I started watching Weeds a month or two ago because I was losing faith in reality TV, but missed the trash factor once I cut it all out. My friends watched it, and it was on Netflix. And god knows I needed another distraction from homework. I became addicted, even though everyone told me that it got really bad after the third season. Still, something about the show got me — maybe it was the controversial element of blatant drug speak that I had never witnessed on-screen before, maybe it was the comic relief of sexy-in-a-puppy-dog-way brother-in-law Andy. I don’t know. It taught me some lessons about life, too! For instance, did you know that there’s an insane amount of sexually active middle-schoolers who initiate threesomes and have STDs in some California suburbs? Or that by casually holding a kitchen knife up to someone's neck, it can get you out of almost any situation scot-free?
Soon, I joined the ranks of Weeds once-enthusiasts, jaded by the increasing crap-factor of its plot. You could always count on Shane becoming more and more of a candidate for antisocial personality disorder as the seasons trudged on, and that Nancy’s closet would always be full of gold and silver layered necklaces with cute charms, no matter how dire the financial situation really was.
But the most bothersome reoccurrence in the show is that, no matter the situation, someone's always getting eaten out. That's right. Some guy always has his head in a girl's crotchal area, namely Nancy Botwin’s crotchal area. And, in one semi-disturbing instance, Nancy’s 17-year-old son’s has his head in the 40-something neighbor’s crotchal area (Julie Bowen from Modern Family, no less!). Every romantic encounter ever starts with an episode or two of built-up tension, a few seconds of "should we shouldn't we oh we should" kissing, and then, BOOM…close-ups of legs around a neck, hands on boobs and the generic squirming of orgasmic ecstasy. And then, it pans to a contrastingly-boring scene involving an office or a parking garage.
Now, I'm hardly condemning this kind of sexual act — power to the men who like to go downstairs! My issue is that Weeds creator, Jenji Kohan, has this idealistic view on what today's society behaves like in the boudoir (and on desks, on counters, on bars, etc.), and this view simply doesn't match up with real life. It's a commonality in today's day and age that if a man and woman are doing any form of the "dating" thing, the guy's going to get a blow job first (yes, I’m sure there are some exceptions but come on...). If this man and woman are simply having a one-night stand (or one-time escapade of any kind in any time of day), the woman isn't going to be like, “Hey, I think you're sexy, let's get out of here, here's my vag in your face…” They're going to sleep with one another because there’s less work (two for the price of one!) and less of a scare-factor because there’s an equal distribution of unsureness between the two parties involved. We build up the act of (ugh, I hate the real term) cunnilingus, making it some crazy expedition into the wild unknown. Guys who venture there are considered brave and valiant explorers, and guys who avoid it aren't prude, they're just "justifiably" scared about…being attacked by a venomous jungle creature, or whatever other “terrifying” thing might be lurking around. Why is this so?
I could get all female-empowerment on y’all, but I’ll keep it simple and factual: the unknown scares people (men). Once a fear is exposed and registered as widespread, it morphs from fear into fact (e.g., racism, antisemitism, homophobia, etc.). So it goes from “going down is kind of scary,” a fear of some high school boys like that kid from American Pie, to “going down is always scary,” a fact among mankind. Thus, why many a man is left sitting on his girl’s couch/bed with an issue of Cosmo strewn directly in his field of vision, casually opened to one of those wonderfully-written “How To Get Your Man To Do Things You Are Too Insecure To Ask For” articles.
Jenji Kohan is, in essence, making an attempt at empowering female audiences to reclaim the right to be like "here's my vag in your face." But what she's really doing is making this unrealistic place of c-word worshipping to establish her antiheroine Nancy's power. We get it. Nancy's a badass. Married three times and all three husbands are dead. Two because of her involvement in drug cartels and alliances with both high-end hit men and gullible police officials. Allusions are made to her über-cool dancer past, complete with the occasional donning of a black halter leotard when she feels like reclaiming her youth. Then there are the legendary naked pics and home videos of her and her first late husband's romps in the hay. No one wants to fuck with Nancy Botwin; they just want to fuck Nancy Botwin. She's a "hot mom" and a "good drug dealer." Men just happen to think that there's a freaking McRib hidden somewhere in the depths of her lady parts.