Allison Janney vs. Christine Lahti
Battle of the Statuesque Soliloquists

When we talk about a female character who is a "strong woman," or "commanding," or "outspoken," or "forthright," or "assertive," here's what we're actually saying: she is a ball-breaker. She intimidates men with her haughty attitude. She cows other women by gazing serenely right over their heads. You may not like her, but you re-- actually, you might not respect her, either; you might just think she's a bitch. She usually isn't the central character in any movie; her abrasive personality means that either she can't hold on to a man, or else she's completely sexless. If you're getting a mental picture right now, it probably looks a lot like Allison Janney and/or Christine Lahti.

On film, because there are few opportunities for ball-breaking harridans to take centre stage -- at least as long as Jennifer Lopez and Susan Sarandon are around -- Lahti and Janney generally end up in supporting roles. For Lahti, this has meant she's played a bunch of doctors (in movies like Gross Anatomy and Whose Life Is It Anyway?). But there've been complex, interested roles, too. Okay, actually only one: Annie Pope/Cynthia Manfield, the '60s underground radical/mom in Running on Empty. And have we mentioned how very tall she is? 5'10", according to the IMDb.

Janney started her film career many years later than Lahti did, but either she's a much better actor or she's got a much better agent, because she works a lot, in pretty big productions. And, while she may have the latter, she is definitely the former. The taint of The West Wing aside (and we'll come back to that), she's got the power to steal scenes from much more famous actors (perhaps stealing them by simply picking them up and holding them over her head -- because she is not short) and being memorably awesome even in reeeeeeal shitty movies. She was a hard-headed corporate type -- showing a bravura command of imperious smoking not seen since The Last Seduction -- in Private Parts; Jennifer Aniston's brusque and disapproving but ultimately totally vindicated stepsister in The Object of My Affection; a magazine editor in in gigantic Carrie Donovan glasses in Six Days Seven Nights; and (our personal favourite) a gleeful trailer-park vixen in Drop Dead Gorgeous. The gulf between Loretta, the trashy seductress, and, say, Lyla Branch, the polished soap producer of Nurse Betty, is vast, but Janney is as good cutting vain TV doctor Greg Kinnear down to size (and that size? Especially compared to her? Wee) as she is screeching across a hotel plaza full of puking beauty-pageant contestants that she "got some." (It's hard to imagine Christine Lahti even being interested in "some," from anyone. She'd probably spend the whole time complaining that she could get it done faster and better on her own.)

Unlike Lahti, Janney also has the capacity to portray endearing vulnerability -- a gentle, unassuming florist in Big Night; a flighty presidential conquest in Primary Colors; Meryl Streep's unhappy girlfriend in The Hours; an aquarium-bound starfish in Finding Nemo. Most famous among her non-ball-breaker roles is the catatonic Barbara Fitts in American Beauty, in which she managed to out-act Kevin Spacey in near-complete silence. ...Okay, fine. It's not that hard to do. We're just sitting here and we're out-acting Kevin Spacey. There are decorative rocks in our garden out-acting Kevin Spacey. One decorative rock in particular made a fine Sky Masterson in a local production of Guys and Dolls last summer.

The good news for Janney and Lahti is that while tall ball-breakers seldom flourish in film, our tolerance for seeing the obnoxious on TV is much higher (hence...reality TV), and so they get the opportunity to break our balls every week, in the privacy and comfort of our own homes. Lahti and Janney are both currently enjoying considerable success playing brittle, crotchety TV spinsters -- Janney in her multiple-Emmy-winning role as C.J. Cregg on The West Wing, and Lahti as single mother/History prof Grace McCallister on the critically beloved new WB series Jack & Bobby. And if you note many similarities between the tall, sassy, mouthy, auburn-haired, fortysomething characters, it may be due to the fact that both series were co-created by Tommy Schlamme, who also happens to be Lahti's husband. Both Grace and C.J. are driven career women; C.J. seems to be more well-liked by her colleagues than does the remarkably prickly Grace (and for the sake of the brilliantly named Schlamme, we hope that the similarities between Lahti and her small-screen alter ego are few), whose ongoing story arc seems to revolve around her making as many enemies as she possibly can. So far, we've seen her piss off the university administration; her fellow profs; a multi-denominational cross-section of students; teachers and administrators at her children's school; and, of course, her own poor, brow-beaten children.

C.J. is less of a train wreck -- or she was, in the early going of The West Wing; since then, producers have made her character increasingly...well, crappy. She's erratic, untrustworthy -- even, on occasion, kind of racist. Even so, she still qualifies as a "strong woman," in TV terms, because she doesn't cry under stress, she doesn't lose her head over any men, she wears suits (well), and she's tall. Grace McCallister, ditto. And if there were ever any crossover shows between the fictional White House of the present (Wing) and the fictional White House of the future (Jack), C.J. and Grace would probably each hate the other for all the unpleasant character traits she fails to recognize that she possesses herself. Although if they did come to blows, at least it would be a fair fight. And might remind the viewer of a pecking fight between a couple of extraordinarily grouchy ostriches.

Advantage: Janney, who seriously earned a lifetime of credit for Drop Dead Gorgeous