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Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman as Moral Fiction
by Ken Sanes
One of the most important genres of traditional
American fiction has been the Western, which tells the story of the taming
of the Old West in the 1800s. Like all forms of popular fiction it is based on a
formula: it shows us men and women who have to fight to tame an
uncivilized land, and villains who exist outside the law. Not
infrequently, it depicts a sheriff or some other hero who has to take a
stand in the face of overwhelming dangers. If he fails, what there is of
civilization will fail also and be replaced by barbarism.
Although Westerns aren't much in favor these days, they have
spawned some interesting variations. In the movie, Outland, for example,
Sean Connery plays a lawman who has to establish the rule of law on a space
mining colony instead of an old Western town. In The Shootist, an aging John
Wayne portrays an old gunfighter dying of cancer in time when the old West
is itself dying and being replaced by a more civilized society.
One of the most interesting variations on the Western is the
television series, Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, which reshapes
the Western so it conveys contemporary liberal themes of multiculturalism, diversity
and social justice. In place of a hard but civilized Sheriff or male hero
fighting superior numbers with guns and courage, it shows us a courageous
woman physician and social reformer, Dr. Michaela Quinn (Jane Seymour), who
takes it on herself to teach a semi-civilized society about tolerance and
social responsibility. In place of some of the stereotyped characters of
Westerns, it tells the story of those who have largely been left out of the
history books, until recently.
The series takes place in Colorado Springs in the 1860s and
1870s. Dr. Quinn, who has moved to the town from an affluent and comfortable
life in the east, is a physician and liberal crusader in a time when there
are few woman professionals or leaders. Her role is to defend those who are
victims of intolerance and abuse and who are left out of the larger society,
including Jews, blacks and women, and especially the Indians, who are being
exterminated by white society. She is the physician as a doctor to the human
condition who heals souls and society in addition to bodies.
Fortunately, she often finds allies in her efforts to help
the rejected and bring about social justice. She is aided by the media, for
example, in the form of the editor of the town newspaper, Dorothy Jennings
(played by Barbara Babcock). She also finds support from a black couple,
Grace and Robert E, who know what it is like to be persecuted. And of course
she is supported by her main flame and, later, her husband, Byron Sully
(played by Joe Lando), a romantic eco-hero in the tradition of Tarzan, who
identifies with the Indians.
All of this, of course, is a way of depicting the Old West in
terms of contemporary liberal ideas on tolerance,
environmentalism and social justice. To some degree, that means Dr. Quinn,
Medicine Woman tries to understand the West in terms of the enlarged understanding of
history we have today. But mostly it means the series projects contemporary
issues back onto the Old West, which becomes a vehicle to tell a story about
present-day society.
Thus, we frequently see Dr. Quinn trying to convince
illiberal townsfolk to accept her positions by appealing to their
compassion and inherent sense of what is right, which is precisely the
position liberalism has been in during the Postwar era. In one episode, based
on this idea, she convinces the town of the right of the state to intervene
in families to protect children. She gets the skeptical town council to take
a neglected girl away from her caretaker, who is mistreating her. In
another, she tries to protect a man who is feared by the town because he is
different and considered insane.
As Dr. Quinn engages in these efforts, her enemies are
ignorance, prejudice, panic, the mob mentality, and people’s desire to
destroy what they don’t understand. One of her most important techniques for
overcoming these evils is to appeal to the rationality and conscience of the
townspeople and others who oppose her. These characters are depicted, not as
simple villains, but as complicated personalities who play her opponents on
one occasion and become her allies the next, as they try to deal with
difficult situations that challenge their fears and cultural conditioning.
But Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman doesn't only depict compassion and efforts to bring about social justice. It also tries to evoke
compassionate and tolerant responses in the audience. It does so by inviting
us to identify with Dr. Quinn and her unique combination of gentleness and
resolve, and by inviting us to identify with various characters as they
overcome their own prejudice and ignorance. In effect, the series tries to
reform present-day society in the direction of liberal ideals by depicting
Dr. Quinn successfully reforming the Old West.
Unfortunately, Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman was cancelled after
six seasons, so it ended up running from 1993 to 1998. In the last episode, it tried to resolve the conflicts it had
depicted in an emotionally satisfying way by portraying a Colorado Springs
that had become a kind of idealized multicultural paradise. A black couple
(Grace and Robert E); a White-Indian and Anglo-Mexican couple; and the woman
doctor and her eco-hero all dance together at the wedding celebration for
Dr. Quinn's adopted daughter, along with the rest of the townsfolk.
Despite its idealized qualities, this scene is far from
simplistic since it is tinged with the knowledge of what has been lost, in
the mass destruction of a people. The message of this last idyllic scene is
not that we can create a utopia but that the engine of hate and violence,
which has driven so much of history, creates an imperative that we live
together and live fully, and celebrate what we have.
Although this theme of loss and moral progress was at the
center of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, it should be noted that it was itself embedded in a
still larger theme which is that, despite dark moments, the history of the
West -- and America -- is a story of modernization. Thus, the achievement of
social justice and tolerance are depicted as part of a larger story of
progress that also includes the creation of modern institutions, such as
wilderness parks, and the expansion of science and technology, as seen in
railroads and the advance of medicine. In effect, what the series depicts is
the founding of the modern world, which becomes a story about moral heroes
and people of vision who reform society so it becomes more ethical and
rational.
To some degree, all of this makes Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman
an obvious form of ideology that offers characters and situations intended
to convey a political message. Despite (and because of) that, and despite the
tendency to overdo the melodrama in an effort to evoke pathos in the
audience, the series is a significant work of moral fiction.
It's central message -- that the individual has an obligation to try to
re-create the world in the image of his or her conscience -- needs to be
heard. When compared to the cynical and vacuous programming found on much of
the dial, Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman stands out as a worthy effort to re-create society --
or at least one corner of television -- in the image of our better selves.
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Image is of Jane Seymour at the 1988 Emmies, via Wikimedia.
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© 1996-2011 Ken Sanes
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