriek any other man foolish enough to take her on.
Or Ellen DeGeneres, who can charm the pants off other women with just a little dance and some clever patter.
And the most revered of today's women, Oprah Winfrey, who seems to sense our innermost thoughts and knows how to make our lives better. She has the Golden Touch in every area: Hollywood movies, Broadway shows, television production, successful publishing, and has made celebs of experts who have touched her in some way on the Oprah show.
Whether from Sappho or Chicago, these women are today's heavyweight heroes.
Progress is a strange thing. Unlike yesterday, the average woman no longer wants to stand in the shadow of a man. Today, she wants to stand in the shadow of another woman.
Speaking for myself, if I want a butt-kicking, chops-busting, in-your-face tough guy, I don't want a woman, bionic or bisexual. I want what I've always wanted: Kiefer Sutherland.
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