Friday, November 15, 2013

The Stunned Wife


When "The Good Wife" came out, I was compelled to watch it. It was the hot topic show, button pushing concept we all wanted to see dramatized and played around with. There was also Chris Noth. A lot of us love Chris Noth from the Law And Order days, and many like him from his Sex In The City days. 
In "The Good Wife" Noth might have been the original starting point, but mostly he was a secondary character that they framed everything else around and gradually the show became more about the wife than the "bad husband."
I loved that show. I watched all of season 1 religiously, but lost my way and still haven't seen any episodes since. I certainly plan to go back and watch them all. Julianna Margolis is a fantastic actress, the supporting cast is superb, the writing is top shelf and almost all of the episodes kept your attention from start to finish.


The show was based mostly on Eliot Spitzer's wife, the one who stood by him on the podium when he copped to having multiple affairs and liasons with prostitutes, escorts and call girls of varying degrees. At the time, he was not the only one. There was a steady stream of men who got caught with their pants down, so to speak.
Spitzer was then the Governor of New York, and the glory boy with a big time hard ass reputation who could have ended up President one day had he not got caught. His wife Silda was by his side at the podium, being the good wife. Hence, the impetus for the title and the show.


The Good Wife mixed two different scenarios into one. At around the same time, the Governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich (Blago) was found to be horrifically corrupt and sent to jail. The show also deals with that topic and mixes in the Spitzer situation and uses Illinois as the base.
Again though, it is mostly about the wife and what it is like to be her when you are in the position to make a decision to support your husband, one who is having his and your dirty laundry aired in public and act like you are on his side, when likely you aren't anymore. 

http://nypost.com/2013/09/11/spitzer-weiner-good-wives-disappear/ 
 
What is it like to be the wife in that situation? To have to play the good wife in front of the camera and then deal with it all when the public eye doesn't get to see the rest of the hours in the day. That is what the show explores, and then adds a whole bunch of drama and subplots to the mix, all the time adding a dash of the good wife situation and the failed husbands story to pull it all together. 
And then yesterday I saw another Rob Ford press conference. This one, after he made outrageous statements in city hall and to the press. Even for Ford, this was too much.


Lets be perfectly clear about something. Rob Ford couldn't take the high road even if the Space Shuttle was attached to his ass. No one would ever mistake him for slick or well spoken. We all understand that. But as men, we also know there are certain things you can never say and not pay a huge price for. Even more than what you do wrong, it is what you say wrong that really leaves a mark. And a scar.

http://www.thestar.com/news/city_hall/2013/11/14/rob_ford_admits_drinking_and_driving_says_hell_sue_former_staffers.html

"But it was his comments about allegations in court documents released Wednesday that he had claimed to have been intimate with former policy adviser Olivia Gondek that stunned reporters.
“It says I wanted to eat her pussy and I have never said that in my life to her. I would never do that. I’m happily married and I’ve got more than enough to eat at home,” he said before heading up to council."

And yet, despite this stunning comment to the world, one that even the dumbest of men and politicians would never make, there was his wife on the podium with him a few hours later when he had to "eat" those words.

Rob Ford's rarely seen and stunned wife beside the podium yesterday.
We had never really seen Ford's wife--nor seen her at the podium--like we did yesterday. To say she looked stunned-- and shocked--is a monumental understatement. I can only imagine what she is saying to him when they get back home and nobody else but those two have to face each other.

http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/03/11/its-a-waste-of-time-sarah-thomson-on-why-she-wont-tell-police-about-rob-ford-incident/ 

Rob Ford isn't a confirmed adulterer, although most suspect that he is. But he is a confirmed liar, drunk, drug user, drunk driver and one who associates with drug dealers and gang members. He is also a bully and a general jack ass. 
As far as we know, Eliot Spitzer, Bill Clinton, Mark Stafford and Anthony Weiner are just smart and slick educated guys who cheat on their wives a lot. That is bad enough, but none of them are in Rob Ford's ballpark.
And now, Rob Fords wife is the disrespected wife. What he said yesterday was so out of line and vulgar that I can't see even the most devoted of good wives staying with him. If she does, it is only because she is in such a level of shock that she is the deer in the headlights at this point. If she survives and the car doesn't run her over, she has only one real option: To run off into the woods and as far away from Ford as she can. 
In my opinion, he now is beyond help and the way this ends is with a very traumatic incident where somebody dies. Likely him. Just like OJ, but with a much different ending.
This is no Hollywood drama with carefully crafted plots and twists. Nobody knows what's coming next. But what we do know is that not even the most devoted of good wives could withstand what he did yesterday. You can cheat on them and some will forgive, but when you describe what Ford did in public yesterday, you disrespect them and no woman ever forgives or forgets that.

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