Just what has everyone been saying about Netflix’s Jessica Jones?
Gritty. Realistic. Feminist. What do reviews tell us about how we think about gender representation and feminism on TV?
A mild warning: this post refers to a TV show which itself refers fairly heavily to themes of sexual abuse and violence, although I do not describe any of this in detail.
As you probably know, Netflix released all episodes of Marvel’s new TV adaptation Jessica Jones a few weeks ago. A successor to the equally well-received Daredevil series (also on Netflix), and based on the Marvel comic by Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Gaydos (2001–2004), people have been super into Jessica Jones for a number of reasons.
In this post I’m going to look at what critics have been saying about the series, and how their responses can shed light on how gender representation and feminism are talked about in the popular media. If you haven’t yet set some time aside to watch it, I would highly recommend you do (although viewer discretion is advised, the series contains some disturbing themes, as I discuss below).
The series is a rollercoaster to watch, whatever the public consensus about its quality may be. Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter) is a former-superheroine-turned-hard-drinking-private-eye who is trying to move on after having been emotionally and sexually abused by a superhuman called Kilgrave (David Tennant), who has the power to control minds and force people to do anything he wants (including murder and suicide).
Obvious themes include the nature of consent and abuse — both themes which doubtless resonate with feminism. There’s also a bit of a rape-revenge vibe, and I couldn’t help but cheer during the climactic moments of the final episode. There’s also the significant point that white men don’t come off as being very admirable in this show. We get terrific peripheral figures including Marvel’s classic blaxploitation character Luke Cage, neat reworking of Patsy Walker (a character who’s been around since the 1940s) and a bunch of others who are also really interesting.
Jessica Jones is helmed by Melissa Rosenberg, a screenwriter you should all remember for writing the Twilight films (2008–2012). While Twilight has been critically reviled for its “feminine” themes, Jessica Jones has gotten the attention of critics for… its “feminine” themes. Looking at the reception of both texts is interesting because they’re almost two sides of the same coin. Critics looking at Twilight considered it as offering the “wrong” kind of femininity — weak, passive, and love-struck (FYI, I wouldn’t say any of what those critics said is entirely true, and the critical reception of Twilight is a massively complicated topic on its own, but broadly speaking that was what a lot of critics thought of the series).
Jessica Jones, however, has been well received for giving us a more “empowered” femininity — the “right” kind of femininity, grounded in real-life problems, “grittiness” and “realism.” What’s considered a “good” and “bad” portrayal of femininity can tell us a lot about (a) how people think about representation of women in the media, and (b) how people talk about feminism in the media.
“One of the best TV shows of the year”
Broadly speaking, critics liked the more “realistic” elements of the series, which they suggested set it apart from “traditional” superhero fare. There are also those who actively referred to ideas about Marvel Cinematic Universe texts, which they thought of as not classically being particularly focused female characters.
Critics liked the portrayal of Jessica as having what they considered to be “real” problems, rather than fantastical superhero problems. This is interesting because it seems to suggest that a feminine hero should be exempt from superhero conventions, and if and when more Marvel texts centering on women come out, that’s definitely a point worth keeping an eye on and questioning.
Jessica’s problems, which are the effect of an abusive male character, therefore contribute to making the series new, fresh and interesting. In particular, Jessica’s character is positioned in reviews as being in opposition to male-oriented texts which present dark and conflicted men.
However, Ed Power, writing for the Telegraph, gave a negative review precisely because, he argued, Jessica Jones goes too far in presenting its heroine as “damaged.” He found the series to be a “formulaic escapade that drably blends crime procedural and comic book cliches,” and the quality of the series was not enhanced because of its approach to portraying (female) superheroism, which others characterized as more complex.
Issues of women’s representation in the media are by default invoked when critics make comparisons between Jessica and more well-known conflicted white guys we’re all more used to. Some more heavily picked up on these issues:
One of the most brilliant underpinnings of “Marvel’s Jessica Jones” comes down to one word: “Smile.” It’s a word loaded with meaning for the women of the world, just trying to get from one place to the next, who hear it shouted by catcallers as they walk down the street.
[“Jessica Jones”] seethes with modern ironies, as if culled from a freshman handbook aimed at preventing sexual assault.
[Jones is] a superheroine whose strengths and whose liabilities are both specifically tied to her status as a woman and freed from the sort of condescension that’s long swirled around Black Widow in the Avengers films.
Therefore, there are those who said that the series is great because of the way it handled “women’s issues.” On the other hand there are those who downplayed the series’ focus on women’s empowerment, suggesting that what should really count is how good it is in terms of the more formal aspects of TV (writing, acting, plotlines, etc.) “Empowered” women featured in a TV show, it seems, can go quite quickly from being a marker of quality to just a quite interesting feature that overall isn’t particularly relevant to a critic’s opinion of the show.
“A hard-boiled feminist neo-noir (with superpowers)”
As well as being discussed by wide-reaching critics on sites such as the Guardian or TIME, who might not necessarily be immediately interested in the series’ feminism or lack thereof, it was also a popular point of discussion in feminist essays. These articles were more in-depth mediations in which the authors explain their interpretation of how the series engages with women’s issues and how it characterizes Jessica. Notably, many were quick to determine that the series is “feminist,” so it’s worth looking at how they justified this stance and what sort of feminism it was suggested the show put forward.
Lisa Weidenfeld of the A.V. Club said that
Jessica Jones is a deeply feminist show, all the way down to its depiction of sex, which is pointedly empowering for the women. More than that, its central conflict is its lead character struggling to maintain her agency against an abusive man.
From a statement such as this we can see how ideas about what feminism is are shaped. To Weidenfeld, the show is “feminist” because it portrays sex in an “empowering” way (though she does not offer any insight into exactly what makes the sex empowering) and because it is about a woman facing her abuser (again, she doesn’t precisely say what makes this particular story of a woman facing her abuser “feminist,” other than that it involves “agency”).
What Weidenfeld fails to explain, Heather Hogan writing for Autostraddle picks up on. She doesn’t actually use the word “empowering” but she reads the show’s sex scenes in a positive light because “the sex on Jessica Jones is all about what the women want. They’re on top, they’re in charge, they’re receiving instead of giving.”
This after Hogan declared that
by examining her trauma from every angle, [“Jessica Jones”] becomes one of the most unflinchingly feminist shows I’ve ever seen. Killgrave [sic] is the embodiment of male privilege, dialed up to psychotic. His superpower is being a straight white man in America.
To Hogan then, the show is feminist because it shows women as being entitled — to sex amongst other things — rather than men, who are vilified through their acting on male privilege. Hogan also lauds the show’s inclusion of a queer character in the shape of hard-as-nails lawyer Jeri Hogarth (a character who has been gender-flipped from the comic), which is no surprise given that Autostraddle is a site aimed at queer women.
Another interesting response came from Trish Bendix of AfterEllen, a site with a similar reach to Autostraddle. Interestingly, Bendix’s response also rests on the idea that Jessica Jones is not a “typical” superhero text because Jessica’s superpowers aren’t foregrounded. She states
Jessica Jones is a superhero show for those who don’t necessarily care for the heroics. It’s smart and sexy and dark and creepy; it’s queer-inclusive and focused on women who refuse to be victimized, even by someone who has the power to make them say or do anything he wants. Jessica Jones is about the struggle for power and control, and its lead is the kind of superhero that modern women will idolize.
So Jessica Jones is considered to be feminist because of its queer-inclusivity, but also because it presents women as powerful. A feminist text to these authors, then, is about women gaining control.
This sentiment was echoed in an article by Stassa Edwards on Jezebel:
If Jessica Jones is a feminist show, as many critics have said that it is, it’s not simply because it presents a complicated woman, but rather because it understands how strength and control play out in the lives of women. And it explores that with a depth and sensitivity that’s rare for television and even rarer for its genre.
Which feminism?
Feminism is not a monolith. There have been first, second, third, fourth, even fifth “wave” feminists. There have been girly feminists, black feminists, queer feminists, trans feminists, intersectional feminists, male feminists, white feminists. Sex-positive feminists, sex-negative feminists. Old feminists, young feminists. Postfeminists.
It’s important to recognize that reviews of Jessica Jones (and lots of other texts) referred to “feminism” as if it were a self-explanatory, universal concept. As such, they’re putting forward a version of feminism. We need to question what this version of feminism entails, how its positioned within the media as being The Feminism, and think about how that might impact our own feminism.
The idea of role reversal seems to shine through a lot of these responses: the idea that usually we’re used to seeing men in control, men who are entitled, men being sexually assertive. The feminism that these articles invokes then is one in which women are showcased as doing things which we are more likely to think of men as doing. This is fine, but it also involves a lot of taking things for granted.
If an article takes for granted, for instance, that the sex is portrayed as empowering or that agency in a woman is a good thing, this is building on a set of assumptions about what makes something “feminist.” To get to the bottom of issues facing women in the media, we need to deconstruct these ideas which are taken for granted.
What is “realism”? What constitutes “control”? What does “empowering” actually mean? What does “agency” mean? What does “feminist” mean? These are all issues which are strung along automatically when we consider a “feminist” show such as Jessica Jones, but they’re never explicitly unpacked. Perhaps we should consider that a call to action (or even superheroism).
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