On Difficult Women and Wanting More
Megan Boone, of ‘The Blacklist,’ speaks out about women in film.
Roxane Gay dedicated Difficult Women, her most recent short story collection, to “difficult women, who should be celebrated for their very nature.” The book is incredible and the kind of work that I hope slips its way into English classes amidst the Hemingway and Faulkner short story collections. I loved all of the women in the stories. Even the ones that I didn’t like, I loved. It’s about women, real women, dubbed “difficult” by “their very nature” of being.
It’s this difficult label that unfortunately sticks, one of the earliest examples in popular culture coming from Seinfeld, when Elaine Benes is marked “difficult” on her medical chart, simply for not wanting to change into a gown when she didn’t need to. It’s what Ariel Levy refers to as “women who are too much.” It’s everywhere.
NBC’s The Blacklist is one of the more inventive, dynamic crime dramas currently on TV. The show, which revolves around the crime fighting duo of (now former) FBI agent Elizabeth “Liz” Keen (Megan Boone) and notorious criminal Raymond “Red” Reddington (James Spader), manages to follow the cop show procedural formula while still providing a novel storyline. Halfway through the third season, however, the over-arching story that drove the show seemed to fade out, as if the creators hadn’t planned beyond fifty or so episodes. The formula became just that—a formula, and characters like Reddington were given storylines that helped to sharpen the edges of their already well-defined personas, while Elizabeth Keen became, quite literally, the body that carried the newest fodder for Reddington’s character development, baby Agnes. This is a shame because, like Spader, Boone is one of the great talents in the TV crime drama category.
Last year, I wrote about Stana Katic being fired from ABC’s Castle. One of the two leads of the eight season show, Katic’s forced departure caused the kind of fan-based uproar that gets a show cancelled (which wound up being the case with Castle). This was the year of the slow degeneration of TV’s leading female characters. Multiple leading women were randomly written off their shows. In Boone’s case, Elizabeth Keen remained on the show (after her death fake-out), but sustained a substantial blow to her character development when her entire role turned into a plot point for male storylines. It even created a niche for a spinoff, The Blacklist: Redemption, starring Keen’s husband, which has since been cancelled.
The official Blacklist twitter account tweeted, “He’s back and more determined than ever. Catch the new seasons of #TheBlacklist this fall on Wednesday, October 4 at 8/7c on @NBC.” One her own twitter account, Boone replied with, “She’s back and more determined than ever. #womeninfilm.” The following day The Blacklist tweeted, “Don’t give Liz a reason to punch you. #TheBlacklist.” Boone responded with, “Don’t slip on representing the female characters proportionately to their contributions. We will talk about it.”
Entering its fifth season this fall, The Blacklist’s promos have always dealt with these issues. Often, Red’s either the only character promoted or the focal point of the image. Even the 30 second TV spot trailers have become problematic. Promos used to be about Liz, Red, and the rest of the team taking down someone on the blacklist, but in Season 3 they became about Liz’s love life (“which man will she choose?” and “what does this [other female character] mean for Liz?”) and Season 4 has become about what she means to Red (“the only way to save Liz, is for Red to…”)
A lot of women are hesitant to call out their shows or networks, for fear of being blacklisted or labeled “difficult.” But now Megan Boone is speaking out. And I sincerely hope she gets to have that conversation with the show, because viewers will follow her throughout what will most likely be a lengthy career, and The Blacklist is worth saving. Wanting more isn’t selfish. We need more.
