Sexual Desire on ‘The X-Files’: An Open (Love) Letter to Dana Scully

Oh Scully. You beautiful, badass, rosebud-mouthed, flame-haired Valkyrie wearing a blazer two sizes too big for you: what do you desire? We know what Mulder desires. He wants to look at porn in his office. He wants to flirt and call the shots. He wants ALIENS. He does not want to give you a desk.

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This guest post by Caitlin Keefe Moran appears as part of our theme week on Representations of Female Sexual Desire.

Oh Scully. You beautiful, badass, rosebud-mouthed, flame-haired Valkyrie wearing a blazer two sizes too big for you: what do you desire? We know what Mulder desires. He wants to look at porn in his office. He wants to flirt and call the shots. He wants ALIENS. He does not want to give you a desk.

But what about you? Why do we get such a cursory glimpse into your passions? How is it possible that in nine years we only see you go on two dates, Scully? (Three if we’re counting that one weird dinner with the Smoking Man… Lord help us if that was a date.) And when we finally do see you express interest in someone…oh, Lord. Remember him? The guy with the hallucinogenic tattoo? You were pretty into him; plus you felt stagnant in your personal life, and Mulder wouldn’t give you the damn desk. And it was nice to see you let loose a little bit, honestly. You even got a terrible lower-back tattoo of a snake biting its own tail, which… OK it’s not what I would have picked for you, but hey! You were living. All this fun goes sour when this dude’s tattoo tells him to murder you after you slept together. That you slept with him at all is conjecture—the camera pans away before we even see you kiss him, which is much more prudery than the show’s directors ever exercised with Mulder. Tattoo guy tries to put you in his building’s incinerator. It wasn’t pretty.

This date is going to end badly, Scully
This date is going to end badly, Scully

 

Did it seem to you that the message you were supposed to get was, “Whoa, rein it in there, girlie! Don’t go flaunting those goods all over town!”? Because that’s what it seems like to me. Expressing your sexuality makes you vulnerable, the message goes, and, if the snake tattoo is any indication, faintly ridiculous. Expressing your sexuality makes you shameful. Expressing your sexuality makes you deserving of punishment.

Or how about Padgett, the writer who stalked you? Remember him? John Hawkes at his most moon-eyed and creepy? He might be the king of the all the men lining up to mansplain your feelings to you (though he’s only slightly ahead of the Smoking Man and his “wall around your heart” speech. STFU, Smoking Man). He has a lot to say (and write) about the way you present or hide yourself as a woman, and it hurts because it’s pretty much all true (and because he’s straight-up bonkers). Padgett watched you for long enough to read your insecurities as if they were typed out in one of his manuscripts—and sometimes they are. He knows that you downplay your femininity as much as possible so your (almost exclusively male) coworkers will take you seriously, because, as Padgett puts it, “to be thought of as simply beautiful was bridling, unthinkable.”

Gillian Anderson as Dana Scully
Gillian Anderson as Dana Scully

In fact, most of the women on The X-Files only show their sexuality when they are outside of themselves. Sometimes they’re controlled by an unusual alignment of the planets, like Detective White in “Syzygy.” Other times they’re products of a male fantasy (or an artificial intelligence’s approximation of a male fantasy), like the nurses in Kill Switch, or a lingerie-clad Diana Fowley in The Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati. It would make sense, then, that you would want to keep your sexuality on lockdown beneath the frumpy blazers (also: it was the 90s). But that doesn’t make it any less frustrating to see you squash any hint of womanhood (let alone sexuality) because any hint would be unwelcome in the testosterone cloud of the FBI.

I wish you had a female friend, Scully. We hardly ever see you talk to another woman, much less confide in one. It’s not like she has to be your bosom buddy or anything. Just a pal you can get drinks with after work, blow off some steam, swap stories about your frustrating coworkers. Maybe you two could talk about what you want, at work, in bed, in life. As people. If only Monica Reyes could have shown up a couple of seasons earlier. I like to imagine the two of you at a drunk brunch, bonding over pumpkin spice pancakes with maple bacon glaze and a gallon-sized bucket of Bloody Marys. There’s strength in numbers, after all. Maybe with the two of you together, everything wouldn’t have seemed so….buttoned-up. Maybe with someone to talk through your anxieties with, you and Mulder wouldn’t have waited seven years to…but never mind, that’s a whole other article.

Mulder and Scully: the dream team
Mulder and Scully: the dream team

 

Let’s talk about Baby William for a second. Your miracle baby. Your super soldier. Your half-alien messiah. The Christ allegory in the Season 8 finale was slathered on so thick we could have spooned it off and eaten it. The lowly birthplace, the star of Bethlehem (which was, what, a spaceship? Do we ever figure that out?), the Lone Gunmen showing up after the fact with gifts like the Three Wise Men. But what does this say about you, Scully? The virgin mother of the miracle child. Immaculate and without sin. Clean. It takes us a season and a half to learn that you weren’t, in fact, visited by the Holy Spirit, or the aliens, or the government; your baby was born of sexual intercourse with another human being, like most other babies. But we don’t get to see this moment, with Mulder, no less, the love of your life—instead we hear it described callously by an NSA agent, who had the whole place bugged. Why is this, Scully? Is it because once presented with the idea that you might be a sexual being, we couldn’t see you any other way? That we wouldn’t be able to take you seriously as a person if we understood that you could, just possibly, desire sex?

It certainly seemed that way in “Three of a Kind,” when the Lone Gunmen snooker you into helping them spy on a Defense Department contractor’s convention in Las Vegas. Of course you remember this, Scully—when a government operative injected you with an anoetic histamine that inhibited your intellect so you would forget the damning results of the autopsy you just finished? You certainly were silly then, trying to push a table bolted to the floor as if it was a rolling cart, tickling strangers at whim. Everyone attributed it to jetlag until you found your way to the hotel lobby and began flirting with the assembled contractors. The sight of you seductively taking a cigarette out of Morris Fletcher’s (admittedly skeezy) fingers so disturbed Lone Gunmen member Frohike that he grabbed you and immediately brought you in for evaluation. Message: a flirting Scully isn’t Scully at all. Sexual desire is something you’re above. You roll your eyes at Mulder’s innuendo and come-ons, because you are a Serious Woman, doing Serious Work. The roles you can play are proscribed by your gender, even as you have greater freedom than many of television’s women, what with the gun-touting and the badge-flashing. But there is a limit to this freedom: sexual desire is dangerous, dangerous, dangerous. And in the face of this danger, sometimes it’s just easier to clam up and clamp down. To go quiet. But Scully, I wanted so much more for you.


Caitlin Keefe Moran is an editor in New York City. Her work has appeared on The Toast, in The Iowa Review, and other outlets. She lives in Queens and feels passionately about donuts and splitting infinitives as a form of protest.

Aria and Ezra’s Problematic Relationship on ‘Pretty Little Liars’

One big problem with how this relationship is portrayed, especially its beginnings, is that it feeds into the mythology that teenage girls are temptresses who seek out older men and seduce them, applying pressure until these helpless men give in against their better judgement. This mythology has real world implications.

Spoiler Warning

The relationsip between Aria and Ezra is established in the pilot episode of Pretty Little Liars. At the beginning, I think the relationship very much represents the ultimate realization of the school girl fantasy that the older guy/teacher/pop-star that you are hopelessly crushing on will see you. Not just notice that you exist but see you for who you really are. Someone who is “different” from all those other girls, someone who is not just a child but a whole person.

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While Spencer considers herself to be the most mature of the Liars, it is Aria’s relationship that is the least like most high school relationships. She and Ezra at times behave like a young married couple. She makes him tea before he goes to work, and they stay in and watch classic movies. Their problems tend to be driven by external factors, Ezra’s mother wanting him to make an appropriate match, Ezra finding out he has a child. these are challenges that we expect to see in a relationship between people in their 20s and of course Ezra  IS in his 20s.

Initially their story follows a fairly well-trodden arc when it comes to older-guy younger-girl relationships. They run into each other at a cafe and get to talking. Ezra assumes she is in college and she does nothing to dissuade those assumptions. They end up kissing in a toilet. Later on in that same episode Ezra finds out pretty abruptly that Aria is only 16 when he turns out to be teaching her English class. He makes out that he wants to do the right thing and says they can’t see each other anymore. She claims that  they have a special connection and is deeply disappointing with his decisions. However he reneges when Aria is sad and kisses her deeply, re-establishing their relationship.

ezra-birthday

Generally Ezra’s interest in Aria is presented as fairly unproblematic. Aria’s parents react really badly initially, and they are both conscious that if the truth comes out the consequences could be dire. A fact that doesn’t come up till season four when Ezra returns to teach at Rosewood, is that in Pennsylvania where the show is set, while  the age of consent is technically 16  if  the minor is under the age of 18, the adult can be charged with “Corruption of a Minor,” a  misdemeanor offence,  and if the adult is in a position of power (teacher, clergy, or police for example) it is a felony.

In one scene Aria imagines what would happen if A leaked evidence of the relationship to the school administration and the end result is that Ezra is arrested and ends up in jail. However these appear  to be minor intrusions into their happy life of domestic bliss. Under pressure from their daughter, Aria’s parents become tacitly permissive of the relationship and they manage to avoid any problems with the school administration despite sometimes not being very circumspect on the school grounds. Ezra considers it prudent to leave his position at Rosewood High and moves on to teaching at the local college. He ends up getting fired from there in a last ditch endeavor by Aria’s father to get him to stop seeing his daughter.

The relationship lives in this sort of netherworld where it is both seen as illicit but also fundamentally acceptable because they are in love with each other and that has to mean something. While Aria’s parents react badly the question of why Ezra, a college-educated man in his 20s is attracted to and in love with Aria, a 16-year-old high school girl, the power differential between them is never ever addressed. The subtext that we are meant to swallow is that it is because Aria is exceptional, she is mature and amazing. One of the problems with this though, is that this perception of Aria doesn’t really jive with the many poor decisions she makes on the show that are pretty understandable in a teenage girl.

One big problem with how  this relationship is portrayed, especially its beginnings, is that it feeds into the mythology that teenage girls are temptresses who seek out older men and seduce them, applying pressure until these helpless men give in against their better judgement. This mythology has real world implications. A tragic example of this is the case of Stacey Dean Rambold, who was convicted with raping one of his 14-year-old students repeatedly but only given a 30-day sentence because he believed that  she was “older than her chronological age” and was “as much in control of the situation” as the man who raped her. The judge has since been censured but, this should never have happened in the first place.  Rambold’s victim has since committed suicide in the aftermath of the case.

One could argue that for much of their relationship Ezra is not actually Aria’s teacher; they didn’t meet in that context and so the power differential is not really an issue. I do not believe that large gaps in relationships are intrinsically negative, so if you take the teacher part out of the equation does that make it less problematic? I’m not sure. I don’t want to deny Aria’s agency as a young woman but I still think we would have to question why Ezra would want to have a relationship with someone so young, It would be a little different if he was a 35-year-old interested in a 23-year-old because adolescence is a very difficult time.

 

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The whole thing is made very (even more?) creepy in season four when it is revealed to us that Ezra knew who Aria was from the very beginning. He was aware of her age, he was aware that she was a student at the high school he was going to teach at, and he was aware of her relationship with Alison. So Ezra knowingly committed a felony in order to gain insight into Alison and her friends for his book – at least this is what he claims. He is effectively a stalker who manages to convince Aria that they have a very special relationship. He uses his prior knowledge of her to manipulate her. This pretty much sinks the final nail into the coffin on this relationship with me. I think overall I come down on the side that the Aria/Ezra relationship is highly problematic and I am interested to see how the show goes on to handle these new revelations about him.

 

pllezria

 

 


Gaayathri Nair is currently living and writing in Auckland, New Zealand. You can find more of her work at her blog A Human Story and tweet her @A_Gaayathri.

More than Just a Monotone: How Well Do You Remember ‘Daria’?

It’s been more than 12 years since ‘Daria’ ended and it’s still in public consciousness. The beloved MTV series and its heroine frequently end up lists of best TV shows, cult shows, favourite female characters and 90s nostalgia. Music licensing issues that held up home video releases for years, ended in 2010, when a DVD set with the series’ entire run of 65 episodes and two TV movies was released. And last year, College Humor produced a fake trailer for a live-action movie starring Aubrey Plaza. In today’s media landscape, where cancelation no longer means the end of a series, Daria is often one internet commentators beg for more of. And yet, the memory most people seem to have of Daria as a character isn’t quite right.

A memorable shot of an uncaring Daria from the show’s theme song
A memorable shot of an uncaring Daria from the show’s theme song

 

It’s been more than 12 years since Daria ended and it’s still in public consciousness. The beloved MTV series and its heroine frequently end up on lists of best TV shows , cult shows, favourite female characters and 90s nostalgia.
Music licensing issues that held up home video releases for years ended in 2010, when a DVD set with the series’ entire run of 65 episodes and two TV movies was released. And last year, College Humor produced a fake trailer for a live-action movie starring Aubrey Plaza. In today’s media landscape, where cancellation no longer means the end of a series (as seen in recent resurrections like Arrested Development, 24 and Veronica Mars), internet commentators often beg for more Daria. In the comments section for College Humor’s video, many implored the website to find a way to make the movie for real.

And yet, the memory most people seem to have of Daria as a character isn’t quite right.

On the internet, as in real life, the Daria Morgendorffer people remember is a misanthrope with a monotone voice. An uncaring, almost comatose girl, wandering through the world and hating it indiscriminately.

 

Aubrey Plaza plays Daria in College Humor’s fake trailer
Aubrey Plaza plays Daria in College Humor’s fake trailer

 

Plaza plays her this way, never excited, never caring, never attached to anyone or insecure. Several articles about the College Humor video even praised her performance as a perfect Daria impression. But Daria, though often monotone, was much more than that. While she did wander around uncaring through the theme song, in the series proper, she was always running into walls- the people and institutions around her, her world’s expectation of what she should be, and most crucially, her view of herself.

More than anything, Daria wanted to be the girl we remember as unfazed by anything, but instead, kept disappointing herself with her insecurities and the inadvertent connections to people she formed. She was like so many of us as teenagers, deciding what kind of person we were supposed to be while killing ourselves to fit the mold.

But did she cared. Perhaps she cared about things more than anyone else around her. Through five seasons, she fought against fake sincerity, commercialization, and the power and respect given to those with status, money and good looks. She refused to lie about herself for a college scholarship, fake enthusiasm for a part-time job and challenged authorities who threatened the quality of her education, her integrity and her artistic expression. While she scoffed at false values like school spirit, popularity and edginess (a word adults use to sell things to teenagers), she hated them for robbing her generation of meaning and for talking down to youth.

There was a sour taste in her mouth when consuming media directed at youth but written by adults attempting to remain cool. She rejected media directed at teen girls in favor of Conrad, Camus and many political, philosophical and feminist texts, giving 90s teens perhaps their first exposure to classic writers and important ideas. That Daria read these kind of things on her own without a teacher assigning them shows how much she valued learning and encouraged many viewers, myself included, to revisit things we’d been assigned in school and written off as boring.

In her spare time, Daria wrote short stories, acted out No Exit with dolls, made anatomical models, learned about art history from her artist best friend, Jane, and music history from her crush, Trent, and enjoyed watching trash TV–all ways of developing an intelligent mind and broadening her conception of the world outside Lawndale High: her personal idea of hell.

Daria feels contempt for her peers, dismissing them as idiots
Daria feels contempt for her peers, dismissing them as idiots

 

I think you can best understand Daria as a character by seeing her as the type of girl who suffers through high school, assuring herself that in college everyone will magically understand her and speak to her on her level. Sadly, when she visits a local college, she realizes that the people there are the same ones she knew in high school; they’re just older.

Like many of us, Daria looks down on her peers, believing she is more intelligent, sophisticated and mature than them. Though in many cases she’s right, as her classmates, particularly the jocks and cheerleaders are often cartoonishly stupid (even for a cartoon). The popular crowd can’t even spell their own names, and they view being a “brain” like Daria as a fate worse than death. She’s different from her peers, and that difference stands out, as in one episode, she and Jane are the target of a witch hunt.

But Daria is often shown that her assumptions of people’s character and her contempt for them are unwarranted. Her vain sister Quinn is capable of writing a vaguely intelligent poem, ditzy cheerleader Britney has moments of insight and a brilliant tactical mind, and infrequently Daria meets intelligent boys who understand her and her weird sarcastic humor. It’s even painted as a character flaw that Daria clings to first impressions and judges everyone around her. She’s never surprised when someone disappoints her, displaying their true self as self-centered, calculating or dense; she’s only surprised when they go along with her joke or give her an intelligent argument. For example, when she finds out Andrea, a would-be friend from summer camp, idolized her, she can only respect Andrea when she stands up to her.

Daria has a crush on Trent, her best friends older brother
Daria has a crush on Trent, her best friend’s older brother

 

Even Daria herself doesn’t always measure up to her ideals. Though she is a a teenage girl, Daria wants to be so much more than that. Along with her dismissal of her peers and of the media they enjoy, she views being a teenage girl as a weakness and refuses to allow herself to be human. She has a hopeless crush on an older “bad boy” who rarely notices her, even though she’s smart enough to know he’s irresponsible and totally wrong for her. If she’s being logical, she knows he’s not an option for her and the type of life she wants to live, but still she finds him irresistible and even gets a navel piercing to please him; something she would never do otherwise.

She feels ashamed when she realizes she really wants a romantic celebration for her anniversary (like 30 Rock‘s Liz Lemon and her wedding), as she views sentimentality as pathetic. In several episodes, she struggles with her own sense of vanity, attempting to hide a rash across her face and attempting to wear contacts even though they hurt her eyes because she likes how she looks with them. She disappoints herself with her desire for contacts as she feels there is no reason to want them besides vanity.

Within her school, Daria is known as “the brain” and “the misery chick,” identities she never chose for herself, doesn’t completely like but feels entirely lost without. Within her family she’s the smart one, and Quinn is the pretty one. When that balance is disturbed and Quinn is praised for her intelligence, Daria feels threatened. If she isn’t a brain and smarter than everyone else, she doesn’t know who she is. In another episode, she struggles with her peers’ view of her as someone who is always miserable and thinking about death.

 

Daria briefly gives herself a makeover to look like her sister, Quinn
Daria briefly gives herself a makeover to look like her sister, Quinn

 

Though when people meet Daria, they frequently gasp (to an exaggerated degree) in disgust at her appearance, it is frequently suggested that she could easily fit in and be popular if she wanted to. Modeling scouts at the school first zero in on Daria over supposedly more attractive classmates, and in one episode, she dresses like Quinn and her appearance threatens her sister.  Through she sees herself as far above her peers, she clearly understands them and knows how to appeal to them, once inciting a riot by manipulating them with a short story.

Daria’s friendship with Jane Lane is one of the greatest things about the show as it portrays them as two people with similar interests and a shared sense of humor, while managing to make them distinctive people with different reactions to the same events. Their relationship also humanizes Daria, as Jane challenges her and forces her to confront her flaws and figure out why she feels certain ways. Without Jane, Daria could easily be that silent girl, observing and judging a world she is unattached to, but Jane gives her reasons to care. Jane also worries less about fitting into  a certain image; instead she wants to experience every opportunity she can, believing it will make her a better artist and drags Daria along to house parties, school dances and other parts of teen life she would otherwise ignore. Moreover, Jane doesn’t see being intelligent and sarcastic and joining the track team, getting a boyfriend or auditioning for the cheerleading squad as mutually exclusive. Her attempts to get involved force Daria to attempt to reconcile her contempt for their peers as a group with the existence of Jane, one of her peers who she really likes and respects. It is perhaps Jane’s humanizing influence that make Daria feel guilty about making a video that paints Quinn in the worst possible light and so edits it to be more flattering.

 

Daria’s best friend Jane is a humanizing influence
Daria’s best friend Jane is a humanizing influence

 

Certainly Daria is someone that needs humanizing. In one episode, she confesses to Jane that she often feels superior to other people, sometimes thinking to herself, “You can see things that other people can’t. You can see better than other people.” This reminded me of the first episode of Girls, where Hannah Horvath memorably told her parents she thinks of herself as the voice of her generation. It was an audacious statement, that led many to hate the character, but it was also really unique for a young woman to express grandiose thoughts, to think of herself as great and significant, rather than suppress herself with (often false) modesty as many of us have been taught to. Jane is a great friend for Daria because she takes her confession seriously, values Daria’s opinions, and disarms her, joking (though with a kernel of truth). That this is why she’s proud to be Daria’s friend. It’s great to see characters who are allowed to be audacious.

As she grows up, Daria is able to recognize how difficult she was as a child and how much her parents struggled to raise her. She learns that when she was in elementary school her parents’ marriage was strained as they were frequently called in by the principal to talk about her lack of friends, her refusal to participate and her depressive nature. Toward the end of the series, when she volunteers at a summer camp, she meets a young boy who reminds her of her younger self and is able to see some of her character flaws for herself. She quickly becomes invested in his growth, realizing that she really cares whether she gets through to him. She helps him avoid some of her mistakes, particularly missing out on life by pretending to be uninterested. It’s plain that Daria as she was when the show began would never have been able to see herself so clearly and to connect on this level.

 

Using a short story Daria imagines the future for her family
Using a short story Daria imagines the future for her family

 

We see a glimpse of the future Daria expects (and most will most likely get) when she writes a short story imagining herself and Quinn as adults visiting their parents. Both are happy and have learned to get along and step out of their comfort zones. The story makes Daria’s mother cry and reveals she is more sentimental than even she realizes.

If you’ve never seen Daria, or you haven’t seen it in years, it’s worth a watch to see one of the most memorable and realistic teenage girls I’ve ever seen on TV.

 

See also: 29 Reasons Why Daria was TV’s Greatest CynicFive Ways Daria Ruined My Life

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Elizabeth Kiy is a Canadian writer and freelance journalist living in Toronto, Ontario.

 

When It Seems Like the Movie You’re Watching Might Hate You

Quick – you’re all settled down in front of the TV with Cheetos and soda when you start to have an uncomfortable feeling. The characters are being really hateful, and you can’t quite tell if the writer supports them. Do you: a) keep watching the movie to see how this ends; b) stop watching the movie and do something else; or c) read spoilers for the ending, to find out if you’re wasting your time? If you answered a, b, or c to that question, congratulations! You win. There’s no single Right Way to respond when it seems like a movie might hate you.

Written by Katherine Murray.

Quick – you’re all settled down in front of the TV with Cheetos and soda when you start to have an uncomfortable feeling. The characters are being really hateful, and you can’t quite tell if the writer supports them. Do you: a) keep watching the movie to see how this ends; b) stop watching the movie and do something else; or c) read spoilers for the ending, to find out if you’re wasting your time? If you answered a, b, or c to that question, congratulations! You win. There’s no single Right Way to respond when it seems like a movie might hate you.

Joey Lauren Adams stars as Alyssa in Chasing Amy
Chasing Amy

I watched Chasing Amy for the first time last weekend, and it was a pretty intense experience. I can totally see why this film was such a boost to Kevin Smith’s career – it’s a great movie with a strong voice and an unusually forthright message about how women are actually people. What’s weird is that watching it still felt like walking through a minefield, and not in an exciting way. In a way where I was kind of scared and uncomfortable, thinking I might get blown up.

Check it out.

Chasing Amy is about a real-life experience Kevin Smith had, where he judged his girlfriend for her sexual history and then realized that he was acting like a jerk. The movie takes the situation further and fictionalizes it, giving us a story about a comic book writer named Holden who falls in love with a lesbian, Alyssa, convinces her to start dating him anyway, flips out when he hears that she’s had sex with other dudes in the past, and then alienates her completely and ends up alone. His best friend, Banky, stands on the sidelines making misogynist, homophobic jokes, before it’s revealed that the real root of his anger is his unacknowledged homosexual attraction to Holden.

The movie essentially pulls a bait and switch. The first half of the story looks like it’s going to be about a straight guy who only hangs out with a lesbian because he wants to sleep with her, and then turns her straight with his dick, but then the second half of the story is about that guy learning that he’s acting like an asshole. That, instead of treating Alyssa like a person with the right to her own sexual history and choices, he’s labouring under the belief that she’s obliged to be the Perfect Woman as created by his imagination. She calls him out on it in a pretty straightforward way – first when he assumes that his being attracted to her should mean that she’s attracted to him, and later when he tries to shame her for a three-way she had back in high school – and I can’t quite express how relieved I was when that happened.

It’s a sad commentary on the culture we live in that, as much as I like and respect Kevin Smith as a writer, I honestly wasn’t sure at first if I was supposed to think Holden was cool. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to think that what he was doing was OK, or that Banky was funny when he told jokes about man-hating dykes – I wasn’t sure if this was going to end with Holden and Alyssa getting married and living happily ever after. And I actually stopped the movie halfway through and looked on Wikipedia to see how it ended, because I didn’t think I could stand to watch it if it was really about Holden and the Bankster being awesome bros together.

It surprised me to have such a strong reaction – I mean, I will seriously sit through almost anything, no matter how annoying it is; I love sitting that much – but it also put me in mind of something Kendra James said about watching Django Unchained“I advise seeing it in the company of people you trust.”

What makes Chasing Amy an important movie is that it taps into something that’s real in our culture – it puts its metaphorical finger right on a raw, exposed nerve. The things that these guys are saying, the things that they’re doing – these are things that some guys really do and say, without recognizing that there’s anything all that wrong with it. In fact, some guys have found it appropriate to say these things to me, for real, in my life. The fear that the movie might not have my back on that was not an abstract, intellectual concern. It was a visceral reaction. I didn’t want to let my guard down just to feel betrayed.

It isn’t just me, either.

Eliza Dushku and Dichen Lachman star in Dollhouse
Dollhouse

Back when Dollhouse premiered in 2009, a lot of women I knew (and knew of, through the internet) swore off watching it. If you don’t remember the show, that’s OK – I’m pretty sure only five people actually saw it. It was made by Joss Whedon and the story was about a bunch of people (mostly women) who sell their bodies to a futuristic whorehouse where scientists have the technology to wipe someone’s mind and download a new personality into her brain. Clients could request exactly what they wanted, and the Dollhouse would give it to them by programming a human being to act like a fantasy.

Because it was an action-adventure show (sort of), the client of the week usually wanted something beyond whoring – they might need a spy, or a thief, or an expert psychologist or something to go on a mission – but it was clear that sex work was the company’s bread and butter.

As the story ultimately unfolds, it becomes clear that the Dollhouse is fundamentally evil – the first step toward the total collapse of civilization, heralded by the disregard for human life that displays itself in treating people as disposable, programmable shells. The inhabitants of the Dollhouse fight to escape and regain their identities, and find themselves at ground zero of a massive civil war. The dark desire to make women into whatever one wants or needs them to be – here expressed a little more literally than in Chasing Amy – is presented as a form of misguided entitlement, feeding into other situations where the powerful take what they want at somebody else’s expense.

Unfortunately, during the first few episodes of the series, it’s unclear whether we’re supposed to be bothered by what’s going on in the Dollhouse, or to casually accept it as a sexy, cool recipe for adventure. Just like with Chasing Amy, the attitudes expressed in the first half are attitudes expressed in real life, usually by people who don’t see any problem with what they believe – and watching the characters accept these ideas as normal raised the possibility that maybe the writers were just blind to it. The power and relevance of both of these stories comes from the fact that objectifying women is a popular pastime in real life, and not everyone sees the problem with that – the discomfort and uncertainty of these stories comes from the fact that objectifying women is a popular pastime in real life, and not everyone sees the problem with that. It’s hard to know, at first, whose side the story is on.

It doesn’t help that both of these stories also seem to be aimed at dudes. They’re both structured in such a way that the skeeviness of these attitudes toward women is something that’s “revealed” rather than taken as given. I have a hard time imagining a female audience that would begin from the position that all of this stuff is okay and need to hear an explanation of why it’s not. It’s a lot of dudes telling other dudes that women are people, and that’s encouraging, but it also reminds you that you’re not considered a person right from the start.

So, what do you do when you feel uneasy, and fear that the movie might hate you?

I think it just depends on how much you trust the people telling the story, and how much you’re willing to risk. I don’t think anyone is obligated to sit still and be insulted for two hours, so, if you feel like that’s what might be happening, you’re well within your rights to bail. I also don’t think you’re obligated to avoid watching something just because it’s problematic, so, if you want to stick it out and see the whole thing, that’s a totally awesome choice, too.

Either way, I think Kendra James has it right; when the topic is your relative equality, you need the company of people you trust–in the audience, behind the camera, on a Facebook chat after the show. People who think you’re a person right from frame one.


Katherine Murray is a Toronto-based writer who yells about movies and TV on her blog.

A Long Time Ago, We Used to Be Friends: The ‘Veronica Mars’ Movie

So, how does one of the most successful Kickstarter projects ever fare when it’s all said and done? I’m gonna go with: meh. Though the premise itself wasn’t bad and I loved being back in that world, the creator and director, Rob Thomas, just tried to cram too damn much into 107 minutes.

Veronica Mars Movie Poster
Veronica Mars movie poster

Written by Amanda Rodriguez
Mild Spoilers

I’ve been a fan of the Veronica Mars TV show for the last 10 years, so it’s only fitting that I was inordinately excited about the Veronica Mars movie, where Veronica comes back to her hometown of Neptune for her 10 year high school reunion to clear her ex-boyfriend, Logan Echolls, of murder charges. The film aired in select theaters on March 14 (and is now available for digital download on Amazon and iTunes). In anticipation of the film release, I wrote a review last November called “Why Veronica Mars is Still Awesome.” Face it: I’m a marshmallow.

A reference to the pilot episode, Veronica Mars fans are lovingly called "marshmallows"
In reference to the pilot episode, Veronica Mars fans are lovingly called “marshmallows”

 

So, how does one of the most successful Kickstarter projects ever fare when it’s all said and done? I’m gonna go with: meh. Though the premise itself wasn’t bad and I loved being back in that world, the creator and director, Rob Thomas, just tried to cram too damn much into 107 minutes. For the show, Thomas had three years and three seasons, comprising 64 episodes at roughly 43 minutes a pop to build the story, the mystery, the relationships, the characters, the drama, and the amazing humor. 107 minutes isn’t nearly enough time to catch us up after 10 years away, to solve a crime, to build that rapport between beloved characters, and to give all the fans everything they wanted. It’s just too tall of an order.

The VMars team is back with Wallace & Mac
The VMars team is back with Wallace and Mac

 

Because they were trying to do too much, the character interactions ended up falling flat. Who have these people become, and why have they changed? Where is the biting sarcasm of Logan Echolls? He joined the military, which seems symbolic of a huge personality shift, or is it just an excuse to show him in a military uniform (whites no less)? Where’s the kinship between Veronica and Wallace or the abiding love between Keith and Veronica?

Not enough smart, sassy woman interactions
Not enough smart, sassy ladies killing it

 

Perhaps in part because of the lackluster character interactions, the plotlines are also lacking in luster. The mystery is half-baked, and even the obligatory Veronica Mars love triangle is a weak dud of a plot point with passion being largely absent from the players (Veronica, Piz, and Logan).

Logan takes Veronica "the long way home" per her request
Logan takes Veronica “the long way home” per her request

 

The Veronica Mars movie is even a bit too gimmicky. Logan in military whites, the endless stream of celebrity cameos, and the massive wet t-shirt boy fight are all a bit over the top. Now, I like celebrity cameos, and I did laugh at the outlandishness of the lengths the movie went just to give us a glimpse of Logan in a drenched v-neck, but, dammit, VMars has come dangerously close to jumping the shark.

Gender role reversal with boys in a wet t-shirt fight?
Gender role reversal with boys in a wet t-shirt fight? Check.

 

Dare I confess it? I also missed the clothes. Long have I loved Veronica Mars’ fashion sense, and long have I worked to emulate her sassy ensembles.

At least the purse made an appearance...
At least the purse made an appearance…

 

Because of a certain baby bump actress Kristen Bell was sporting, the costumers had to get creative with her wardrobe, which left us with a lot of blazers and muted colors. Don’t get me wrong; I’m grateful that Kristen Bell decided the project was important enough to film during her pregnancy. However, both Veronica and I have aged 10 years, and I was hoping to get some tips from the master on how to stay sassy into my 30s.

Blazers everywhere all the time.
Blazers everywhere all the time.

 

On the up side, the Veronica Mars movie did its damnedest to include all the important faces from the past like Dick Casablancas, Keith Mars, Madison Sinclair, Mac, Wallace, Weevil, Leo D’Amato, Deputy Sacks, Celeste Kane, Corny, and on and on. The film also saw fit to include some not-so-important faces like steroid trafficking baseball player, Luke Haldeman, and son-of-butler poker cash stealing Sean Friedrich, but it’s comforting to know that literally everyone wanted to come back to reprise their Veronica Mars roles. Not only that, but the movie is lovingly packed with a barrage of in-jokes for the long-time fans who’ll catch on to every wink, nudge, and nod.

Madison Sinclair finally gets her commupance
Madison Sinclair finally gets her comeuppance

 

From a feminist standpoint, it’s about damn time Veronica finally saved herself all by herself from the scary, sticky situation she gets herself into hunting a murderer in Neptune. The film also leaves some mysteries open and sets up a new Veronica Mars future with the possibility of a new Veronica Mars spin-off (please don’t let it be a bumbling Dick Casablancas detective agency show). Since I’m a marshmallow, I’ll cherish this last hurrah in the world of Veronica Mars and keep my fingers crossed for a spin-off, but from the objective viewpoint of a film/TV critic, the Veronica Mars movie just isn’t up to snuff. There was simply too much ground to cover, too many gags, and not enough character development to let the movie live up to its legacy as the best kind of storytelling, characterization, humor, and wit television had to offer.

The super fun drinking game that I came up with for the show still works pretty well for the movie: Vodka Tonic with a Lime Twist & Veronica Mars. I hope you’ll play! [End shameless plug.]

 

Read also: “Why Veronica Mars is Still Awesome” and “The Relationships of Veronica Mars

 


Amanda Rodriguez is an environmental activist living in Asheville, North Carolina. She holds a BA from Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio and an MFA in fiction writing from Queens University in Charlotte, NC. She writes all about food and drinking games on her blog Booze and Baking. Fun fact: while living in Kyoto, Japan, her house was attacked by monkeys.

Highlights from Season One of ‘Masters of Sex’

The first season of Showtime’s ‘Masters of Sex’ concluded in December last year. The show was well-received, both critically and popularly, and it has been great to see series find its stride over the course of the season. It would have been devastatingly easy for a show that is ostensibly about the study of female sexuality to turn into a series that highlights white male gate-keepers, however Masters of Sex has managed to avoid this pitfall admirably. Michelle Ashford, the show-runner, put together a largely female writing staff, seemingly as a result the show has some of the best, most fully realized, three-dimensional female characters on television today. Below are some of the things that I have personally found to be highlights of the season.

The first season of Showtime’s Masters of Sex concluded in December last year. The show was well-received, both critically and popularly, and it has been great to see series find its stride over the course of the season. It would have been devastatingly easy for a show that is ostensibly about the study of female sexuality to turn into a series that highlights white male gate-keepers, however Masters of Sex has managed to avoid this pitfall admirably. Michelle Ashford, the show-runner, put together a largely female writing staff, seemingly as a result the show has some of the best, most fully realized, three-dimensional female characters on television today. Below are some of the things that I have personally found to be highlights of the season.

 Cast of Masters of Sex

 

1)      Virginia Johnson

Lizzy Caplan has sparkled on the screen as Virginia Johnson. Virginia has been such a great character because she is everything that you never expect you will get to see a woman be on television. She has sex because she wants to have sex, not because she needs a man or because her life is empty without one, she seeks what she needs and makes no apologies for being who she is. She is also smart, ambitious and driven; over and over we see how Virginia wants to do great with her life. She wants to leave her mark on the world and is willing to put in the work to make that happen.  At the same time she suffers from self-doubt, exhaustion and confusion just like we all do, but she sets her boundaries and sticks to them and manages to maintain her professionalism despite the extremely trying circumstances in which she constantly finds herself.  It is nice to see the difficulties she has with juggling her children and her demanding job, dealing with a flakey ex-husband and watxhing her sometimes succeed and sometimes fail and trying to make it all work.

Over the course of the season it has become clear that it is she, not the cold, forbidding, and seemingly emotionless Bill Masters who is able to separate the work from her personal life. This is made clear when Bill suggests that they should participate in the study with each other.  She is interested in the data, proving conclusions and ensuring the success of the study. She will do anything to ensure that it is successful including being filmed masturbating and having sex with Bill so that they can explore certain hypotheses before deciding to study them with regular study participants.  However, when Bill does something that she feels is demeaning, paying her for the times she has participated in the study as if she was any other participant she understands quite clearly why he has done it, he has feelings for and is trying to assuage his guilt and distance himself from them when he finds out his wife is pregnant. She maintains her dignity by doing what she believes is right, resigning from her work with him and going to work with Dr. Lillian DePaul, someone who she believes is also on the verge of doing great things, even if they will not cause the stir that the sex study will.

 

 Virginia Johnson

2)      Margaret and Barton Scully

It came out mid-season that Barton Scully is a deeply closeted gay man who meets with sex workers in cars. His story becomes ever more nuanced over the course of the season. Bill uses his knowledge of him to black mail him into allowing the study to remain at the hospital, he gets stabbed by some homophobes just for parking his car in a known gay pick up spot and decides to seek treatment for his “illness” of homosexuality after his wife catches him meeting a sex worker at a hotel; something he decided to do after deeming that meeting in cars was too dangerous after the stabbing.

We become privy to how the nature of his marriage with Margaret is a hollow shell despite their deep tenderness and mutual regard for one another. After chatting with her friends over Mah Jong Margaret hears about the study and how it has reinvigorated a mutual acquaintance’s life. She decides to sign up because she is long tired of waiting for her husband to come to her bed, the scene that follows where Virginia and Bill question her about her sexual history and it becomes clear that she has never had an orgasm is near heart-breaking. It is impossible not to cheer for her when she begins an affair with the handsome and fickle Dr. Austin Langham.

The whole storyline is a sensitive portrayal of how deeply damaging stigma and homophobia is. Barton married Margaret because he needed to be perceived as “normal” in order to fulfill his career ambitions. As a result of those ambitions and not wanting to live on the margins both he and Margaret have been robbed of a full life.  This is one of the few storylines  have seen on television that covers homosexuality and homophobia in a period drama in a way that neither sensationalizes it or objectifies the characters involved, but instead is a nuanced look at how it hurts people.

This arc has also resulted in one of the best monologues about stigma and sexuality that I have ever seen on television. When Barton asks Dale, the sex worker that he has being seeing,  to participate in his aversion therapy, saying that he will pay him to sit across from him while he takes an emetic to make himself feel ill. Dale responds by elaborating the ways in which his life is difficult and how he often wishes he could change but ending with the line “there’s only one person who gets to be sickened by me, and that’s me. Everyone else can go fuck themselves.”  The whole sequence elucidates the complexity and pain of being queer in a straight world.

Maragret Scully

3)      Dr. Lillian De Paul

Dr. Lillian De Paul is one of the characters on the show that is completely fictional and not based on a real person. Initially it seemed as though she was going be a sort of female misogynist, a Margaret Thatcher type who makes it to the top and then instead of helping to break down barriers uses her position to shit on other women. Over time it became clear that De Paul’s coldness towards Virginia was in large part defensiveness based on the slog she has had firstly to become a doctor and secondly in trying to crack into the old boys club in order to get her project, free or low cost pap smears available for women in order to detect cervical cancer while it is still treatable, funded. She is deeply frustrated because she knows the profound impact her project can have on women’s lives and health with comparatively little cost.

She provides an interesting counterpoint for Dr. Masters as they share many character traits but their reception could not be more different. They are both aloof, lacking in charm and awareness of social niceties. In Bill these qualities are perceived as being unsurprising in a brilliant doctor. In Lillian they are simply more evidence of her freakishness and unwomanliness. As a character she explodes the notion of the female harridan superior because we see the struggles that she has had to deal with, and just why she has become the closed off and defensive person that she has, because almost anything else is construed as weakness by her male colleagues. Over time she comes to respect Virginia after realizing that she is not simply using her womanly charms as a substitute for hard work and their growing relationship has been interesting to watch.

Upcoming Theme Weeks for 2014

If you’d like to submit to one of our theme weeks, please see our Submission Guidelines.

If you’d like to submit to one of our theme weeks, please see our Submission Guidelines.

 

January: Representations of Sex Workers

Deadline to receive submissions: Friday, January 24.

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February: Women and Work/Labor Issues

Deadline to receive submissions: Friday, February 21.

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March: The Great Actresses

Deadline to receive submissions: Friday, March 21.

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April: Rape-Revenge Fantasies

Deadline to receive submissions: Friday, April 18.

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May: Representations of Female Sexual Desire

Deadline to receive submissions: Friday, May 23rd.

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June: Children’s Television

Deadline to receive submissions: Friday, June 20th.

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July: Movie Soundtracks

Deadline to receive submissions: Friday, July 18.

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August: The Brat Pack

Deadline to receive submissions: Friday, August 22.

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September: Female Friendships

Deadline to receive submissions: Friday, September 19.

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October: Demon/Spirit Possession

Deadline to receive submissions: Friday, October 24.

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November: The Terror of Little Girls

Deadline to receive submissions: Friday, November 21.

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December: Reality Television

Deadline to receive submissions: Friday, December 19.

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Defending Dawn Summers: From One Kid Sister to Another

OK, sure, my big sister didn’t have superpowers, and as far as I know she did not save the world even one time, much less “a lot.” But from my perspective as her bratty little sister, I felt like I could never escape her long and intimidating shadow. I could never be as smart as her, as special as her; I couldn’t hope to collect even a fraction the awards and accolades she racked up through high school. And she didn’t even properly counteract her super smarts with social awkwardness: she always had a tight group of friends and the romantic affections of cute boys. She was the pride and joy of my family, and I always felt like an also-ran. Trust me: this makes it very hard to not be at least a little bratty and whiny.

Michelle Trachtenberg as Dawn Summers
This repost by Robin Hitchcock appears as part of our theme week on Child and Teenage Girl Protagonists.
In the final scene of the first episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer‘s Season 5, Dawn Summers, Buffy’s never before seen or heard-of little sister, appears seemingly out of nowhere. While she’s completely new to the audience, oddly, it is clear that from the characters’ perspectives that Dawn has been there all along.
Dawn and Tara, fellow outsiders from the Scooby gang, pass time with a thumb war.
To quote my husband’s reaction as we reached season 5 during his (in-progress) Buffy indoctrination: “Why on earth are they doing this?”
Most of the Buffy fandom reacted with the same puzzlement. As Dawn’s character was fleshed out over the first few episodes of the season as the archetypical annoying little sister, the audience was still denied all but the vaguest of clues as to Dawn’s true nature and reason for being retconned into the Buffyverse.
Dawn as annoying little sister.
It was not until the fifth episode of the season, “No Place Like Home,” that the Dawn’s existence is explained: she is a mystical key that opens gateways between dimensions, magically given human form with blood relation to the slayer, woven into her memories and all of those around her so that Buffy would protect her with her life, to keep the evil god Glory from using the Key to destroy the universe.
Unfortunately, the only place the monks’ spell couldn’t reach was the minds of the audience, and Dawn Summers had to win us over without the benefit of false memories. This may have been an impossible feat, given her character is pretty much laid out as an immature, whiny, brat with a tendency to get into trouble.
Dawn in damsel-in-distress mode.
Also, she occasionally does this thing where she piercingly shrieks “Get out, get out, GET OUT!” which ranks up there with nails on a chalkboard, dental drills, and Katy Perry songs when it comes to horrible sounds to endure.
And so it is that Dawn is one of the least-liked characters in the Buffyverse. But not by me. I love Dawn Summers.
I suspect my unusually high tolerance for Dawn comes from my OWN memories. In “Real Me,” the episode which properly introduces Dawn’s character, she writes in her diary/narrates: “No one understands. No one has an older sister who is the slayer.”
Dawn writes in her diary.
But I understand. OK, sure, my big sister didn’t have superpowers, and as far as I know she did not save the world even one time, much less “a lot.” But from my perspective as her bratty little sister, I felt like I could never escape her long and intimidating shadow. I could never be as smart as her, as special as her; I couldn’t hope to collect even a fraction the awards and accolades she racked up through high school. And she didn’t even properly counteract her super smarts with social awkwardness: she always had a tight group of friends and the romantic affections of cute boys. She was the pride and joy of my family, and I always felt like an also-ran. Trust me: this makes it very hard to not be at least a little bratty and whiny.
And my big sister was a lot nicer to me than Buffy usually was to Dawn. If the audience found out before Buffy did that Dawn was created to induce the slayer to protect the key, it might have been a little hard to swallow. Buffy shows only hostile resentment toward Dawn for the first half of Season 5. It is only after Dawn learns herself that she is new to the world that Buffy shows her true sisterly love, when she lovingly insists to Dawn that she is Buffy’s “real sister” despite her mystical origins.
“It doesn’t matter where you came from, or how you got here, you are my sister.”
Because I relate to Dawn as a fellow annoying little brat following around her remarkable older sister, I am more forgiving of her character flaws. But I do think viewers without my background ought to take it easier on Dawn as well.
A common criticism of Dawn is that she’s much more immature than the main characters were at the start of the series, when they were close to her in age (Dawn is introduced as a 14-year-old in the eighth grade; Buffy, Xander, and Willow were high school sophomores around age 15 or 16 in Season 1). Writer David Fury responds to this in his DVD commentary on the episode “Real Me,” saying that Dawn was originally conceived as around age 12 and aged up a few years after Michelle Trachtenberg was cast, but it took a while for him and the other writers to get the originally conceived younger version of the character out of their brains. But I don’t need this excuse; I think it makes perfect narrative sense that Dawn comes across as more immature than our point-of-view characters were when they were younger. Who among us didn’t think of themselves as being just as smart and capable as grown-ups when we were teens? Who among us, when confronted with the next generation of teenagers ten years down the line, were not horrified by their blatant immaturity?
Additionally, Dawn starting her character arc as whiny brat lets us watch her grow and mature into a pretty awesome young woman. It is a long road, beset by personal tragedy and a theme of abandonment: Dawn loses her mother and her sister within a matter of months in Season 5, and in Season 6 sees her surrogate parent figures, Willow and Tara, split up just as a returned-from-the-grave Buffy is too detached from humanity to be there emotionally for Dawn. Throughout Season 6, Dawn acts out: lying to Buffy to stay out all night with friends, habitually and perhaps compulsively stealing, and ultimately sublimating her abandonment issues into a curse (with the help of Vengeance “Justice” Demon Halfrek), temporarily trapping the Scooby gang and some innocent bystanders in the Summers’ home.
Dawn’s tantrum in Season 6’s “Older and Faraway”
But Season 6 represents an era of bad choices for almost the entire cast of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, so Dawn should be given as much slack for her missteps as we give the other wayward characters, including Buffy herself. And it is Dawn who finally pulls Buffy out of the emotional purgatory she is suffering in this season. In the Season 6 finale “Grave,” Buffy finally truly regains her will to live and recaptures her complete humanity, and this epiphany comes in large part because she finally sees Dawn as a gift in her life rather than a burden:
Buffy and Dawn hug in “Grave”
“Things have really sucked lately, but that’s all gonna change—and I want to be there when it does. I want to see my friends happy again. I want to see you grow up. The woman you’re gonna become… Because she’s gonna be beautiful. And she’s gonna be powerful. I got it so wrong. I don’t want to protect you from the world—I want to show it to you. There’s so much that I wanna to show you.” – Buffy to Dawn in “Grave.”
Dawn with Buffy during her metaphorical rebirth in “Grave.”
Dawn finds her own self-actualization in the Season 7 episode “Potential,” having once again been shoved to the sidelines of Buffy’s attention by the arrival of a collection of young “potential slayers” who need protection from the Bringers, who have been systematically wiping out the future slayer lineage. While Buffy focuses on protecting and training the potentials, Dawn clearly feels left out, trapped by her own ordinariness and unimportance (a significant change for a girl who was once the key to the fabric between dimensions).
Dawn lurks in the background as Buffy gives a speech to potential slayers.
That all changes when a spell cast by Willow appears to identify Dawn as a potential slayer herself. Dawn is emotionally overwhelmed by the news, mainly because she thinks it means that Buffy must die before Dawn could ever realize this potential (I’m pretty sure the next potential would be called only by the death of Faith, but that’s neither here nor there). A part of Dawn is clearly excited by the news, and given a huge jolt of self-confidence that lets her bravely defend herself against a vampire and then fight off the group of Bringers who come for her classmate Amanda, the true potential slayer identified by Willow’s spell. Dawn handles the news of her lack of slayer potential with perfect grace, saving Amanda’s life and transferring to her the confidence that comes with knowing you are “special.”
At the episode’s end, Xander, the only other remaining character without any superpowers, has a heart-to-heart with Dawn. He shares with her the wisdom he’s gained in seven years in these circumstances:
Xander has a heart-to-heart with Dawn
“They’ll never know how tough it is, Dawnie, to be the one who isn’t chosen. To live so near to the spotlight and never step in it. But I know. I see more than anybody realizes because nobody’s watching me. I saw you last night. I see you working here today. You’re not special. You’re extraordinary.” – Xander to Dawn in “Potential.”
Dawn accepts her humanity and finds her maturity.
After “Potential,” Dawn, who began life at age 14, crafted from a ball of mystical energy and a spell creating powerful false memories, is finally defined by her humanity, her normalcy. She accepts this position with dignity, grace, and bravery. And in so doing, Dawn also steps up to her place as a mature young adult. And at least for this one-time bratty kid sister, that makes Dawn Summers is just as heroic and inspiring a character as Buffy herself.

Robin Hitchcock is an American writer living in Cape Town, South Africa. She is a regular contributor to Bitch Flicks. She is still upset that the Season 5 Buffy DVDs don’t include the awesome “previously on” montage from “The Gift.”

Six Lessons Lisa Simpson Taught Me

…Lisa takes a stand against the sexism spouting from the mouth of the new talking Malibu Stacy doll. Frustrated with the doll’s collection of sexist catchphrases that include “Let’s bake some cookies for the boys,” “Thinking too much gives you wrinkles,” and “My name’s Stacy, but you can call me *wolf whistle*,” Lisa collaborates with the creator of Malibu Stacy to create their own talking doll, Lisa Lionheart. When Malibu Stacy outsells Lisa Lionheart, our creator feels temporarily dejected, until she hears her own voice speaking behind her: “Trust in yourself and you can achieve anything.” She turns to see a girl her age hold a Lisa Lionheart doll in her hand and smile.

Written by Lady T as part of our theme week on Child and Teenage Girl Protagonists.

Lisa Simpson, influential eight-year-old
Lisa Simpson, influential eight-year-old

The Simpsons, now in its record-breaking 25th season, is one of the most influential comedies of our time with its excellent pop culture parodies, whip-smart writing, and brilliant satire on American culture. But the show is influential in other ways. Lisa Simpson, permanent eight-year-old and the emotional heart of The Simpsons, is an excellent role model for young girls. Here are a few lessons she’s taught me over the years.

“Trust in yourself and you can achieve anything.”  This is the stated message of “Lisa vs. Malibu Stacy,” the famous episode where Lisa takes a stand against the sexism spouting from the mouth of the new talking Malibu Stacy doll. Frustrated with the doll’s collection of sexist catchphrases that include “Let’s bake some cookies for the boys,” “Thinking too much gives you wrinkles,” and “My name’s Stacy, but you can call me *wolf whistle*,” Lisa collaborates with the creator of Malibu Stacy to create their own talking doll, Lisa Lionheart. When Malibu Stacy outsells Lisa Lionheart, our creator feels temporarily dejected, until she hears her own voice speaking behind her: “Trust in yourself and you can achieve anything.” She turns to see a girl her age hold a Lisa Lionheart doll in her hand and smile.

Lisa realizes that, despite the seemingly impossible task of standing up to big businesses, she’s made a big difference in the life of one person, and all of her efforts were worth it after all. And, not for nothing, she co-created a toy at the age of eight.

Lisa's rant against Malibu Stacy
Lisa’s rant against Malibu Stacy

“It’s okay to be sad.” “Moaning Lisa,” one of the earliest episodes of The Simpsons, is surprisingly dark for an animated sitcom. Lisa spends most of the episode in a depressive state. She feels sad and no one knows how to deal with it. Her teachers mock her sadness or brush it off. Her brother, being ten and pretty selfish, doesn’t want to deal with it. Her well-meaning but confused parents tell her to cheer up or repress her sadness so that she can fit in.

Lisa doesn’t start to feel better until she meets a jazz musician named Bleeding Gums Murphy. Finally, she has an outlet for her sadness and someone she can relate to. But it isn’t until Marge, in a burst of passion, tells Lisa that she can be sad as she wants to be, and doesn’t ever have to smile for the sake of another person, that Lisa finally feels happier and has a genuine smile on her face.

The lesson here? It’s okay to be sad sometimes, and girls shouldn’t have to paste fake smiles on their faces. The simple message that people are entitled to their emotions is a powerful one that I’m glad I saw at such a young age.

Lisa meets Bleeding Gums Murphy
Lisa meets Bleeding Gums Murphy

“Stand up for what you believe in, but respect others’ beliefs as well.”  Lisa, like many a young activist, is passionate about many different causes. She’s a feminist, an environmentalist, and a vegetarian, and nothing invokes her ire more than social injustice or lies. Most of the time, she is right to fight for her causes, and is often the only person to stand up for what’s right.

Every once in a while, though, Lisa becomes a bit shortsighted and forgets that everyone around her doesn’t see the world the same way she does. She ruins her father’s barbecue because she doesn’t approve of his eating meat, but she gets a wake-up call when Apu, a vegan, advises her to “live and let live.” Lisa learns an important lesson about tolerance while still remaining true to her beliefs.

Lisa feels moral qualms about eating meat
Lisa feels moral qualms about eating meat

“There’s no shame in being second.” Because she doesn’t have many friends, Lisa absorbs herself in her music and her academia. She becomes immediately threatened when a new girl shows up in her second-grade class and is a better student and better jazz musician. Lisa becomes jealous to the point where she collaborates with Bart to ruin Alison’s diorama in the school’s Diorama-Rama, admitting to her actions only when the guilt tortures her–and then they both lose to Ralph Wiggum.

At the end of the episode, Lisa finally learns that being “second” to Alison is nothing to be ashamed about. Having overcome her jealousy of Alison, she extends a hand of friendship instead–because why be jealous when you’ve finally found a person your age who shares your passions and interests?

Lisa and her rival, Alison
Lisa and her rival, Alison

“Follow your passions, even when you experience setbacks.”  One of my favorite episodes of The Simpsons is season three’s “Separate Vocations,” an experiment in role-reversal. After hearing their results from a national standardized test about career aptitude, Bart becomes interested in police work and becomes the school’s tyrannical hall monitor. Lisa, meanwhile, discouraged by her test results and stubby fingers, quits the jazz band, stops playing saxophone, and acts out in class. She even pulls off one of the biggest pranks in school history and steals all of the teacher’s edition textbooks from the school classrooms.

When it seems like she’s going to get caught, Bart, in a rare display of brotherly loyalty, tells Principal Skinner that he’s the culprit. Later, he tells Lisa why he took the fall for her: “I didn’t want you to wreck your life. You got the brains and the talent to go as far as you want. And when you do, I’ll be right there to borrow money.” He takes his punishment–600 days of detention–and Lisa plays her saxophone outside to keep him company, enjoying music again.

With the help of her brother, Lisa realizes that the results of a standardized test don’t matter in the great scheme of things. She has ambition, talent, intelligence, and passion, and she’s going to go far in life as long as she keeps trying.

Lisa becomes a rebel
Lisa becomes a rebel

“Have fun and be silly.”  If all Lisa Simpson did was moralize about the world and fight for causes she believes in, she’d be a pretty admirable but rather boring character, but fortunately, the show rarely forgets that she’s still a kid and wants to act like one. She watches Krusty the Klown and Itchy and Scratchy with Bart and laughs just as hard at the cartoon violence. She fantasizes about boys named Cory and reads Non-Threatening Boys Magazine. She has sleepovers and reads The Baby-sitter Twins, and even though she’s concerned about the media portrayal of women and girls, she indulges in a princess fantasy from time to time and twirls around in fairy skirts. She’s not the most fun-loving character on The Simpsons, but at her core, she’s still an eight-year-old girl, and a fully realized human character, despite being a cartoon.

Lisa and Bart, horrified to hear they won't be going to Itchy and Scratchy Land
Lisa and Bart, horrified to hear they won’t be going to Itchy and Scratchy Land

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Lady T is a feminist blogger, sketch comedy writer/performer, and author of Fanged, a young adult novel available for purchase today.

How Love Triangles Perpetuate Misogyny

Romance, lust, and dramatic intrigue are the antidote to our anxiety that we are just boringly adequate enough to make it through everyday life. The best part is that we can deny any accusations of shallowness or narcissism because at the end of the day, we don’t have to take responsibility for the actions of fictional characters. It’s a win-win!

Love-Triangle-crp

Written by Erin Tatum.

If it’s true that people watch television and film to escape reality, show runners and writers have to know how to fulfill viewers’ fantasies. Why do you think they cast hot 25-year-olds as high schoolers? No one wants to remember their acne-induced social awkwardness or that time they got dumped the day before prom. The vast majority of viewers want to watch characters who are sexy, smart, and successful. In short, most of us want to be the most desirable person in the room or to be charismatic enough to possess the most desirable person in the room. Romance, lust, and dramatic intrigue are the antidote to our anxiety that we are just boringly adequate enough to make it through everyday life. The best part is that we can deny any accusations of shallowness or narcissism because at the end of the day, we don’t have to take responsibility for the actions of fictional characters. It’s a win-win!

The perpetual Will They Won't They between Ross and Rachel was dragged out for a decade - yawn.
The perpetual Will They Or Won’t They between Ross and Rachel was dragged out for a decade–yawn.

Writers have long capitalized on this escapist craving–and perhaps taken advantage of it to supplement their own lack of originality on occasion–to create hundreds of romances. However, once you make the fateful decision to break the sexual tension, popular belief dictates that happy couples stagnate and just don’t make for great entertainment after a while. You need to up the ante to keep things exciting. Luckily, you have one of the oldest tropes in the book at your disposal: the love triangle! Having two people crushing on a character totally highlights the informed awesomeness of the middle spoke and if you’re thrifty, you might even be able to use it to bypass pesky things like character development and individual growth for any of and up to all three of the spokes.

Coincidentally enough, love triangles tend to reinforce misogyny and uphold masculinity no matter their configuration (shocker). Listed below are some of the more recent love triangle configurations I’ve seen (with the shared love object in the middle) and the examples of them. Believe me, it’s far too many. Their implications predictably reinforce gendered hierarchies.

The Ashley-Craig-Manny love triangle went on for several seasons of Degrassi.
The Ashley-Craig-Manny love triangle went on for several seasons of Degrassi.

Woman/man/woman (everything ever, but most prominent in media marketed to teens)–two women compete for the attention of a man who often has no discernible personality traits. As we all know, masculine validation must be the keystone of a woman’s existence. If there’s anything we want to drill into young girls’ heads early, it’s that they need a man to assert their worth and social presence. Expect catfights and slut shaming. The phrase “You’re not like other girls” will be uttered at some point because the most romantic way to a girl’s heart is to tell her that her entire gender is largely off-putting and irritating. It’s okay though, since the guy is kind and generous enough to find the chosen girl mildly tolerable! Swoon.

Damon, Elena, and Stefan on The Vampire Diaries.
Damon, Elena, and Stefan on The Vampire Diaries.

Man/woman/man (Twilight, The Mortal Instruments, Twisted, The Vampire Diaries, True Blood, The Hunger Games, the list goes on)–ah, the “faux feminist” love triangle. Putting a lady in the center means that she calls the shots, right? Let those men fight it out for once. In theory, this configuration feels progressive. Women don’t have to tear each other down to win a man’s approval. Female agency can finally come into play. In reality, it’s about as liberating for female characters as choosing between folding laundry or making a sandwich. Masculine ideologies of possessiveness still dominate the scenario. The guys are hellbent on proving their manhood to each other, but usually don’t seem to care what the girl thinks. She’s preemptively demonized for rejecting whoever she doesn’t pick, while viewers venerate the shunned boy as a tragic nice guy undeserving of her conniving ways. Break out your Fedora–the accusations of friendzoning fly all over the place. Funny how a guy’s decision is respected and unquestioned but a girl becomes cold and callous in the same situation. The girl is set up for failure because the only right choice she can make is not to have one. That’s how we got Twilight.

Interestingly, the cast and crew of The Hunger Games have consistently resisted the media’s attempts to pigeonhole the franchise as romantically driven, arguing instead that the core theme of the films revolves around Katniss’ love for her family and her ability to inspire people. Media, take notes.

Ashley (right) finds herself torn over her feelings for both Aiden and Spencer (left) on South of Nowhere.
Ashley (right) finds herself torn over her feelings for both Aiden and Spencer (left) on South of Nowhere.

Woman/woman/man (Bomb Girls, Lost Girl, Glee, South of Nowhere, Skins ambiguously)–rather than handle queer desire tactfully, writers will often kill two birds with one stone and make both the contested woman and the side spoke female suitor look like terrible people. Double-bladed misogyny that transcends sexuality, yay! If the contested lady is queer, expect a lot of lecturing from both sides about how she needs to “grow out of her phase” of deluding herself into thinking she likes the other gender. This is particularly characteristic of the male suitor since he can’t fathom how bisexuality can exist outside of a performance for the male gaze. The queer lady suitor is portrayed as petulantly possessive or aggressive, whether or not she’s closeted. Alternatively, if it’s a case of incompatible orientation or denialism, you’ll likely see some variation of the butch savior, hopelessly yoked to an unrequited crush and yet still willing to sacrifice everything for a girl who could never love her back. Viewers perceive the woman caught in the middle as uncaring or just plain stupid in her shame or obliviousness. The butch savior is equally dehumanized as a deviant martyr.

Bo (center) with Dyson and Lauren on Lost Girl.
Bo (center) with Dyson and Lauren on Lost Girl.

To Lost Girl’s credit, Dyson views Lauren as a legitimate romantic rival for Bo, but masculine supremacy is implied in other subtle ways. Given that Bo is a succubus, she needs a constant supply of sex to keep herself strong, which Dyson (a werewolf) is better able to provide then Lauren (a human). Bo and Lauren’s relationship winds up dissolving simply because Lauren cannot keep up with Bo’s sexual appetites and Bo is literally killing herself trying to remain monogamous. Sure, the writers have a supernatural rationale behind the breakup, but it’s still uncomfortably analogous to both the promiscuous bisexual trope and the idea that queer women can’t have truly satisfying sex unless a penis is involved.

(on Glee) Remember when Mercedes had that cringe-worthy crush on Kurt?
(On Glee) Remember when Mercedes had that cringe-worthy crush on Kurt?

Man/man/woman (most depictions of relationships between a straight woman and a gay man)–The only reason I am excluding bisexual man is because I have yet to see a genuine love triangle with a queer man at the center. The stereotypical desperate hag develops a pathetic crush on her gay friend and spends an episode or two being overly clingy and an effort to convince herself that they might be in a relationship one day. Hell, this is essentially the entire premise of Will and Grace. The woman might be territorial and try to stop guys from hitting on her friend. If he has a boyfriend, the couple will either act annoyed or be completely clueless. We are meant to see the woman’s feelings as sad and embarrassing and take the pointless crush that she has gone too long without a real love interest. It’s not even a love triangle really, it’s just another excuse to make fun of women and trivialize and shame them for their emotions.

Why are love triangles used so frequently? They’re empty plot devices that do little to nothing for character development and in fact can drive the audience to hate the characters involved by bringing out all of their most unflattering and indecisive qualities. Triangles may create titillating drama, but it can’t be that difficult to let characters stand on their own two feet individually or show already existing couples facing normal hurdles or, I don’t know, actually being content.

When women get the short end of the stick in love triangles, it perpetuates the belief that women can only be supplementary players in society and can never really be their own person. Women do not exist as a confirmation of masculine control. Women should not be expected to buoy everyone else’s confidence in their gender roles. Love geometry tries to work out the fear of female autonomy. Rather than subjugating women’s emotion to shore up manhood, triangles should explore everyone’s capacity for caring beyond gendered competition. Misogyny should not be the glue that holds supposedly epic romance together at its inception. When all is said and done, perhaps the ladies should simply choose themselves.

Was ‘Jem & the Holograms’ a Good Show for Little Girls?

Jem Coloring Book

As a little girl growing up in the 80s, I loved the show Jem & the Holograms. I confess that I still have a bunch of the songs from the show that I listen to from time to time (occasionally subjecting my spin class attendees to a Jem track on my workout playlists). Looking back now as an adult feminist, I’ve wondered how the show influenced me and whether or not that influence was a positive thing. *I did a similar assessment of another of my much-loved 80’s cartoons called: She-Ra Kinda Sorta Accidentally Feministy.*

There are a few potential not-necessarily-empowering aspects of Jem. Firstly, the show is fashion-obsessed and revolves around the characters’ fashionability. Unlike most cartoons where the characters mostly wear the same outfit in every episode, the thin female bodies of Jem‘s characters are adorned in multiple wardrobe changes often within a single 20-minute episode. Fashion and modeling, we know, are traditionally coded as female. The fashion world is extremely hard on women, placing undue emphasis on their bodies, especially on the thinness of those bodies. The drummer (and Black bandmate) Shana, however, designs clothing, so there is an aspect of fun creative expression at play here. Not only that, but the band Jem & the Holograms gets into the world of fashion and music in order to maintain the foster home for young girls that they run.

Starlight Girls

In this light, being on the cutting-edge of fashion, making money, being famous, and maintaining their record label (Starlight Music) is all a means to a philanthropic ends. The band often performs benefit concerts, singing many songs that deliver a positive message about fair play, hard work, creativity, education, and friendship to its young, predominately female audience. Jerrica Benton (Jem’s alter ego) must become a savvy business woman in the advent of her father’s death in order to run her inherited huge record label while living with her beloved foster girls, trying to give them good, happy lives. Jerrica and her friends are capable, ambitious women who thrive in the business world and do so for noble reasons. That type of female representation is all too rare in any pop culture medium, and it definitely had a positive effect on my impressionable younger self.

Another aspect of the show that could be a negative for little girls was all the female rivalry. The primary focus of the show was the often high-stakes band rivalry between Jem & the Holograms and their nemeses (another all-female band), The Misfits.

Misfits Close-up
The Misfits: Roxy, Pizzazz, & Stormer

The Misfits were mean, reckless, and ruthless in their pursuit to beat Jem at everything. They’d lie, cheat, commit crimes and sabotage, and endanger the lives of Jem and her bandmates in order to win at any cost. They even had a song called “Winning is Everything.” True story.

[youtube_sc url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMlneySmI3g”]

Though Jem passes the Bechdel Test with flying colors, this dangerous female rivalry is troubling, reinforcing mainstream media’s insistence that women can’t be friends; they must, instead, compete for resources, men, and general approval. Instead of the bands being able to cooperate and collaborate, they are mostly at each other’s throats (with The Misfits, of course, being the instigators). The upside of this rivalry is that the major players are all women. The characters with all the talent, power, and agency are women. The epitome of this is the all-powerful matriarchal figure of Synergy. She’s a basically sentient hologram generating computer system. She gets Jem and her crew out of countless jams, operates as home base for their operations, and acts as a concerned, maternal mentor for them. Though Synergy is a computer system, she has awesome power and Jerrica/Jem often goes to her for counsel.

Synergy to Jem
“Synergy, create a hologram of Jem.”

Not only that, but even the cruel Misfits are given depth over time. My favorite character (on whom I had a serious girl-crush) was Stormer, the blue-haired Misfit who was a bad girl with a heart of gold. When her bandmates crossed the line, she would always undermine their machinations in order to do the right thing, often saving the day. We also learn that Pizazz, the ringleader and front woman for the band, struggles with her former identity as: Phyllis, a rich girl with a neglectful father whose approval and attentiveness she could never garner. Despite the contentiousness of the rival bands’ relations, the fact that women are the primary actors and reactors gives the show a variety of female perspectives and permutations, which is what’s so often lacking in current female representations in film and on TV.

My beloved Stormer storms off.
My beloved Stormer storms off.

In fact, there are hardly any male characters in the show at all. There are only two to speak of: Jem/Jerrica’s love interest and road manager, Rio Pacheco, and The Misfits’ slimy band manager, Eric Raymond. Later the lead singer of The Stingers, Riot, enters the scene with his ridiculous hair and obsession with Jem. These male characters’ relevance and even usefulness was often in question. Eric was incompetent at all of his scheming in a distinctly Road Runner style. Jem/Jerrica couldn’t even confide her secrets in Rio, and he was often left waiting in the dark for situational resolutions. I often questioned how healthy for young girls the representation of the love triangle involving Rio, Jem, and Jerrica was. It was bizarre that Jem was Jerrica, so Rio was essentially cheating on his girlfriend…with his girlfriend. There was even an episode where Jerrica gets tired of being herself and her Jem personae, so she dons a hologram of a completely new appearance. Rio falls in love with her, too, and they share a kiss. Though the inherent deception on all sides of the relationship is not good role modeling, maybe it’s important that Rio loves Jerrica no matter what physical form she takes on.

I am in love with this Rio & Jem cosplay duo.
I am in love with this Rio & Jem cosplay duo.

The band itself, Jem & the Holograms, was also surprisingly racially diverse. The drummer, Shana, was Black, and the lead guitarist, Aja, was Asian. They later added a new drummer, Raya, who was Latina, when Shana took up bass guitar. Though the front woman for the band (who couldn’t actually play an instrument) remained a white woman, with the addition of Raya, there were actually more women of color in the band than white women. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen that kind of ratio on a TV show that wasn’t specifically targeted at people of color.

Jem and all the Holograms
Jem, Kimber, Aja, Raya, & Shana

Though the show’s focus on romantic love, fashion, and female rivalry are of dubious value, there are definitely a lot of good things going on with Jem & the Holograms: the notion that fame and fortune should be used for philanthropic means, that female friendships can be strong and form an important network of support, that a sense of community is crucial, especially that of an older generation of women actively participating in that of teenage girls, that the arts should be respected and fostered, and that the virtues women should value in themselves should include honesty, compassion, fairness, determination, and kindness. Maybe I’m biased because I always thought the show was “truly outrageous,” but the good seems to outweigh the bad, giving us a series about women that tried to teach little girls how to grow up to be strong, ethical, and believe in themselves.

‘Elementary’s Joan: My Favorite Watson

Anglophilia also contributed to BBC Sherlock fans rejecting Elementary, but Anglophilia all too often functions as a flimsy cover for flat-out racism. … Because they can hide it behind hipster “I liked this centuries-old character first” and the “Keep Calm and Fetishize Your Former Colonial Oppressors” vogue. And because racist people are often not particularly concerned with how racist they are. Especially with sexism along for a kyriarchical yhatzee!

watson
Lucy Liu as Elementary‘s Joan Watson

Written by Robin Hitchcock

Having recently written about my new TV crush Abbie Mills, I feel compelled to sing the praises of another woman of color making television a better place: Lucy Liu as Joan Watson on Elementary.

I, like a lot of television viewers, felt predisposed to dismiss the CBS series as a too-soon, too-similar knockoff of the BBC’s Sherlock. I thought setting it in New York City and casting Lucy Liu as Joan Watson were superficial moves made to solely differentiate the Modern Sherlock TV Adaptations beyond “one came second.”

So when it debuted last year, I wrongly dismissed Elementary. But indifference was not enough for a lot of television fans. The cool kids who are 100 percent fine with 79,481 adaptations featuring the public domain characters Sherlock and Watson, but HOW DARE THOSE SELLOUT HOLLYWOOD BASTARDS MAKE A 79,482nd?

Anglophilia also contributed to BBC Sherlock fans rejecting Elementary, but Anglophilia all too often functions as a flimsy cover for flat-out racism. My Bitch Flicks colleague Janyce Denise Glasper mentioned viewers “boycotting Elementary due to Liu’s Asian background” in a great piece on the actress’s versatility last spring, and I balked, “how can they be so unapologetically racist?”

Racist reaction on BuzzFeed to Liu's casting
Racist reaction on BuzzFeed to Liu’s casting

Because they can hide it behind hipster “I liked this centuries-old character first” and the “Keep Calm and Fetishize Your Former Colonial Oppressors” vogue. And because racist people are often not particularly concerned with how racist they are. Especially with sexism along for a kyriarchical yhatzee!

Top: Pinterest pin Bottom: The Great Mouse Detective's Dr. Dawson
Top: Pinterest pin
Bottom: The Great Mouse Detective‘s Dr. Dawson

With that sooooo-2012 background established for behind-the-times people like myself, let’s move on to the important issue: Joan Watson is THE BEST.

I almost wrote, THE BEST WATSON EVER, but I would have to watch and read several thousand more adaptations before I could state that with any statistical confidence. So I’ll just hyperbolically say, as my brain does when I am watching Elementary, that she is The Best.

Joan started off on different footing than many other versions of Watson not only because of her sex and race. One of the most compelling particularities of Elementary as an adaptation is that is centers Holmes’s drug addiction; with Jonny Lee Miller’s Sherlock fresh out of a sixth-month rehab stint at the start of the series, and Liu’s Watson having just signed on as his sober living companion, a career she transitioned into after accidentally causing the death of one of her surgical patients. This initial role gave Watson a real reason for being there, and for putting up with Sherlock’s nonsense, as their relationship formed. Which not only put some slack back into the audience’s suspension of disbelief, but presented an entirely different status balance between this Holmes and Watson, one that is frankly less creepy to watch (particularly with a woman in the role). It also fits perfectly with the compassionate nature essential to Watson’s character, regardless of sex.

Lucy Liu and Jonny Lee Miller
Lucy Liu and Jonny Lee Miller

But even with a plausible justification for her patience, Watson must still be a master of exasperation, given Sherlock Holmes is one of the all-time annoying weirdos of the literary canon. Good thing Lucy Liu can write a sonnet of frustration with an eye roll and create a symphony of had-enough with the angry clomps of her chic boots storming up the stairs to her room.

After Joan’s tenure as Sherlock’s sober companion ends, she chooses to continue doing detective work with him instead of moving on to her next client. The plot required Watson to stick around for more than a few months, but instead of accomplishing that with some glossed-over contrivance, Joan’s personal satisfaction with her shifting career paths became a major story arc in the first season. We even see her friends and family weigh in out of concern while ultimately respecting her decisions about her own life! I literally got misty-eyed when Joan changed her television-equivalent-of-Facebook work status to “consulting detective.”

Joan's career change
Joan’s career change

While watching Joan’s relationship with Sherlock transition from guardianship to partnership has been a pleasure, it was only through the depiction of Joan herself changing. She got to be a real character instead of a sidekick. That’s more than you can hope for for a lot of female co-leads of a TV series, much less a woman of color cast in a traditionally white male role.