Crazy Rich Asians is being touted as the hit romantic comedy of the summer and a cultural win for Asian-Americans, but not everyone feels that way; the dialogue surrounding this charming and effervescent rom-com has been divisive and complicated.

The criticism Crazy Rich Asians has received for its promotion of the model minority myth and moments of anti-blackness are completely valid, but we also need to be realistic about the role pop culture plays in pushing a truly progressive agenda and the timeline in which that agenda unfolds.

As a poor, fat, queer, mixed Filipina-American, I didn’t relate to Crazy Rich Asians either, but as a person who studied film and works in the entertainment industry, I know better than to look for my story in the mainstream. This movie is not all of Asian American representation. It’s the introductory course that gets Hollywood interested in more complex lessons about our community.

It’s easy to focus our hatred on a tangible product rather than at the larger system. The Joy Luck Club was the last major American film with a majority Asian American cast and it was released 25 years ago. This film too—which is decidedly more serious and more relatable to a larger group of Asian-Americans, continues to receive hypercritical ire for not doing “enough” for the community. But Amy Tan, the author of The Joy Luck Club, and Kevin Kwan, the author of Crazy Rich Asians, have a responsibility as artists to share their truth—however small a slice of truth that is—and it’s unfair to demand that these singular pieces of art speak on behalf of all of Asian America.

This is a complex community—representing 21,655,368 individuals with ancestral ties from over 40 countries— comprised of multiple ethnic groups, social classes, and intersectional experiences.

We need to be realistic about the role pop culture plays in pushing a truly progressive agenda and the timeline in which that agenda unfolds.
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When Kwan wrote Crazy Rich Asians, he was drawing from his experience as a wealthy Singaporean-American. In a video op-ed for Harper’s Bazaar titled “These are the Real Crazy Rich Asians,” Kevin Kwan says, “How much of my book is based on reality? About 150% of it.” This is the world he lives and knows. For Kwan to write a book based on any other Asian-American experience, but his own would be hollow and disingenuous. To expect more denies the validity of his experience and sets a dangerous precedent for other marginalized writers.

We already have to hide certain facets of our identities when navigating this bigoted world, we shouldn’t have to hide our truth from our own communities. All art deserves criticism, but it’s important to evaluate where that criticism is coming from. Our community’s resentment with Crazy Rich Asians and The Joy Luck Club has less to do with the actual films and more to do with the painful truth that Hollywood continues to deny our multicultural and multifaceted existence.

Crazy Rich Asians was never going to be a radical criticism of capitalism, white colonialism, and racism in the United States. The gatekeepers of Hollywood benefit from upholding those systems; to take aim at these systems would take aim at their own power. Despite its self-purported  progressive reputation, Hollywood is a business—a business that made $11.7 billion in 2017—and is still keenly focused on making a profit. And that profit is believed to stem from a film’s ability appeal to the whiter—ahem, wider—American audience.

The disillusionment felt by many Asian-Americans shows that marginalized people are hungry for representation in Hollywood and that they don’t fully understand the trials of filmmaking in a system as bigoted and bureaucratic as Hollywood’s.

There are three major parts to the film production process,  and a film can die at any of these points: Development, Production, and Distribution. For a major motion picture, every step of this process can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. This goes to pay writers, talent, crew, executives, lawyers, and everyone else involved in the making of the film as well as costs for costuming, location, and props.

It’s impossible to find out how many scripts get passed over by the power players in entertainment, but here are figures from a small facet of the industry.  The Black List is a “an annual survey of Hollywood executives’ favorite unproduced screenplays” founded by Franklin Leonard, a Black Hollywood executive that wanted to get the industry to take chances on scripts that kept getting passed over. Along with the annual survey, the Black List has become a place where unrepresented writers can get feedback and industry eyes on their work.

The Black List “has hosted more than 55,000 screenplays and teleplays” since it started and of those 55,000 only 338 were put into production. Only 6% of the movies that were hosted on the site made it into production, and that’s coming from a place that wants writers to succeed.

With Crazy Rich Asians, the source material was already there in Kwan’s bestselling book. In August 2013, Nina Jacobson, the founder of the production company Color Force, bought the adaptation rights to Crazy Rich Asians only 2 months after the book was released. Once the rights were bought, it would be logical for production to start soon after. Well, that’s when the production entered its personal “Development Hell”— an industry term for a project that’s stuck in the development stage for years.

Crazy Rich Asians didn’t start production until 2017 for many different reasons, including a scheduling conflict with lead actress Constance Wu, due to her role on Fresh off the Boat. Roadblocks like this aren’t uncommon for productions, especially feature films. All of the normal struggles that a feature film faces—script, crew, actor changes, going over-budget, licensing issues, etc.—are heightened when the film centers on people of color. It is a lot easier to say no to a film that doesn’t have a profitable precedent, so it’s remarkable that people kept saying yes to Crazy Rich Asians at all.

As a poor, fat, queer, mixed Filipina-American, I know better than to look for my story in the mainstream.
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When people see Crazy Rich Asians in theaters, the logos of the production companies flash before their eyes and the first few names aren’t recognizable to most American moviegoers—SK Global (made up of Sidney Kimmel Entertainment, and Ivanhoe Pictures), Color Force, and Starlight Culture Entertainment. The last logo to fill up the screen is the iconic Warner Bros. Studios shield, with the words “Distributed By” above it. This demarcation as distributor—and not as a production company—is extremely important.

Jacobson knew that if she wanted to make Crazy Rich Asians a reality, she would have to go outside the American studio system for funding, hence the partnership with Ivanhoe Pictures, a U.S.-based Asian film investment group. Starlight Culture Entertainment, one of the other production companies involved, is a giant Hong Kong investment company with stakes in multiple industries aside from entertainment, including chemicals, environmental protection products, and gambling. These production companies are the ones that believed in Crazy Rich Asians.

They are the ones that work on adapting the material and creating a package (attaching a director and producer to a script to make it more marketable). They are the ones that bring their creative assets to distribution companies to get more funding and guarantee that people will get a chance to see it.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Warner Bros. and Netflix were the two distributors that the creative team behind Crazy Rich Asians had to choose between. Kwan and Jon Chu, the film’s director had to make the final decision. They ultimately chose to go with Warner Bros., despite the lesser offer, because they wanted the cultural impact of a theater release.

As a traditional distributor, Warner Bros. backs the project and sends it out to their distribution channels— theaters, rentals, and personal copies—hoping to make a profit (or at least their investment back) in ticket, DVD, BluRay, and digital download sales. Warner Bros. shares of the profit come back to them, so they can continue the cycle with another film.

The disillusionment felt by many Asian-Americans shows that they don’t fully understand the trials of filmmaking in a system as bigoted and bureaucratic as Hollywood’s.
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It’s not shocking that Netflix was willing to give Crazy Rich Asians a trilogy deal right off the bat. Netflix, and other digital subscription based distributors, have taken more chances on projects that feature marginalized characters than traditional studios because of their business model. They don’t have to gamble on ticket sales to make their money back—they already have a well of money from subscription fees to draw from. But if Kevin Kwan and John Chu had chosen the initial Netflix payday over Warner Bros. smaller budget, Crazy Rich Asians wouldn’t be a cultural touchstone that sold out theaters for multiple weeks.

The initial goal of any film is to make the backers’ investment back, but the stakes are even higher with minority-lead films. The experiences of people of color are automatically politicized, and subsequently othered. Studio executives don’t think general (i.e. white) audiences will relate to characters of color. They don’t believe that the stories of marginalized communities will succeed (even when it’s been proven they will time and time again).

Girls Trip was only given a $20 million budget (even with the star power of Queen Latifah, Jada Pinkett Smith, Regina Hall, and Tiffany Haddish) and it ended up making $140 million gross—seven times its budget back. Warner Bros. believed in Crazy Rich Asians enough to back it, but gave it a relatively small budget of $30 million considering the high-profile actors and the lavish backdrops, costumes, and set pieces that the story demands. In its first two weeks, Crazy Rich Asians, more than doubled its budget in box office revenue, proving that it wasn’t such a risky bet after all.

The American film industry has largely failed us since its inception in 1907, and will continue to fail the most marginalized of us. Supporting major releases—even begrudgingly—helps convince major studios and distributors to bet on more of our stories. All the odds were stacked against Crazy Rich Asians—a fun, apolitical, rom-com with light-skinned Asians that speak King’s English. It took years of community building and pushing against Hollywood gatekeepers to get this film made. It took allies with power to bet their good standing in the industry on the stories of people of color. It took the cultural groundwork of The Joy Luck Club, Fresh off the Boat, and every bit of honest representation in between.

If people still aren’t content with our victories in the mainstream, seek out and support the underground! There ARE independent filmmakers making the most brown, queer, anti-capitalist Asian-American films you can imagine—like the 2017 short film Salamagan (dir.  Elisah Oh) currently on the film festival circuit.

Organizations like CAAM, CAPE, Kore, and 18 Million Rising, are dedicated to uplifting diverse Asian-American artists through funding, fellowships, film festivals, screenings, and promotion through social media. CAAM’s film festivals feature some of the biggest names in Asian-American entertainment right alongside new talent (and they’re taking submissions right now!)

Many of these organizations have events with actors, writers, directors, and producers at all talent levels because they are meant to uplift our community through art and mentorship. I urge you to take all your anger, disappointment, and pain at Hollywood and Crazy Rich Asians and put that energy into artists and projects you want to see succeed.

Kwan told his story with Crazy Rich Asians. Now, let’s go share our own.

Erik Killmonger (Credit: YouTube)

Here there be spoilers.

When I went to see Black Panther, I didn’t think it would make me sad. I didn’t think I’d dislike Wakanda for its imaginary role in the real-world continued oppression of Black people.

I should be able to divorce reality from fiction, and yet, the narrative hit so close to home that I found myself weighted by it, almost to the point of tears. Knowing the horrors my ancestors survived as part of the slave trade, which Wakandans in this fictional universe could’ve fought to end, horrors that led to my existence — I’d gladly never live if it meant none of that ever happened.

I didn’t expect to walk away imagining a world where the transatlantic slave trade never happened, and resenting the fuck out of Wakanda because it did.

I didn’t expect to mourn Erik Killmonger, the villain who wasn’t MY villain. He was my hero. He was the me I wish I could be — the brutal, ruthless freedom fighter who built himself from nothing to free Black people from the colonizers. He was the hero I needed, not Black Panther, inert instead of dedicated to change, and that was a realization I was not expecting.

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I didn’t expect to mourn Erik Killmonger, the villain who wasn’t MY villain. He was my hero.
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After the movie, I left the theater to the chants of “Wakanda Forever,” feeling unsettled and displaced. If Wakanda were a real place, I’d be Erik; I’d be the American monster in Wakanda because I couldn’t love a country with the means to end the transatlantic slave trade that instead chose to hide and pretend it wasn’t their problem. A nation that only fights when absolutely necessary and did not think the kidnapping, torture, murder, rape, abuse, dehumanization, and destruction of millions of people made war absolutely necessary. A nation with superior education, technology, creativity, and the financial ability to help that instead turned its collective back on those who lived outside its borders. Black people, like them. Because they were not Wakandan.

I came out of the theater angry at Wakanda.

I know it’s not a real place. I KNOW it’s not real. It’s a flawed fantasy that doesn’t align with the reality of the history of my family, my people. Still, to watch a narrative where the person with the power to change the world opts to murder his brother and desert his nephew to the poverty and oppression faced by so many Black people, all to maintain a separatist, non-interference policy, while spying and learning the atrocities endured by millions and doing nothing to stop it?

That’s a hard pill to swallow.

And to watch a narrative where the supposed villain is a man who learned the savagery of his oppressors and became a better monster than them, completely willing to sacrifice everything to change the fate of millions, while Wakanda watched and claimed that letting Black people suffer was the greater good?

How could I see this as the actions of a villain at all?

I understood Nakia, the Wakandan warrior who knew her nation wasn’t doing enough, which was why she could not, should not stay. Wakanda was complicit in the genocide of millions while looking at those suffering not with compassion, but with dismissal. Wakanda Forever really meant Wakanda First and Only. It meant pretending that ignoring genocide can exempt you from the responsibility to stop it. It meant upholding traditions that work inside a bubble, while sacrificing everyone outside of it.

I watched the judgement and disdain Wakandans had for Erik, a man who was ruthless because he had to be and merciless because to take power, mercy has no place — as demonstrated by T’Chaka taking the life of his own brother — and I thought, He is not who you should fight.

Is ‘Thor: Ragnarok’ A Subversive Takedown Of White Supremacy?

I could not love Wakanda. And, after learning more of its history, neither could T’Challa.

For if Wakanda was the marvel it is written to be, how could it have let the transatlantic slave trade happen? How could it have allowed the magnitude of suffering that continued in the many years after?

And so I was left with a bitterness I didn’t expect, and a sadness, as I wished for a past that can never happen. I was left knowing that in my heart, I am Erik Killmonger — that I, too, would want to force Wakanda to take a stand to help more than themselves.

Watching Black Panther, I had to accept that I would be an American monster in Wakanda. And like Erik, I’d want to burn it all down if that meant improving the world for Black people.

Originally published at talynnkel.com.

Everything Wrong With Harvey Weinstein’s Response To Sexual Assault Allegations

The Hollywood mogul’s ostensible mea culpa is a perfectly written example of things not to do when you are apologizing.

flickr/Thomas Hawk

By Kali Holloway

For decades, Harvey Weinstein has served as the real-life inspiration for every tyrannical, foul-mouthed, hot-headed fictional movie studio executive. For pretty much just as long, according to a bombshell report from the New York Times, Weinstein has been serial sexually harassing aspiring young actresses who come into his orbit.

The Times offers a lengthy list of women, some of them now famous, who were allegedly subjected to Weinstein’s lewd overtures, including Ashley Judd, who says Weinstein requested she watch him shower and Rose McGowan, whom Weinstein gave a settlement in 1997 following “an episode in a hotel room during the Sundance Film Festival.”

There were at least eight more hush money pay outs, per the Times, to recipients including “a young assistant in New York in 1990, an actress in 1997, an assistant in London in 1998, an Italian model in 2015 and [former Weinstein Company employee Lauren] O’Connor shortly after.” With a traceable track record like that, it’s almost impossible to believe that there aren’t other women who chose to keep quiet rather than take on one of the most powerful men in Hollywood.

In response to the Times report, Weinstein released a statement that is an ostensible mea culpa but reads more like a perfectly written example of things not to do when you are apologizing. Let’s run through some of the highlights, shall we?

“I came of age in the ’60s and ’70s, when all the rules about behavior and workplaces were different. That was the culture then.”

I came of age at a time when the workplace was where men went to compare dick size with other men, and then we’d have our secretaries — or “skirts,” as we called them — judge who won. Was that bad? Me confused by all these new rules.

On Woody Allen And Hollywood’s Shameful Perpetuation Of Rape Culture

“I have since learned it’s not an excuse, in the office — or out of it. To anyone.”

I’ve learned it’s not an excuse, and yet I still offered it as an excuse, because I’ll level with you here: I’ve learned nothing.

“I realized some time ago I that needed to be a better person, and my interactions with the people I work with have changed. I appreciate the way I’ve behaved with colleagues in the past has caused a lot of pain, and I sincerely apologize for it. Though I’m trying to do better, I know I have a long way to go. That is my commitment. My journey now will be to learn about myself and conquer my demons.”

Well, this seems like progress, right?

Just wait.

“Over the last year, I’ve asked [celebrity lawyer] Lisa Bloom to tutor me, and she’s put together a team of people. I’ve brought on therapists, and I plan to take a leave of absence from my company and to deal with this issue head on.”

Lisa Bloom told the Times that Weinstein is “an old dinosaur learning new ways” and that she “explained to him that due to the power difference between a major studio head like him and most others in the industry, whatever his motives, some of his words and behaviors can be perceived as inappropriate, even intimidating.”

What’s weird about this is that I’m pretty sure Weinstein already understands the power differential at play between him and “most others in the industry,” particularly hopeful actors. One woman who temped for Weinstein said he told her that “if she accepted his sexual advances, he would boost her career.” O’Connor said that Weinstein’s targets were almost invariably “vulnerable women who hope he will get them work.” Weinstein — a six-time Oscar winner and titan in the film industry — understood with crystal clarity his own status vs. those he allegedly dangled careers in front of for varying sexual favors. Alleged sexual harassers and abusers such as Bill O’Reilly, Bill Cosby and Roger Ailes, among many others, use their power against those who have none. That’s how this whole awful thing works.

I’m pretty sure Weinstein already understands the power differential at play between him and ‘most others in the industry.’

Also, for the record, the fact that Weinstein reportedly used his fortune to pay off women and keep all those charges quiet suggests he’s well aware that his behaviors are “inappropriate, even intimidating.”

“I so respect all women, and regret what happened.”

God. That “so” is really not helping here. Someone should’ve read this thing out loud before they sent it out.

“Jay Z wrote in 4:44 ‘I’m not the man I thought I was, and I better be that man for my children.’ The same is true for me.”

Honestly, Harvey Weinstein borrowing a Jay-Z lyric about his marital infidelity to Beyoncé to describe his contrition about harassing who knows how many women over the last 30 years is just too much to get into right now. (Who is that arbitrary insertion even for? The “kidz”? Maybe in his next sorry-not-sorry letter he’ll quote Lil Yachty or something.) It is worth noting that the line isn’t an actual Jay-Z quote, just to give you a sense of the real time and heartfelt labor that went into this thing.

“I want a second chance in the community, but I know I’ve got work to do to earn it.”

What community? You mean Hollywood? Mel Gibson is on the up-and-up these days and the Golden Globes gave Woody Allen a Lifetime Achievement Award just three years ago. Fox News fired Bill O’Reilly six months ago and then welcomed him back last month like an esteemed honoree at a medal ceremony. As I’m sure you already know, “the community’” is just awaiting a sign from the echo chamber on when it’s okay to be cool with you again.

Why Should You Become An Establishment Member For $5 A Month?

“I have goals that are now priorities. Trust me, this isn’t an overnight process. I’ve been trying to do this for 10 years, and this is a wake-up call.”

Wait, so according to Harvey Weinstein, he’s been trying to “do this” — meaning “be better” we presume — for “10 years”? I would genuinely love to hear what kind of all-powerful pervy forces have been forcing Harvey Weinstein — the man whom 90 percent of Hollywood is legit afraid to piss off — to keep sexually harassing women for the last decade.

Here’s where it really gets good by which I mean off the g.d. rails.

“I am going to need a place to channel that anger, so I’ve decided that I’m going to give the NRA my full attention. I hope Wayne LaPierre will enjoy his retirement party. I’m going to do it at the same place I had my Bar Mitzvah. I’m making a movie about our President, perhaps we can make it a joint retirement party.”

On the heels of the latest mass shooting, many of us welcome any takedown of the NRA. And considering his historic unpopularity, it’s always nice to hear mention of Trump no longer having access to the nuclear codes. But the whole tone of this section verges on the bizarre, that is until you remember you are in the midst of a pissing match, midstream. “I’m going to throw you a party in the same place where I became a man, which you should consider a direct threat to your own manhood through some convoluted illogical thought stream I won’t explain.” Or something.

You are in the midst of a pissing match.

Anyway, if there are three people who seem perfect for some sort of man-off, it’s Weinstein, Trump and the head of the NRA. So there’s that.

“One year ago, I began organizing a $5 million foundation to give scholarships to women directors at USC. While this might seem coincidental, it has been in the works for a year. It will be named after my mom, and I won’t disappoint her.”

I guess that’s a good thing. Let’s just be sure every scholarship includes a clause that states, “You are in no way now, nor in the future, beholden to Harvey Weinstein.” Just be safe.

This article originally appeared on AlterNet. Republished here with permission.

]]> https://theestablishment.co/the-role-of-photography-in-resisting-trump-and-racism-66d615592fca/ Wed, 15 Mar 2017 22:00:44 +0000 https://theestablishment.co/?p=4989 Read more]]>

Tonika Johnson is using her art to ‘interrupt stereotypes.’

Tonika Johnson is a 37-year-old native Chicagoan making a name for herself as a street photographer. Her community, Englewood, rose to infamy after Spike Lee’s 2015 film Chi-Raq portrayed it as a hotbed of gun violence. “This is not the Englewood I experienced growing up, or that I currently see through my lens,” she says on her artist’s statement.

For Johnson, the still image and social justice go hand-in-hand: She wants to highlight the joy, power, and humanity of marginalized communities that are often overlooked or outright demonized by popular media. Through her tender images of everyday life, Johnson is systematically shattering preconceived notions about Englewood, and in their wake she offers outsiders — as well as the community itself — “a more accurate and artistically beautiful reflection of themselves” than is ever depicted.

The Establishment sat down with Johnson to talk cameras, race, and the role of art in resisting Trump.

What is your earliest memory of photography?

It was freshman year of high school, and I was in a Saturday writing program called Young Chicago Authors. The program held a special photography class, and I took it. After that I started to write less and less poetry and take more and more pictures. It was all old-fashioned film cameras back then, nothing digital, so I was learning how to work the camera and develop the photos, too. It was the first time I learned something so fast that was so foreign to me. I kind of shocked myself.

Even your earliest work feels like it’s highlighting the positive aspects of your world. Were you working with the same aim of confronting stereotypes that you are today?

Oh, no. Way in the beginning I was just using the little point-and-shoot camera my dad bought me. I became known at school for just always taking pictures. It wasn’t artistic or anything, I just wanted to constantly catch a moment. I loved the constant challenge of changing subjects, moving subjects, trying to capture whatever moment or emotion you’re after, knowing that your subject is going to do something different in a second. I took pictures of landscapes, of my friends. It wasn’t until much later that I realized the pictures could change how others thought about my community.

You went to Columbia College for journalism, which is in a much whiter part of the city than Englewood. What was it like practicing your craft there?

I was definitely the only Black student. I was used to being in diverse settings and was sort of taken aback that all the other students were white. I got to see how my photos looked compared to theirs. The difference was race, city to suburbs. My photos of my friends and my neighborhood were these kids’ only exposure to kids who didn’t look like them. It was my first time — more or less — being designated as the representative of Black people from the South Side of Chicago.

I remember feeling estranged from my class, and that made me want to get as technically superior as I could. I remember feeling like the subject matter — the emotion of my photos — was always dismissed, and it always boiled down to a critique of the photos’ technical aspects. So I had to let it go and use those photography classes as a time to master understanding my equipment.

Can you tell me a little more about your journey from photography student to photographer-activist?

In 2008, I got a Nikon D-80 for my birthday. I had been working as a development associate at a nonprofit and hadn’t taken photos for about seven years. That Nikon got me out and taking photos again. I got involved with community organizations like Resident Association of Greater Englewood and taught a youth journalism program at the local library. I had a whole bunch of friends who were performers, and I started documenting their performances. One friend opened up for Wu-Tang and I documented that. Another friend asked me if I could take photos of her while she was on tour in France. That’s when it just really started to amaze me where photography could take you.

I got comfortable enough to stop taking just landscapes and start taking portraits of Englewood residents — some neighbors but most strangers. After Spike Lee’s movie came out I thought, “Nah. I’ve got all these pictures that show Englewood in a completely different way. I’m going to use photography as my platform to expand other people’s social awareness.”

What are your working on now?

Right now I’m moving toward video. I want to have a video collage showing a week in Englewood at different times of the day, and I want to project it on the two empty walls of the abandoned building on 63rd and Halsted. I think it’s important to make quality art accessible to communities. It has to be outside of galleries. It has to reach people who wouldn’t come to the gallery.

More generally, I want to show and remind people of the humanity that exists in abundance within these communities. Videos and photographs stick in our minds and give us evidence to believe what we want to believe about a person or neighborhood. I would like for there to be another way to look at Englewood and communities like it. I don’t want it to be visually associated with crime and poverty. Because when you label a neighborhood that way, you’re labeling the people in that neighborhood. It’s dehumanizing. I want to make it so that when you Google “Englewood” and other neighborhoods like it, these positive images will start popping up.

We’ve entered a political era where bigotry and hatred are on the rise. How do you see art figuring into the resistance?

It was disturbingly painful to see that there’s a large group of people in our country who really hold onto some very damaging, hurtful stereotypes and beliefs about other people in the country who don’t look like them. Now more than ever it’s important to challenge that, and I think art is just a great conduit to expand people’s social ideas and constructs in a way that a conversation or a debate or an argument doesn’t allow. Sometimes art can come in and create a safer space to communicate a different opinion or viewpoint and allow you to interact with it.

I think a lot of the resistance right now is bridging the gaps between understanding and having people consider other people’s point of view. My contribution is to offer a visual narrative showing the humanity of different marginalized, othered groups.

We are the experts of our neighborhood. We can tell our own stories. We can be beautiful.

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]]> https://theestablishment.co/why-is-jessica-jones-important-82da6c33fb49/ Fri, 18 Dec 2015 18:45:04 +0000 https://theestablishment.co/?p=10045 Read more]]> Five writers weigh in on this multifaceted superhero survivor—and what she means for trauma representation.

Lindsay Tessier was first. Her pitch about Marvel’s Jessica Jones arrived three days after the series had gone live. Then came Charley Reid’s. Next, Laura Bogart’s. The proposed story ideas continued to pour in about what made the show unprecedented, how it was resonating, what it meant to watch it.

While The Establishment fields a number of pitches related to television and pop culture. . . we’d never encountered a phenomenon like this before; this show was clearly doing something unique.

Created by Melissa Rosenberg for Netflix, Jessica Jones is based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name (originally crafted by Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Gaydos) — a lead character not only notable for being a woman in the notoriously male-focused hero-verse, but one who openly grapples with life in the wake of trauma. Jessica Jones is both hero and antihero, a PTSD-plagued private investigator and sexual assault survivor using cheap whiskey and acerbic smarts to cope after her grievous entanglements with the insidious, mind-controlling villain Kilgrave.

Jones is moody, cutting, distant, very clearly troubled — but therein lies her power. Though she literally possesses superhuman strength, above all — as every one of the women who pitched stories on the series attested — she is an honest, realistic representation of an abuse survivor attempting to navigate the world.

Finally.

In honor of the complicated, multidimensional hero, we’ve assembled our own Avengers-esque team of writers to weigh in. We posed a simple but potent question: Why is Jessica Jones important?

Here are their answers.

The Creation Of Abusers: Analyzed and Explored
By Lauren Bogart

Jessica Jones doesn’t just break new ground, it punches through the center of the earth itself and comes out on the other side of the atmosphere. The show uses the grandiosity and symbolic power of superhero stories to articulate truths about surviving abuse, and about the nature of abuse itself — including how people become abusers.

Kilgrave’s powers are a metaphor for male privilege: he can, easily and with impunity, bend the world to his whims. Kilgrave is a product of our “boy-gets-girl” world where, as Arthur Chu says, “instead of seeing women as, you know, people, protagonists of their own stories just like we are of ours, men are taught that women are things to ‘earn,’ to ‘win.’” He deploys those powers, that privilege, to keep his coterie of sexual playthings because he believes it’s his right — he’s genuinely, gob-smackingly shocked when Jessica says that he raped her, because according to our culture, a rape culture to its core, women don’t have any real agency, anyway. As if this cauldron of influences wasn’t toxic enough, we add Kilgrave’s parents, who, in experimenting on him as a child, taught him that bodily autonomy and consent are negligible.

Jessica Jones doesn’t just break new ground, it punches through the center of the earth itself and comes out on the other side of the atmosphere.
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That video of Kilgave as a pre-teen test subject, howling in agony as he’s injected with chemicals, is more than a moment of sympathy for the devil, it’s a guided tour of the hot place he comes from. Jessica Jones is in her own fresh Hell, drowning her shame in whiskey and hiding away from anyone who wants to help her. But there is also rage, the flames that crackle and spit inside her until they find release. Jessica tries to be strong in her broken places, to be valiant for the Kilgrave survivors who aren’t as (literally) empowered as she is — and yet, when she is tasked with forcing her employer’s recalcitrant wife to sign divorce papers, she tosses the woman to the subway tracks like a stuffed doll. Jessica is loosened with drink, venting her own helplessness out on a woman who has had the liberty of exerting her own will.

In the end, Jessica pulls the woman off the tracks. She is not Kilgrave; she is better than her own sad past and the dark side of her powers. And yet, for a moment, it was so easy, so inevitable, to do unto others, to break her need upon someone else’s body. This understanding gives Jessica Jones its pathos and nuance, making it one of the finest, truest depictions of abuse ever on-screen.

The Truth Of Violator/Victim Dynamics
By Tasha Williams

The episode “AKA WWJD?” includes some of the most powerful moments of the entire Jessica Jones series. In one particularly raw scene, Jessica confronts Kilgrave for not only enslaving her mind — as he did to his other victims — but for also physically raping her. Kilgrave’s splenetic response, typical of an oppressor, enrages her even more, but she doesn’t back down:

Jessica: The part where I didn’t want to do any of it! Not only did you physically rape me, but you violated every cell in my body and every thought in my goddamn head.

Kilgrave: That’s not what I was trying to do.

Jessica: It doesn’t matter what you were trying to do. You raped me, again and again and again.

Kilgrave: How was I supposed to know?! Huh?! I never know if someone is doing what they want or what I tell them to!

Jessica: Oh, poor you.

Kilgrave: You have no idea, do you? I have to painstakingly choose every word I say. I once told a man to go screw himself. Can you even imagine? I didn’t have this. A home, loving parents, a family.

Jessica: You blame bad parenting? My parents died! You don’t see me raping anyone!

Kilgrave: I hate that word.

This exchange makes for groundbreaking storytelling because 1) it exposes the hilt of the debate over consensual sex vs. rape, and 2) it reveals the authentic dynamics of a violator and victim confrontation.

To match our fully realized superhero, this series gives us a fleshed out villain whose toxic, predatory personality is as ominous as his superpowers. Kilgrave’s initial obfuscation tactic, claiming Jessica was wooed by a luxurious lifestyle and thus, not raped, evokes the psychological techniques of a street pimp. His rants throughout this scene indicate he believes his intent, thoughts, and desires subordinate his victims’ humanity. Jessica, our superhero, no longer under mind control — supernatural or otherwise — rejects this notion and adamantly refuses to let her rapist evade responsibility.

To match our fully realized superhero, this series gives us a fleshed out villain whose toxic, predatory personality is as ominous as his superpowers.
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It is here we witness her true strength. And, in Kilgrave’s final comeback — characteristic of a true sociopath — we also see that, in the end, he just hates labels.

The Incredible Fallout From Intimate Violence
By Charley Reid

I was discussing Jessica Jones with a friend when I made the assertion that the show is more accurately compared to NBC’s Hannibal than to Daredevil, the only other tonally-similar part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He agreed, saying that although there is more overall violence in Daredevil, the violence in Jessica Jones simply feels more painful, more visceral. He was communicating the very basis of my comparison — intimacy. The more intimate the violence, the more powerful it is, and Jessica Jones perfectly illustrates this phenomenon.

I would go so far as to say that Jessica Jones succeeds largely due to how well it captures the human cost of intimate violence. This is a theme underutilized in most other depictions of violence in mainstream cinema and television, which tend to focus more on degrees of brutality — ranging from large-scale destruction in The Avengers, to the revenge-inspired violence of Taken, which is up-close and personal but not intimate.

When accurately depicted on screen, the escalation of violence through intimacy works incredibly well (other examples include the Hannibal Lecter franchise, and most of Quentin Tarantino’s work) because it mirrors real life; violence that violates, like sexual assault and rape, asserts control by exploiting deeply-ingrained power dynamics. Jessica Jones takes these power dynamics and personifies them in the form of the villain Kilgrave.

Jessica Jones succeeds largely due to how well it captures the human cost of intimate violence.
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Some assert that this sets up the plot as a rape-revenge story, but that would imply that the primary motivation for the main character’s actions is revenge; this is not the case. Jones initially tries very hard to avoid getting tangled up in Kilgrave’s web of death — itself a natural product of intimate and painful childhood violence — once it interrupts the life of anonymity she has manufactured in order to avoid him. What finally compels her to fight against him is the desire to save Hope, the latest victim of Kilgrave’s poisonous words. Her anger at Kilgrave fuels her need to save the people he hurts.

The themes of sexual assault and rape are intended to cast the struggle between Jessica Jones and Kilgrave in terms of intimacy, particularly the human collateral that happens as a result of intimacy being weaponized. The fact that every action that Kilgrave and Jessica Jones take in their battle to destroy one another results in more and more death around them, is an apt analogy for the human cost of intimate violence, how it affects every part of a person’s life — most pointedly the lives of the ones they love.

An Unflinching Examination Of Life After Trauma
By Lindsay Tessier

“Birch Street, Higgins Drive, Cobalt Lane.”

These words are spoken in the first episode of Jessica Jones and become a recurring mantra throughout the show. We hear Jessica repeating them every time she has a or panic attack. We eventually learn she’s reciting the street names around her childhood home, a grounding technique she learned from a therapist.

It’s a coping strategy so familiar to me that the first time I heard it, I started to cry.

Besides our penchant for leather jackets and owning the same Egon Schiele poster, Jessica and I have a few more things in common: we’re both sexual assault survivors and we’ve both been diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

It’s obvious from the start that Jessica is a trauma survivor. She has flashbacks and nightmares. She pushes away everyone she cares about. She’s racked with guilt, has some serious anger management issues, and drinks a staggering amount of cheap whiskey to deal with it all.

Watching the show was like looking into a mirror of my past. Over time my PTSD symptoms have lessened, but they’re never fully gone. Major life changes, anniversaries, news stories can all make them rush back.

What makes Jessica Jones unique is its focus on the aftermath of violence. It’s what Jessica calls “life before Kilgrave” and “life after Kilgrave” — the struggle to reconcile who you were pre-trauma with who you are post-trauma. It’s a concept I’m intimately familiar with, and that the show explores with great sensitivity.

Jessica wrestles with the same questions all trauma survivors do: How do you put your life back together after it falls apart? How do you move on? Does it get better? When exactly does it get better? How do I survive this?

The show refuses to shy away from the reality of life after trauma. We experience the flashbacks, insomnia, anger, binges, depression, guilt, and fear that are part and parcel of Jessica’s PTSD. It doesn’t pay lip service to these issues — abandoning them after an episode or two — but explores them throughout the whole series.

Jessica wrestles with the same questions all trauma survivors do: How do you put your life back together after it falls apart? How do you move on? Does it get better?
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Jessica Jones is a show about the scars trauma leaves behind. It’s about inner strength and resilience. It’s about the very real, hard, and messy work survivors do every day in order to heal and move forward with their lives.

It’s powerful to see a superhero (even, or maybe especially, an anti hero like Jessica Jones) battling PTSD. Our brains are wired to respond to stories. Watching characters work through experiences similar to our own can be incredibly cathartic. It can even help us process and understand our own reactions to trauma.

We’re rooting for Jessica, but we’re also rooting for ourselves.

I’m so grateful it exists. Jessica Jones is exactly the hero I wanted her to be.

This Is What An Abusive Relationship Actually Looks Like
By Debbie Weingarten

In the dream, he is chasing me with a hunting rifle. I can’t see him, but I know he’s there. I’m running across a dark field, full of gopher holes and places to twist my ankle. The sloping field is familiar — it’s where we walked attempting to jumpstart my labor, where my goats used to graze.

I want to be clear — my abuser never chased me with a gun. The dreams are intersections of real and imagined — a representation of the what-ifs and the anxiety that has bloomed since leaving my abusive relationship. The memories are non sequitur; they come in flashes that I feel in the deepest part of my chest. The smell of cilantro nearly makes me drop to my knees with grief.

When I wake up from the gun dream, my three-year-old son is cuddled next to me. The bed is warm. I recenter there in the dark. I breathe. I tap below my collarbone in a butterfly hug. My EMDR therapist has helped me to visualize a safe place to go when I am triggered.

Dogwood, I whisper to myself again and again, recalling another field 2,000 miles away and days spent lying on blankets in the sun. This is where I go.

It surprises me to see Jessica Jones doing this, too. “Birch Street, Higgins Drive, Cobalt Lane,” she repeats to herself countless times throughout the series. She’s strong enough to stop a moving car, but we also see her rocking back and forth in her apartment, staving off flashbacks of Kilgrave, her abuser. Jones is complex, imperfect, actively surviving and managing her PTSD. The entire show radiates with the one-step-forward-two-steps-back pattern that seems so common among survivors, as well as the confusion and self-doubt that comes from having been in a relationship with an abuser. It all feels so real, so familiar.

Though the atrocities committed by Kilgrave range from simple manipulations to actual homicide, his character depicts the profile of a pathological narcissist or a sociopath to a tee. He lacks any shred of empathy, is solely concerned about gaining power and sucking energy from others, and has the ability to convince anyone to do his bidding. He hops from apartment to penthouse, verbally and physically abusing people, demanding that his needs be met, and disposing of his victims after they’ve served their purpose.

The entire show radiates with the one-step-forward-two-steps-back pattern that seems so common among trauma survivors.
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Psychological abuse ensures that a victim experiences strong inner reverberations and harmful messages that linger long after the relationship has ended. As is the case in real life, Kilgrave’s disorder creates a trail of traumatized victims floundering in his wake, desperately replaying the abuse to make sense of it.

Admittedly, there are moments of Jessica Jones that are hard for me to watch. Overall, the show is intense, gritty, dark. There’s blood and physical abuse and chase scenes reminiscent of my dream in the field. It should absolutely come with a gigantic trigger warning.

But I am grateful for this show — for the strength of the characters, for the writers who have not shied away from a real portrayal of trauma, and for the mantras that consistently present in the conversations between Kilgrave’s victims: You’re not crazy. It’s not your fault.