I just finished binge-watching Jessica Jones, the latest Marvel show from Netflix. As soon as they announced the show, I was excited to see it. This was due in large part to the character's relatively minor role in the Marvel universe. For the last while, she has been pretty resolutely retired and focusing on being a mother (and is also married to Luke Cage). The beauty of a more minor character as the protagonist for a series like this is that you can do more with her (or him). There isn't so much lore weighing the character down that the creators would feel compelled to repeat history.
And Jessica Jones is one of the most refreshing female characters on television. She is almost resolutely crabby, smiling perhaps twice in the whole series. She is almost drab in her attire throughout the show - jeans, t-shirt, boots, and a jacket. No spandex hugging her hips, cropped shirt showing off her abdomen, or thigh high boots for this Jessica Jones. There is a funny reference to the possibility of wearing a costume (a nod to when she did wear (a bad) one in the comic books), but she deflected the idea with a terrific reference to giant camel toes. Well done, JJ. To be honest, Daredevil was more of a physical object that Jessica Jones through most of the show.
But most important is that this show has offered us one of the best women on tv. If the Bechdel Test were graded, Jessica Jones would have aced it. She has a love interest (Luke Cage) and a nemesis (Kilgrave the Purple Man), but she has friends and relatively real relationships. Those friends are themselves powerful, independent women. Trish (who might become Hellcat?) is haunted by her own demons, but she fights through them and refuses to be a victim again. They talk about their relationship, their lives, and their problems.
A little side note about the show's most interesting (and weird) female character - Robin, the neighbour with a twin. Whoever created her character and wrote her lines, good for you. She is a nut who stole every scene she was in. I kept wondering what future plans there are for her character because her set-up was just too funny.
Anyway, back to Jessica Jones. I did, of course, hate the Kilgrave conflict. If it didn't have roots in the comic books themselves, I would have said they should have made Kilgrave an archenemy for a male lead instead. The whole mind control thing in a sexual relationship essentially creates the dynamic of a perpetual state of sex slavery, but it was symbolically of great value that Jessica triumphs over that power.
It was also a pretty courageous choice on the part of the show's creators to have another of his victims choose to have an abortion (and go through with it) rather than have the child conceived while she was forced to be with him. When was the last time a character on television actually went through with an abortion, anyway. The only one I remember is Maude, and that was in 1972.
1972!!!!!
Jessica Jones isn't brilliant television, but it was not a binge that I feel guilty about. To the creators, congratulations on doing some great things. You did way more as artists and explored way more of the social issues of our times than any of those stupid Marvel movies did. They had all the money in the world and they had absolutely nothing to say. You said a lot, and my viewing partner and I really appreciated it.
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