Content Warning: This article discusses rape, gaslighting, abuse, domestic violence, and violence against women. Please exercise discretion. If you are experiencing abuse, please contact The Hotline.
Last time, I wrote about how Jessica Jones gets some things wrong when it comes to placing the burden of responsibility on the shoulders of survivors and how diverse abuse victims actually are. If you haven’t read that, it’s over here.
Today, I’d like to talk to you about what Jessica Jones does right. It creates much needed safe spaces in fandom for women to discuss their trauma. It also has the potential to educate those who have not experienced abuse as to how abusive behavior can be invisible and yet still damaging.
On the first point, I reached out to the Jessica Jones fandom, specifically those who have survived abuse, and asked them how the show created space for them. I received a variety of answers that I’d like to share with you.
I felt like it was super powerful for a STRONG female character to openly talk about having been raped. To speak about being violated with ANGER instead of weepiness.
I love this point that one of my interviewees made to me. Many viewers appreciated Jessica’s strength and her anger. Her alcoholic damage was even familiar to me as a recovering alcoholic (albeit one without a super metabolism) who suffered domestic abuse. Many women could recognize that oppressive rage and self-loathing that comes from violation.
Moreover, Jessica responds to Kilgrave’s gaslighting and attempts to manipulate her with anger, surety of her abuse. Her relationship with Trish is also highly beneficial, lending her an empathetic friend who joins her in her righteous anger.
Others who weren’t watching the show too closely were also relieved at the sense of openness it created on Twitter.
It feels really familiar with me and the openness this brings up in others on Twitter has made me feel more able to be open about my own past experiences. I find it tough to pay too close attention to the show itself, but when my partner watches it I watch in the background.
For this survivor, it isn’t watching the show that brings her safety and peace but rather talking with the fans about their past experiences with abuse in a safe environment. The show has prompted many prominent and not so prominent women to speak out about their abuse and survival and in doing so has created a community of support for survivors who identify with Jessica or her abuse.
One man I know, not an abuse survivor, expressed how much he appreciated Jessica Jones sneaking in empathy and understanding with the usual superhero tropes. Many men have been able to use the show as a way to suddenly “get” abuse.
“My theory is that we (those of us with the privilege to do so) subconsciously block out the real meaning of abuse as a defensive reaction, to protect ourselves from uncomfortable feelings. Jessica Jones uses superhero tropes as camouflage, to sneak a parcel of empathy past our filters.
By giving the character physical power and setting her up as a hero, they bring her into a familiar space and block us from filing her under the usual “victim” archetype. Then they use a villain who bypasses that physical power completely, which shows us how little we know about safety.” -Pete Soloway
Whatever your feelings on Jessica Jones, it has undeniably inspired survivors to talk with one another. It’s certainly women-oriented media; it speaks directly to women survivors of abuse and seeks to make their story more easily digestible and understandable to people who have not experienced abuse themselves. It features women characters in main and prominent roles and is written by the very talented woman: Melissa Rosenberg.
The fact that Jessica Jones is created by a woman is important. The everyday threat of danger that comes with womanhood in a society rife with rape culture is woven into the show’s narrative. Even someone as powerful as Jessica, in the end, is still at risk of violence done to her by a man.
Jessica stands up to her abuser and this is admirable. Her strength and her powers evolve through the series, making her less vulnerable. However, it is important to note that Jessica was strong before her abuse. Her strength is not derived from her trauma and for that we are glad. Too often, women characters are forged in a fire of violence and rape, that Jessica was already strong but still vulnerable to this violence is reassuring to a victimized audience.
It happened because abusers can be terribly good at abuse. It is more than a physical violence but a subtle breaking down of another person’s will. Jessica Jones provides a powerful metaphor for abuse. It goes out of its way to reassure the audience that abuse survivors are not at fault, that they are wrestling with traumatic feelings of lost agency.
The show, unfortunately, does not have a cast with many women of color, women with disabilities, or any transgender women, but it does feature a prominent queer woman, cheating on her wife. I actually appreciate this, as her wife is quite sympathetic to me. The numbers for LGBT domestic violence (not necessarily intimate partner violence) are roughly half and the number jumps startlingly high for bisexual women. It was reassuring to see this kind of manipulation addressed in the LGB community through one of the major characters.
All in all, the show has done a fairly admirable job of making the MCU more accessible to women who have experienced physical or emotional trauma, giving them a hero they can finally relate to. Jessica may not be us at our best at all times but she is someone we would turn to and say, “You okay, sis?” Because we believe her. Because it has happened to us. And because we appreciate her creating an umbrella with her story for us to gather beneath.
