Jessica Jones
We recently saw Netflix’s adaptation of Marvel’s Jessica Jones. I consider it to be among the best pre-recorded drama I’ve seen. And if some of its sometimes trivial flaws hadn’t been there, it could easily have been the best.
MAYBE some generic spoilers here, but nothing specific.
Here are some of the things I liked.
The two main white male characters were “bad” and abused their power and privilege to the detriment of others. Conversely, all of the “good” characters were either female or non-white, and sometimes both. Did you notice? Did you find this to be unfair? Are you a white man? Do you wonder why people who don’t look like you are often upset about their portrayal in media?
I liked how sexuality was not hidden away; instead it was shown as a key component of personality. Usually in our TV we only get anger and violence, but the real world isn’t like that. These characters had sexual desire as well as sexual need, and were allowed to act sexually with as much freedom as they were allowed to act violently. Not only was there tenderness - sex as connection - there was rutting - sex as an affirmation of self. These are powerful messages that are mostly absent from Western media.
All of the main recurring characters were complex people with varying levels of emotional baggage that deviated their behaviour from the strictly rational. Like most of us, these people are scarred, sometimes badly, and we can’t always see what’s best for us, and even if we can see it, we can’t always do it. And sometimes our instinctive reactions due to previous trauma make things much, much worse. I found the characters to be both very fucked up inside, and very real.
Each character had an arc; each character grew and changed, and you could see how events affected them. And there wasn’t a simple, happy ending. There was closure, yes, but the ramifications of what happened will reverberate in these characters’ lives. And I’m looking forward to seeing how in Series 2.
I liked how some of the episodes freaked me the fuck out. Because they hit so, so close to home. And not just the questions about autonomy and free will, but questions about manipulation, choice, and self-sacrifice. Questions about identity: “who am I”; and even harder: “who will I become?” Questions with no obvious right answer but still demanding that you choose. Questions that keep you awake at night, or make you wake up screaming.
Also worthy of compliment: the acting, the casting, and the fight choreography.
A few things I didn’t like.
The lighting and cinematography were pedestrian at best, and in some cases appallingly bad. There were so many mis-framed and mis-focused shots I tried to stop caring about such things to only moderate success. I desperately hope they find different people to shoot season 2.
Some of the pacing was not great, especially in the penultimate episode. There, it felt like 20 minutes of material stretched out to fill a time slot, as if they hadn’t allocated enough plot beats and just started making things up a day beforehand.
On the whole, though, the Jessica Jones series is a very important addition to our culture. It flips many common Western media tropes on their backs where they flail helplessly, and it introduces new and powerful ideas about empowerment, identity, characterization, sexuality and diversity. I hope the series inspires countless pedagogical analyses, and that it leads to a new era of filmmaking.
MAYBE some generic spoilers here, but nothing specific.
Here are some of the things I liked.
The two main white male characters were “bad” and abused their power and privilege to the detriment of others. Conversely, all of the “good” characters were either female or non-white, and sometimes both. Did you notice? Did you find this to be unfair? Are you a white man? Do you wonder why people who don’t look like you are often upset about their portrayal in media?
I liked how sexuality was not hidden away; instead it was shown as a key component of personality. Usually in our TV we only get anger and violence, but the real world isn’t like that. These characters had sexual desire as well as sexual need, and were allowed to act sexually with as much freedom as they were allowed to act violently. Not only was there tenderness - sex as connection - there was rutting - sex as an affirmation of self. These are powerful messages that are mostly absent from Western media.
All of the main recurring characters were complex people with varying levels of emotional baggage that deviated their behaviour from the strictly rational. Like most of us, these people are scarred, sometimes badly, and we can’t always see what’s best for us, and even if we can see it, we can’t always do it. And sometimes our instinctive reactions due to previous trauma make things much, much worse. I found the characters to be both very fucked up inside, and very real.
Each character had an arc; each character grew and changed, and you could see how events affected them. And there wasn’t a simple, happy ending. There was closure, yes, but the ramifications of what happened will reverberate in these characters’ lives. And I’m looking forward to seeing how in Series 2.
I liked how some of the episodes freaked me the fuck out. Because they hit so, so close to home. And not just the questions about autonomy and free will, but questions about manipulation, choice, and self-sacrifice. Questions about identity: “who am I”; and even harder: “who will I become?” Questions with no obvious right answer but still demanding that you choose. Questions that keep you awake at night, or make you wake up screaming.
Also worthy of compliment: the acting, the casting, and the fight choreography.
A few things I didn’t like.
The lighting and cinematography were pedestrian at best, and in some cases appallingly bad. There were so many mis-framed and mis-focused shots I tried to stop caring about such things to only moderate success. I desperately hope they find different people to shoot season 2.
Some of the pacing was not great, especially in the penultimate episode. There, it felt like 20 minutes of material stretched out to fill a time slot, as if they hadn’t allocated enough plot beats and just started making things up a day beforehand.
On the whole, though, the Jessica Jones series is a very important addition to our culture. It flips many common Western media tropes on their backs where they flail helplessly, and it introduces new and powerful ideas about empowerment, identity, characterization, sexuality and diversity. I hope the series inspires countless pedagogical analyses, and that it leads to a new era of filmmaking.