Beware of "Monsterating" Women!

Leap Day.

I love holidays, and now thanks to this week's 30 Rock there's a whole new set of traditions for the quadrennial February 29th. Modern Family however chose to mark the day with commentary on the truly controversial issues of today, such as gay men fearing their forties, hypocritical Latinas desperately seeking protection by their men, and the insanity and terror of multiple women in one household all menstruating simultaneously.

The social value of Modern Family is questionable, but I've generally praised the show simply for depicting two cute married men, cross-national adoption, and interracial couples. There's question of whether this only serves to perpetuate stereotypes, but I can usually oversee such issues in the name of comedy and topical entertainment. But I have to say, I'm kind of a bitch when it comes to period jokes.

In the episode "Leap Day", father Phil is excited to celebrate the extra 24 hours by doing something extraordinary and taking the whole family out to a trapeze class. Unfortunately his excitement is quickly squandered by "Satan's trifecta", when his wife Claire and two daughters are all on their period at the same time. The first sign of trouble comes when Claire is seen crying on the couch while watching that Sarah McLaughlin PSA on t.v. The daughters are quick to join her as the boys watch on in terror. How unfortunate that it's a sign of female instability to feel empathy for helpless abused animals.

The men continue their panic, tip-toeing around the subject and plotting their strategy. Phil gives his son and nephew a nice educational talk about how "the woman's actually taking great pains to hide the monster she's become. But if you acknowledge it, just once, the monster appears.” Eventually the subject does come up however as the son accuses all the women of "monsterating". I kid you not, that is the punch of the entire episode.



Claire is cognizant of the games her husband is playing, and admits that "nothing makes someone crazier than going around acting like they're crazy". This idea known as "gaslighting" is a tale as old as time, and one as dangerous to women and relationships as ever. Though in the end all three women understandingly come through to make helpless Phil's dream of trapezing come true (we women tend to give in that way you know).

I'll admit, last night as I was catching up on the latest episode of Glee (I know, I know), I broke out into a full on sob fest at the mere thought of moving to New York and following my dreams. I may have cried myself silly in the privacy of my own studio apartment, but that's not to say that this knowingly somewhat-irrational behavior would ever follow me out into society. Needless to say Modern Family's reductive depiction of period-stricken women who ruin the lives of men around them and whose "brains don't work" was just a silly hyperbolic attempt at the same flat comedy as always.