TV REC: "Pretty Little Liars" and why you should be watching it.
So, friendslist, tired of watching tv shows with not enough women, interaction between women, women of color, lesbian women? I know I am. And what's keeping me happy, while becoming increasingly disappointed in other shows for failing me on these fronts, is "Pretty Little Liars."
It's not a show that requires a large level of investment, and it only has light touches of genre (it borrows a fair bit from mystery/gothic). The plot can be better, but I admit that I don't pay attention to it. It's kind of hard to pay attention to anything else while I am being actively WOWED by how many women are interacting in positive ways on my screen, while NEVER being defined by their relationships to men (who are constantly sidelined on this show).
It's not a brilliant tv show in terms of themes or plot, but it is a brilliant character drama that consistently chooses to focus on the kinds of relationships that are missing from tv.
So if you're going to be missing tv in this upcoming hiatus, I highly recommend that you binge on "Pretty Little Liars." Like I said, low investment, high pay-off.
The premise of "Pretty Little Liars" is nothing new. It revolves around the tragic death of a beautiful young girl, and the focus is on the unraveling of the community that comes from this death. But while my beloved "Twin Peaks" gave me this premise and left the secrets to be uncovered primarily by a male detective, "Pretty Little Liars" is firmly focused on women to such a degree that it takes this problematic premise and turns it into one of the most positive portrayals of women on television in the recent years.
The perfect combination of "Twin Peaks" and Christopher Pike's Young Adult mystery novels, "Pretty Little Liars" is very much a show written for me, but I believe it has a lot of things going for it that should make it appealing to even people who didn't grow up reading women-centered YA horror/mystery novels.
The show starts not with the death but with the discovery of the body of Alison Dilaurentis, who had been missing for the previous year, suspected dead but presumed missing. With the discovery of the death, the hunt for the killer begins and at the center of the story are Alison's clique of friends who shared her secrets and whose secrets she used to hold power over them. Spencer, Aria, Hanna, and Emily have drifted apart in the year since Alison went missing, driven away by secrets as well as by the tragedy. But it seems that Alison wasn't the only one who was privy to their secrets and the four of them start receiving anonymous text messages from someone who claims to know their deepest secrets and threatens to reveal them if they don't do what's asked of them.
Once again driven together by threats and secrets, the four girls form a complex bond that starts out uncomfortable but turns into a deep friendship. This show fails hard at the reverse version of the Bechdel test, and we rarely get any scenes with two men at the center of them. Women are not only the center of this story, but they are also at the center of each and every meaningful relationship in this show. And no relationship between women is one-dimensional. This show consistently takes women who were introduced as antagonists and turns them into unwilling allies and eventually friends.
Spencer is the snarkiest and the most pragmatic of the group, predictably making her my favorite. There's Hanna, who is both snarky and incredibly compassionate and maintains one of the most positive parent-child relationship on tv with her awesomely complex (and morally ambiguous!) mother. There's Emily who is both a woman of color and a lesbian, who also happens to be in a relationship with another woman of color. There's Mona, another woman of color, who is not part of the core group but at its fringes who starts out as an antagonist but turns into much more, and no relationship between any women is simple or stereotypical.
In a format popularized by Buffy and Roswell (as much as Roswell could be said to have popularized anything ;), there's a theme of us against the world that isolates them from most others around them, especially adults. Unlike these, though, this show has a more gothic twist on this theme, with the secrets being shared and hidden by women. Even so, adults aren't portrayed as untrustworthy, but rather that the siniester nature of 'A' makes it so that any time they do trust the adults, it ends up making things worse for them. The more the secrets drive them away from the larger world, the more the girls grow closer to each other, and the relationships grow and evolve throughout the series, with them picking each other over other bonds in their lives, and more importantly, over the men in their lives.
One of the things I love best about this show is its portrayal of Alison. Alison is as vivid and real as Laura Palmer was elusive and mythic and while the focus is sometimes on her cruelty, I never feel like the show wants me to dislike her. And I certainly never feel like either the show or any of our protagonists judge Alison? All the girls share a complex relationship with Alison, the queen bee of their group, who was often manipulative and controlling. But even so, it's clear that each of the girls loved/admired her in their own way, and the relationship between Alison and each of the girls is unique and three-dimensional, with lots of flashbacks.
This show is also somewhat deconstructive of the Mean Girls trope. With a title that outright calls its own protagonist liars, you would think the show has some disdain for its protagonists, as is sometimes the case with teen movies/shows with mean girl heroines. But it takes the clique of girls that you're usually supposed to either dislike or not take seriously, and develops them all as fully realized people with complex and positive relationships that endure (as opposed to fiction's usual frenemy trope with Mean Girl protagonists). Taglines like "Never trust a pretty girl with an ugly secret" turn out to be ironic in the light of the actual text, where while keeping secrets is initially what started the whole thing, keeping them is what also often saves their lives. Alison outright says that it was TELLING the truth that got her killed, ending with "You're always better off with a really good lie." What all of this does give us are four morally ambiguous protagonists who have all done things they're not proud of, but who are all generally good people in bad situations. And the show never, ever puts these women or their concerns down. As you would expect, this show was developed and is being written primarily by a woman, Marlene King.
And the pacing on this show! Reminds me of early "Vampire Diaries." Lots of things happen every week, and while the mystery keeps getting stretched out, it's clear that the focus isn't really on who killed Alison as much as it's on how the death (and the relationship with the very alive Alison) affected all the women around her. I have no idea where this show is going, and I kind of don't care? As long as it keeps giving me this many complex women, and this much awesome soapy delightful drama and mystery, I'll be here.
Let me end with five reasons you should be watching this. For things that happen in other shows (female-driven or otherwise) that don't here:
1). Men talking over plots slowly: As mentioned already, this show has consistently been committed to failing the gender-reversed version of the Bechdel test since it started. Most episodes pass by without any m/m interaction, and on the rare occasion that it occurs, women are the topic of conversation. I honestly don't think this show has EVER had a scene with two men talking about things other than women.
2). Women being written in the context of relationships: When even shows like Farscape and Battlestar Galactica with their initial positive portrayals of women and women in relationships end up failing HARD at keeping the integrity of women's arcs while writing them in relationships with men the narrative deems more important than them, it's incredibly refreshing to see anything on tv that doesn't fall into this trap. Three of the four main protagnoists are in commited relationships with men, who drift in and out of their lives as the episodes demand and are quickly written out and away when important stuff is happening because the main plot revolves around the four girls.
It is a testament to this show's lack of emphasis on men that Spencer Hastings has become my favorite character while being in a steady relationship with a guy I find actively distasteful to highly annoying. Her relationship with a man is that insignificant to her larger arc. YOU GUYS, this almost NEVER happens with women in het relationships.
3). Mothers and daughters: While the rest of tv world is interested in exploring relationships between fathers and sons (you don't need examples of this from me, I am sure) and female driven shows are consistently interested in their female protagonists relationships' with their fathers (Alias, Revenge, Veronica Mars, etc), "Pretty Little Liars" is consistently interested in relationships between mothers and daughters. Aria and Spencer get some focus on their relationships with their fathers, but primarily, the show chooses to focus on the girls' relationships with their mothers, and even focuses on their mothers' relationships with each other. Mothers are given a narrative prominence over fathers in this narrative, which is also very rare in patriarchal narratives.
4). Women fighting with each other: In so many narratives with multiple women where women are set up to rival each other and constantly in antagonist relationships (I love Revenge, but let's face it, the whole show is built on the premise of women vs. women, as was Damages, apparently, sigh.), I constantly find myself making up headcanons to come up with more POSITIVE reasons for why these women are fighting or at odds with each other. This is a large part of why I tend to ship female characters in antagonist relationships. In "Pretty Little Liars," it's actual canon that when these women fight, it's more often than not a pretend feud to throw people off, and when they hurt each other, accidentally or otherwise, it's done in the interest of keeping the others safe or even in the worst case scenario, it still comes from a complex place that's equal parts love and hate, mingled in.
5). Female friendships disappearing over time as MORE IMPORTANT things take over (I am looking at you, Vampire Diaries): This show develops networks of relationships with a multitude of women: None of the four main girls are alike, and as a result, none of their relationships with each other are similar. They all fulfill different (but equally important) roles in each other's lives, and as a result, we have have SIX UNIQUE FRIENDSHIPS between women, not to mention the relationships these women have with Alison and other women in their lives. Honestly, this show has more women loving women than ALL THE OTHER SHOWS I AM WATCHING PUT TOGETHER. And considering that I generally only watch tv with multiple women, that's saying a lot.
Ready to watch it? Netflix has the first two seasons streaming online. The show is currently halfway through its third season and returns after a hiatus on January 8th. It's also been renewed for a fourth season. If you catch up on the first two seasons, feel free to drop me a line here or email me for, um, more updates so you can catch up in time for its return.
It's not a show that requires a large level of investment, and it only has light touches of genre (it borrows a fair bit from mystery/gothic). The plot can be better, but I admit that I don't pay attention to it. It's kind of hard to pay attention to anything else while I am being actively WOWED by how many women are interacting in positive ways on my screen, while NEVER being defined by their relationships to men (who are constantly sidelined on this show).
It's not a brilliant tv show in terms of themes or plot, but it is a brilliant character drama that consistently chooses to focus on the kinds of relationships that are missing from tv.
So if you're going to be missing tv in this upcoming hiatus, I highly recommend that you binge on "Pretty Little Liars." Like I said, low investment, high pay-off.
The premise of "Pretty Little Liars" is nothing new. It revolves around the tragic death of a beautiful young girl, and the focus is on the unraveling of the community that comes from this death. But while my beloved "Twin Peaks" gave me this premise and left the secrets to be uncovered primarily by a male detective, "Pretty Little Liars" is firmly focused on women to such a degree that it takes this problematic premise and turns it into one of the most positive portrayals of women on television in the recent years.
The perfect combination of "Twin Peaks" and Christopher Pike's Young Adult mystery novels, "Pretty Little Liars" is very much a show written for me, but I believe it has a lot of things going for it that should make it appealing to even people who didn't grow up reading women-centered YA horror/mystery novels.
The show starts not with the death but with the discovery of the body of Alison Dilaurentis, who had been missing for the previous year, suspected dead but presumed missing. With the discovery of the death, the hunt for the killer begins and at the center of the story are Alison's clique of friends who shared her secrets and whose secrets she used to hold power over them. Spencer, Aria, Hanna, and Emily have drifted apart in the year since Alison went missing, driven away by secrets as well as by the tragedy. But it seems that Alison wasn't the only one who was privy to their secrets and the four of them start receiving anonymous text messages from someone who claims to know their deepest secrets and threatens to reveal them if they don't do what's asked of them.
Once again driven together by threats and secrets, the four girls form a complex bond that starts out uncomfortable but turns into a deep friendship. This show fails hard at the reverse version of the Bechdel test, and we rarely get any scenes with two men at the center of them. Women are not only the center of this story, but they are also at the center of each and every meaningful relationship in this show. And no relationship between women is one-dimensional. This show consistently takes women who were introduced as antagonists and turns them into unwilling allies and eventually friends.
Spencer is the snarkiest and the most pragmatic of the group, predictably making her my favorite. There's Hanna, who is both snarky and incredibly compassionate and maintains one of the most positive parent-child relationship on tv with her awesomely complex (and morally ambiguous!) mother. There's Emily who is both a woman of color and a lesbian, who also happens to be in a relationship with another woman of color. There's Mona, another woman of color, who is not part of the core group but at its fringes who starts out as an antagonist but turns into much more, and no relationship between any women is simple or stereotypical.
In a format popularized by Buffy and Roswell (as much as Roswell could be said to have popularized anything ;), there's a theme of us against the world that isolates them from most others around them, especially adults. Unlike these, though, this show has a more gothic twist on this theme, with the secrets being shared and hidden by women. Even so, adults aren't portrayed as untrustworthy, but rather that the siniester nature of 'A' makes it so that any time they do trust the adults, it ends up making things worse for them. The more the secrets drive them away from the larger world, the more the girls grow closer to each other, and the relationships grow and evolve throughout the series, with them picking each other over other bonds in their lives, and more importantly, over the men in their lives.
One of the things I love best about this show is its portrayal of Alison. Alison is as vivid and real as Laura Palmer was elusive and mythic and while the focus is sometimes on her cruelty, I never feel like the show wants me to dislike her. And I certainly never feel like either the show or any of our protagonists judge Alison? All the girls share a complex relationship with Alison, the queen bee of their group, who was often manipulative and controlling. But even so, it's clear that each of the girls loved/admired her in their own way, and the relationship between Alison and each of the girls is unique and three-dimensional, with lots of flashbacks.
This show is also somewhat deconstructive of the Mean Girls trope. With a title that outright calls its own protagonist liars, you would think the show has some disdain for its protagonists, as is sometimes the case with teen movies/shows with mean girl heroines. But it takes the clique of girls that you're usually supposed to either dislike or not take seriously, and develops them all as fully realized people with complex and positive relationships that endure (as opposed to fiction's usual frenemy trope with Mean Girl protagonists). Taglines like "Never trust a pretty girl with an ugly secret" turn out to be ironic in the light of the actual text, where while keeping secrets is initially what started the whole thing, keeping them is what also often saves their lives. Alison outright says that it was TELLING the truth that got her killed, ending with "You're always better off with a really good lie." What all of this does give us are four morally ambiguous protagonists who have all done things they're not proud of, but who are all generally good people in bad situations. And the show never, ever puts these women or their concerns down. As you would expect, this show was developed and is being written primarily by a woman, Marlene King.
And the pacing on this show! Reminds me of early "Vampire Diaries." Lots of things happen every week, and while the mystery keeps getting stretched out, it's clear that the focus isn't really on who killed Alison as much as it's on how the death (and the relationship with the very alive Alison) affected all the women around her. I have no idea where this show is going, and I kind of don't care? As long as it keeps giving me this many complex women, and this much awesome soapy delightful drama and mystery, I'll be here.
Let me end with five reasons you should be watching this. For things that happen in other shows (female-driven or otherwise) that don't here:
1). Men talking over plots slowly: As mentioned already, this show has consistently been committed to failing the gender-reversed version of the Bechdel test since it started. Most episodes pass by without any m/m interaction, and on the rare occasion that it occurs, women are the topic of conversation. I honestly don't think this show has EVER had a scene with two men talking about things other than women.
2). Women being written in the context of relationships: When even shows like Farscape and Battlestar Galactica with their initial positive portrayals of women and women in relationships end up failing HARD at keeping the integrity of women's arcs while writing them in relationships with men the narrative deems more important than them, it's incredibly refreshing to see anything on tv that doesn't fall into this trap. Three of the four main protagnoists are in commited relationships with men, who drift in and out of their lives as the episodes demand and are quickly written out and away when important stuff is happening because the main plot revolves around the four girls.
It is a testament to this show's lack of emphasis on men that Spencer Hastings has become my favorite character while being in a steady relationship with a guy I find actively distasteful to highly annoying. Her relationship with a man is that insignificant to her larger arc. YOU GUYS, this almost NEVER happens with women in het relationships.
3). Mothers and daughters: While the rest of tv world is interested in exploring relationships between fathers and sons (you don't need examples of this from me, I am sure) and female driven shows are consistently interested in their female protagonists relationships' with their fathers (Alias, Revenge, Veronica Mars, etc), "Pretty Little Liars" is consistently interested in relationships between mothers and daughters. Aria and Spencer get some focus on their relationships with their fathers, but primarily, the show chooses to focus on the girls' relationships with their mothers, and even focuses on their mothers' relationships with each other. Mothers are given a narrative prominence over fathers in this narrative, which is also very rare in patriarchal narratives.
4). Women fighting with each other: In so many narratives with multiple women where women are set up to rival each other and constantly in antagonist relationships (I love Revenge, but let's face it, the whole show is built on the premise of women vs. women, as was Damages, apparently, sigh.), I constantly find myself making up headcanons to come up with more POSITIVE reasons for why these women are fighting or at odds with each other. This is a large part of why I tend to ship female characters in antagonist relationships. In "Pretty Little Liars," it's actual canon that when these women fight, it's more often than not a pretend feud to throw people off, and when they hurt each other, accidentally or otherwise, it's done in the interest of keeping the others safe or even in the worst case scenario, it still comes from a complex place that's equal parts love and hate, mingled in.
5). Female friendships disappearing over time as MORE IMPORTANT things take over (I am looking at you, Vampire Diaries): This show develops networks of relationships with a multitude of women: None of the four main girls are alike, and as a result, none of their relationships with each other are similar. They all fulfill different (but equally important) roles in each other's lives, and as a result, we have have SIX UNIQUE FRIENDSHIPS between women, not to mention the relationships these women have with Alison and other women in their lives. Honestly, this show has more women loving women than ALL THE OTHER SHOWS I AM WATCHING PUT TOGETHER. And considering that I generally only watch tv with multiple women, that's saying a lot.
Ready to watch it? Netflix has the first two seasons streaming online. The show is currently halfway through its third season and returns after a hiatus on January 8th. It's also been renewed for a fourth season. If you catch up on the first two seasons, feel free to drop me a line here or email me for, um, more updates so you can catch up in time for its return.