Tag: TV Drama

The CW: Expectations vs. Reality

The CW is a rarity among the many networks of cable television. Its target demographic is women aged 18-34, and as a result has a majority of its original programming centered on the lives of young women. On paper, this sounds like a noteworthy achievement to be celebrated. However, the CW produces content devoid of any sense of the reality of its young audience, and as a result actually harms its most devoted viewers. The CW creates an unattainable archetype for what a teenager should look like and fails to maturely handle issues of murder and rape.

This guest post by Nicole Elwell appears as part of our theme week on Child and Teenage Girl Protagonists.

The CW is a rarity among the many networks of cable television. Its target demographic is women aged 18-34, and as a result has a majority of its original programming centered on the lives of young women. On paper, this sounds like a noteworthy achievement to be celebrated. However, the CW produces content devoid of any sense of the reality of its young audience, and as a result actually harms its most devoted viewers. The CW creates an unattainable archetype for what a teenager should look like and fails to maturely handle issues of murder and rape.

Despite the assertion that the CW’s programming is for adults aged 18-34, one look into the fervent fan bases of shows such as The Vampire Diaries suggests that audiences can be much younger.

Vampire Diaries fan base
The Vampire Diaries fan base

 

This makes sense when considering that the majority of the CW’s most popular programs are about teenagers. Because of this, it can be assumed that the basic plotlines of the CW’s best performing programs reflect what the network believes young women desire in a television show. IMDb describes The Vampire Diaries’ plot as “a high school girl is torn between two vampire brothers.” Newcomer Reign is gifted with the lengthy description: “chronicles the rise to power of Mary Queen of Scots when she arrives in France as a 15-year-old, betrothed to Prince Francis, and with her three best friends as ladies-in-waiting. It details the secret history of survival at French Court amidst fierce foes, dark forces, and a world of sexual intrigue.”

These simplistic plots offer a glimpse into the mindset of a network that claims to understand its audience: young women don’t want realism in their television but rather escapism into epic love triangles and even more love triangles amidst “dark forces.” Not to say that some young women don’t enjoy these themes (as is clear with the popularity of these shows), or that escapist television is wrong or harmful, but the CW has a habit of repeating its content due to popularity (perhaps the best example being the lovechildren of The Vampire Diaries, The Secret Circle and The Originals). When the same formula is used again and again, it becomes the norm and hurts both the audience and the network. Even the most far-fetching escapist stories need some base of reality in order to connect with a human audience, and the CW struggles with this. Because of its image to serve everyone’s inner teen, the CW’s content is also implicative of what teens actually want in their television. When looking at the basic plots of the CW’s programs, it can be established that female teen audiences want sensationalized love affairs and no substance.

The stereotyping of a young female audience isn’t even the CW’s biggest problem. The major problem is that the CW makes programs for a younger audience, but doesn’t understand the reality of their audience. According to the CW, an average teenage girl and boy should look something like this:

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After School Special

This is not a problem specific to The Vampire Diaries. Any CW program that centers on the lives of teenagers casts 20-something or even 30-something actors to portray those roles. This creates a ridiculously unattainable archetype for both male and female teenagers to strive for. The inevitable inability to achieve televised perfection has the potential to damage self-esteem, confidence, and feelings of self-worth.

The sexualization of the teenagers in CW programming is also potentially damaging to a teenage audience. Despite my many years of viewership to programs on the CW, I never fully realized the extent to which perceived teenagers are sexualized on the network’s numerous shows. The realization came with one of the more recent episodes of CW’s newcomer Reign, which was recently picked up for a full season. The specific episode “Left Behind” involved Mary Queen of Scots’ home at the French castle under siege by a vengeful Italian who lost his son by French hands. After numerous episodes of love-triangle development, I felt I was finally getting what I came for with Reign–political plot lines and development into Mary Queen of Scots political history. Instead, I came to the realization that Reign has no intention of making Mary Queen of Scots anything more than an object of sexual desire. The show doesn’t even consider Mary exploring her sexuality, but has only shown others desiring her, and this fact coincides with her physical appearance. An opening scene in “Left Behind” shows Mary, the current queen of France, the current prince of France, and the one-dimensional vengeful Italian explaining his reasoning behind overtaking the French castle in the absence of the French king. The dress that Mary wears in this scene and throughout most of the episode, pictured below, is her most revealing dress to date and its distraction completely undermines both Mary’s character and the performance from actress Adelaide Kane.

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This particular episode of Reign was also problematic because of its rape theme and the connection to Mary’s drastic wardrobe change. The sexualization of Mary and the threat of rape aren’t new to Reign, but it’s important to note the coincidence of Mary’s revealing dress and the presence of the one-dimensionally savage Italian army who attacks Mary and her friends with no motivation other than to be evil. When analyzing the implication of changing Mary’s wardrobe in this specific episode, it can be argued that “Left Behind” is supporting the claim that rape victims are in part responsible for their rapes because of the clothes they wear. Whether intended or not, these two aspects of Reign’s plot coming together is detrimental because it reduces Mary to a sexual object and wipes away the legitimate characteristics of intelligence and strength expressed in previous episodes. It is also suggestive of inaccurate and damaging misconceptions about rape.

The sexualiazation of female characters has become an expectation in nearly all CW programming. With a dominant female audience, this becomes a problem to younger viewers who see these unattainable bodies and sex-fueled plots become the norm. Shows like Reign and The Vampire Diaries have the gift of a strong female lead, but never use that gift to develop strong and meaningful plots around their characters. The CW uses teenagers as a focal point for so many of their shows, but continues to shy away from the reality of being a teenager and instead treats teenage characters like they’re adults. Themes of rape and murder are constantly one-episode plot devices and never feel significant to the characters or to the audience. The CW’s audience isn’t made up of teens alone, but those 18 and under who do commit hours to their programs are receiving damaging subliminal messages about body image and issues of rape and murder. The CW has come to expect the impossible from its male and female characters: all must have flawless beauty, an acceptance and forgiveness of murder, and emotional strength that stems from accepting a dire situation rather than fighting against it.  The audience who witnesses this same formula is expected to accept these terms as well. But it’s just not reality.

 

Nicole Elwell is a sophomore at the University of Baltimore, majoring in Psychology and minoring in Pop Culture. She hopes to bring psychology and feminism into a future career in writing for the movies.

 

The Relationships of ‘Veronica Mars’

It’s common wisdom that maintaining relationships requires constant work, but there’s often an assumption (in TV, movies, and real life) that this only applies to romantic relationships. Platonic relationships are rarely the focus of a story, and when a storyline deals with issues in these relationships, they’re often easily dealt with, and the friendship goes back to being simple. Exceptions to this are problems that are caused by romantic relationships. Veronica Mars is an exception to this; for its first two seasons, it depicts many platonic relationships, and explores the many issues involved in navigating them (some of these problems are related to romance, but many are not, showing platonic relationships have their own complexities, separate from romance).

This guest post by Sarah Stringer appears as part of our theme week on Child and Teenage Girl Protagonists.

The opening monologue of Veronica Mars makes it sound like this show is going to stick very closely to the trope of the jaded heroine, whose job has shown her so much lying and cheating that she’s closed off to the possibility of relationships. This idea is reinforced throughout the show, as various characters make jokes about Veronica’s cold cynicism. She’s snarky and sarcastic, and does have trouble getting close to people, largely because of all the trauma she went through before the beginning of the show.

Veronica with her trusted camera and jaded attitude
Veronica with her trusted camera and jaded attitude

 

However, Veronica Mars ends up subverting our expectations. Far from being a show about an aloof hero who can’t work with others, it ends up being largely about Veronica’s various relationships. It’s a running joke throughout the show that she’s constantly asking her friends for favours, but it’s also a running joke that people are constantly asking Veronica for favours, and the favours she asks for are usually to help her help others.

Her friends complain about constantly having to come to her aid, but they never refuse her requests, because they know the favours will be returned when they’re in need. This creates complications, as Veronica finds the line between relationships based on mutual usefulness and reciprocity, and relationships built on genuine caring and respect. As the first couple of seasons progress, she gets better at navigating the second kind of relationship, and mixing it with the first kind.

It’s common wisdom that maintaining relationships requires constant work, but there’s often an assumption (in TV, movies, and real life) that this only applies to romantic relationships. Platonic relationships are rarely the focus of a story, and when a storyline deals with issues in these relationships, they’re often easily dealt with, and the friendship goes back to being simple. Exceptions to this are problems that are caused by romantic relationships. Veronica Mars is an exception to this; for its first two seasons, it depicts many platonic relationships, and explores the many issues involved in navigating them (some of these problems are related to romance, but many are not, showing platonic relationships have their own complexities, separate from romance).

Veronica starts season one with no friends, but in the pilot episode, she befriends the new kid at school, Wallace Fennel. Her very first meeting with him involves her helping him out, by cutting him down from the flagpole where some bullies had duct taped him. She immediately lets him know that sitting with her won’t help his social standing, and he doesn’t need to be her friend just to reciprocate her gesture. He sits with her anyway, not because he feels like he owes her for the help, but because he likes her as a person.

Veronica cutting Wallace down
Veronica cutting Wallace down

 

Wallace and Veronica become best friends, and they’re a rare example of a show seriously dealing with the complexities of platonic relationships. As Wallace spends more time at the school, he starts to befriend other students, and get quite popular as a result of being a star on the basketball team. This creates problems in his relationship with Veronica, as they both try to navigate the jealousy, resentment, and time conflicts that come from vastly different social statures.

Another issue in Veronica’s relationship with Wallace is the same issue that exists in all her relationships: the balance between genuine friendship and trading of favours. She often uses his job in the school’s office to get information for her cases, and he’s put himself at risk in that way and other ways to help her. He grants all her requests, sometimes with no knowledge of why he’s doing it (and no questions asked), but he knows her resources will be put to his use anytime he’s in trouble.

Sometimes the balance starts to tip too far, and Wallace feels like she’s taking him for granted. This comes to a head several times, especially when his mother gets in trouble at her job because of something Veronica had him do, without telling him how dangerous it could be. He calls her out several times when she starts neglecting her friendship with him, blowing him off to work on her cases and just using him for the assistance he offers. Veronica tries to make up for this by doing things like baking spirit cookies for his locker, telling him she may have no school spirit but he does, and what’s important to him is important to her.

Veronica and Wallace, figuring things out together
Veronica and Wallace, figuring things out together

 

The issue of one partner taking the other partner for granted is one that often comes up in relationships, and little gestures to show affection is a common (partial) solution to it. The depiction of this as a constant issue between two platonic partners is quite refreshing.

This dynamic is seen in several of Veronica’s other relationships, particular with Weevil, a local biker, and Mac, a computer nerd. She gets Weevil and Mac out of trouble when they need it, and they both help her out whenever they can. Working around the inherent potential for taking advantage of each other, as well as Veronica’s own cynicism, they forge genuine friendships that grow as much as any romantic relationship.

The show also devotes a lot of time to Veronica’s relationship with her father, Keith. She works for him at his private investigator practice, and there are times when it’s difficult for them to navigate the dual dynamics of father-daughter and detective-receptionist/junior detective. He wants to protect her, but also teach her, and he often needs her help. He wants to trust her, but there are times when she breaks that trust, and he has to decide how to deal with that as a father and as a boss.

Familial relationships aren’t rare in television or movies (though complex portrayals of them are still rarer than in-depth looks at romance), but they’re rarely dived into as deeply as with Veronica and her father. They joke together, work together, go through extremely difficult circumstances together, and work together to come back from the problems created when they both inevitably screw up.

Veronica and Keith
Veronica and Keith

 

Veronica Mars portrays all these relationships, and their various issues, without touching romance. That’s not even getting into the relationships Veronica forms with whatever classmate she’s trying to help that week, or with other characters like Meg (her romantic rival, but also far more than that) and her dead best friend, Lily. In a subversion of a heroine who’s closed off and can’t get close to people, Veronica Mars is essentially a show about relationships of all types, and it’s at its best when it’s focusing on those.

The show deteriorated for many reasons in season three, but in my opinion, the major reason was the increased focus on romantic drama, at the expense of the many platonic relationships it built up previously. Weevil and Wallace have significantly smaller roles. Keith and Mac are still important, but mostly because of their own storylines, and they do a lot less interacting with Veronica. When Mac does talk to Veronica, it’s mostly so they can discuss their romantic lives, rather than develop their relationship with each other.

Season three's Weevil, aka "Who the Hell Is This Guy, Again?"
Season three’s Weevil, aka “Who the Hell Is This Guy, Again?”

 

Romance certainly existed in the show before season three. Veronica had three boyfriends in two seasons, and those relationships were in no way simple or small parts of the story. But they were portrayed quite similarly to the platonic relationships: the focus was on human interactions, and two people figuring out how to fit their personalities together. They even shared the issues about genuine caring versus using each other; Veronica’s first boyfriend was a cop who she met because she was trying to sneak past him to steal evidence, and she spent the better part of the second season trying to get her next boyfriend off for murder.

However, in the third season, most of Veronica’s romantic issues were more superficial. Her and her on-and-off boyfriend Logan spent more moping about each other than actually figuring out how to be together (or not be together). There’s drama about who’s sleeping with who that leads to more fights than resolutions. The show seems to lose its focus, particularly since so many of Veronica’s platonic relationships are neglected.

There were things I liked about the third season of Veronica Mars, and I await the upcoming movie with as much bated breath as the next fan. But I hope the movie put the focus back where I think it belongs: on complex relationships of all kinds, rather than romantic drama.

 

See also at Bitch Flicks: “Why Veronica Mars is Still Awesome,” by Amanda Rodriguez

Sarah Stringer is a psychology student in Ontario, with an interest in the political aspects of pop culture.

 

In Praise of ‘The Fall’s Uber Cool Feminist Heroine: Gillian Anderson’s Stella Gibson

The Fall is one of 2013’s television success stories. The five-part BBC crime drama is a compelling, well-crafted production with a fine cast and a terrific lead performance by Gillian Anderson. Set in present-day Belfast–and also shot on location in the Northern Ireland capital–The Fall chronicles the police hunt for a serial killer of attractive, professional women in their thirties. It is created and written by Allan Cubitt–who scripted Prime Suspect 2 (1992, UK)–and directed by Jakob Verbruggen.

Detective Superintendent Stella Gibson (Gillian Anderson)
Detective Superintendent Stella Gibson (Gillian Anderson)

 

Written by Rachael Johnson

The Fall is one of 2013’s television success stories. The five-part BBC crime drama is a compelling, well-crafted production with a fine cast and a terrific lead performance by Gillian Anderson. Set in present-day Belfast–and also shot on location in the Northern Ireland capital–The Fall chronicles the police hunt for a serial killer of attractive, professional women in their thirties. It is created and written by Allan Cubitt–who scripted Prime Suspect 2 (1992, UK)–and directed by Jakob Verbruggen.

Anderson plays Detective Superintendent Stella Gibson, an Englishwoman called in from the London Metropolitan Police to review a high profile PSNI (Police Service of Northern Ireland) investigation into the murder of an architect. When another woman of similar looks and background is found murdered, Gibson takes charge of the investigation. The Fall is not a whodunit like Forbrydelsen (2007, DK) or The Killing. We know the identity of the murderer, a certain Paul Spector, from the very first episode. The viewer’s interest lies instead in studying the killer and watching Stella pursue the case.

Calm and Collected
Calm and collected

 

The serial killer’s personal and professional lives are “normal”: Spector is a young man in a caring profession with a hard-working wife and two small children. He is a bereavement counselor. She is a neonatal nurse. Capably played by Jamie Dornan, Spector is slender, good-looking and athletic. A good family man, he seems to have a loving relationship with his children. His sweet, sensitive daughter adores him. Spector’s wife, Sally Anne (Bronagh Waugh) does not know that she is sleeping with a killer of women. He does not reveal violent, misogynist tendencies in his family life. Nor does he show evidence of any psycho-sexual hang-ups in his marital relations. Returning home from violating the domestic space of a potential victim, he falls into bed and makes love with his wife. Possessing, it seems, a split personality, Spector leads two very different lives. At times, these lives are sustained simultaneously. In one unnerving scene, he stalks a potential victim in a park with his young daughter in tow. At first, Dornan’s Spector struck me as a little too normal to be credible but there is an intensity and arrogance to his character that suggests a darker side. There have been serial killers from very average backgrounds and the makers of The Fall consistently underline Spector’s chilling ordinariness in their observational study of the killer. The writer Allan Cubitt has created a man–not a monster.

A Desiring Woman
A desiring woman

 

As a writer of a series that introduced the world to Helen Mirren’s Detective Chief Inspector Jane Tennison, Allan Cubitt is, of course, well-acquainted with strong female characters. His Stella is a particularly striking, commanding protagonist. Clad in pencil skirts, silk blouses and stilettos, she cuts an elegant, glamorous figure. Amusingly, Stella’s silk shirts have become a fashion column and pop culture talking point in the UK. The character’s ultra-feminine looks, it must be said, aim to signify authority rather than slavishness to an ideal of femininity. Stella is self-governing and goal-oriented. The English outsider has, in fact, an almost patrician manner at times. Her leadership style cannot be characterized as either buddy-buddy or maternal. Stella is a cool rather than cold woman, however. This is apparent when we see her calmly help a male co-worker recover from a traumatic incident. We admire her poise and intelligence. Stella also shows interest in the lives of her female co-workers. Most importantly, she possesses a feminist consciousness: she exposes misogyny while combating male violence against women.

Murderer and Family Man, Paul Spector (Jamie Dornan)
Murderer and family man, Paul Spector (Jamie Dornan)

 

Entirely at ease in her skin, Stella is, also, very much a sexual woman. One scene in particular stands out. Spotting a good-looking cop at a crime scene, Stella asks her female companion, police constable Danielle Ferrington (Niamh McGrady) to introduce her to him. When he asks her how long the review will take, Stella tells him point-blank: “I’m staying at the Hilton. Room 203.” It is an impressive, amusing display of female sexual sway. They enjoy their night together but when he makes the mistake of texting a sexy selfie the day after, Stella breaks off contact. She has no interest in pursuing a relationship. Stella is also unafraid of exposing sexual double standards. The one night stand becomes a potentially compromising issue for her male co-workers as the plot develops. Stella, however, detects the underlying reasons for their unease. She puts them in the picture: “That’s what really bothers you, isn’t it? The one night stand. Man fucks woman. Subject man, verb fucks, object woman. That’s ok. Woman fucks man, woman subject, man object. That’s not so comfortable for you, is it?”

Police Constable Danielle Ferrington (Niamh McGrady)
Police Constable Danielle Ferrington (Niamh McGrady)

 

Stella is a rational, self-directed, sexual woman. What is unfortunate is that this particular combination of characteristics in a female protagonist is still rare in mainstream film and television. Unusually, the makers of The Fall have not given Stella a troubled back story or a comforting vulnerable side. She does not appear to be haunted by her past and there is no evidence of alcoholism or other psychological problems. Happily, the script does not seem to support the outdated, bogus belief that successful, professional women can only attain real happiness by marrying and having children. Stella does not seem to be mourning a lost love. Nor does she seem to ache for a child. These tendencies, it must be said, invariably surface in Hollywood and mainstream US television’s characterizations of strong women and it is commendable that The Fall does not take that route.

Stella Takes Charge
Stella takes charge

 

The Fall could be said to exhibit strong feminist principles. Of course, makers of serial killer dramas risk aestheticizing sexualised violence against women. Although they arguably represent an attempt to get into the mindset of the killer, some may find The Fall’s scenes of voyeurism and violence as suspect as those in more plainly exploitative productions. The Fall is, however, manifestly feminist in its refusal to portray Spector as a monstrous other and in its remarkable characterization of its heroine. It is also evident in the direct way it tackles the issue of victim-blaming. In a conversation with Jim Burns, the Assistant Chief Constable of the PSNI (John Lynch), Stella questions the use of the word ‘innocent’ in describing the killer’s victims:”‘Let’s not refer to them as innocent…What if he kills a prostitute next or a woman walking home drunk, late at night, in a short skirt? Will they be in some way less innocent, therefore less deserving? Culpable? The media loves to divide women into virgins and vamps, angels or whores. Let’s not encourage them.” There are other independent, resourceful women in The Fall and other instances of female solidarity. Stella has a good rapport with pathologist, Paula Reed Smith (played by Archie Panjabi) as well as PC Danielle. We see the latter stung with guilt that she was not able to save a potential victim. Danielle’s sisterly camaraderie even extends to removing the tell-tale signs of Stella’s one-night stand on an errand to her hotel room.

Stella with Pathologist Paula Reed Smith (Archie Panjabi)
Stella with pathologist Paula Reed Smith (Archie Panjabi)

 

The Fall is not without derivative elements and devices but it is a stylish and quite gritty series. A deeply engrossing thriller, it unsettles, frightens and moves its audience. The Fall’s setting is also interesting. Belfast provides a somewhat tense, moody backdrop. Sectarian conflict is not a distant memory and politics shapes everyday lives. While we may ask whether The Fall provides a particularly pioneering or remarkable study of male violence, it is admirable that its creators are not afraid to emphasize the killer’s normality and masculinity. Most importantly, The Fall has given us a new, über cool feminist heroine. The good news is that there will be another season.

Is Marvel’s ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D’ Promising?

Two out of the three female characters are women of color: Melinda May played by Ming-Na Wen and Skye played by Chloe Bennet. They’re both of Asian descent, which leaves me wishing there were also prominent Black and Latino characters, but maybe more will be introduced over time. I’ve got to say that the Asian hacker and the Asian martial arts expert are pretty stereotyped roles, but I’m living on faith in Joss that he’ll flesh those characters out in a way that takes them beyond their trite origins into fully rounded characters to whom we’re heartbreakingly attached.

Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D Poster

Written by Amanda Rodriguez

Wow, the title of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D is a mouthful. It doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. That said, I’m a huge fan of Joss Whedon. I should clarify, though. I loved Joss Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly, Serenity, Much Ado About Nothing, and The Cabin in the Woods. I did not love Dollhouse OR The Avengers. My critique of Dollhouse was that it really underplayed the slavery and prostitution implications of the “dolls” who must do whatever they are commanded to do, never truly acknowledging that the Dollhouse was, in reality, a very high-priced brothel of sorts. As far as The Avengers go, frankly, I was just disappointed. It was better than, say, Thor, but that’s setting the bar a whole lot lower than I tend to expect from the smart, feminist, socially conscious Whedon. However, I’m always game and will always watch with an open mind a TV show with Whedon at the helm.

We’ve now got two episodes of the new Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D under our belts, so we have a bit of a base to gauge whether or not this show will be everything old-school Joss Whedon fans are looking for or if it’ll be superhero comic book fans’ hearts’ desires, or both (as the two are not necessarily mutually exclusive). As far as gender and diversity go, we’ve got three women and three men on the team (that’s right, Coulson is back), so there’s more of a balance than Whedon struck on his first go around in The Avengers with its lone female superhero, Black Widow.

His resurrection bears untold secrets that will doubtless unfold over time.

Two out of the three female characters are women of color: Melinda May played by Ming-Na Wen and Skye played by Chloe Bennet. They’re both of Asian descent, which leaves me wishing there were also prominent Black and Latino characters, but maybe more will be introduced over time. I’ve got to say that the Asian hacker and the Asian martial arts expert are pretty stereotyped roles, but I’m living on faith in Joss that he’ll flesh those characters out in a way that takes them beyond their trite origins into fully rounded characters to whom we’re heartbreakingly attached.

Melinda May is a veteran operative with a past to be reckoned with. Her asskickery is fluid and natural.

Melinda May getting it done.

Skye is a brilliant and gifted hacker who values information, truth, and humanity above all else. She’s also quick-witted and sharp-tongued.

Coulson and Agent Ward discover Skye broadcasting from her seemingly secret mobile base…the van out of which she lives.

Episode one was a little lackluster. With too much going on, too many characters being introduced, too many techno gadgets, too much CGI, and too many awkwardly placed Joss Whedon signature jokes,  I was left feeling the show was trying too hard, and I was longing for the character depth and subject matter substance that Joss tends towards. The episode’s final speech is delivered by Gunn, I mean J. August Richards playing, Mike, the artificially enhanced unemployed ex-factory worker, and it refocused the show into what is important:

“You said if we worked hard, if we did right, we’d have a place. You said it was enough to be a man, but there’s better than man—there’s gods. And the rest of us? What are we? They’re giants. We’re what they step on.”

Mike performing a rescue using superpowers borrowed from
alien technology that will most likely kill him.

This isn’t just a speech about superpowers. This is a speech about our society, about the lie of the American dream. It’s saying that it’s no longer enough to work hard and be a good person. It’s a critique of the disparity of wealth and power, of our healthcare system, and our employment system (as Mike was fired for a workman’s comp back injury, which led him to undergo such drastic experimentation). This is a speech about the 99%. Having a Black man deliver it makes it all the more potent, referencing the deeply embedded racism in our country that insists upon assimilation but offers little reward or acceptance. Bravo, Joss.

Pilot episodes are notorious for trying to cram too much into an hour, and the trajectory of shows often change after that pilot, once they get their bearings. So how did Episode two, “0-8-4”, fare? It’s still a bit too flashy and gimmicky with too many explosions and frenetic fight sequences, but I enjoyed the use of the fancy-pants, newly commissioned S.H.I.E.L.D plane that seems as if it may serve as home base for the group…not unlike a certain ship helmed by the indomitable Malcolm Reynolds.

S.H.I.E.L.D’s apolitical mission with its interest in artifacts amongst a guerrilla war-torn Peru create a nice tension between its objectives and Skye’s very political, underdog/rebel sympathizing tendencies.  I hope she will continue to put these missions in perspective, not allowing the group to forget the geopolitical ramifications of their actions as well as the history and context of the places in which they practice resource extraction.

Coulson and his former colleague/lover Camilla Reyes make a deadly team fighting off rebels in Peru.

Episode “0-8-4” is really about one thing, though: teamwork, a specialty of Joss Whedon’s. Kelly West of Television Blend even dubbed the episode “Smells Like Team Spirit”. Right you are, Ms. West. I easily grow bored of overwrought gun fights with CGI that just won’t quit. Don’t get me wrong, I love the action genre with kickass fight choreography and heart-pounding do-or-die situations where characters must make impossible choices, but it’s got to have a soul. The team-building aspect of this episode, while a bit cheesy, gave the characters time to bond and to reveal snip-its about themselves, which had a generally humanizing effect and gave the audience an opportunity to warm to them.

Am I sold on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D? Not yet. Do I think it has promise? Quite possibly. Will I keep watching? You bet your keister.

Bitch Flicks writer and editor 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.

‘Breaking Bad’: Postmodern Redemption and the Satisfying End of Desperate Masculinity

Because Jesse doesn’t fall into the same masculine megalomania that Walt does, he prevails. He suffers–god, does he suffer–but he is not sacrificed. He peels out of that Nazi compound in that old El Camino, tearing through the metal gates and sobbing and laughing his way away from his life as a prisoner of toxic masculinity–first Walt’s, then Jack and Todd’s.

Breaking Bad finale promo.



Written by Leigh Kolb

At the end of Breaking Bad, Walt slips away into death. Badfinger’s “Baby Blue” plays and the camera pulls up, as police are tentatively swarming his body. The lyrics mirror Walt’s love for his craft–for his “Baby Blue” that he has returned to–but the line, “Did you really think I’d do you wrong?” wasn’t from Walt’s point of view. Instead, Vince Gilligan was showing he’d fulfilled his promise to us, the viewers.
Ultimately, Gilligan did not do us wrong. Many critics were squirmy about how neat and tidy the end was, but it worked.

After “Ozymandias” aired, I was pleased and comfortable with my hatred for Walt. I was done. I would not be a “bad fan”–a “Todd.” In thinking about the father worship that surrounds Walt, I kept repeating, “Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I’m through.”

And then “Granite State” happened. I was pulled back in to Walt’s desperate humanity, and the pity and aching sympathy that I thought I’d banished came flooding back.

Dammit, good writing!

I didn’t know what to expect from the series finale. I refused to read any grandiose predictions. I’d heard that Gilligan was telling interviewers that the ending was “satisfying,” and that’s all I needed. My only wish was that Jesse wouldn’t die, but I was wide open for anything else.

Walt sets out to undo some of what he’s done.

As uncomfortable as I was with my quiet, uncontrollable root-for-Walt urges after “Granite State,” the finale, “Felina,” let me reconcile my disgust and my sympathy. To the outside world, Walt’s final acts were cruel, manipulative, and dangerous. He’s ensured that Flynn will get the remaining money (which Flynn doesn’t want) by, as far as Gretchen and Elliot know, holding them hostage and threatening their lives. He admits to Skyler that he’s done everything for himself. He poisons Lydia. He kills the Nazis and dies in a meth lab (by his “Precious,” Gilligan said). Willa Paskin writes at Slate, “Imagine the news story: ‘Druglord Heinsenberg found in Neo-Nazi compound: Dozens dead, booby-trapped car found on premises.’ Walt would have loved that.”

We can see all of that, but we are also focused in on Walt’s point of view throughout (a brilliant analysis on NPR describes how point of view and camera angles have encouraged us to root for Walt). We know that those hitmen were Badger and Skinny Pete with laser pointers. We know Walt saved Jesse. We know he hadn’t been cooking that meth.

Because we can clearly see Walt’s evil and his shreds of good, we are able to reconcile our feelings for him and his death feels right. He is redeemed as much as he can be in this postmodern antihero’s tale. He does not die a hero, but he dies doing what he thought needed to be done. His family is safe. Jesse is safe. At the end, they are safe in spite of and because of Walt. He did what he could to redeem himself–even if that redemption consisted of picking up and rearranging the garbage that he’d created.
Jesse is chained against his will.
In the end, I got to feel all the feelings about Walt: contempt, pity, and some kind of complicated, undying fatherly love (listen, it doesn’t help that my own father is a retired biology teacher, basically has the same wardrobe as Walter White–especially that khaki jacket–and loves Marty Robbins). Walt-as-hero wouldn’t have worked. Walt-as-pure evil wouldn’t have worked (for me). The complexity of the last three episodes takes us through an arc of emotions about our protagonist that we must work through.
There was something for all viewers (except for, perhaps, the Todd fans, who were probably drunk and confused and mad at Skyler for some reason).
Skyler, hearing Walt’s final words to her.
On a larger scale, I loved the ending because of the ultimate messages the show conveyed about masculinity.
From the very beginning, Walt’s journey was one of desperation–to provide for his family, to heal, to be the best, to be the king, to be violent, to run an empire. Walt wanted to be a fucking man. And for a long time, he embodied what it means to be a man in our culture. He’s violent, ruthless, proud, and never satisfied. He’s domineering and authoritative (or tries to be) at work and at home.
As a foil to Walt’s desperate and festering masculinity, Jesse has always been drawn as a sensitive, emotional, and compassionate man. His conscience guides him, and he avoids violence. He loves. He cries. His last name is Pinkman.
When the band of Neo-Nazis watch Jesse’s confession DVD, Uncle Jack says, “Does this pussy cry through the whole thing?”
Which of these characters possesses strong, masculine traits?
Which of these characters possesses weak, feminine traits?
If you ask the Todd fans and Skyler-haters, it’s always been pretty clear: #TeamWalt.
True aficionados, however, will realize that we are supposed to criticize this binary, and that pushing and prodding “strength” and masculinity into a narrowly defined, violent box will lead to failure. It will lead to death–literally and figuratively. Relationships and lives are ruined because building an empire for himself made Walt feel “alive.”
Jesse, however, is introspective and emotional. He is careful and gentle, and this is illustrated in the flashback to him as a younger, softer teenager in shop class lovingly crafting a wood box (he’d sell it for weed instead of giving it to his mother, but it brings to mind again Jesse-as-a-Christ-figure imagery).
Because Jesse doesn’t fall into the same masculine megalomania that Walt does, he prevails. He suffers–god, does he suffer–but he is not sacrificed. He peels out of that Nazi compound in that old El Camino, tearing through the metal gates and sobbing and laughing his way away from his life as a prisoner of toxic masculinity–first Walt’s, then Jack and Todd’s.
Jesse kills his captor, and releases himself from bondage.
Walt loses. Jesse wins. And while they ultimately weren’t pitted against one another (so many fans expected a final showdown), they nodded to one another, an understanding gesture that ended their relationship. They both know Walt is dying–Jesse sees the red blood stain bleeding into the sky blue lining of Walt’s jacket–and that Jesse is living.
This is the way it is supposed to end.
And while Walt’s machine-gun trick is pretty bad-ass, it’s destructive. It’s fleeting. Power and violence is not the answer. Our cultural definition of masculinity may be fun to watch or aspire to, but it’s not real. It doesn’t–it shouldn’t–win.
He doesn’t shoot Walt when he sees his side has already been punctured by a bullet. See above, in re: Jesse-as-Christ-figure.
In Marty Robbins’s “El Paso,” the singer is in love with “Felina.” In Breaking Bad, Walt’s Felina (or FeLiNa) isn’t a woman. It’s not his wife; it’s not his children. It’s his power and his money, the empire that he built with blue meth. The line “A bullet may find me” foreshadows what will happen to Walt. He has, purposefully or not, killed himself. His own gun, his own ricocheted bullet, did find him. At the end, his desperate need for power, to be a man, killed him–and so many others in his path.
“I did it for me,” Walt tells Skyler. “I liked it. I was good at it. And I was really–I was alive.” As he dies, Walt emotionally touches the tank in the lab, leaving a bloody handprint as he falls.
I realized that this ending is exactly what I wanted. And sometimes it’s good to get what we want–especially when it involves excellent storytelling, complicated characters, and criticism of our worship of American masculinity.
Jesse is free–feeling all the feelings, just like we are.
 

 

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Leigh Kolb is a composition, literature and journalism instructor at a community college in rural Missouri. She hopes that before she retires, “Breaking Bad as Literature” is standard college fare.

Father Worship and the ‘Bad Fans’ of ‘Breaking Bad’

Breaking Bad promo still.

Written by Leigh Kolb

Spoilers ahead (through “Ozymandias”)

“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone / Stand in the desert. … And on the pedestal these words appear: ‘My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings: / Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'”
In an analysis of the Sept. 15 episode of Breaking Bad (“Ozymandias”), Emily Nussbaum points out that she thinks Todd “looked very much like the prototypical Bad Fan of Breaking Bad: he arrived late in the story, and he saw Walt purely as a kick-ass genius, worthy of worship.” While his worship of Walt has been clear since Todd arrived on the scene, his continued worship of Walt is what makes him–and the “Bad Fans” he resembles–stand out. Ultimately, there is something fundamentally patriarchal about this kind of father worship, when we gravitate toward and are obsessed with the father figure.
After Sunday’s episode, critic Matt Zoller Seitz took to Twitter to observe
Todd and Bad Fans have that in common: they see Walt as a father figure, worthy of forgiveness and blind worship. He’s Walter White. He’s Heisenberg. He’s a bad-ass who really just has done everything for his (unappreciative!) family. 
Jesse, Todd and Walt.
Walt’s children–biological and surrogate–all represent the different types of Breaking Bad fans. 
Jesse: a lot of eye-rolling at the beginning, mistrusting yet comforted by Walt’s fatherly role, pulled in to Walt’s world fully, wracked with conflicting feelings, turns against Walt after he kills another father figure, Mike. Yet he is now, against his will, chained back into Walt’s world.  This fan didn’t ever really like Walt, but went through phases of loving him and wanting him to be the man she needed in her life. She is heartbroken, but is still stuck deep in the action. 

Todd: doting, dumb, reveres Walt. Ignores “dead kids.” See above, in re: the Bad Fan. This fan thinks everything that Walt does is for a good cause, or it’s someone else’s fault if bad things happen. This fan is almost definitely a terrible person. 

Walt, Jr. (who will probably go by Flynn forever now): shocked, desperately clinging to hope that everything will be fine, tries to blame Skyler, can’t believe that Walt could have committed those crimes–until Walt lashes out in front of him. Then Junior calls 911.  This fan thinks the best of Walt, even though she knows better. By the end of “Ozymandias,” however, she is done with Walt’s shit.  

Holly: clueless, confused, a pawn, terrified of Walt’s next move.  This fan needs someone to explain to her what happens after each episode. She feels emotionally manipulated.


Walt and his children, who we see suffer because of his actions.
These characters’ relationships with Walt highlight his devolution into something worse than Heisenberg. He lies, kills, plots against and kidnaps. He’s abusive. He’s consumed with his perceived power and greed. How we respond to him, though, is indicative of something larger in our society–a male-centric tendency to search for and cling to a father figure.
It’s not easy to hate a hero. The emotional response we have to characters tells us a great deal about ourselves, and I think for many of us, we watch Walt and want him to be someone he’s not, seeing glimmers of humanity in someone who is increasingly monstrous. Like Jesse, we know. We know how evil Walt is. But we can’t get away.
Jesse, held captive by Todd.
After “Ozymandias” aired (an episode which, by the way, is currently rated 10/10 by over 17,000 reviewers on IMDb), the Todds of the Internet scurried to Walt’s defense. Clearly, Walt is doing everything at this point to ensure that Skyler is seen as innocent, right? That phone call? 
When Walt calls Skyler, he rants at her, telling her she’s ungrateful, and always “whining and complaining,” “dragging” him “down.” He calls her a “stupid bitch” and hangs up on her. 
His entire monologue could have been lifted from the pages of reddit, or a Facebook page dedicated to hating Skyler White. (During the phone call, my husband smirked and said, “He’s basically saying everything that people say about Skyler–and he’s an abusive egomaniac,” pointing out the genius in such commentary.) 
Nussbaum says,

“But what was truly fascinating about that phone call was that if it was trolling the Bad Fan, it was also trolling me: the sort of feminist-minded sucker who took the speech at face value, for nearly an hour, until I suddenly realized, in a flash of clarity, that it was a fake-out for the police. (Skyler realized long before I did.)”

Zoller Seitz, however, thinks that Walt was acting on “impulse,” and that the phone call was “instinctive.” He asserts that Walt was “acting in tandem with Heisenberg” in this scene, doing something “chaotic and frightening, but ultimately good.” 
Walt, like Sisyphus (or a dung beetle), trying desperately to get somewhere. He’s almost pitiful again, like his underwear-clad beginnings. But he’s not.
There is clearly more at work here than Walt simply enacting a plan to exonerate Skyler or Walt just lashing out against his wife. Zoller Seitz’s multifaceted analysis of the scene is spot on, and doesn’t give Walt more credit than he deserves. (Zoller Seitz also used Twitter to take down the idea that Walt is some pure “badass genius antihero” who was just acting to protect Skyler.)
That reading–that Walt is some kind of benevolent dictator–inspires the #TeamWalt hashtag on Twitter. Walt’s motivations, intentions and actions are often unclear yet calculated. However, whenever we weigh his actions (that could keep his immediate family safe) against his words, we cannot be on #TeamWalt, hanging out with the fan-boy Todds. We can’t. 
At the beginning of “Ozymandias,” Walt orders the neo-Nazis to kill Jesse. Walt sees his life, doomed and destroyed. As they drag Jesse away, Walt growls, “Wait,” and says to him:

“I watched Jane die. I was there. And I watched her die. I watched her overdose and choke to death. I could have saved her. But I didn’t.” 

Our faces are pinched, our stomachs turn. We are horrified at Walt’s pride in this admission, and we remember that at that point in the series, we were probably still rooting for Walt. We are also disgusted with ourselves. The fact that we can see humanity in Walt isn’t wrong–that’s good writing. To stubbornly fixate on his heroism, though, is just being blind.
Breaking Bad: just like Twilight.

The look on Jesse’s face–broken and empty–reflects how we (should) feel. And just as his turmoil isn’t yet over, neither is ours. There are two more legs to the journey, two “legs of stone” to finish telling us the story of the fallen king and the decaying waste he’s left behind. If the season thus far has taught us to expect anything, it’s this: brilliant torture through perfect storytelling. We’re scared and in crisis over what to expect. We’re coming to terms with the fact that this father figure is not worthy of worship. The ride is almost over.

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Leigh Kolb is a composition, literature and journalism instructor at a community college in rural Missouri. She hopes that before she retires, “Breaking Bad as Literature” is standard college fare.

An Audience on the Edge: ‘Sons of Anarchy,’ Morality and Masculinity

Sons of Anarchy
 
 
Written by Leigh Kolb

In 15th and early 16th century Europe, morality plays existed to entertain audiences, but also to teach them lessons. Classic morality plays used allegory to impart lessons about what it means to be good, and what it means to be evil. Typically, virtue always prevailed over vice.
Shakespeare no doubt was exposed to such plays in his early life, and reflections of this genre can be seen (in more complex forms) in some of his plays, including Hamlet. Showrunner Kurt Sutter has said Hamlet inspired Sons of Anarchy, which began its sixth season on Tuesday, Sept. 10.
At a recent press conference, Sutter acknowledged the shocking ending of the season premier, which follows a young boy who takes a KG-9 machine gun into a school and opens fire (the audience hears the shots and screams from inside the building).  Sutter said,

“It is truly the catalyst for the third act of our morality play. It sets everything in motion for this season that will ultimately lead to the end that then will bring us into the final season and what I see as the ultimate comeuppance of everything in terms of the series.”

Viewers were shocked at the scene, and a conservative parents group is calling for Congress to reconsider cable programming distribution methods because of, in part, this episode.
In an article at The Daily Beast, Jason Lynch (who has screened the first three episodes) asserts that the show has gone too far, and that this storyline is “damaging to the series and its characters.”
What is clear at the end of the first episode is that SAMCRO has some connection to the gun and to the child shooter. The child is the son of a woman who is dating Nero’s cousin, and we can assume that the gun used in the shooting came from the Sons, who run guns and produce pornography.
While this episode is horrifyingly violent and disturbing, it’s also this: brilliant.
If we think about Sutter’s influences–Hamlet and his reference to Sons of Anarchy being a “morality play”–something needs to happen this season. That something that needs to happen is that we need to start despising the club, and maybe even Jax (unless he is “reformed” into virtue, as the protagonist of a true morality play would be).
The child shooter–the juxtaposition of virtue (religion, order) and vice (guns, violence), and a case study in toxic masculinity.
At this point (in the action of this first episode), the men of SAMCRO are still operating in some sphere of justice and morality. This is highlighted in the opening women-in-refrigerators plot point when the men avenge the beating and rape of Lyla, who had gotten a job shooting porn that turned out to be violent torture porn.
These disgusting scenes highlight the relative “morality” of the Sons–they run porn and prostitution businesses, but there’s a line that can’t be crossed (women being tortured, raped, beaten or killed). This has been apparent from the beginning of the series. Even when the men were running drugs and guns, their treatment of women reinforced the idea that we are still supposed to be rooting for them.
And the women, of course, (thankfully) aren’t painted as innocent victims needing rescuing. The “Mothers” of Anarchy are forces to be reckoned with, too.
In prison, Tara refuses to see Jax and devolves into violence.
In Hamlet, we know Hamlet has turned when he starts treating Ophelia like shit. How a character treats women is often a litmus test for whether or not we are supposed to support that character. In 2013, the morality play is twisted and turned (the antihero is king, after all), but some archetypes still remain.
Something awful needed to happen on Sons of Anarchy–something so awful that we can’t reconcile our sympathy and support for the characters. While Lynch is disgusted with the turn, I think it’s perfect. Forcing us to turn against our heroes (who we should struggle to see as heroes, in reality) is powerful storytelling.
As this child wields a semi-automatic weapon and goes into his all-boys Catholic school and opens fire, Gemma is gifting Nero’s son with a toy gun (she had one of Nero’s prostitutes wrap it for her). Gemma’s gesture, which is a clear indoctrination of what masculinity means–guns, violence and sex–is made even more meaningful by the boy across town who, amidst violent and disturbing drawings he’s done and the self-harm cut marks on his arm, has gotten access to a man’s gun by his proximity to SAMCRO. What’s the difference between the play gun and the real gun? What’s the difference between fetish porn and torture porn? There are differences, but Sons of Anarchy is asking us to think harder about how different they really are.
Meanwhile, Jax is cheating on Tara and having sex with the madame of a brothel (Sutter notes that Jax is really looking for nurturing and maternal love). Another display of what we consider to be masculinity is cut between scenes of violence. Tara, in prison, is beating a woman for stealing her blanket.
Jax seeks “comfort” from Colette.
All of this is set to Leonard Cohen’s “Come Healing,” a gravelly spiritual that conjures images of Christ and redemption.
Lynch says that Sutter “crossed a line” when he had SAMCRO react in “a callous way” with “no remorse” in the next few episodes.
However, that’s exactly how the club should react. We need to reach a point where we are not rooting for and sympathizing with these men–this is the ugly, unhappy truth of loving a show with an antihero who keeps falling instead of being redeemed.
SAMCRO has always had its own code of justice and morality and we, as viewers, have more often than not sympathized with the men. However, if they see that they are complicit in the mass murder of children, and they do not respond properly–we must rethink our sympathy. We are going to turn against them, as we should.
At the beginning of the episode, Jax is reading aloud a letter he’s writing to his sons. “Examine yourselves as men,” he says, filling the page with cliches.
That’s what’s happening now. What it means to be a man–the overwhelming masculinity of sex and violence–is coming to a head. If Jax falls, which he appears to be doing, so does his brand of masculinity. Hopefully his sons will get that message.
Sutter’s “sons” are examining themselves as men as the series begins its descent. In ancient morality plays, virtue would win, and the sinner would typically be redeemed. In Hamlet, everyone dies in a pile of revenge and tragedy. It remains to be seen how Sutter will ultimately unwind this modern “morality play,” but we will know if we are supposed to stop caring about the Sons. There will be consequences–just as there should be.
We need to examine ourselves as viewers, and recognize when enough is enough–and when we reach that breaking point, we are pushed to the edge and forced to reconcile our obsession with vice and toxic masculinity. The ride into the last act of Sons of Anarchy isn’t going to be an easy one–if it was, then Sutter wouldn’t have gone far enough.
Like the Sons and their old ladies, the audience is going to have a difficult ride in the last act.
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Leigh Kolb is a composition, literature and journalism instructor at a community college in rural Missouri. She wrote a chapter about the feminine sphere and ethics of care in Sons of Anarchy and Philosophy: Brains Before Bullets.

The Feminism and Anti-Racism of ‘Boardwalk Empire’ (And the Critics Who Don’t Get It)

Boardwalk Empire



Written by Leigh Kolb


Spoilers ahead

Boardwalk Empire returned for its fourth season on Sunday, Sept. 8. This season is poised to continue important representation of struggles involving gender and race in the award-winning show, which is aesthetically gorgeous and well-written.

The few, but incredibly important, female characters on Boardwalk Empire are fascinating. I wrote last year about the remarkable story lines in season 3 that focused on birth control and reproductive rights. Boardwalk Empire has always kept a keen eye on women’s issues–from suffrage to health care.

Season 4 is set up to be more of the same–long-form debauchery and violence with moments of poignant sub-plots featuring the female characters. Gillian is slipping deeper into a heroin addiction, and is selling herself instead of selling her house. Cora escapes a violent bedroom scene (which we will revisit in a moment). A young actress attempts to take Billie’s place in Nucky’s life for her own gain, but he rejects her. Richard has traveled to reunite with his twin sister, Emma, on her farm.

As often is the case in these seemingly masculine dramas, women are essential to the plot, even if they often aren’t the focus of most reviewers, or even the bulk of the action. Nucky is king, Al Capone is pulling strings, and Chalky is set to be a power player.

Drink, talk, shoot, repeat.

But those moments that the women of Boardwalk Empire are on screen are among the best of each episode. Their parts are small. Their scenes are brief. But each is meaningful and powerful. The women characters are complex–evil, moral, conflicted, good mothers, bad mothers, addicts and everything in between. They are three-dimensional. This is a good thing.

The female-centric subplots in Boardwalk Empire are treasures buried in a pile of empty whiskey bottles. Most reviewers, however, focus on the men. Hollywood Life only mentions the male characters (except for the mention of Nucky getting smarter about women). The Huffington Post mentions Gillian briefly and Cora (but not by her name). Rolling Stone does do a better job of fully describing and summarizing the episode.

The fact that critics often ignore or reduce women characters isn’t surprising, although it’s always frustrating. What’s horrifying, however, are a few critics’ responses to the aforementioned violent sex scene.

Just like Boardwalk Empire has woven in subplots of women’s struggles, it has also presented the endemic racial tension in Nucky’s world in a way that makes viewers uncomfortable (especially since our culture is still so steeped in racism). Not everyone seems to get this, though.

From left, Dickey, Cora, Dunn and Chalky.

At Chalky’s new club, he sits watching the new talent with his right-hand man, Dunn, and a white talent agent, Dickey, and his girlfriend, Cora. Cora sketches an erotic drawing of her and Dunn, and asks him to come upstairs. The two start having sex, and Dickey makes himself known in the room as he draws a gun against Dunn. Dunn scrambles to put on his pants, and Cora immediately says he had forced her. This is all a game, though, for Dickey and Cora. Dickey forces Dunn to resume having sex with Cora, and all the while Dickey is throwing racial epithets, heavily peppering his slurs with the N-word and claims about how black men behave.

Dickey starts masturbating. “It’s all just some fun,” Cora says with a smile.

Then Dickey says, “There’s no changing you people.” With this, Dunn breaks a bottle over Dickey’s head and proceeds to stab him repeatedly and viciously. We are surprisingly comfortable with this outcome of the scene, because Dunn’s humiliation and objectification is so visceral, as is the racism. This scene is indicative of not only the racism and degradation of black Americans at the time (echoed by Nucky’s almost-mistress who says the Onyx Girls are “deliciously primitive”), but also the demand that they perform as objects for whites’ entertainment and sexual purposes, without agency. The power that Dickey wields over Dunn–his whiteness, his gun, his hand down his pants–is nauseating and historically accurate. This scene is about racism. This scene is about power, humiliation and resistance when one is caught up against a wall of disgusting degradation.

However, the aforementioned reviewers had a different reading of this scene.

From Hollywood Life:

“…Chalky finds out that being the boss requires a lot of cleanup. Like when after his sidekick Dunn Purnsley (Erik LaRay Harvey), in the most awkwardly violent scene of the episode, murders a booking agent after the guy catches him sleeping with his wife — and then forces Dunn to continue while he watches. Boardwalk Empire, ladies and gentlemen!”

Certainly a brief show recap isn’t always the place for heavy cultural analysis, but to brush off the scene with such flippant commentary? Privilege, ladies and gentlemen! 
Not to be topped, the Huffington Post saw Dunn’s actions as self-defense:

“So Dunn did what he had to do, smashing the guy’s head with a liquor bottle to get himself out of danger. And then he went the extra murderous mile, repeatedly stabbing the guy in the throat with the broken bottle, because it’s Boardwalk Empire.”

Are you kidding me? Dunn murdering Dickey had nothing to do with him being in danger. It had everything to do with him being degraded and humiliated.

Rolling Stone acknowledges Dunn’s true motivations, but still misses the mark:

“He may have moved up the ranks from jail antagonist to kitchen worker to Chalky’s right-hand man, but Dunn doesn’t know shit about doing business, especially with white folks in 1924. I can’t blame him for pounding a broken bottle into Dickey’s face repeatedly – not only was he forced to have sex with Cora at gunpoint, but Dickey degraded him even further with regular use of the n-word and vicious taunts like, ‘There’s no changing you people.’ Except Chalky knows that you can’t go around killing Cotton Club employees (Cora manages to escape) just for ’15 minutes’ worth of jelly.'” 

Yes, perhaps Chalky knows how to do business with white folks, but his “jelly” comment is inaccurate–that’s not what Dunn killed for. Except for killing Dickey (which even this reviewer acknowledges a motivation for), Dunn didn’t really do anything wrong.

And perhaps most egregious, buried in an approximately 2.5-million-word recap from New Jersey:

“‘It’s all just some fun,’ the wife assures. Not to Purnsley who, after they begin the humiliating deed, blasts a whiskey bottle clear across Dickie’s face. It’s doesn’t just stop there, however, the beating continues until the booking agent is dead and his wife, in horror, escapes through the window, naked. Purnsley stands there a bloody mess.”

There are some pretty pertinent details missing here. In this review, Dunn seems to be painted as a savage villain, lashing out for no clear reason. That’s not what happens.

Reviewers saw Dunn acting in self-defense (which further reduces his perceived power), not understanding how to do business with white people (blaming his sexuality and ignorance), or lashing out in savage violence without clear motivation.

Reviewers ignore the implications of racism.

Reviewers sideline female characters.

Reviewers do this because too frequently, the lens they are looking through is of the white male experience. This is privilege.

Even when the artifact itself deals with gender and race in a way designed to challenge viewers, reviewers often overlook it. I was uncomfortable, horrified and excited during the premier of Boardwalk Empire this season. I continue to see complex female characters and pointed commentary on racism.

Sally, Margaret and Gillian.

I’m disappointed, then (and even horrified), when critics ignore these aspects, or get them terribly wrong. Their recaps and analyses help shape the conversations surrounding these shows, and if they just focus on those smoke-filled rooms and the power brokers, without fully paying attention to the other characters, they are insulting women, people of color and those who work so hard to write about and represent them.

However, if we can look past the critics, there is much to be excited for in season 4. Still to come this season, Patricia Arquette will play a speakeasy owner and Jeffrey Wright will play a Harlem gangster who is seeped in the politics of the Harlem Renaissance. These moments that have made Boardwalk Empire exceptional–the moments of clear gender and racial historical context and commentary–are poised to take center stage in season 4. Hopefully we can all look through the clouds of white male smoke to see what lies ahead.

Valentin and Maitland

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

‘Wentworth’ Makes ‘Orange is the New Black’ Look Like a Middle School Melodrama

Wentworth poster

Written by Amanda Rodriguez
Wentworth is an Australian women’s prison drama that is much grittier, darker, more brutal and realistic than Netflix’s Orange is the New Black could ever hope to be. This bleak realism also makes Wentworth‘s well-developed characters and situations much more compelling than its fluffier American counterpart. Don’t get me wrong; I really enjoyed Orange is the New Black. The stories of incarcerated women are always important because they are a particularly marginalized and silenced group. However, the over-the-top, zany approach to characterization that OITNB utilizes for comedic effect renders the characters less substantive overall. Consider the lesbian-obsessed prison worker Caputo who has a mail order Russian bride or the insane abortion doctor murderer and ex-meth addict Pennsatucky Doggett who believes she has a calling from Jesus or the flame-haired Russian mobster cook Red played by my beloved Captain Kathryn Janeway (er, I mean Kate Mulgrew). Very colorful. Very little depth.

Pennsatucky is one craaaaaaaazy lady.

Though OITNB and Wentworth deal with similar themes, Wentworth (based on an Aussie soap opera from the 70’s and 80’s called Prisoner) takes a no-holds-barred approach to subjects like officer sexual exploitation of prisoners, turf wars and hierarchy, sexuality, the inmate code of silence, gang beatings, gang rapes, prison riots, and the brutality of the crimes that landed these women behind bars. Because the Australian prison system is different from ours, my first glimpse of Wentworth Correctional Centre left me comparing the prison to middle school with its catty girls and basic rights stripped from the inmates, much like the ones that are stripped from children, i.e. rules govern when they use the restroom, showers, bed times, how they spend their free time, classes are mandatory, and they are allowed no privacy save that which they sneak. The finale of the first episode (“No Place Like Home”) concludes, however, in a chaotic riot with a body count, leaving a major character dead. I rapidly revised my initial reading, realizing that the women of Wentworth play for keeps in a way that those of OITNB do not.

The show evokes a primal sense of self-preservation amidst the complete absence of the basic human need for safety. It is unflinchingly honest in its representations of women who’ve committed terrible acts, lived complicated lives, and must continue their struggle for survival in the place that’s supposed to give them structure and rehabilitate them but in actuality further hardens and traumatizes them.
The racial diversity of Wentworth‘s cast leaves a bit to be desired. One of the primary prison guards, Will Jackson, is played by Robbie Magasiva, a Samoan New Zealander.

Mr. Jackson escorts our heroine, Bea Smith.
Aboriginal Shareena Clanton portrays the integral matriarchal role of prisoner Doreen Anderson.

Doreen Threatens to cut Bea in order to keep the child she protects on their unit (that’s right, Aussies have kids in prison).

Lastly, there’s Frankie Doyle’s steady girlfriend, Kim Chang, played by Korean Ra Chapman.

Kim walks with her lover Frankie.

To be fair, I don’t know enough about the racial/ethnic composition of Australia to know what would constitute a balanced representation. In addition, though, there isn’t as much lesbianism as one might expect from the show either, though the lesbianism depicted is as graphic as the rest of the series. Though there are more lesbian characters in OITNB, I often wondered why their relationships were so censored on Netflix that can call its own shots…was it an effort to not exploit lesbian sexuality as so many shows typically do or was it to not “turn off” viewers?
On Wentworth, Frankie Doyle is the only major LGBTQ character along with her minor character girlfriend, Kim. We also find that the “Governor” Erica Davidson harbors a secret attraction to Frankie.

Governor Erica Davidson steals a covert look at Frankie.

Erica Davidson is one of the more interesting characters represented in the show. Erica becomes Governor through semi-devious means, but she continues to claim that the welfare and rehabilitation of the female prisoners are her number one priorities. The show constantly pits her genuine empathy for the women against her career ambition. Her sexuality is gratifyingly complex. We are given background on her relationship with her (male) fiance who is very vanilla when it comes to sex. Erica fantasizes about a fetish club she once visited as part of her pre-Wentworth lawyer work. When she asks her fiance to pull her hair during sex, he loses his shit. They don’t have a conversation about it, like, say a couple might if the man requested anal sex or a ménage à trois; instead he issues an ultimatum. They almost end a five plus year relationship because her request makes him feel inadequate. He asserts that she may have picked the “wrong guy.” He stifles her sexual curiosity completely. The repression of her sexual fantasies exacerbates Erica’s desire to step outside the bounds of sexual propriety as is evinced by her lesbian attraction to an inmate, a woman who constantly challenges her authority. The complex sexual power dynamic at work between Erica and Frankie feeds into Erica’s fantasies. The psychological context given for Erica’s sexuality gives her much more depth than, say, Piper Chapman from OITNB, whose sexuality is the cause for much debate but is given little room for its inherent fluidity.

Erica fantasizes about sex with Frankie within the prison walls.

Lastly, we’ve got Wentworth‘s heroine Bea Smith. Wentworth is a sort of prologue intended to give the backstory for the woman Bea later becomes in the series Prisoner (which many Aussie fans have already watched). In many ways, Bea and Piper aren’t so very different. They’re both women out of their element, gentle by nature. Neither woman wants to rock the boat, but both are possessed of a streak of moral righteousness that alternately gets them in trouble and gains them respect. Both undergo major transitions before the end of their first seasons, the prison setting actually accentuating their buried inner violence and pushing them to acts of vicious aggression.

Bea Smith from Prisoner on the left, and Bea Smith from Wentworth on the right.

Bea’s pre-prison life, however, is not as ideal as Piper’s perfect upper middle class New York existence. Bea is a hairdresser whose husband brutally beats and rapes her on a regular basis. Bea is imprisoned for attempting to kill him when she finally snaps and decides to fight back. Piper’s crime is an isolated incidence of non-violent drug trafficking that she did simply as a youthful thrill and to help out Alex, her then girlfriend. Though she, like Piper, is bewildered by prison culture when she is first incarcerated, Bea is no stranger to darkness. Though Bea and Piper both undergo major personality shifts by the end of their first seasons, Bea’s prior life, her family, and her meek disposition are truly and permanently eradicated by her stay in prison (and she hasn’t even had a hearing, nevermind trial and sentencing, as the first season closes).

Wentworth cast

I think I’m asking too much from Orange is the New Black. In fact, I know I am. It’s a mainstream show that focuses on the marginalized stories of women in prison, many of them LGBTQ. Shouldn’t that be enough subversion to keep me happy? Walking into the show, I’d already watched a couple of seasons of the British women in prison drama Bad Girls, and then after seeing Wentworth, I knew that I wanted more from the trope of women and prison than Orange is the New Black could provide. I didn’t want these important, often untold stories turned into humorous fluff in order to make them palatable to an audience. I didn’t want the complexity of the lives and struggles of these women to be minimized in order to keep them within their pre-determined stereotype boxes for the sake of simplicity and a huge, mainstream audience. I’ll keep watching OITNB, but I’ll keep turning to Wentworth for stories about ostracized women with fascinating psychology, depth of character, and complexity of emotion and motivation. 

‘Orange is the New Black’ and Carrie Bradshaw Syndrome


The cast of Orange is the New Black.

Written by Myrna Waldron.

I am not much of a TV watcher. I prefer films for a few reasons – they don’t take as long to watch, plots are resolved, character arcs don’t get derailed, etc. But I’ve started bingeing on Netflix in a smaller window while I work with Photoshop in a larger one. And, upon enthusiastic recommendations from Bitch Flicks Editor Megan and my friend Isabel, I decided to check out Netflix’s original series Orange is the New Black. (Minor spoiler alert, by the way.)

I expected to hate it. I usually avoid tragedies and horror, and since the series is set in a women’s prison I was visualizing Oz-level violence. And then I ended up bingeing on it – not because it was particularly lighthearted (it’s really a drama with a sprinkling of comedy) but because I wanted to know more about Piper’s fellow inmates. I was thrilled that, for once, a TV series was giving voice to the types of women who usually get silenced – black women, hispanic women, lesbian women, trans women, older women, fat women. And they’re all inmates, the types of people that we especially try to ignore. I can honestly say OitNB has the most diverse cast I have ever seen.

And yet it is obvious to me and to others who have written on the show that it painfully illustrates the pervasiveness of privilege, especially white privilege. Piper Chapman is beautiful, thin, passes for straight, is comfortably wealthy, supported by friends, family and a lover, has somewhere to go when her sentence is up, and was convicted for a nonviolent crime. It’s also obvious that although the series has an unusually diverse cast, it only got greenlit because the main character is a pretty white woman.

And oh my god, I hate her.

She’s selfish, she’s spoiled, she’s rude, she refuses to admit guilt for anything, she breaks the hearts of the few people left who support her, she references the Kinsey Scale yet refuses to use the word “bisexual,” and she keeps pretending she’s just a sweet little nice girl who hasn’t really done anything wrong and doesn’t belong in prison.  Fuck that. On her first day in prison, she proves just what kind of person she is by complaining about the food to (unbeknownst to her) the head chef. Lady, you’re getting food for free. Some of these women came from the streets where they had nothing. Suck it up. The chef’s decision to starve Piper for a few days is disproportionate retribution, but it finally starts to give the message to Piper that she’s in prison and she needs to stop thinking that she’s above it all.

Fortunately, the series makes it clear that I’m NOT supposed to like Piper and that she’s in some ways more fucked up than the women sentenced for more severe crimes. But it got me thinking that, in most, if not all of the fictional TV series I’ve watched, the main character is never my favourite – and is sometimes my least favourite. And it drives me nuts when the series focuses so much on a main character I don’t like that much. Stop showing me Piper’s bullshit and tell me more about Sophia!

Since making this realization, I have started referring to my recurring loathing for main characters as “Carrie Bradshaw Syndrome.” Sex and the City operated under the assumption that I was supposed to like Carrie, but I usually fast-forwarded over her scenes because I was going to vomit if I watched her spend thousands of dollars on goddamn shoes again, and then watch her be an absolutely terrible person to the people who (inexplicably) love her. I wanted more Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte. And instead I just got lots of Carrie being her neurotic, selfish, irresponsible self. I like Sarah Jessica Parker. I think most of the “horse” jokes about her face are untrue and sexist. But man do I hate Carrie.

I thought about my favourite fictional TV series and where I stand on their main protagonists. (And yes, I watch a lot of animation.)

Sailor Moon – Not my favourite character, she’s pretty close to the bottom. (My favourites are the ones who, comparatively speaking, were in the series the least.)

Futurama – Fry is not my favourite, it’s Bender, and Fry annoys me half of the time.

Adventure Time – Don’t dislike Finn, but I vastly prefer Marceline.

ReBoot – Bob’s okay, don’t like Enzo, but Dot is amazing.

Avatar the Last Airbender – Aang annoys me. I prefer Toph and Zuko.

Young Justice – No real main character here, but there was too much Superboy and Miss Martian and not nearly enough of everyone else.

Star Trek TOS – Boo Kirk. Yay Spock.

The only series I can think of where I don’t dislike or feel neutral towards the main character(s) are the ones with balanced ensemble casts, like Downton Abbey, Community and Slayers.

And the more I think about it, the more I wonder why I tend to dislike main protagonists so much. Is it because series tend to focus so much on the main character that I get sick of them? Is it because I crave more of the stories of the characters that don’t get told? Am I just a rebel or something?

And is it just me who experiences “Carrie Bradshaw Syndrome?”



Myrna Waldron is a feminist writer/blogger with a particular emphasis on all things nerdy. She lives in Toronto and has studied English and Film at York University. Myrna has a particular interest in the animation medium, having written extensively on American, Canadian and Japanese animation. She also has a passion for Sci-Fi & Fantasy literature, pop culture literature such as cartoons/comics, and the gaming subculture. She maintains a personal collection of blog posts, rants, essays and musings at The Soapboxing Geek, and can be reached on Twitter under @SoapboxingGeek and @Misandrificent.



‘Breaking Bad’ and the Power of Women: Skyler, Lydia and Marie Take Control

Skyler is calling the shots now.
Written by Leigh Kolb
Warning: Spoilers Ahead

Throughout the last five seasons of Breaking Bad, the female characters have played key roles–from playing adversaries to aiding and abetting–yet they are often overlooked as secondary characters. In fact, a recent article in The Atlantic doesn’t even mention any of the female characters (save for a passing mention of Jane being a “lovely” secondary character in an infographic). While Walt and Jesse are the focus of the series, and they operate in a largely masculine and man-centric world, without Skyler and Lydia, they would have been stopped long ago. 
Skyler thought of the car wash. She got the car wash. She laundered the money and kept it safe. She kept the IRS away from her boss and her household. She is consistently rational and protective of her life and her family.
Lydia provided an “ocean” of methylamine. She had threats to the business taken care of. She expanded the operation overseas, and won’t settle for disappointed customers. She is fiercely in charge of her business.
Marie figured out the details of Skyler and Walt’s deceptions quicker than Hank did. She’s willing to attempt to steal–baby Holly this time, not a spoon–to punish Skyler and protect her niece.
Is there a new holy trinity in Albuquerque? 
We can’t help but think about the juxtaposition of scenes in last summer’s “Fifty-One” when Skyler submerges herself in the pool and we cut to Lydia at an electrical grid. Each episode, these two become increasingly invested in and in control of producing and protecting Walt’s legacy. Skyler confronted Lydia at the car wash, but that was her home turf. Surely they’ll meet again–and that meeting (like the water and electricity) could be deadly.

(It’s important to note that this most recent episode, “Buried”–perhaps the most woman-centric of the series–was also directed by Emmy-nominated Michelle MacLaren, who some critics consider the show’s “best director.” Another fun fact? A female chemistry professor is the show’s “lead meth consultant.”)

However, the male characters (and audience members) habitually underestimate the women. Hank assumes Skyler is an innocent victim. “Ladies first,” Declan says to Lydia. 

In “Buried,” Skyler and Lydia are rising to the top of their prospective enterprises. 
Skyler covers a sickly Walt with a feminine quilt, comforting him, and nursing him back to health. “Maybe our best move here is to stay quiet,” she says, acknowledging that to keep the money and keep all of them relatively safe, they need to not talk. She reassures Walt that Hank seemed to have “suspicions, but not much else.” (She knows this because Hank corners her in a diner and tries to get her to talk and give him something–she refuses, screaming “Am I under arrest?” to get out of the situation.) Hank calls her a victim. By the end of the episode, it is clear that Skyler’s no victim. How far could Walt have gotten without her?
The feminine is highlighted in “Buried,” and given great power.
Lydia visits the meth lab in the desert, where Declan and company are making meth that is not up to her or her Czech clients’ standards. “It’s filthy,” she says of the lab. “What are you, my mother?” Declan responds. They underestimate Lydia. If they would have listened to her and followed her pure-meth protocol, perhaps they would have survived. She covers her eyes as she walks past the carnage that she ordered (she was brought to the desert blindfolded, and chose to leave blindly). She steps next to corpses with her feminine, red-soled Christian Louboutins.

If the cooks had listened to Lydia, things would have ended differently.

Lydia often isn’t focused on as a main character, but those Louboutins are carrying her into a pivotal role. But will she be taken seriously? A critic at Slate said, “Her girliness is annoying—calling Declan’s lab ‘filthy’ was sure to make him reference his mom—but she also happened to be right. The man had no standards.” Would Walt have been “annoying” if he had critiqued the way a lab was run? Probably not. 
Even with Skyler and Lydia’s power plays and scheming, too many are still focused on the likability of the female characters. (In a thread on Breaking Bad‘s facebook page right now, hoards of people are calling for Skyler to be beaten or killed.) Lydia is too “girlish.” And Marie? “She is so annoying that she deserves to die.”
Critics and audiences wring their hands over who we’re “supposed” to like in Breaking Bad. If we operate in high-school superlative absolutes of “most likable” and “most hated,” how would Vince Gilligan have us categorize the characters? Are we truly supposed to feel good about liking anyone but Jesse?
In reality, we’re allowed to like male characters who maim, kill and hurt children. We’re allowed to root for male anti-heroes and revel in their dirty dealings. The women? Well, if they’re not likable, Internet commenters want them dead. 
In “She Who Dies With the Most ‘Likes’ Wins?” Jessica Valenti argues,

“Yes, the more successful you are—or the stronger, the more opinionated—the less you will be generally liked… But the trade off is undoubtedly worth it. Power and authenticity are worth it… Wanting to be liked means being a supporting character in your own life, using the cues of the actors around you to determine your next line rather than your own script. It means that your self-worth will always be tied to what someone else thinks about you, forever out of your control.”

And while I’m fairly certain Valenti wasn’t cheering on money launderers, murderers, or meth dealers, the women of Breaking Bad have appeared to break bad. Their moves will undoubtedly decide the course of the rest of the series.
Audiences, though, too often want to box female characters into “likable” and “hate and kill” categories. While Skyler populated the latter category for years, it seems as if people are now–to an extent–trying to wedge her into the “likable” category. (This critic lauds her as the “best character” on Breaking Bad, and describes her as a wife and mother and extols the virtues of her as a moral center–why does she have to be moral to be a good character? Is it because she’s a woman?) 
The Breaking Bad social media team coined #Skysenberg after “Buried,” showing that Skyler has crossed over and fully enmeshed herself with Heisenberg. (This is awfully and misguidedly close to her taking her husband’s name and adopting his characteristics. Because Skyler isn’t necessarily doing what she’s doing to protect Walt.) 
This symbolic move into Walt’s court, though, won her some new fans: 
Ugh, awful women.
High five, bro!
Heisenberg is sacred–no girls allowed!
And that’s what’s most important.
Yes. You’re right. Everything he did was for her.
Ding ding ding!
Skyler doesn’t care if you like her. Neither does Lydia. Or Marie. Gilligan himself recognizes the hatred and has said, “I think the people who have these issues with the wives being too bitchy on Breaking Bad are misogynists, plain and simple.” Skyler, Lydia and Marie are poised to decide the outcome of Breaking Bad. Skyler is calling the shots instead of Heisenberg. Lydia is decimating–and will certainly replace–a drug cartel. Marie desperately wants to see Walt and Skyler punished; her desire for revenge seems to overshadow Hank’s desire to protect his career.

In the excellent “I hate Strong Female Characters,” Sophia McDougall points out that

“If Strong-Male-Character compatibility was the primary criterion of writing heroes, our fiction would be a lot poorer. But it’s within this claustrophobic little box that we expect our heroines to live out their lives.”

Skyler and Lydia especially are clearly breaking out of these boxes, and Marie isn’t very far behind. But aren’t women supposed to be moral centers? Aren’t their roles as “wife” and “mother” supposed to define them? Aren’t they supposed to not get their hands dirty? We are so accustomed to enjoying and eagerly watching male antiheroes, but watching female characters embody the same traits has been, until now, incredibly rare.

At this point in the series, though, these complex female characters are calling the shots. (“The men are basically just sitting around diddling themselves,” my husband said.)

We don’t need to like female characters for them to be well-drawn and powerful (just like we don’t need to like Walt). We need to get over that. Skyler, Lydia and Marie aren’t just wives and/or mothers anymore. The are characters–not just female characters, or worse yet, “strong female characters.” They are effective and compelling, just how characters who happen to be women should be.

Skyler isn’t Skysenberg. She’s Skyler. And she’s got this.

Are we done here?

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

A Modern Antihero’s Journey: The Goddess and Temptress in ‘Breaking Bad’

Breaking Bad promotional still.



Written by Leigh Kolb

Warning: Spoilers Ahead

Joseph Campbell immortalized the concept of the monomyth–or hero’s journey–in The Hero with a Thousand Faces, which is required reading for students of literature and film. Campbell mapped out the archetypical hero, who has traversed centuries of myths, stories, films and now, television shows.

With the rise of the antihero in film and television, Campbell’s roadmap of the hero’s journey is still accurate. It’s just more crooked.
Walter White is the perfect antihero, and his journey (from “Mr. Chips into Scarface,” as creator Vince Gilligan has said)–from his departure and initiation to his return–is in lock step with the story arc of heroes throughout history, albeit it with a lack of heroic qualities. Gilligan has artfully shaken and baked archetypes, symbolism, religious imagery and time-worn human motivation into one of the greatest–and most literary–television series ever.
Modern storytelling borrows from ancient narratives.
As Breaking Bad begins the final leg of its run, two pivotal women in Walt’s life are at the forefront of his life’s path. His wife, Skyler, acts as Campbell’s “goddess” figure, and Lydia has re-emerged as the “temptress.” As modern adaptations of Campbell’s archetypes, each is attempting to keep or draw Walt into a life that fits her needs, for better or worse.
At the end of the first part of Season 5, Skyler takes Walt into a storage locker where she has stashed their piles upon piles of money. She shows him that they have more than they need, and helps convince him to remove himself from the business. His megalomaniac greed was taking over, and Skyler seemed to be able to pull him back in. While Walt began his meth career ostensibly to support his family during his cancer treatments, by the time he was at the top, he was referencing his bitter anger at missing out on a fortune with Gray Matter Technologies and wanting to top what he could have been, had he not settled for the life he did.
Walt’s “meeting with the goddess,” as Skyler shows him that he has all he needs.
Skyler has served as Walt’s moral compass throughout the series. Even when she was scheming and plotting, her plans (the car wash, especially) were often the most efficient and certainly didn’t have the body count that Walt’s career trajectory has had. 
As a moral compass and goddess figure, Skyler doesn’t fit into the mold of what many would consider an archetypical “good” maternal force. It’s clear that she’s been an incredibly important force in Walt’s journey, and continues to be. Walt’s “meeting with the goddess”–when Skyler orchestrates the car wash, or when she takes him to the stockpile of money–changes him and shifts his course. This goddess figure is a twenty-first century force of maternal goodness–complicated, imperfect and often unlikeable. In “The True Anti-Hero of ‘Breaking Bad’ Isn’t Walter White,” Laura Bennett argues that

“…Skyler—brash, self-righteous, unsure of what it means to do the right thing—is a messier case. And even at her least likeable, she is key to what makes this show overall so compelling: its moral prickliness, the way its view of good and evil can seem at once so twisted and so stark.” 

Therein lies the brilliance of Breaking Bad–our complicated relationships with and emotions about the characters reflect modern crises in what is good and what is evil. The world is far more gray than most are comfortable admitting. This is obviously reflected in Walt’s character, but the female characters have the same complexity.

At this point on Walt’s journey, he appears to be back in a partnership with his wife. Walt enthusiastically shares ideas about expanding the carwash, and Skyler says she’ll “think about it.” She’s in the freshly shampooed driver’s seat.

Walt makes suggestions. Skyler says she’ll think about it.
Meanwhile, Walt’s former business partner, Lydia, is one of the only ones left from his previous operation. She has stayed in the meth game, and is starting to lose without Walt’s pristine product. Lydia goes to the carwash and orders a wash from Skyler. Lydia confronts Walt inside, and begs him to come back. “You’re putting me in a box here,” she says, and promises him that there’s a great deal of money in it for them both. 
Lydia is a shrewd businesswoman.
Lydia–Campbell’s temptress–is trying to pull him back in. Some viewers may see his new, emasculated position at the carwash with his wife as decision-maker as a step down, and want him to return to his prior “glory.” This temptation to go back to his old life could seduce Walt, and could seduce the viewer, who is addicted to watching Walt spiral into power and out of control. Certainly there are those who are cheering for him to be beckoned by the siren song.
Skyler confronts Walt and points out that people don’t bring rental cars to the carwash (she notices everything–Walt probably would have been caught long ago without her eyes). He tells her who Lydia was and what she wanted, and Skyler immediately confronts Lydia. “Get out of here now,” she tells her. “Go.”
Skyler confronts Lydia.
This is a twenty-first century goddess/temptress archetype. They are complicated and have their own motivations. They confront one another, and aren’t simply helpers or antagonists to the man on the journey. These compelling female characters, who play into a modern, “twisted” journey, are as noteworthy as the antihero who is taking the jagged, illegal path.

The goddess isn’t perfect. The temptress isn’t evil.

Moving female characters away from tired tropes is an excellent step (albeit uncomfortable, if you’re used to delineating female characters as one-dimensional stereotypes). 

As the final few episodes of Breaking Bad commence, Walt reminds Hank, and us, that “If you don’t know who I am, maybe your best course would be to tread lightly.” With Hank discovering who he is, and his cancer having returned, Walt is in a box, too. It remains to be seen what he does to get out of it, although we’re not given any indication that he chooses the path of so-called righteousness. That’s for Jesse, who remains the Christ figure as he throws money to those in need as Saul jokes about his sainthood.
Humans have been telling and re-telling stories throughout their existence. The stories have changed very little, considering the depth and breadth of human experience. However, the moral ambiguity of the antihero and the strong and complex female characters that are present in Breaking Bad may still fit Campbell’s monomyth, but they push and warp the time-worn boxes of good vs. evil. 
The female powers in fiction are often complex, course-changing and overlooked. Skyler and Lydia are frequently hated, ignored or seen as bit players–simply background dancers to Walt, the main event. However, they are still poised, just as they were in the first part of Season 5, to have a strong influence on the outcome of the story. As we as viewers hang in the balance, waiting for the untying of all of the knots that have been tightened in the last five seasons, the female characters are orchestrating and plotting, not just sitting by as passive bystanders. And that, of course, is just how it should be.
By the time Walt reaches his 52nd birthday, Skyler isn’t making his breakfast.

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