This guest post by Shay Revolver appears as part of our theme week on Masculinity.
You’ve probably seen the poster art for Mr. Robot everywhere in the past few weeks. It’s pretty good show and it deserves the attention.
From the very first scene of Mr. Robot you are hooked. You find yourself invested in Elliot’s life. You feel connected with him and you hope that he succeeds. It’s a strong opening for what I feel will be an amazing show. The wait between the sneak preview and the next episode has been torture so I’ve watched the pilot more than once with my partner and my son because I can’t get enough. But somewhere in between each of the viewings I’ve had some thoughts that in some way take a part of my love away. The problem with loving good storytelling and being aware of the varying forms of patriarchy or misogyny in some stories is that once you’ve had a chance to digest a piece of media, you find yourself questioning all the little things that you find problematic and sometimes you can’t tell if it’s just you over analyzing or if there really is a problem there.
That space is where I find myself after seeing and loving Mr. Robot. Rami Malek plays the shy and socially awkward Elliot well. In the beginning of the show he takes down a pedophile and you root for him. Throughout the show he seems to inwardly clash with any of the Alpha males that surround him. Mr. Robot (played by Christian Slater) is as much of an embodiment of a man’s man as Brad Pitt/ Tyler Durden was in Fight Club. This statement is true, minus the Fight Club part, with most of the other men in his life, but they seem express all of the “masculine” traits you’d expect from a cis white male. Elliot, on the other hand, gives off a sense of humanity that makes you feel connected almost instantly as you join him on this adventure through his world. Elliot isn’t your typical male. He doesn’t exude all of the traits that you’d expect in a show’s lead. He’s not incredibly charismatic, he doesn’t put out an err of bravado, he doesn’t even have that uber masculine sense of entitlement. He’s not out swilling beer or doing any of the things you would expect. He is in no way a “man’s man.”
The problem doesn’t come from the viewing of this show, it comes from the aftertaste. Elliot is a traditional lone wolf type of man. He has his own rules and own mind and lives his life according to his own ideals. This makes him a nice contrast Amanda’s boyfriend. He’s the uber masculine type of guy that uses niceness as a weapon. He’s smarmy and even before we got into his indiscretions you couldn’t help but not like this guy. He has all the trademarks of a cis white male frat boy. He oozes all the traditionally masculine character traits that are the hallmark of the patriarchy. He has a sense of entitlement and this cloud of arrogance so thick you could choke on it.
Watching Elliot interact and rebuff him makes you feel like you’re on his side. This is where things start to get a little tricky for me. The thing that feels homey about Elliot is that despite his social awkwardness he generally cares for other people like his best friend Amanda (played by Portia Doubleday) and his therapist Krista (played by Gloria Reuben). The problem isn’t with the caring, the problem is with the way he shows it when they’re not around. In this regard he exudes a hyper masculine sense of over-protectiveness. During one of his exchanges with Amanda’s jerk of a boyfriend, Ollie (played by Ben Rappaprt), you find out that Elliot has been cyber stalking him. He discovered fairly early on that he was cheating on her and had been since shortly after they exchanged “I love yous.” But Elliot hasn’t told her yet. His reasons are self-serving–he doesn’t want to deal with the mess she’ll become after another break-up and he feels like he can “manage” him better than whatever guy she’ll find next. So instead, he keeps this secret from his best friend. This behavior runs parallel with the fact that every time that Amanda seems to be faltering at work, he swoops in to save the day and defend her from anyone who tried to make her seem less that capable. He can’t help himself from trying to save the day, from being a “White Knight.”
I have long had a problem with this archetype both in media and in real life. To me this whole phenomenon of men feeling the desire to swoop in and “Save the Princess” seems to be more of a hindrance to feminism than a companion. Women are not helpless creatures who need protecting, at least not in the White Knight type of way. There is always an undertone in their actions that seem to convey the message that they’re just letting us have our way and will wait in the wings until they have their moment and can save us from ourselves. One of the biggest shows of Elliot’s underlying muber masculine White Knighting actions was him deciding to frame the CTO of E-Corp because he was rude to Amanda. In that moment he had the choice of two envelopes, one leading to the real culprit in the hacks, the other leading to the CTO. He was set to turn in Mr. Robot and his crew until the moment that the CTO kicked Amanda out of the room. Elliot took issue with that and in an effort to “protect” her and “defend her honor” he sets the CTO up to take the fall. I will give the writers credit for what they choose to do with Amanda’s character. To her credit, she calls Elliot on his choice to jump in during a meeting with their bosses to cover for her, she didn’t know to what extent he tried to defend her. But, the scene seems in a way that the show is aware of this element of the dynamic and makes sure that we know it too.
Unfortunately, the problem with the White Knighting doesn’t end there. Elliot is fond of his therapist, Krista, and feels sorry for her and her relationship issues, mainly her trouble finding a suitable man after her divorce. His solution to facilitate keeping her safe and teaching her “to read people” involves him digging up dirt on her current online dating love interest. This is a side note in the pilot episode. Toward the end of the episode, shortly after you realize how awesome this series is going to be, he finds the dirt that he as looking for. Once again, instead of telling her himself, he chooses to confront him and blackmail him into telling her the truth about himself and breaking up with her. In the next scene that his therapist appears in she’s obviously shaken and appears to have been crying. He knows that his plan has worked. She is now “safe” and he seems pleased with his work.
This is another one of the problems that I have with White Knight syndrome. The types prone to exhibiting this behavior tend to have a lower opinion of women that than their outwardly sexist counterparts. White Knights take up the causes of the women in their lives and speak out for them, but it is usually done in a manner that seems to suggest they think that these women are incapable of speaking up for themselves. Elliot unfortunately seems to be as textbook as it comes in this regard. In some ways he seems more sinister in his actions because he seems so nice and unassuming , these traits make it so you don’t realize he’s moving pieces around in the lives of the women in his life.
He is resolute in his thinking that he knows what is best for them and will “protect” them from themselves by any means necessary. He does all of these things from the shadows while outwardly expressing genuine concern.
I can’t tell if Elliot’s behaviors are a sign of the times or if they’re his true feelings left out exposed like a nerve , a gift from the writer expressing the realism of White Knights, and I’m not sure where the show will go from here. I love the premise; the show itself comes off as a cross between Fight Club and Hackers–two of my favorite films–and the writing, direction, and camera work are amazing. I hope that in future episodes the women speak out more and he proves himself as less of a panderer and more of a genuine person whose actions toward the women on the show relay the words that he speaks to them. It’s hard to tell where this characters interactions will take the story, but I hope Elliot evolves into something better than the anti-hero that he is now because, as I said before, the show I plan on watching is phenomenal.
Shay Revolver is an inked vegetarian, mom, feminist, cinephile, insomniac, recovering NYU student, and former roller derby player currently working as a Brooklyn-based microcinema filmmaker, web series creator, and writer. She’s obsessed with most books, especially the Pop Culture and Philosophy series and loves movies and TV shows from low brow to high class. As long as the image is moving she’s all in and believes that everything is worth a watch. She still believes that movies make the best bedtime stories because books are a daytime activity to rev up your engine and once you flip that first page, you have to keep going until you finish it and that is beautiful in its own right. She enjoys talking about the feminist perspective in comic book and gaming culture and the lack of gender equality in mainstream cinema and television productions both on screen and behind the camera. She prides herself on using all (or damn near close) to an all female crew because it’s harder for women to build up their reel. She also thinks that everyone should check out the weekly @bitchflicks twitter chat about feminism and media every Tuesday at 2 because it’s awesome and she loves engaging with other women.
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Excellent analysis! I don’t have cable so I probably won’t be watching this show for a while, but I was curious about it what with the heavy advertising it’s been receiving. This is probably the best summary of the problems of White Knight mindsets/behavior I’ve ever found! Thank you for that… it’s an issue I’ve had difficulty articulating to guy friends who buy in to at least part of that way of thinking about women, but I think this might be clear enough to actually compute for them. Thank you for sharing!!
I see this too, that even though his vigilantism is portrayed as righteous, that he’s keeping so many secrets in order to protect the women in his life that it’s kind of creepy. Hopefully someone will find out and then he’ll be on damage control, but I still worry that the show isn’t doing enough to paint that behavior as based on a flawed premise.
But I really liked the “big ceo dismissing Amanda” because it touched on the real issue of sexism, and how pervasive it is for women in tech. I missed a line and thought that the CEO was already being framed by Mr. Robot, and not for revenge for what they did to Amanda, but I also though the scene where she asks him to “let her lose” was very heartfelt.
I agree that white knighting when it’s real and not just used as an MRA or anti fem excuse is an issue, and for me the key sign is that Elliot does all this believing HE has the responsibility to help others, not work together with them.
I saw that too. I also been attentive to the fact that as far as I’1ve seen, none of the women actually pass the bechdel test. On the end of the first season I have a feel that the writers are picking up on that, and they apparently become more independent, but yes, Elliot must get better in order to be a character I actually root for.
Very true. I’m having trouble finding Eliot as sympathetic as most of the audience, it seems, because he comes off as such a staple edgy overly edgy intellectual ‘the only one who sees the truth’ loner. I could add more examples of his white-knighting: after Sheila’s boss sexually assaults her, Eliot takes him down despite her explicitly asking him not to do anything. He even lies to her when she asks him if he had anything to do with her boss’s arrest. Just as she feared, this ‘intervention’ leaves her unemployed and out a well-paying job. Her choice of financial security over personal safety (insofar as it’s even a choice – there’s no guarantee any replacement boss she could find wouldn’t be a sleazebag) is disregarded entirely. He simply knows what’s best for her better than she does. It’s a very, very unpleasant moment of white knighting for her, not made more palateable by his bare-faced lie to her about it.
And as a brief addendum, the times Eliot does things that are GOOD in terms of treating women, he’s often berated for it by the narrative.
Eliot: Can I kiss you?
Sheila: *kisses him* Don’t ask next time, it’s lame.
NononononoNO. Asking for kissing consent before kissing someone who just answered your offer of dating each other with “There’s something seriously wrong with you” is not “lame”.A thousand points from Gryffindor!
[Editor’s note | TRIGGER WARNING: discussion of rape]
I have only watched two episodes. So maybe this changes, but I doubt it
.I keep seeing articles applauding the show’s nuanced portrayal of women. I disagree. The women on this show appear flat and incompetent,and I am trying to figure out if it’s bad directing, or if it’s because it’s being told from.the hacker’s point of view and he’s sexist. All three of the younger women (woe, three!) talk with that valley girlish upward lilt. Sure, some women talk like that, but all of them? His friend, who has higher standing than him at All safe, is woefully incompetent…how did she get that far? Maybe it was her tween-esque iced lipgloss. I mean, really, she was like a caricature ingénue, except she was also supposed to be an accomplished coder. With all the sexist she had to combat to get that far, you’d think she would have learned how to at least feign confidence, or did her helpless cute act do it all?
The badass hacker chick is every other badass hacker chick I’ve seen. Rambling, criminal, extroverted, without any sense of boundaries. Oh, and don’t forget hot as fuck. We can’t have a female who isn’t overtly fuckable. Why can’t we ever have a female hacker as nuanced as the main character?
And then there’s the morphine dealer. What fucking world is this? So, she’s a successful drug dealer but also so sweet and compassionate? You know how quickly every junkie ever would take advantage of her and ruin her business? Also she sells fucking morphine-not heroin, morphine-which she buys from this evil rapist gangster whose two minutes on air paint him as more interesting than her. She’s a successful independent business woman who seems completely incapable of handling her shit, and even after being beaten and raped wants to stay by her dealer because…. He gives her a good deal. What? We already learned she was getting her morphine from someone else before this guy came around needing suboxone, and she was doing fine, so why does she *need* to stay with the rapist dealer? Because that makes her helpless and pathetic and more “female.”
The therapist is ridiculously unprofessional. At least though, since she’s not an object of sexual attraction (“too old”) she gets to talk like a human rather than a valley girl. Score!!
Ugh.