One reason why television shows as diverse as Friends and The
Golden Girls, have become classics is because they so aptly portray the essence
and energy of friendships at different ages and stages of women’s lives. Based
on both the subject matter and the hype, I can’t wait to watch tonight’s first episode
of the mini-series, The Starter Wife---an ode to the wife who gets left—and another
take on the role of female friends...
Debra Messing plays the role of Molly Kagan, a 40-something Hollywood
socialite who seemed to have it all until she receives a disturbing call on her
cell phone. Without any pretense of civility, her hubby uses that unseemly vehicle to
inform Molly that their marriage and her life as she once knew it is over. With
the help of friends, Molly finds a way to move forward because as the promo
says---“wife goes on.”
In this morning's New York Times, television critic
Alessandra Stanley used the term friendenemies to describe the group of snooty
women who were ostensibly Molly’s friends but turn her into a pariah. After she
loses her “wife-of” status, they snub her and gossip behind her back.
I was going
to credit Stanley
with coining friendenemies but found 23 results for the compound word on
Google and realized it's been used once or twice before. Google and my spell check on Word still questioned whether I (it) meant
“friend enemies.”
Isn’t it a punch in the stomach to find out your friends aren’t
true and are only there to take advantage of what you can do for them?
The Starter Wife premiered on 5/30/07 with a two-hour episode on
the USA Network.
by Irene S. Levine, PhD