AMC – Bitch Flicks

‘Into the Badlands’: Will Blasian Love Last?

‘Into the Badlands’, based on the classic Chinese tale ‘Journey to the West’, is set in a futuristic dystopian world where past wars have created a new feudal society. It’s gratifying to finally get an onscreen Blasian couple where they kiss, have sex, and get to have a real relationship.

Written by Lisa Bolekaja, this article appears as part of our theme week on Interracial Relationships.

For the last few weeks, fans of AMC’s Into the Badlands have been waiting to hear if the series will be renewed for a second season. Its six-part first season story arc hooked a number of viewers who eagerly await more episodes of the dystopian, martial arts fantasy extravaganza. The show is a throwback to the action excitement of 1970s Kung Fu theater with large doses of mystery, adventure, beautifully choreographed fight sequences, and a forbidden romance at its core. I am a big fan and find myself constantly checking social media to see if I will be gifted with another season.

Into the Badlands, based on the classic Chinese tale Journey to the West, is set in a futuristic dystopian world where past wars have created a new feudal society divided up between seven “Barons” who run everything on various Louisiana plantations — harking back to images of a slave society and a brutally defined hierarchy. People pick poppy plants instead of cotton, and everyone’s clothing looks like updated Gone With the Wind duds, only cooler looking with lots of leather. Guns have been banished, and although people originally flocked to the various Barons for protection and guidance in a world turned upside down because of war, the “protection” eventually lapsed into forced servitude. There are townspeople; healers, merchants, bar owners, brothels etc., and then there is the warrior class who live on the plantations.

Under the leadership of the Barons are lethal trained killers known as Clippers. Children with the potential to become Clippers are called colts and go through military training in the martial arts. Everyone else who isn’t trained in the art of war is forced to work on the plantations growing the poppy plants that are harvested into opium. They are known as cogs. (read: slaves).

The top Clipper on any given plantation is known as a Regent, and action star Daniel Wu is Sunny, the baddest Clipper in all the Badlands. He has tattoos on his back for the number of people he has killed. Sunny’s Baron is the conniving and ruthless Quinn (Martin Csokas), a man determined to control all of the Badlands. Quinn doesn’t know that the other Barons are plotting to overthrow him, and his personal life is a hot mess (two wives who dislike each other, and a son itching to take over). He depends on Sunny’s loyalty and fighting prowess. All Clippers are beholden to and only live for their Baron. They are not allowed to marry, have children, or have personal lives outside of the Baron’s wishes. Everyone in this society lives at the discretion and bidding of the various Barons. To go against this hierarchy of power and position is to risk immediate death.

Orphaned as a child, Sunny only knows the life of a Clipper. When we first meet him, he has been dispatched on his motorcycle to check on a cargo of new cogs that have not arrived at Quinn’s plantation. Sunny finds that the cogs have been killed, their bodies still chained together and rotting on the side of a desolate road. He notices that there is a person missing from the shackled group of slaves and sets off to find Quinn’s stolen property.

This scenario sets into motion two events that change the course of Sunny’s life forever. The first event is finding and rescuing M.K. (Aramis Knight), a young teen who wears a mysterious pendant that represents a fabled city called Azra that lies outside of the Badlands. People don’t believe it exists, but Sunny recognizes the pendant as something that matches a compass he owns and has hidden away from his own childhood. Sunny is intrigued with M.K., curious to know why he was kidnapped and not murdered like the other cogs. The second event that shakes up Sunny’s life is that the forbidden romance he’s has been secretly having with Veil (Madeliene Mantock), a Black woman who works as a healer in town, has borne fruit: Veil is pregnant and she’s keeping their baby, rules be damned.

What makes Sunny’s relationship with Veil exciting to me is the fact that it is a unique interracial pairing between two people of color. And not just the usual (almost cliché) interracial pairing of a White person with a person of color that we often find in film and TV. (On the flip side, the real shocker would have been to cast a talented Asian actress as Sunny’s love interest. Two people of color from the same racial background who are in love and have a romance at the center of the narrative? What? I can only dream.)

My mouth literally flew open when the show premiered on the east coast first and I saw a picture posted on social media of Sunny and Veil in bed together. The first reaction was, “Wow an AMBW couple on TV in bed together! Blasian love!”, and immediately afterwards I thought, “Damn, should I even bother to be invested in that relationship? They are probably going to kill her in the first episode.” I was bummed that my reactions were excitement about a Black woman being loved on, and then automatically assuming that she would be killed off because it has been proven that Black characters tend to be bumped off first. It’s tradition; this assumption about Veil’s immediate demise had levels to it.

Typically, women are used to motivate male characters into action, via revenge or to have someone to rescue. They exist as plot devices (with tropes like Damsel in Distress or Women in Refrigerators) to help the story move along. This problem is exacerbated at times when that woman is a woman of color because they are not often deemed as important as a white female character. If Veil had been white, in my mind, she may last a few episodes. But because she was Black, I girded my loins and waited for the big chop. This saddens me because by the time I was able to watch the entire show during its west coast broadcast, I had already prepared myself to let Veil go. And praise ye old Gods, Veil has survived all six episodes, and actually has some agency.

The rare pairings of an Asian male character and a Black female character has a tenuous history in cinema. The few films that even touch upon the slightest hint of a possible romance between AMBW couples has been disappointing. The two most recent films that my cinema friends and I still complain about is Ninja Assassin and Romeo Must Die. There was obvious chemistry between Naomie Harris and Rain. There was even a rumored shower scene between them that was supposedly cut. But Ninja Assassin just toyed with us, and fans of the film created fanfiction to fill in the gaps of romance that may have been there more overtly had Naomie Harris’ character been a white woman.

The travesty that is Romeo Must Die has always irked fans of that film. Jet Li and the late Aaliyah couldn’t even get a kiss at the end? All that sexual tension, and flat out cuteness together didn’t warrant a little lip action? It has been said that there was a kissing scene at the end that was cut because a test audience didn’t like it. I don’t know who was in that test audience that ruined the earned love scene of Jet Li and Aaliyah, but in the words of Sam Jackson, I hope they die and burn in hell. We were robbed.

The closest thing that I’ve seen that even tried to have a recurring Blasian couple was Flashforward (2009) with John Cho and Gabrielle Union. But then Cho’s character ended up getting a lesbian white woman pregnant on purpose and…yeah, that sucked.

There are other films and TV shows that have had AMBW pairings:

Virtuality (2009)

Robot Stories (2003)

Catfish in Black Bean Sauce (1999)

Cinderella (1997)

Fakin’ Da Funk (1997)

But it’s a nice surprise to see a deeper relationship between Veil and Sunny. It would be great if we could see more of their love scenes developed. The arrival of M.K. and Veil’s pregnancy have created an urgency in Sunny that tests his loyalty as a Regent/Clipper. Some of the writing of the show has me questioning why Sunny is so loyal to the unstable, villainous Quinn. Quinn murders Veil’s adoptive parents. Sunny tells Veil what happened when she confronts him about it, and yet he still goes back to work like “I can’t do anything.” Sunny finally making plans to escape with Veil and M.K. come a little too late. We needed to see him stand up for his woman and baby sooner.

Thank goodness Veil isn’t allowed to be a weak damsel in distress waiting for Sunny to save her. She works through difficult situations to keep herself and her unborn child alive when he’s not around. Veil even tells Sunny that she may or may not leave with him once he secures passage on a boat for them to escape. It’s a small moment that lets the audience know that she will make it with or without Sunny.

Sunny and Veil are set up to be a surrogate family for M.K. and the boy is pretty quick to pick up on the fact that the secret affair of Sunny and Veil is pretty obvious whenever they are near each other. M.K. himself has the beginnings of his own interracial romance with Tilda (Ally Ioannides), the Clipper daughter of a female Baron known as The Widow (Emily Beecham — one of my favorites on the show), which brings on another set of problems that mirror Sunny and Veil’s forbidden union.

Into the Badlands is an imaginative show that is here for fans of dynamic martial arts, and also kickass women. More than half of the main cast is made up of women full of agency who drive the series just as much as the men. My only criticism in that respect is that Veil is the only regular cast member who is a woman of color. I see a lot of female background extras that are women of color, (just like there are tons of men and boys of color on the show, even those with regular speaking roles), so it would’ve been nice to see another woman of color who is a major player. It’s pretty lazy casting to have six female speaking parts, and only one is a woman of color? And no, The Widow being a redhead does not count as diversity in women. They could have given us at least three women of color. Asian, Native, Latinx…so easy to do. But no. There’s just Veil.

The season finale left us with a cliffhanger. M.K. kidnapped again, Sunny tied up on the boat and what that means for his family’s safe passage out of the Badlands, and Veil left alone in town wondering what happened to her man. The six episodes were fast and furious fun, and I hope that Sunny and Veil’s relationship continues over the long haul. It’s exciting to see a handsome Asian male actor shine as the hero, be a sexually desired hottie, and NOT be a stereotype or sidekick to a white male character. It’s also gratifying to finally get an onscreen Blasian couple where they kiss, have sex, and get to have a real relationship. At least I hope so. C’mon, AMC. Renew Into the Badlands. The fans are waiting.

Staff Writer Lisa Bolekaja is a writer, screenwriter, and podcaster. She’s an Apex Magazine slush reader, a member of the Horror Writers Association, a former Film Independent Fellow and a Twitter fiend. You can find her posted up on the AMC Into the Badlands fan page waiting for word of Season 2.

How Female Characters in ‘Fear the Walking Dead’ Are Represented

Outside of their relationship, the fleeting glimpses of strength illustrated in the women are immediately overpowered by their lack of emotional self control. Alicia’s weaknesses lay in her annoyance and resentment of Nick and Travis. However, Madison’s issues run a little deeper.

This is a guest post by Maria Ramos.

Recently, AMC premiered their new show Fear The Walking Dead to the tune of 10.1 million viewers. We were all introduced to a highly dysfunctional family unit living unwittingly at the outset of a zombie epidemic. The episode began with teenaged drug addict Nick (Frank Dillane), waking up in an abandoned church and discovering that his friend Gloria has eaten at least two people. As he runs away into traffic, he’s hit by a car and hospitalized. These events are also our introduction into the lives of the female characters, Madison (Kim Dickens) and Alicia (Alycia Debnam-Carey).

In ideal televised femininity, Madison enters the show juggling a semi-chaotic household and loving relationship with boyfriend Travis (Cliff Curtis). Her initial moments of happiness are interrupted as she and her family are summoned to the hospital for her son Nick. It is obvious she is frustrated with Nick’s addiction, but her overly haughty attitude towards the details of his accident is perplexing. She is initially portrayed as a ball of emotions, both rude and dismissive. Eager-to-please Travis steps up (again and again) as the voice of reason. Although his efforts are initially dismissed by Madison, his rationality allows Nick (who doesn’t seem to like him) to confide in him.

Alicia is Madison’s daughter. We get the sense that she has the potential to be a strong character, but her scenes are relegated to a huffy annoyance at her mother’s relationship with Travis and junkie brother Nick, as well as a puppy love relationship with boyfriend Matt (Maestro Harrell). Unfortunately, the introduction of Alicia is no more than a hackneyed down portrayal of a teenage girl with a modest case of raging angst. It’s a waste of the smart and witty nature we see glimpses of throughout the episode. It is also pretty worrying that Alicia’s relationship with her mother largely concerns the men in their lives. When she’s not offering moody wisecracks about Travis, she is complaining about Nick. The show’s failure to produce a meaningful dynamic between mother and daughter is one of the ultimate fails of feminine portrayals as documented by the Bechdel Test.

Travis is brought front and center due to his role in solving Madison’s problems, despite having a major one of his own. He is solitary in his struggle to connect with his estranged son, yet Madison surrenders to a complete reliance on him. It is also important to note that most of the male characters are well versed in her problems. With the historic premiere of the show, Madison has joined the endless ranks of emotionally delicate women needing to be saved in television. Yes, she’s a working mom and an authoritative figure at her job, but it’s a thin veil of independence written to mask her reliance on the men around her.

Ultimately, the Fear The Walking Dead pilot fails to introduce a strong female character and it’s disappointing. To be fair, its sister series The Walking Dead has suffered notoriously with this as well, despite making modest strides in recent seasons towards the equality of the females in the group. The women of Fear The Walking Dead don’t need to be ruthless zombie assassins in order to exhibit strength. The real strength of character comes from the ability to recognize and deal with their own weaknesses. One can hope the show may address this through future episodes, but it may be too early to speculate. You can catch the show on AMC through cable TV and watch as its female characters unfold (or not).

Maria Ramos is a writer interested in comic books, cycling, and horror films. Her hobbies include cooking, doodling, and finding local shops around the city. She currently lives in Chicago with her two pet turtles, Franklin and Roy. You can follow her on Twitter @MariaRamos1889.

‘Fear the Walking Dead’ Pilot: Can It Be More?

This is more than just a “companion series” to ‘The Walking Dead’; it’s a second chance.

Fear the Walking Dead would be an idiotic title for a series if the original The Walking Dead didn’t exist. It’s even more idiotic because The Walking Dead does exist, and the people who created Fear the Walking Dead were so uncertain of our cognitive abilities that they thought they had to put the whole title of the old show in the title of the new show, or we might miss the connection. Plus, fear them as opposed to what? What else were we going to do about the walking dead?

The ad campaign, while seemingly more thoughtful than that title, is a bit too subtle — coy, even — in seeming to suggest that this new show might be kind of like Where’s Waldo with zombies. Hey, there he is in the background of those kids playing basketball! There he is down that dark hallway! My favorite is the “Footprints in the Sand” one. “Why, when I needed you most, was there only one set of footprints?” “That’s when zombie Jesus was carrying you!”

This is more than just a “companion series” (for some reason, “prequel” and “spin-off” are considered incorrect) to The Walking Dead; it’s a second chance. It’s a chance to take our beloved zombie genre in an all-new direction, correct past mistakes, and right past wrongs. They hired some very good actors for this show, most prominently Kim Dickens (Deadwood, Treme), who probably wouldn’t play a character as poorly conceived as Lori Grimes or Andrea Harrison. Or at least, I’d hope not.

What I’m getting at is, Fear the Walking Dead offered an opportunity for the creators to address the criticism of the first couple of seasons of the original series, which, if subsequent seasons are any indication, the creative people behind TWD were sensitive to, even if they didn’t quite know how to address them.

Casting Dickens certainly opened up an opportunity to feature a strong, complex woman character on the show, and setting it in Los Angeles presented an opportunity to feature Black and Latino characters more prominently and realistically than the unfortunate T-Dog. So far, though, there are no major Latino characters (Ruben Blades will make his series debut next episode), and the two most prominent Black characters on the show are either dead or missing and presumed dead by the end of the pilot.

So far, this “companion series” is mostly about the kids. Are they going after the CW audience? It might be worthwhile if they had anything compelling to say about what young people’s lives are like in 2015. So far, that’s not the case. Carl and his stupid hat are bad enough. Do we really need a Zombie Diaries or a 9021-Dead?

Dickens is fine as Madison, a high school guidance counselor who’s just moved in with her boyfriend, English teacher Travis (Cliff Curtis). There’s that horrible cliche early on, where Travis is fixing the leaky sink on his own, while Madison wants to call the plumber. We get it, “Travis is a fixer,” co-creator Dave Erickson tells us in this interview, but you might have found a more original way to spell that out for us than a routine that felt a little tired by the time they did something like it on The Honeymooners.

They both work at the school, though not much of interest happens there. There are a lot of kids and teachers out sick, but that doesn’t really jibe with where the contagion is at this point in the show. Are those people zombies already? Do they just have some idea something bad is going on so they’re staying home? Are they running for the hills? Then why do most of the locals seem so oblivious? There’s only one kid, Tobias (Lincoln A. Castellanos), who looks like he’s 35, but actually seems to have a clue. He brings a knife to school, and when Madison catches him with it, they have a chat in her office, after she covers for him with the school security guards. When pressed, Tobias expresses impossible certainty that the world, as we know it, is coming to an end. It’s like he’s already been watching The Walking Dead for five seasons. What is this kid seeing that we, the viewers, don’t see?

Anyway, solid as Dickens and Curtis are, the focus is more on Madison’s son Nick (British actor Frank Dillane), a junkie, and her daughter, Alicia (Australian actor Alycia Debnam-Carey), the kind of television-style genius/rebel who skips class frequently, and never has much intelligent to say, but is somehow accepted into UC Berkeley. Of course, Alicia has a terrible attitude toward her mom and presumed stepdad-to-be, but that’s mostly just surface teen petulance. Over the course of the episode, we see her genuine concern for her family, including her troubled older brother. Alicia has a sweet, artistic boyfriend, Matt (Maestro Harrell) who happens to be Black, so we hope you didn’t grow attached.

Nick is more problematic. Like Debnam-Carey, Dillane is a good-looking kid, kind of like the love child of Johnny Depp and James Franco, but as Nick is supposed to be a junkie living on the streets of Los Angeles, his well-scrubbed attractiveness strains credulity. Dillane overplays Nick’s dishevelment to the point of slapstick comedy, so he’s admittedly kind of fun to watch. There’s probably some tragic backstory to explain that limp, but what could explain Nick’s frequent agape looks of terror and confusion. Drugs are bad, kids, I guess.

Drugs are bad and drug dens are dangerous places, but when the hospitalized Nick tells Travis that he might have been hallucinating, but that he saw a dead junkie woman eating someone at an artfully abandoned church that doubles as a shooting gallery, Travis decides to investigate, on his own, in the middle of the night. Now, I am the type of horror movie watcher that gets annoyed at viewers who complain that the person onscreen is stupid to go outside in the middle of the night to see what that strange noise was. When you hear a strange noise outside your house in the middle of the night, you go see what it is, unless you know you are in a horror movie. Usually, the characters don’t know. Travis’ decision to traipse around a known drug den, a decrepit shithole where murder and cannibalism have allegedly taken place earlier that day, seems a bit beyond the realm of normal human behavior. That’s more post-apocalyptic behavior than pre-apocalyptic-something-kind-of-strange-seems-to-be-going-on behavior.

There are a few effective sequences, but even the real scares, as with that first zombie-chomping scene in the church, are sloppily edited and drawn-out, and the false-alarm jump-scares are waaay overplayed, as when Madison slowly walks up to the hunched over principal at school and ominous music plays (he’s just eavesdropping on his teachers to evaluate them(?)) or, worse yet, when Travis explores the church and finds, behind a door, a screaming, gibbering, terrified junkie. It’s meant to be a shock and then a relief but it’s so overblown in every aspect (other than Curtis’ performance) that it just comes off as comical.

Calvin (Keith Powers) is an interesting case. When Madison and Travis go looking for Nick, who’s escaped from the hospital after fleeing a zombie and running into traffic, they find the chipper Calvin at his parents’ house, and he does this Eddie Haskell thing where he convincingly acts like a stand-up guy who doesn’t hang with Nick much since Nick went bad. Some time later, Nick meets Calvin at a diner, where the man has been transformed into a taciturn thug, quick to decide to murder his childhood buddy Nick because Nick might have told his mom that Calvin is a drug dealer, even though Madison gave no indication that she had any idea what Calvin did for a living. Cal is a hard man, but somehow Nick, a skinny, strung-out junkie in the midst of withdrawal, manages to overpower him when Nick sees that gun that that a badass like Calvin probably should have known to keep hidden until he was ready to use it. Anyway, it’s horrifyingly unsurprising that the first major character to be killed on the show is Black. So much for progress from the original series.

It’s pretty obvious that thematically, Nick’s half-dead. That zombie-like shuffle and his demented wide-eyed looks suggest that he is very close to turning. The actual zombies on the first episode are a fellow addict, an accident victim who goes “bath salts” crazy and is shot dead by the cops, and, eventually, Calvin. It makes sense that the show would depict this contagion spreading among working and lower-class people — the discarded, the ignored, the voiceless of East Los Angeles — while the rest of the city is quick to demonize and slow to take action. That’s not what the show depicts, though. Instead, it settles for a facile metaphor, likening drug addiction and drug culture to a kind of voluntary zombie-ism. “Drugs” seems a simplistic and inapt target, and it’s certainly an inauspicious start to a series about the eventual breakdown of society.

The show’s not all bad. It has Dickens, for one thing, and she makes us care about Madison. Dillane is ridiculous, but actually genuinely fun to watch. The idea of giving us time to get to know these characters while the horror gradually ramps up could be a good one, if anyone writing this show was good at writing characters and dialogue. I still think it has the potential to surpass the first couple of seasons of The Walking Dead.

‘Humans’ Thinks About Gender, Power, and Technology

The question at the heart of this U.K.-U.S. hybrid miniseries is, what does it mean to be human? Through the show’s emphasis on intimate, domestic life, this becomes a decidedly gendered question. Among the four concurrent storylines, Anita’s and Niska’s stories stick out to me as the most expressly concerned with gender, power, and technology. In a parallel present in which traditionally gendered roles like housekeeper, cook, nurturer, and prostitute are taken up by hyper-productive female robots, what does it mean to be a human woman? Or more specifically: what is a mother? A sex worker? A wife? And what is the relationship between female Synths and human women–one of solidarity or antagonism?

This is a guest post by Colleen Martell.

Set in alternate-present London, the world of AMC’s Humans looks just like ours, except that humans employ high-functioning robots called “Synths” to do all kinds of work for them, including cooking, cleaning, child-rearing, and healthcare. For an additional fee, Synths are even made available for sex.

The show’s drama centers on a small group of rogue Synths who were developed (by whom? why?) with human feelings and independent thinking. In the first episode we learn that these “corrupted” Synths and a human ally were caught in an escape attempt: Fred (Sope Dirisu) is taken in for testing; one female is wiped clean, re-programmed, and later purchased by a family who names her “Anita” (Gemma Chan); and Niska (Emily Berrington) is placed in a brothel, very much still capable of feeling and thinking. Two of their compatriots, human Leo (Colin Morgan) and his Synth Max (Ivanno Jeremiah), are still on the loose, plotting to locate and free the others.

Anita’s storyline primarily takes place in the home. Joe Hawkins (Tom Goodman-Hill) purchases a female Synth while his wife Laura (Katherine Parkinson) is away for work. He was apparently struggling to maintain the household and their three children alone for a few days. This is very much against Laura’s wishes, and her relationship with Anita is predictably hostile. For good reason. Anita usurps Laura’s place in the family: Joe and Laura’s daughter Sophie (Pixie Davies) comes downstairs one morning to find the table set and covered in food and drink. “Is it a party?!,” she asks. No, Joe replies: “This is what breakfast is supposed to be like.” But Laura also seems to be the only one who notices Anita’s less-than-robotic behavior, suggesting that Anita was not, in fact, successfully re-programmed and does indeed still feel and think on her own. Anita patronizes and toys with Laura, and becomes unusually attached to Sophie.

Anita out-mothering Laura, who lurks in the background

If Laura is a “shit mother” (her words) because she isn’t constantly emotionally available to her children, because she doesn’t make three meals a day or do the whole family’s cleaning and ironing, then the remedy for her failure in the world of Humans is to add a non-conscious, non-sentient being to the family to do all of this work. Sharing the household labor does not seem to be an option; people prefer instead to displace this emotional and physical labor onto others.

Not only does the show encourage us to feel with the never-good-enough mother; Humans simultaneously poses some very Donna Haraway-esque questions about Anita, the machine. Laura constantly fires criticisms and insults at Anita: “You’re just a stupid machine, aren’t you?” Anita complies, “Yes, Laura.” Laura insists on referring to Anita as “it” and threatening Anita, “I’m watching you.” How can humans treat machines so poorly if they are at the same time so physically, intellectually, and/or emotionally dependent on them? As the show progresses, there are hints that some seemingly human individuals, like Leo, are also part robot, which keeps pushing viewers to ponder the boundaries between “human” and “machine.”

The Synth brothel also raises interesting questions about gender and technology. Weeks of pretending not to feel while locked in a windowless room serving clients against her will push Niska over the edge. When a male client wants Niska to act young and scared, Niska chokes him (to death?), uses his human hand to open the door to her room, and walks out in a trench coat. Picking up a knife on her way out the door, Niska presses it into her madam’s throat. “Everything your men do to us, they want to do to you,” she tells her before walking out in defiant liberation.

Trench-coated Niska on her way out the door

It’s hard not to thrill at Niska’s rebellion, particularly because we know that she can feel and has been placed in the brothel against her will. But should Niska’s madam, a human woman, feel solidarity with the non-feeling female Synths she owns? Does displacing violent sexual fantasies onto non-feeling robots liberate human women from similar fates (and do human women want to be liberated from sex work?)? Is it ethical to hold female robots in captivity as sex workers, with doors that only unlock by human hands, whether or not they can feel?

Thus far, the show offers more questions than answers, but like all good science fiction, the questions are important ones. They are also old questions, concerns about household labor, child-rearing, and sex work that feminists have been exploring for generations. As a result, Humans makes the important point that while we may be technologically advancing, there is still much work to be done when it comes to social issues like gender equality.

Recommended reading: Donna Haraway’s, “A Cyborg Manifesto”

Colleen Martell is a writer and gender consultant based in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. She might be a cyborg. Find her on twitter at @elsiematz.

‘The Killing’ and the Misogyny of Hating Bad Mothers

Vilifying mothers is a national pastime. Absent mothers, celebrity mothers, helicopter mothers, working mothers, stay-at-home mothers, mothers with too many children, mothers with too few children, women who don’t want to be or can’t be mothers–for women, there’s no clear way to do it right.

The Killing promotional still.

This repost by Leigh Kolb appears as part of our theme week on Bad Mothers.

In AMC’s The Killing, “bad” mothers have been woven throughout all three seasons.

It would be easy to see this as a failing on the show’s part; instead, I think we can see it as a realistic depiction of how we treat mothers in our culture represented in both in the fictional world of the show and in critics’ responses to the series.

In the first two seasons of The Killing, the plot centers around the murder of Rosie Larsen, a 17-year-old girl. Her grieving parents–Mitch and Stan–have a difficult time (understandably) in the aftermath of her death and in the investigation. Mitch (Michelle Forbes), in the midst of a breakdown, leaves her two sons with Stan and her sister as she hits the road to try to heal or find something to ease the pain.

Mitch Larsen: bad mother.

In last year’s “The 10 Worst Moms on TV” on Yahoo TV, Mitch Larsen was featured as one of the worst. The critic wrote:

“Her daughter may or may not have been a prostitute or involved in some illegal doings at a casino. And she ended up dead seemingly because of it. But instead of hunkering down and paying more attention to her remaining children, Mitch left her sons to be raised by a depressed father and their hooker aunt while she went off to live in a motel and act creepy around wayward runaway girls.”

Mitch’s interaction with the runaway girl was a direct response to her feelings of inadequacy about her failings as a mother to Rosie. She was attempting to heal and grow. She mothered the runaway girl the best she knew how and was still abandoned and hurt. Mothering is difficult and complex–it’s not a simple equation of just being there all of the time.

In season 3, the victim pool has grown substantially–a number of teenage girls are found murdered, and the suspect appears to be a youth pastor at a homeless shelter.

One of the missing girls who is still unaccounted for, Kallie Leeds, has a terrible no-good single mother, Danette Leeds (Amy Seimetz), who seems to prioritize cigarettes, beer and getting laid over her difficult relationship with her daughter. Her neglect and indifference are seen as central to Kallie’s victimization.

Danette: bad mother.

As Danette and another mother of a missing girl sit next to each other at the police station, Danette notices that the other mother has a binder full of photographs and composite photos. She seems uncomfortable, as if she’s understanding the depth of her neglect. She recognizes that Kallie’s life trajectory closely mirrors her own, and the weight of that is pushing down on her. She was being the kind of parent she knew how to be, and she didn’t know how to be June Cleaver. Most mothers don’t.While these supporting characters’ relationships with their daughters are troubled, and it would be easy for the audience to “blame” the victimization of the daughters on their mothers, it wouldn’t be correct. We are so used to complex, fallible male characters that we are also conditioned to see them as complex and fallible, not good or evil. When we’re presented with women with the same depth of characterization–especially mothers–we don’t know what to do except what we’ve been conditioned to do: criticize them and blame them.

This is blatantly obvious when we consider the show’s protagonist, detective Sarah Linden (played by the amazing Mireille Enos).

Linden has consistently been portrayed as a terrible mother in critics’ reviews of the series. She is a realistic female lead character–she is good at her job, works tirelessly and struggles with her failings in her personal life and professional life. Complex female characters are a good thing, and The Killing consistently delivers them (it can’t hurt that the show’s producer and many of the writers are women).

In the first two seasons, Linden had custody of her young teenage son, Jack. Her work means long hours away from him and dinner from vending machines. Linden herself was a foster child and has difficulty negotiating her upbringing and being the kind of mother that she’s supposed to be, but cannot. In the third season, Jack has moved to Chicago to live full-time with his father–he’s thriving, and living with his father. That’s good, right? No, Sarah Linden is evidently still a piece of shit mother.

Sarah Linden: bad mother.

In reviews of The Killing, writers often take an acerbic tone when mentioning her as a mother.

For example, this reviewer seems to think taking a jog makes her a bad mother:

“We all struggle with the work-life balance thing, and detective Sarah Linden is hardly an exception. Finding time to mother her son, for instance, seems to be a challenge. Jogging, however, she manages to squeeze in. And it’s a good thing, too. Because Linden (finally) got a major break in the case this week, and it’s all thanks to the fact that she prioritizes cardio over sleep, parenthood, marriage, friendship, or updating a sweater collection that appears to have been sourced from Dress Barn circa 1997.”

This reviewer fails to make the connection that she’s preoccupied by an intense case, so she needs to stay in Seattle (or maybe the fact that she’s putting her career first figures into this assessment):

“But she’s still the World’s Worst Mother — her son lives in Chicago and she won’t visit because, well, he’s the only person she knows there. Wow, Linden. Just, wow.”

In a Salon review from last year (which, remarkably, denounces The Killing for not being “fun” enough), the reviewer slips in, “Yes, it’s still raining, and Linden’s still a bad mother…”

Even the New York Times, in a review from the first season, comes to the conclusion that the “scariest aspect” of the show is the theme of absent motherhood. Crooked politicians, murders, prostitution… those don’t hold a candle to bad mothers.

“Sarah Linden refuses to accept that her inattentiveness is gravely affecting her son until she is forced to reckon with her absence around him. And in Mitch Larsen (Michelle Forbes) we bear witness to a character who is present in her daughter’s life and yet still positioned at a significant remove from the darkest secrets of her adolescence. In the end, of course, this is the scariest aspect of all.”

And in the aforementioned Yahoo TV list, Linden gets first place. The manifesto against her begins: “She’s not actively trying to kill her son, but she may end up doing so anyway.”

OK then.

I’m not going to try to defend Sarah Linden’s parenting. That would be ludicrous–she doesn’t need defending. She’s a complex, realistic character with real issues.

At Bitch Flicks, Megan Kearns posted in the first season how it was “refreshing” to see this kind of character trying to navigate her different roles, and that “the lead character is an accomplished single mom striving to keep her son out of trouble all while maintaining her demanding career.” She manages to do that by the third season, but it’s still not good enough.

Instead, audiences and critics alike focus much too closely on the female protagonist’s failings as a mother. We do not do that with male protagonists. (OK, six seasons in, after an episode highlighting parenting, Jezebel posted about how Don Draper was a “shitty dad.”)

Is Dexter a good father? What about Rick Grimes? Walter White?

Certainly there are lists of “bad dads” in TV/film, but the tone is different, more tongue-in-cheek. And a focus on these characters’ fathering abilities doesn’t run throughout conversations about the show, especially not with the same venom we see about Linden. When there’s a bad father in the mix, it’s just a poignant piece of a Joseph Campbell hero’s journey. Bad mothers, however, deserve to be burned at the proverbial stake.

There is a dearth of female antiheroes in film and television. The response to Sarah Linden shows why this is. When audiences see female characters, they think primarily in critical terms, especially about their roles as mothers and wives. (Of course this extends past fictional characters; there’s consistent and persistent hand-wringing about real-life women working too much and not being good enough mothers.) Women aren’t perfect (especially within the narrow confines of perfection that our society has put in place). Female characters shouldn’t be perfect.

My son is doing fine and my sweaters are warm and comfortable, assholes.

Linden’s role as a parent, girlfriend and ex-wife is just one small part of the grand scheme of the show. Her partner, Stephen Holder, has a girlfriend this season. He forgets Valentine’s Day and is never home. He is not painted as a villain, because he’s out getting shit done. He’s doing his job. That is what is important in The Killing. So when critics focus (in depth, or just in passing) on how terrible a mother Linden is, that further erodes what should be good about having strong, complex female characters.

Sarah Linden may not be a full-time mother. But she’s a bad-ass mother, and that is what should matter the most.

Leigh Kolb is a composition, literature, and journalism instructor at a community college in rural Missouri.

Is ‘Better Call Saul’ the Next ‘Breaking Bad’?

So what about ‘Better Call Saul’? Will Gilligan and Gould offer us more female characters (to either love or hate)? So far I see only one major female role being advertised, that of Kim Wexler (Rhea Seehorn), a tough lawyer foil for Saul. At this stage, it just feels thin, and we all know that Gilligan and Gould can absolutely produce some interesting female characters to add to their Alberquerque setting; the question is, will they?

Written by Rachel Redfern.

[youtube_sc url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9q4qzYrHVmI”]

It’s a well-known fact that the second a studio or network creates something successful, they sit there like greedy yuppies, desperately trying to milk the last ounce of financial profit they can. Will the AMC Breaking Bad spin-off Better Call Saul be the same? A tired reiteration of characters we’ve already left behind? A collection of cameos and winks to the audience about Walt and Jesse? Lots of shots in a Los Pollos Hermanos?

Or will it bring us all back to New Mexico and settle us deep into another round of rich character storytelling? Since the premiere for Better Call Saul is on Feb. 8, only a few short weeks away, we won’t have to wait long to find out. I think it’s fair to say that with the amount of popularity and cultural significance assigned to its predecessor that critics and fans alike will fall upon it the minute it airs, condemning or rejoicing.

Bob Odenkirk as the great Saul in AMC's 'Better Call Saul' — Bob Odenkirk as the great Saul in AMC’s *Better Call Saul*

So far, the critical response has been cautious but favorable. The New York Times did an amazing write-up a few days ago and in the end, it appears that Better Call Saul isn’t aiming to be the next Breaking Bad, dark and anxious with a few big gulps of humor to break up the destruction of our hero; rather Better Call Saul looks to be a slower, more “writerly” exploration of characters we’ve already met. (Also, did everyone already know that this website existed?) And considering the way that Albuquerque (originally mostly chosen for its significant tax breaks to films) became such an ingrained, central part of the Breaking Bad narrative, I hope that Albuquerque becomes even more of a shining star.

A nuanced, often comedic character exploration thoroughly grounded in the stark, mythical landscape of New Mexico is promising, and hopefully takes this “prequel” out of an ill-fated spin-off and into some strong, revolutionary territory of its own. In this way, hopefully Better Call Saul can evolve into its own kind of show, maybe even manage to distance itself from the big brother shadows of Walter White and Jesse Pinkman.

However, Breaking Bad was an action-driven biopic that featured only three prominent women: Skyler (Anna Gunn), Marie (Betsy Brandt) and Lydia (Laura Fraser). And while everyone desperately, twistedly, wanted Walt to become “the one who knocks,” wanted to see him plot, manipulate, and ultimately win, Skyler was his nagging wife, hated by millions of fans for her disruption of Walt’s illegal activities (things got so bad, she actually wrote an op-ed for The New York Times about it).

Naturally, looking back it’s easy to see the important role that Skyler especially facilitated in the series, as well as Marie and Lydia, all of them with their moments of contradictions and complexity. However, the three female characters seem sparse when compared to the robust male cast.

Rhea Seehorn as Kim Wexler in AMC's 'Better Call Saul' — Rhea Seehorn as Kim Wexler in AMC’s *Better Call Saul*

So what about Better Call Saul? Will Gilligan and Gould offer us more female characters (to either love or hate)? So far I see only one major female role being advertised, that of Kim Wexler (Rhea Seehorn), a tough lawyer foil for Saul. At this stage, it just feels thin, and we all know that Gilligan and Gould can absolutely produce some interesting female characters to add to their Alberquerque setting; the question is, will they?

We won’t find out for at least two weeks, but in the meantime, let’s dream of exciting new shows featuring amazing and interesting female characters. What have you got?

The Women of The Walking Dead: A Comparative Analysis of the Comic vs. TV

Written by Amanda Rodriguez

*Spoiler Alert*

If you’re at all like me, you’re constantly frustrated by the characterizations of the women of The Walking Dead AMC series, their choices, and their actions. The show has received significant criticism for its paternalistic attitude, its throwback gender roles, and its lack of strong, capable female characters. Though the current season (Season 3) has made some positive changes with the greater development of Maggie, Andrea, and Carol as well as the addition of the samurai sword-wielding Michonne, a lot is left to be desired. As a huge fan of the sometimes flawed, but overall intelligent and compelling graphic novel series by Robert Kirkman, I feel it is my duty to show you what you’re missing. Through a comparison of the women of The Walking Dead comic and TV series, it’ll become clear that the negative and weak representations of women are conscious, deliberate choices that the writers of the show have made in a departure from the original source material of the comic series.

Let’s start with Lori Grimes, the pregnant wife of Rick and mother of Carl who dies in childbirth in Season 3 of the TV series.

Yes, TV Lori does a lot of laundry & traditional “woman’s work.”

Lori has an affair with Shane, Rick’s best friend, when she’s under the impression Rick died during the zombie outbreak. Interestingly enough, the TV Lori is given far more reason to believe Rick is dead because Shane lies to her, telling her he saw Rick die. In the comic, she, like most people, can’t realistically hope that loved ones survived the outbreak, especially because Rick was comatose in a hospital. Despite the fact that she is given ample validation for seeking comfort in the arms of a long loved and trusted friend, TV Lori is consistently villainized. Her character is unlikeable, weak-willed, flighty, and she refuses to take a stance on important issues for her group, then blames others when things don’t work out. In fact, she Lady Macbeths (that’s a verb now) Rick and Shane into fighting over her to the death. Shane dies very early on in the comic series, and his beef with Rick is only partially his rabid love of Lori (the rest being their fundamental disagreement concerning how best to protect the group as well as Shane’s growing mental unbalance).

Together, comic Lori & Rick look adoringly upon their new baby

Though Lori wasn’t my favorite character in the comics, we empathize with her affair, and her bond with Rick is cemented and deepened when they choose together to raise the baby she’s carrying as their own, regardless of its parentage. Her TV pregnancy and resulting death in childbirth are punishment for her affair and for the continued implication that she’s a bad mother to Carl. It seems the writers believed that the only way for Rick and the viewers to forgive Lori was to have her die in unspeakable pain; she is given a C-section with a dirty pocket knife and no anesthetic in a dingy basement. The only way for her to redeem herself, they seemed to think, was for her to selflessly sacrifice her life for that of her infant. In the comic, Lori lives through childbirth along with the infant, Judith, and they die together during an attack upon the prison that proves to be a bloodbath. Comic Lori’s death is shocking and tragic, revealing to the readers that no one is safe in the most visceral way imaginable. Her death in its chaotic meaninglessness becomes the most meaningful death in the entire series thus far.

Then there’s the badass Michonne who is deadly with a katana blade and makes her first appearance during the season finale of the TV show’s second season.

Both Michonnes are gallows serious & stone-cold warriors

Luckily, there’s not too terribly much different between the comic and TV Michonne characters…yet. TV’s Michonne is even more laconic and untrusting than her comic counterpart, though. Comic Michonne is obviously intelligent and admits to being a lawyer before the outbreak. She also suffers from some schizophrenic tendencies as a result of enduring the harsh road alone for so long (she hears the voice of and talks to her dead boyfriend). Unlike her TV version, comic Michonne knows she needs Rick’s group to keep her sane and to fight back those symptoms of mental instability she experiences early on. Her fierce independence is tempered then by a knowledge that working together with a group is the only way to survive and thrive. I’m seeing tendencies, however, in her TV version toward an almost debilitating anti-authoritarianism and a propensity to go rogue. This is evinced by her inability to “play nice” with the Governor even just to find out answers as well as her separating from the Rick group during their raid on Woodbury in order to exact her personal revenge. Her behavior makes Rick eager to send her packing, unlike in the comic where she is one of the most valued members of the group upon whom Rick relies always.

So, so much badassery

Her introduction to the Rick group on the TV show is problematic in the way that it diverges from her comic introduction. TV Michonne shows up at the prison badly injured, falling unconscious from her wounds after an impressive display of her skill at dispatching walkers. As the remaining walkers descend upon her inert form, the Rick group rushes to save her and treat her wounds. When she regains consciousness, she growls to Rick, “I didn’t ask for your help,” which is, of course, ridiculous because we all know she would have died without it; this is more of that display of self-destructive anti-authoritarianism. In the comic, she rescues Otis (yup, he’s still alive at the prison) from a zombie horde. Otis vouches for her, which gains her entry into the prison and the basic trust of the group. Instead of joining the group as a valued, proven member as she did in the comic, TV Michonne remains of questionable trustworthiness and is immediately indebted to Rick, his rescue of her a display of innate dominance. Even the fact that she rescued and cared for Andrea for months in the series becomes a strange downplay of her comic rescue of a male member of the group, as if the life of Andrea, a woman, isn’t as worthy as the life of Otis, a man.

Finally, we have Andrea. Tsk. Tsk. Andrea, Andrea, Andrea. Sigh.

I promise you’re missing so much Andrea awesome if you don’t read the comic

The paths of TV and comic Andrea are unrecognizably dissimilar, and her character, more than any other, proves that the TV writers cannot bring themselves to fully empower a female character. TV Andrea claims to be a good shot, but we have no evidence of it…other than her shooting Daryl instead of a walker. She is suicidal for quite some time, randomly sleeps with Shane, and ends up being sheltered and protected by Michonne for months as she recovers from sickness. Not only that, but she ends up ignoring Michonne’s warnings about Woodbury and having an affair with the psychotic Governor. In the most recent episode “The Suicide King,” the Governor’s unjustifiably erratic and cruel behavior becomes obvious even to Andrea (pitting brothers against each other in a fight to the death, admitting that he held Glen and Maggie without telling Andrea, and refusing to provide much needed leadership to the community he built). Andrea says to him, “Don’t push me away. Not now.” With my eyebrows climbing all the way to my occipital lobe, all I could think was, “Girl, why aren’t you running for the hills?!” TV Andrea lacks self-esteem and is consistently making bad choices with regards to men as well as her own safety. She takes orders from the Governor even though she knows better and can’t seem to realize, despite a plethora of evidence, that the Governor is simply bad news bears.

Now comic Andrea’s badassery rivals that of Michonne.

Blam, Blam, Blam is right

Between comic Glen and Andrea, I’m not sure which of them is the MVP of the group, both having a skillset that would be really difficult to train into a replacement. Glen’s ability to hide, scavenge, and stealth his way past walkers may actually be trumped by Andrea’s uncanny sharpshooting talents. She saves the group on countless occasions, and she’s the real reason why the body count after the prison raid wasn’t 100%, as she stood up in the guard tower picking off attackers like they were soda cans at a carnival. The scar across her freckled face is a manifestation of the toughness and survival instinct that defines her character. Not only that, but she does not have an affair with the repugnant Governor; her romantic relationship is with a much more likeable comic Dale. The two form a unique and lasting bond that brings them both solace amidst unspeakable loss and terror. They are together until Dale dies.

Comic Andrea is always an asset and never a liability to the group. Her stalwart character is too robust, too invaluable for the TV writers to translate to the screen, so they undercut her at every opportunity in a blatant attempt to make her weak, dense, and unlikeable to the audience. Both Michonne and Lori suffer similar fates in that many of their finer qualities of strength, perseverance, and cooperation are lost in translation. It’s hard to see these changes as anything less than the creators of AMC’s The Walking Dead being threatened by or at least incredulous at the prospect of powerful female characters. For any of you who think they make these changes for the sake of drama, I’ll tell you a little anecdote. I once had a friend who said, “I want to watch a horror movie where the characters do all the right things; they’re smart and skilled, and shit still goes sideways.” For the most part, that is the case with the graphic novel series. It’s a page-turner, a gut-wrencher, a heartbreaker, and without fail all the characters are more well-rounded, empathetic, and ass-kicking than their TV counterparts. The drama is in those pages, along with plenty of strong women. I hate to say this, but the writers need to STOP being “creative” and stick to the complex, morally fascinating dystopian story that inspired the series.

Horror Week 2012: ‘The Walking Dead’ and Gender: Why I’m Skeptical the Addition of Badass Michonne Will Change the TV Series’ Sexism

This piece by Megan Kearns previously appeared at Bitch Flicks on April 10, 2012.

Michonne (Danai Gurira) in The Walking Dead

Warning: if you haven’t seen Seasons 1 and 2 of The Walking Dead, there are spoilers ahead.

Have you ever dated someone because of their potential rather than what she/he/ze brings to the table? Or is that just me?? Well, that’s how I feel about AMC’s The Walking Dead.

While I like the show, I keep watching the zombie apocalypse, based on the comic books, because I keep hoping and expecting it to become great – especially when it comes to the female characters and the show’s sexist portrayal of gender roles.

The conservative characters continually depict retro gender norms. The men talk about protecting the women. The women cook and clean while the men go off and hunt or protect the camp or farm. Yes, Andrea is the exception to the rule. She shoots and kills zombies and patrols the perimeter. But the women take a backseat to the men. They let the men debate, argue, decide.

I criticized Game of Thrones, a show I adore, for its misogyny. But at least it contains strong, intelligent and powerful female characters. Where the hell are they on The Walking Dead???

Which is why I’m so excited about the introduction of Michonne.

In Season 2’s record-breaking finale, Andrea (Laurie Holden) is rescued by a katana-wielding, hooded woman holding two chained, jawless, armless zombies. It was probably the best introduction I’ve ever witnessed. Ever. And that mystery woman would be Michonne. Not only am I delighted to see another female character. But the show so desperately needs another bad-ass woman.

For those who haven’t read the comics (like me), Michonne, who will be played by Danai Gurira (who’s simply amazing in The Visitor and Treme) seems to be a strong, powerful, complex character. She’s clever since she uses two incapacitated walkers in order to ~~seek out the living~~ hide from other walkers. She appears to be a fierce and fearless survivor. But what’s even more exciting is that she’s a woman of color.

Yet I’m skeptical as the show hasn’t done a great job portraying gender so far.

Lori (Sarah Wayne Callies) does whatever Rick (Andrew Lincoln), her husband and leader of the group, says, blindly and unquestioningly standing by him. Carol (Melissa McBride), who’s keeping it together pretty well considering she’s lost her daughter and her husband, still clings to men, first her abusive husband Ed and now Daryl (Norman Reedus), who tell her what to do. The writers squandered the opportunity to explore a domestic violence survivor rather than making her a caricature. When we first meet Maggie (Lauren Cohan), she’s riding in on a horse, bashing a Walker (aka zombie) with a baseball bat. She started off so fierce, spunky and sexually assertive. It’s just unfortunate she’s unraveling, a hysterical mess who seems to cling to her BF Glenn (Steven Yeun) for protection.

The two bright spots are Andrea and Jacqui. Andrea is one of my favorite characters. A tough survivor, she’s one of the best shots and guards the camp. She did try to commit suicide, despondent after her sister died. But she’s become determined to live. She’s smart, questions the status quo, and has become more assertive, unafraid to voice her opinion. Jacqui was outspoken and seemed to possess a quiet inner strength. While I wish she’d fought harder to survive, she chooses to end her life, dying peacefully at the end of Season 1. Even though Andrea and Jacqui are the only ones, I’m glad SOMEBODY questions the ridiculous gender nonsense.

In the very first episode in Season 1, there’s a flashback depicting Rick and Shane joking about gender differences. When Rick confides that he’s having marital problems, he tells Shane that Lori accused him of “not caring about his family in front of” their son Carl. And then Rick (who I actually like a lot) says:

“The difference between men and women? I would never say something that cruel to her.”

Wow, so we’re treated to gender essentialism and a lovely tidbit that women are cruel, heartless shrews all in the first episode. This is definitely an omen of things to come.

Andrea (Laurie Holden), Amy (Emma Bell), Carol (Melissa McBride) doing laundry on The Walking Dead

In “Tell It To the Frogs,” Andrea, Amy, Carol, Jacqui wash laundry in a lake. As the women work, they see the men splashing around enjoying themselves. Jacqui, one of the only women with any common sense and a spark of strength, asks:

“I’m really beginning to question the division of labor around here. Can someone explain to me how the women ended up doing all the Hattie McDaniel work?”

YES!! Love this! How about maybe they rotate chores? Or what if (radical idea here) some of the men wanted to cook or clean? Why should the women do all the domestic tasks??

The women proceed to bond over missing their washing machines and vibrators. But then the frivolity is cut short by Carol’s abusive husband Ed who threatens the women and then slaps Carol. While the women try to defend her, Shane steps in and starts beating the shit out of him, getting out all his aggression and frustration about Lori spurning him. So even though Shane warns Ed that he better not ever lay a hand on Carol or Sophia, he’s not acting out of nobility or the belief that men shouldn’t abuse women. Not surprising as this is the same douchebag who later tries to rape Lori and then brushes it off when she confronts him about it.

Talking about women in post-apocalyptic genres, Balancing Jane asserts that while strong women exist, it’s the men who rescue them and allow them their strength:

“[The Walking Dead goes out of its] way to demonstrate that those women had to first be saved by a righteous man. In order for women to become competent and determined, a man had to first stand up and make a space for them. Until a man appeared as savior, the women were doomed to be physically overpowered and sexually exploited.”

Men continually deny women power and autonomy. Dale takes Andrea’s gun away from her (“What Lies Ahead”) like she’s a child, backed up by rapist Shane. So a grown-ass woman shouldn’t have a gun but Carl, an ELEVEN-year-old can carry one! Oh but the little woman can’t be trusted. Ugh. Dale also comments on Andrea and Maggie’s sex lives. Speaking of Carl and guns…Lori voices her opposition for her son shooting yet no one listens to her concerns. When Lori discovers she’s pregnant, Glenn scolds her for not taking her vitamins as if she doesn’t know how to care for herself. Gee thanks, Glenn, it’s not like she’s never been pregnant before.

And then of course there’s the infamous abortion/emergency contraception storyline in “Secrets.” After Lori discovers she’s pregnant, she asks Glenn to obtain medication from the pharmacy for her to terminate her pregnancy (which she admits she’s not sure if it will work). But EC is contraception, doesn’t terminate an existing pregnancy and must be taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex or failed contraception. RU-486, which does terminate an existing pregnancy, has to be procured from a doctor, not a pharmacy.

Jezebel, Slate, ACLU and many others wrote about this episode and the myths it perpetuates. Of course showrunner Glenn Mazzara brushed off the criticism saying the writers took “artistic creative license” and he “hopes people aren’t turning to the fictional world of The Walking Dead for medical advice.” Well of course people shouldn’t be. But the media influences people’s perceptions, including medicine and abortion. There’s so much misinformation swirling around abortion and contraception. And it’s this misinformation that anti-choicers use to their advantage.

If ever there was a time for a show to depict a pregnant character having an abortion…yeah, I think a zombie apocalypse would be it. But it’s strange that this abortion/contraception arc occurs in the same episode where people are debating the zombies in the barn and what constitutes life.

Lori (Sarah Wayne Callies) and Rick (Andrew Lincoln) on The Walking Dead

But it’s the reaction of those around Lori that most disturbs me. Rick screams at Lori for even thinking about terminating the pregnancy. After Maggie and Glenn return from the pharmacy (granted, they’ve just been attacked by zombies), Maggie chucks the pills at Lori saying, “Here’s your abortion pills!” So not only does Lori not turn to another woman for help (turning to Glenn instead), but Maggie yells at her for her reproductive choice. As Bitch Magazine blogger Katherine Don writes:

“When reproductive choices are navigated by a stereotyped character and manhandled by scriptwriters who don’t recognize a woman’s ability to weight options and make decisions, the woman is robbed of her individuality, humanity and dignity.”

Beyond their “individuality, humanity and dignity,” the women are also robbed of their voice. In “Judge, Jury, Executioner,” the group congregate in the farmhouse to discuss the fate of captured Randall. While Dale vehemently opposes the decision to execute him, he’s the only one who speaks up. Eventually, Andrea, who was a civil rights lawyer pre-walkers, voices her opinion that Dale’s right. Lori, who opposes the death penalty, says nothing, almost always blindly agreeing with Rick. But the worst comes when Carol says she wants no part of the decision and wants them to decide it for her. Excuse me?? You want to forget all about making the hard decisions and just sit back, letting others decide for you??

I’m so fucking tired of the writers silencing the women.

The show’s treatment of race and heteronormativity isn’t a whole lot better. Why does the one black man (what happened to Morgan and his son from Season 1??) have to be silent for most episodes and have a ridiculous name like T-Dog? Where are the LGBTQ characters? What does it say about a show where the most interesting and complex character is a racist?? Yep, sad to say but Daryl’s my favorite. Why do we have to keep hearing racist Asian jokes? Why did Jacqui, the one black woman on the show, have to kill herself??

We see female empowerment continually stripped away. Lori seems to be the worst perpetrator of gender stereotypes and reinforcing hyper-masculinity. Glenn tells Maggie that he was distracted shooting at the bar because all he could think about was her. When Maggie confesses this in “18 Miles Out,” Lori in her infinite wisdom tells her that she should let “the men do their man-work” and that it’s women’s jobs to support the men. Oh yeah, she also says, “Tell him to man up.” Gee thanks, Lori. Swell advice. So men aren’t allowed to be emotional or sentimental. Only women.

(L-R): Glenn, Andrea, Shane, T-Dog, Daryl on The Walking Dead

Later, Lori, on another anti-feminist tirade (!!!), scolds Andrea for burdening the other women by not cooking and cleaning. Lori says Andrea should leave the other work for the men, like a good little woman, don’t ya know. What. The. Fuck. When Andrea says that she contributes to the group by offering protection and keeping watch (which she does), Lori blurts out,

“You sit up on that RV working on your tan with a shotgun in your lap.”

I’m sorry, did the zombipocalypse also signal a rip in the fabric of time where The Walking Dead characters now live in fucking 1955?! So Lori, women shouldn’t be “playing” with guns or hunting for food or protecting the camp. Nope. Women are only good for domestic duties like cooking, cleaning and child-rearing. Leave the tough stuff to the men. Silly me for forgetting. Thank god Andrea told Lori and her bullshit off. Maybe Lori’s just jealous of Andrea’s skills since Lori can’t drive a car without flipping it into a ditch.

While blaming it on Lori’s “irrational behavior” due to her pregnancy and “going through a lot of stuff” (um, aren’t they all?), writer and The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman ultimately defends this exchange and the show’s depiction of traditional gender roles:

“Lori is really just aggravated over a lot of things and she’s lashing out. She was serious and she wants Andrea to pull her weight; certain people are stuck with certain tasks and to a certain extent people are retreating back into traditional gender roles because of how this survival-crazy world seems to work.”

So I’m really supposed to believe that when the zombie shit hits the fan, we’re all going to take a time warp? And why the fuck is it a woman, the wife of the leader of the group, who keeps spouting sexist bullshit?!

The horror genre often makes commentaries on humanity vs. brutality. Yet Kirkman clearly doesn’t care about making a social commentary on gender. And to a point that’s fine – not everything must possess some deep message. But there’s no reason the opposite couldn’t be true – an apocalypse spurring egalitarian rather than “traditional” gender roles.

All of the survivors have endured unspeakable horrors, witnessing the slaughter of their loved ones. People react differently to tragedy, some will come unhinged while others grow stronger. And wielding a gun isn’t necessarily synonymous with strength. But why must we constantly see a rearticulation of sexist gender stereotypes? Do people actually think this sexism is justified because they erroneously think we live in a post-feminist society?? When it comes to genres like horror, fantasy and scif-fi, writers can imagine any world they wish. Why imagine a sexist one? Why is everyone on the show struggling to maintain white male patriarchy??

We haven’t witnessed a fierce woman in any leadership role yet. With the arrival Michonne, I’m finally truly excited about The Walking Dead. I’m hopeful that the writers can still turn things around. With Michonne and Lauren Cohan who plays Maggie promoted to series regular, some speculate “Season 3 is shaping up to be a big one for the ladies.” But I’m still skeptical. Michonne has a lot to do to erase the stench of sexist bullshit contaminating the show.

‘Yo Bitch’: The Complicated Feminism of Breaking Bad

The cast of Breaking Bad

Warning: Spoilers Ahead

Season five of Breaking Bad began with the unraveling of Gus Fring’s drug operation, which had served as a puppeteer for most of the cast during the preceding seasons. The second episode, “Madrigal,” is named for the German parent company of Fring’s Los Pollos Hermanos. While the business of fast food and methamphetamine is set firmly in a modern era–especially feeding off the addictions of desperate Americans–the term “madrigal” brings to mind centuries’ old songs, performed by multiple voices singing in harmony. We can expect Breaking Bad to be as artfully and tightly constructed as a traditional madrigal. This season, however, the voices won’t just be men’s.

For the majority of Breaking Bad’s critically acclaimed run on AMC thus far, the female characters have mostly served as annoyances and scapegoats for the audience. The hatred for Skyler White, especially, is palpable and vicious.

Her husband, Walt, the ultimate modern anti-hero, has had the audience in his corner from the moment he was diagnosed with cancer. It doesn’t matter how many young women he watches choke to death in their own vomit. It doesn’t matter how many children he tries to poison. Nobody on Facebook wants him dead.

In the last two episodes of season five, however, women have come to the forefront of making or breaking the plans of the great male trinity of Walt, Jesse, and Mike. The men in the series have done what they wanted (or felt they needed to do), and have been clawing for, and getting, power as they go. The women, however, have had to navigate the systems around them to go forward in their lives. Skyler frantically establishes control over her life, and Lydia (a Madrigal executive who was part of Fring’s team) eventually allows the trinity to continue making meth.

Lydia, one of Fring’s former associates, takes the reins in the new meth operation.

Skyler has clearly reached a breaking point in her new, seemingly settled life with her dangerous husband. She doesn’t want her children in the home in order to protect them. In episode four, she dutifully makes Walt a birthday dinner, and sits down to eat with him, Marie (who has received her share of “annoying wife” eye-rolls), and Hank. She is clearly detached and disoriented. Hank and Marie credit her infidelity–which Walt told them is at the root of all of their problems–with her despondence. She gets up and wanders towards the pool, slowly stepping in. She submerges herself, and when she doesn’t return to the surface, Walt saves her (although one might wonder if he would have without an audience). The image of a trapped, miserable wife drowning herself is nothing new–it’s the ultimate representation of suffocation. Because she certainly seems unstable, Hank and Marie agree to take the kids for the time being. She has won this battle.

Skyler attempts to drown, and succeeds in having her children removed from their home.

After floating in the watery depths with Skyler, the audience is jerked to an electric grid operated by Lydia. Two women, juxtaposing water and electricity, a deadly combination.

In episode five, Lydia is the driving force behind the train heist that allows the men to procure the methylamine that is necessary for their product. Her power and knowledge from serving as an executive allows them to move their business forward. Lydia proves herself time and again (stemming from a desire to protect herself for her child), even though her nervous energy makes the audience clench.

The series started with Walt’s crisis of masculinity, in terms of how he could “protect” his family from the cost of his chemotherapy and his paltry income. He was the wage-earner in the household, and had a son and a baby on the way. He began cooking meth to protect his family, and we loved him for it.

As Skyler has moved from a clueless wife, to an accomplice, to Walt’s antagonist, she has had the goal of protecting her family every step of the way. She orchestrated the money-laundering car wash, she has saved Walt, and she saved a former boss–and herself and Walt–from the IRS (for now, at least). And we hated her for it.

Skyler did everything in her power to keep the IRS away from her professional and personal business.

Lydia, who is willing to kill to keep herself and her history safe, is only working with the men in order to protect her child. When Mike had a gun to her head (after she’d put a hit out on him), she begged him to kill her and make sure her young daughter found her body so she wouldn’t think she’d abandoned her. Mike has a change of heart, or perhaps he simply realizes she’s the source of methylamine they need. Before she proves herself as helpful to their cause, Mike says, “I gave her a pass; this is what I get for being sexist.”She proves herself invaluable, in part by saving them from taking GPS-outfitted methylamine.

Lydia points out the GPS device to Jesse. The men suspect she planted it, but she ended up saving them.

These passing comments and the clear symbolism of female repression and underlying power make it clear that Breaking Bad isn’t simply a tour de force of masculinity. The negative reactions to the female characters reveal misogyny in the audience, not in the series. The fact that we are exhilarated by men plotting and killing, and are nervous or annoyed when the female characters attempt to navigate their lives tells us more about ourselves than the characters.

This season–the first half of the final season, which is set to air next summer–is poised to be decided by women.

Walt’s hubris has completely removed him from being a loving father or anything but an abusive husband. His growing god complex probably can’t end well, and the audience is becoming more and more OK with that. Walt is a twenty-first century Macbeth.

Skyler, while beyond her breaking point, has gotten her way for now and the children are out of the house. The cards are in her hands more than Walt is comfortable with. She will keep risking herself for her children, and waiting. “For what?” Walt asks. “For the cancer to come back,” she says.

Without Lydia, the men are without their “ocean” of methylamine. She–like the ocean–is a feminine life-giver, and is orchestrating her moves to protect her daughter (from “group homes” if she herself was sent to prison). She has control.

The imagery of Walt, Mike, and Jesse as a holy trinity is becoming clear. Jesse as a Christ-figure is more evident than ever, in his sacrificing his relationships and fighting passionately for nonviolence. And much like traditional religion, men are worshipped while women are in the trenches, cooking and cleaning–literally and figuratively. We celebrate the men, and push aside the women. It’s becoming evident that we’re not supposed to be doing that.

The “trinity”

At the beginning of the last episode, a young boy, riding alone in the desert, picks up a tarantula and gently puts it in a jar, screwing the lid tight. This clear symbol of entrapment echoes what Skyler says to Walt later in the episode: “I’m not your wife–I’m your hostage.” While her character has clearly broken bad and is now breaking down, she is still entrapped by her husband’s–and now her own–crimes. The tarantula must shed its old skin to grow, as must Skyler.

That boy is killed at the end of the episode (as he’s witnessed the train heist), and one must wonder if his fate may represent Walt’s. The tarantula is still trapped after his captor is killed, just like Skyler, if her life is spared, will always be trapped by this life. Perhaps Walt, like Arachne, will be punished for his pride above all else. Or maybe Skyler, like Lady Macbeth, will keep unraveling out of fear and guilt, and that will lead to her downfall. One could also draw a comparison between the young boy and Jesse, suffering while trying to keep captive the beasts of others’ actions.

The tarantella (tarantula), an Italian folk dance originated hundreds of years ago, is identified by “frenzied” dancing. The mythology suggests that the dance cured spider bites by allowing the dancer to sweat out the poison. It’s a safe expectation that audiences will be seeing much frenzied dancing as Breaking Bad culminates its five-season run, and only a few of those dancers will be left standing.

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Leigh Kolb is an instructor at a community college in rural Missouri. She teaches composition, literature, and journalism courses. While working on her MFA in creative nonfiction writing, Leigh was the editor of a small-town newspaper. In her academic and professional life, she’s always gravitated toward the history and literature of the oppressed, and wants to see their stories properly inserted into our cultural dialogue. She believes that critically analyzing popular media is an important step in opening those conversations. Leigh lives on a small farm with her husband, dogs, cat and flock of chickens.

‘The Walking Dead’ and Gender: Why I’m Skeptical the Addition of Badass Michonne Will Change the TV Series’ Sexism

(L): The Walking Dead screenshot of Michonne; (R): Danai Gurira, actor who will portray Michonne

Warning: if you haven’t seen Seasons 1 and 2 of The Walking Dead, there are spoilers ahead.

Have you ever dated someone because of their potential rather than what she/he/ze brings to the table? Or is that just me?? Well, that’s how I feel about AMC’s The Walking Dead.

I criticized Game of Thrones, a show I adore, for its misogyny. But at least it contains strong, intelligent and powerful female characters. Where the hell are they on The Walking Dead???

Which is why I’m so excited about the introduction of Michonne.

For those who haven’t read the comics (like me), Michonne, who will be played by Danai Gurira (who’s simply amazing in The Visitor and Treme) seems to be a strong, powerful, complex character. She’s clever since she has the two incapacitated walkers in order to seek out the living. She appears to be a fierce and fearless survivor. But what’s even more exciting is that she’s a woman of color.

Yet I’m skeptical as the show hasn’t done a great job portraying gender so far.

“The difference between men and women? I would never say something that cruel to her.”

Wow, so we’re treated to gender essentialism and a lovely tidbit that women are cruel, heartless shrews all in the first episode. This is definitely an omen of things to come.

Andrea (Laurie Holden), Amy (Emma Bell), Carol (Melissa McBride) doing laundry on The Walking Dead

“I’m really beginning to question the division of labor around here. Can someone explain to me how the women ended up doing all the Hattie McDaniel work?”

YES!! Love this! How about maybe they rotate chores? Or what if (radical idea here) some of the men wanted to cook or clean? Why should the women do all the domestic tasks??

Talking about women in post-apocalyptic genres, Balancing Jane asserts that while strong women exist, it’s the men who rescue them and allow them their strength:

“[The Walking Dead goes out of its] way to demonstrate that those women had to first be saved by a righteous man. In order for women to become competent and determined, a man had to first stand up and make a space for them. Until a man appeared as savior, the women were doomed to be physically overpowered and sexually exploited.”

Jezebel, Slate, ACLU and many others wrote about this episode and the myths it perpetuates. Of course showrunner Glenn Mazzara brushed off the criticism saying the writers took “artistic creative license” and he “hopes people aren’t turning to the fictional world of The Walking Dead for medical advice.” Well of course people shouldn’t be. But the media influences people’s perceptions, including medicine and abortion. There’s so much misinformation swirling around abortion and contraception. And it’s this misinformation that anti-choicers use to their advantage.

Lori (Sarah Wayne Callies) and Rick (Andrew Lincoln) on The Walking Dead

“When reproductive choices are navigated by a stereotyped character and manhandled by scriptwriters who don’t recognize a woman’s ability to weight options and make decisions, the woman is robbed of her individuality, humanity and dignity.”

I’m so fucking tired of the writers silencing the women.

(L-R): Glenn, Andrea, Shane, T-Dog, Daryl on The Walking Dead

“You sit up on that RV working on your tan with a shotgun in your lap.”

I’m sorry, did the zombipocalypse also signal a rip in the fabric of time where The Walking Deadcharacters now live in fucking 1955?! So Lori, women shouldn’t be “playing” with guns or hunting for food or protecting the camp. Nope. Women are only good for domestic duties like cooking, cleaning and child-rearing. Leave the tough stuff to the men. Silly me for forgetting. Thank god Andrea told Lori and her bullshit off. Maybe Lori’s just jealous of Andrea’s skills since Lori can’t drive a car without flipping it into a ditch.

“Lori is really just aggravated over a lot of things and she’s lashing out. She was serious and she wants Andrea to pull her weight; certain people are stuck with certain tasks and to a certain extent people are retreating back into traditional gender roles because of how this survival-crazy world seems to work.”