Will & Grace: the nurse as twit, loser and porn actress
April 22, 2004 -- Tonight's episode of NBC's "Will & Grace," entitled "Speechless" and written by Sally Bradford, focuses on the flighty Jack character's graduation from "nursing school." The episode's unholy mix of stereotypes adds up to a vision of nursing education as a fly-by-night joke leading to a second-rate job for white women and gay men who can't hack it in any sad corner of the entertainment industry. But don't worry, little nurses--even those who don't work on successful television sitcoms have their place in this world, be it ever so humble.
As "Will & Grace" fans know, the monumentally frivolous Jack character spent much of this season attending nursing school, possibly at a hospital-based diploma program; whether it was an RN or LPN program is unclear. This episode is about Jack's graduation ceremony, at which he will give a speech as a result of having been voted the "most popular" student. Will expresses surprise that Jack could be graduating only five months after starting school, but Jack tells him he received 16 credits for courses he took at a "medical school" in Mexico, apparently while on vacation. Jack notes that these courses were taken over the course of a few days in Spanish, which he does not know, and were being given out "like candy." Because Jack, ever the model of competence and focus, has misremembered the day of his graduation, he has no speech only hours before the ceremony. Jack persuades Will to draft the speech for him, and Will eagerly does so, including a line about "why nurses, like angels, wear white." Jack recalls that, as an earlier episode showed, he only got into nursing because he saw a hot student nurse and followed him into the men's room.
The graduation ceremony itself occurs in a what looks like a moderately sized classroom, and as the invitation suggested, appears to be attended only by a handful of students and their guests. There are no scholarly trappings, and the only speakers besides Jack are two young white women in anachronistic short white nursing dresses--no sign of the diverse classmates seen in an earlier episode. As the scene opens, the goofy first nurse leads the audience in a terrifyingly spirited sing-along of John Mellencamp's "Hurts So Good"--an ode to the joys of rough sex--immediately establishing that the ceremony is populated by comically pathetic losers. The second nurse is a very attractive woman whose sheer white uniform is unbuttoned below the level of her bright blue bra so that much of it is visible. She takes the lectern, makes an inappropriately graphic remark about why the previous speaker could not attend, and introduces Jack. Jack begins to read his speech, but to Will's dismay, Jack soon finds he cannot continue, deciding in mid-speech that he will follow his original dream of being an actor. Later, while the ever-helpful Karen is assuring Jack that his nursing "degree" will be useful when he fails as an actor, Will is shown delivering the rest of his beloved speech to the blue bra nurse, who is moved by its "follow your dream" theme to muse: "Maybe I will get back into porn."
Let's see if we have this...straight. Nursing school can be completed by twits like Jack in five months, with the help of a few days of instruction from a Mexican "medical school." Nursing school graduations involve no academic elements, but do include half-dressed porn actress nurses, nurses leading S&M sing-alongs, and a speech by the student voted "most popular." Nurses are white women and gay men who can't make it as actors (Jack), porn stars (blue bra nurse), or musicians (singing nurse). In short, nursing is a second-rate job requiring only minimal skills, adequate for people without any better options.
Will does make a few comments that indicate the show understands real nursing involves more than we see here. These include his remark that Jack "will hold other people's lives in the palm of his hands," and his skeptical comments about Jack's school, such as his question as to whether it's even accredited. But these incidental remarks are drops in a bucket of distortions that reflect actual beliefs about nurses. You could argue that Jack's abandonment of the profession is a pro-nurse statement--making it safer to venture into a health care facility--but we would have been more impressed if the profession had rejected him instead.
Yes, we know, it's just a sitcom. But most of the often witty show's millions of fans have little information about who nurses really are and what they really do. Just as advertising works best in a vacuum, confirming a slew of residual stereotypes about nursing (the white woman, the gay man, the angel, the naughty nurse, the loser, the airhead) without any real countervailing examples or information--even jokingly--can't help but have some negative impact on these viewers.
Hollywood often denies that its products can have any such impact, while claiming credit for fostering positive change, as those responsible for "Will & Grace" do for their role in promoting acceptance of gay people. Tellingly, this episode itself suggests that Hollywood can affect the real world. While Will and Jack are brainstorming potential remarks for Jack's speech, Jack suggests that he was inspired to become a nurse by watching the great Diahann Carroll play a nurse in the groundbreaking 1968-1971 sitcom "Julia." If only those responsible for this episode could have found the will or the grace to hire the dignified Ms. Carroll to reprise her role, or at least tried to inject a little of her spirit, rather than betraying it with ugly stereotypes played for cheap laughs.
Educate the world that nurses save lives!
