Jessica Jones trailer
(crossposted from tumblr)
As the trailer for a television series, I am very interested. As the adaptation for the comic I am… maybe a little disappointed.
In the Alias comic, we meet Jessica Jones much as we meet her at the start of the trailer, a private eye with matching alcohol and anger management problems. Jessica’s life is one of low expectations and she barely clears the bar; her ‘give a fuck’ meter has clearly been broken for a long time. So while she has a strong sense of right and wrong, she also has the ability to ignore it when convenience or anger or alcohol get involved. Which is often. She has made deliberate choices not to be the best Jessica Jones she can be and that self-sabotage is frustrating, both to the people who know her and to the reader. She has plenty of agency, plenty of potential, and she is not using it well at all and is determined not to care about the waste.
As the story progresses, however, Jessica does try to be less self-destructive. Because she is ultimately as frustrated by her own behavior as everyone else. And it is only after we see her make a committed effort to be better to herself that we find out why she is so fucked up in the first place.
relevant comics panels, warnings for lots of stuff
The late reveal is important because it comes after we have already formed our opinion of Jessica, which must now be reframed in the context of her being a survivor of a horrifying rape and imprisonment that went on for months. Without anyone noticing or caring - she had fought alongside the Avengers and nobody, not even her self-professed BFF, had missed her or realized what had happened. Until everything comes out and both readers and the characters in the story find out at the same time. That everyone has to rethink the situation at the same time is, I think, damned fine writing by Bendis.
It’s also one of the things that get lost in the adaptation.
We find out right at the beginning that Jessica has been a victim, that her agency was taken from her and that changes everything. In the trailer, we meet Jessica as The Damaged Superhero with the Tragic Backstory and the series arc will be about her reclaiming herself by confronting her torturer, Kilgrave, who has returned to amuse himself by torturing her again. It has a very Girl With the Dragon Tattoo feel to it, right down to Jessica sitting hooded and menacing on a desk in waiting. But I also think it takes away some of her complexity and some of what makes her such a remarkable character by reducing the main conflict of the series to Good Versus Evil instead of Jessica Against Herself (While Also Fighting Crime). MCU Jessica hates Kilgrave for what he’s done to her; for most of the story, 616 Jessica hates herself for the same reason. MCU Jessica has to stop Kilgrave to save the city; 616 Jessica had different stakes and a much less assured outcome. And I think I’m going to miss that.
Also posted at DW.
Click to viewAs the trailer for a television series, I am very interested. As the adaptation for the comic I am… maybe a little disappointed.
In the Alias comic, we meet Jessica Jones much as we meet her at the start of the trailer, a private eye with matching alcohol and anger management problems. Jessica’s life is one of low expectations and she barely clears the bar; her ‘give a fuck’ meter has clearly been broken for a long time. So while she has a strong sense of right and wrong, she also has the ability to ignore it when convenience or anger or alcohol get involved. Which is often. She has made deliberate choices not to be the best Jessica Jones she can be and that self-sabotage is frustrating, both to the people who know her and to the reader. She has plenty of agency, plenty of potential, and she is not using it well at all and is determined not to care about the waste.
As the story progresses, however, Jessica does try to be less self-destructive. Because she is ultimately as frustrated by her own behavior as everyone else. And it is only after we see her make a committed effort to be better to herself that we find out why she is so fucked up in the first place.
relevant comics panels, warnings for lots of stuff
The late reveal is important because it comes after we have already formed our opinion of Jessica, which must now be reframed in the context of her being a survivor of a horrifying rape and imprisonment that went on for months. Without anyone noticing or caring - she had fought alongside the Avengers and nobody, not even her self-professed BFF, had missed her or realized what had happened. Until everything comes out and both readers and the characters in the story find out at the same time. That everyone has to rethink the situation at the same time is, I think, damned fine writing by Bendis.
It’s also one of the things that get lost in the adaptation.
We find out right at the beginning that Jessica has been a victim, that her agency was taken from her and that changes everything. In the trailer, we meet Jessica as The Damaged Superhero with the Tragic Backstory and the series arc will be about her reclaiming herself by confronting her torturer, Kilgrave, who has returned to amuse himself by torturing her again. It has a very Girl With the Dragon Tattoo feel to it, right down to Jessica sitting hooded and menacing on a desk in waiting. But I also think it takes away some of her complexity and some of what makes her such a remarkable character by reducing the main conflict of the series to Good Versus Evil instead of Jessica Against Herself (While Also Fighting Crime). MCU Jessica hates Kilgrave for what he’s done to her; for most of the story, 616 Jessica hates herself for the same reason. MCU Jessica has to stop Kilgrave to save the city; 616 Jessica had different stakes and a much less assured outcome. And I think I’m going to miss that.
Also posted at DW.