I struggle to find the right metaphor to describe the completely impossible, entirely fabricated, utopian marriage at the heart of the American political drama television series Madam Secretary.
Is it meth? Is it crack?
My wife pointed out that both of those comparisons were negative and unhealthy. Well, that’s sort of my point. After all, how can any marriage live up to the standard set forth in Madam Secretary? (It can’t.)
Starring Téa Leoni and Tim Daly, Madam Secretary features two attractive, fit scholar-diplomats who fight corruption (and sometimes each other) during the day. They decide matters with real-world life-or-death consequences for individuals and countries. Sometimes they sacrifice self-interest at the altar of the Constitution or based on religious tenets that have served civilization for generations.
Likely implausible, but I’m listening, intrigued even.
The couple—Leoni as President of the United States, Elizabeth McCord, and Daly as head of CIA Special Activities Division, Henry McCord—admits struggles. They even share with friends they have attended marriage counseling. At night, they return home to cook dinner together and exchange foot massages. Although they work together on events that regularly show up on the nightly news, they seldom break their agreement to refrain from discussing work at home, except when the kids bring it up.
Now we’re into very unlikely territory.
Finally, when one spouse returns home in the middle of the night on a work night, s/he wakes the other. What ensues is gentle teasing or a warm verbal exchange, perhaps ending up with a romantic embrace and a gentle fade to black.
The McCords (Leoni and Daly) on the town, smiling, embracing, and celebrating. Credit: TVOverMind.
Late-Night Flirtations and Ice Cream
The 25-year marriage on display in Madam Secretary is not (heterosexual) marriage as recognized by the vast majority of us who are, or who have ever been, married. It is a long way even from the marijuana “pipe dream” version of how a marriage could potentially work.
It’s not even Disney. (I double-checked. It’s CBS, not ABC. Disney never would have tolerated this level of sugar-coating of marriage.)
Hearts of wires and light and beaches are temporary, the McCords are forever. Photo by Fadi Xd on Unsplash.
As a completely unscientific point of personal comparison, I recently entered my bedroom after my wife had gone to sleep. In the process of getting ready for bed, my belt buckle struck the wood floor. In the silence, it was not unlike a gunshot.
No inquiry was forthcoming about my health and well-being. No greeting of any kind, even the incoherently mumbled sort. There was a startled response in the bed and then a very distinct “rolling away.”
Married people know what I am talking about. “Rolling away” is that shift in bed that says, “No portion of my conscious mind is available right now. Don’t touch. Don’t talk.” It’s the nonverbal “shhhh!” And it usually involves taking an unfair proportion of the covers in a way that brooks no possibility of negotiation.
This move sends a clear message about the comparative value of sleep vs. midnight marital conversation. Sleep: 1, any vestige of civility: 0. It’s a score I suspect more closely mirrors the lived experience of long-time married people—heterosexual or otherwise—than does the late-night flirtation and dollup of ice cream on the noses of Madam Secretary’s Elizabeth and Henry McCord.
Castles, Costumes, and Escapist Fiction
I enjoy Madam Secretary, I do. The characters are engaging and three-dimensional, the situations are often thoughtfully laid out, and complex ideas get real scrutiny. Discussions and decisions are layered and nuanced by circumstances and friendships, just as they are in real life. In some ways, it feels like a solid placeholder until The West Wing returns (President Angela Bassett? I’m ready, Aaron Sorkin).
I was surprised when my wife started binge-watching Madam Secretary in the summer of 2019. I deeply pondered her interest in the show. For the most part, she likes castles, costumes, personal intrigue, and escapist fiction. She dislikes politics, tragedy, and real-world problems. So my wife + Madam Secretary is not an expected or predictable pairing.
It was only after watching the series with her that I developed my explanation for why she watched.
First, in a way, Madam Secretary may be read as escapist fiction. There are plenty of costumes here—in the formal daily dress at work and the even more formal dinners and events as befit the wealthiest and most powerful people on earth.
Second, there is plenty of personal intrigue as the McCords and their friends and their children try to salvage personal lives while being among the most visible families in the world.
Third, the White House, while not exactly a castle by European standards, is certainly the venerated seat of much American power and might. It is as close to a castle as America should ever have.
Last, the framing of governance as an ongoing dialogue between principled people willing to sacrifice their personal ambitions and desires in order to follow the Constitution and do right by others … well, in today’s political world, that seems as escapist as any episode of Downton Abbey.
That Appropriate Metaphor?
But these four points of comparison do not address what I think — nay, what I hope — is the significance of my wife’s fascination with Madam Secretary. I think she watches because she wants to believe this kind of marriage is possible. She wants to believe that two exhausted, flawed, thoughtful human beings who love each other can still be attracted to each other; that they can support, and reinforce, and lift up each other even through their own mistakes and inadequacies.
I have an unfounded belief that this is why Barbara Hall created their relationship, as a sort of balm for our collective married souls. (Perhaps it’s also an extension of Hall’s newfound Catholicism?) And I am thankful.
Sure, my wife wants to believe my abs will one day re-emerge from my belly, like a picture frame being pulled up after being submerged in a paint tray. She wants to believe we will lead a life where we trot around the globe or visit a farm to ride horses or just sequester in our Washington D.C. two-story (and really, the only way to travel in D.C. is with a police escort). Those are healthy, if unrealistic, imaginings. Especially the abs.
So maybe the metaphor I’m looking for is not meth or crack, and certainly not Red Bull. Maybe it’s relationship Soylent, aspiring to be a full and balanced marriage in one drink, the idealized food?
I want to believe everything we need can be delivered in one package, in one marriage. At least that’s why I am watching Madam Secretary. And I hope my wife wants to believe that too.
