celebrity gossip, academic style

NOTE: Spoiler-free. Some characteristics/life events are revealed in Episodes 1-3, but nothing earth-shattering.

Revenge has been one of my greatest elliptical machine pleasures this Winter. It’s well-acted, the clothes are fantastic, intricately plotted, and melodramatic as all get out — just how I like a good elliptical machine show. Revenge is (very) loosely based on The Count of Monte Cristo, which is to say that it rotates on the premise of someone who is betrayed by his intimates, sent to jail, realizes that his intimates put him there, and returns, disguised, to take revenge on them.

The twist of Revenge is clever: the betrayed figure dies in prison, but his daughter, a young girl at the time of his imprisonment, returns, now a grown woman with an assumed identity, to their beach house (in the Hamptons, OF COURSE), to take revenge on all the high-powered business men (and their spouses) who betrayed him. What makes it escapist isn’t the revenge narrative, but the beautiful, monied background. Everyone loves a story about The Hamptons — the people are gorgeous, the clothes are immaculate, the parties are so…..planned. And while our main character once had money, she was sent to group homes, and then to juvey, and didn’t get released until she was 18….at which point she discovered that she was half-owner in the TV-world version of Google! I won’t explain the mechanics, but what you need to understand is that she is ridiculously wealthy — the sort of wealthy that proves so handy for screenwriters, who can essentially grant her every privilege, convenience, and beautiful dress she desires.

In other words: this is some good soapy TV. But over the course of the first half of the series, I’ve become increasingly convinced that the female characters in the show, and the harsh realities that face them, represent the ugly flipside of the “freedoms” promised by postfeminism.

Postfeminism is a loaded term. Here’s my simplified and contentious definition:

Postfeminism is, most explicitly, the idea that feminism is no longer necessary. Feminism accomplished its goals in the ’70s and ’80s, and we’re ready to move on and just “be” women, whatever that means. (Suggestions that we live in a “post-race” society often hinge on the idea that a black president means that racism is no longer an issue in our society, let alone a defining issue). We don’t need feminism, we just need “girl power” - a very different concept than the “grrl power” that undergirded the Riot Grrl movement of the early ’90s (which was, itself, a response to the rise of postfeminism). Postfeminism is forgoing freedoms or equal rights in the name of prettier dresses, more expensive make-up, and other sartorial “freedoms” to consume. Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman is postfeminism manifest — a self-sustaining (sex worker) who meets her prince, who will allow her to consume (and become her “true” self). Sex & the City is postfeminist. Bridget Jones is postfeminist. 27 Dresses is postfeminist.

In short, the idea that consumption and self-objectification (which usually leads to romantic monogamy) = equal rights and equal treatment is postfeminist.

In text after text of the last twenty years, postfeminist philosophy, for lack of a better word, is portrayed as the path towards happiness and fulfillment. Until, in a text like Revenge, it doesn’t.

To be clear: Revenge is not the first to highlight the negative aspects of postfeminism. I mean, you could read the disasters that were the Sex and the City movies as the dystopic end to the fantasy narrative displayed in the television show. You could also look at the hysteria in the vast majority of female-oriented reality programming and read it as the postfeminist dream of success and “having it all” gone tragically wrong. Put differently, Revenge isn’t the first television show to present the opportunity for such a reading.

But let’s get down to the analysis and look at our two main characters, their postfeminist choices, and the dystopic realities in which they find themselves.

EXAMPLE ONE: VICTORIA GRAYSON

Victoria is vintage Hampton’s. Pilates body, Botox face, age-appropriate yet still sexy gowns, long hair that still connotes beauty (as opposed to middle-aged-ness). A handsome son in his mid-20s, a beautiful daughter in her late teens. A silver fox husband who spends most of his summer in the city and runs a well-regarded global capitol something-or-another. Her name carries tremendous weight. She can ruin someone’s reputation with a single word. People anticipate her parties. She’s apparently the social doyenne of, oh, I dunno, all rich people on the East Coast. Her anniversary is carried on the front page of some section of what appears to be The New York Times. She came from nothing to become the second wife of a major-player capitalist and gets all of the benefits.

BUT WAIT JUST ONE SECOND.

Let’s talk about these benefits:

1.) Sacrifices former identity (seriously — it’s totally sublimated, save the mention of “coming from nothing” every once in awhile) to steal another woman’s husband.

2.) Alienates both of her children for reasons for various unforgivable reasons

3.) But she can ruin her best friend’s reputation! Which she does! When she discovers that said best friend is sleeping with her husband!

4.) She is incapable of showing emotion. I mean that literally: she has a frozen face from plastic surgery and collagen injections, which evacuates her face from expression and suggests (this is a melodrama, after all, when emotion and character traits overflow into the mise-en-scene) a heart that wants, but no longer has the muscle memory, to feel.

5.) Her body is slim and toned (despite lack of toning activity — I’m guessing she has a Pilates Reformer in the basement) but girl never eats. Or even really gets to drink.

6.) Spends a lot of time thinking about how to destroy the younger, seemingly history-less girl who threatens to take her son away via marriage.

7.) Doesn’t read.

8.) Doesn’t know how to use the computer (seriously, one scene with her daughter’s computer confirms as much).

9.) Doesn’t have any hobbies other than party planning, which her party planner does for her, and wearing dresses at all times.

10.) Has no interests or sense of self-worth other than her childrens’ affection, which is now lost to her.

11.) Clearly loathes her husband, who loathes her in return.

12.) Periodically pines for a time when she had a sense of true love, but forsook that true love in the name of money and prestige.

13.) Has no friends. No lady friends, no male friends, no child friends, no underling sidekick friends. No friends, no confidantes, no community. She’s never alone but the loneliest person on the Eastern seaboard.

 

The lesson of Victoria: if you don’t care about equality or a life of your own, then you can have all of the pretty dresses you want. And be miserable, wholly miserable, in ten years’ time. Victoria Grayson is the first wave of postfeminism, come to fruition and left to rot.

 

 

EXAMPLE #2: EMILY THORNE/AMANDA CLARKE

Educated, well-traveled, lovely accent, well-spoken, attractive. Beautiful slightly wavy blonde hair and innovative if somewhat circumscribed fashion taste. Gets the hottest man in her age bracket to fall in love with her in about three days. Allied with the most wealthy man in America. Kind, polite, thoughtful, and spends a lot of time donating her time and energy to philanthropy. Orphaned but has developed a firm sense of self and purpose. Enormously and independently wealthy. Able to bestow favor and fame upon anyone. Wields tremendous (albeit unseen) power. Understands the puppetry of social interactions and how to pull the strings. One savvy young lady.

BUT WAIT JUST ONE MORE SECOND.

Let’s talk about Emily/Amanda’s life:

1.) Due to admittedly tragic circumstances, she spent her youth in foster care (which wronged her) followed by the juvenile detention system (which also wronged her). But instead of spending her newfound and abundant wealth working to right the systemic wrongs that led to a situation like hers, she goes after the individuals that caused her distress. This strategy isn’t necessarily post-feminist, but it is certainly neo-liberal: like Crash or The Blind Side, which suggest that repairing relationships between individuals can correct systemic problems. Her father died; her vendetta is not against society, or against those who might inflect the same sort of process (albeit within different parameters) on someone else, but against the specific individuals who led to the suffering of her and her father.

2.) Has one supposed friend. Apart from the very first scene in the very first episode, when she suggests that they get drunk on champagne, they mostly spend time talking about they’ll spend some quality time together at some later point. Her ostensible friendship with the Google-owner-guy is a mix of passive-aggression and aggression and utilitarianism.

3.) Has no hobbies or interests other than exacting revenge. She can, however, use a computer, but only to exact said revenge.

4.) Has no media interests other than re-watching clips and re-reading newspaper clippings related to her revenge plot.

5.) Has forsaken her childhood bond with a very nice, very working class, very authentic (he has a beard!) man (who named a sailboat after her, jeez) in order to pursue her revenge.

6.) Never enjoys any of her richy-rich toys because she is so busy being revengeful.

7.) Somehow has several mentor figures who provide her with sporadic guidance…on being revengeful, never on self-actualizing or letting go of said revenge and doing something with her one precious life.

8.) Never gets to hang out in any public spaces — life seems to be limited to fleeting visits to the bar to fetch people and the private party circuit (but only private parties hosted by Victoria at that).

9.) Uses beauty and charisma to attract handsome man….who she plans to destroy! But oh no, turns out she has feelings for him??!!?? WHICH SHE MUST DESTROY!

10.) Can never find happiness because she’s living a lie in order to avenge the wrongs of the generation before her.

The lesson of Emily: as the second generation of postfeminism, you are reaping the “awards” of your parents’ decisions. Which, as it turns out, means that you get all of the clothes and good hair and fortune….and nothing to guide you or add meaning to your life, save your elaborate revenge strategy and her beautiful wardrobe.

 

Revenge is clearly a tragedy: a young girl’s father is taken from her; her life is ruined; she dedicates her life to harming those who caused her (and her father) harm. We’re obviously encouraged to pity Emily — not just because her father was taken from her, but because she’s so hopefully mired in the whirlpool of revenge….and we have no idea how she’ll function once that purpose and drive is taken from her.

But as I’ve demonstrated above, Revenge can also be read as the tragedy of postfeminism: what happens when you trade the politics of feminism for the bounty of consumerism, what happens when you grow up in a world where those are the realities for women set before you, both by the media and the other women in your life.

I’m not saying this works perfectly, but I am saying that our two main characters (and several others in the show) don’t suggest Being a Woman in 21st Century America is Awesome. They suggest that it’s claustrophobic, prescribed, unhappy, and even if you have all the tools that you thought you needed to play the game, deeply, deeply unsatisfying. The moral isn’t just that revenge is never satisfying, but that postfeminism, for all of its glossy, gorgeous surfaces, is rotten at its core.