Marvel's Jessica Jones

Spoilers Ahead!!!!

I didn’t hate this. I liked it about as much as I liked Daredevil, in that it was good, but not great. DD had the more interesting characters and better performers, but it wasn’t a very subtle program. It was very much the mutual rise of hero and villain, and the standard “Do I have the right to take a life, even an evil one? Dilemma.

Marvel's Jessica Jones is . . . not about that. In terms of themes found in the MCU work to date, JJ is *the* heavyweight contender. Thematically, JJ is both impressive and surprising, in that you wouldn’t expect Marvel to do a story like this. At its center, JJ is about control: control of  self, control of one’s environment, loss of control, and struggling to regain it.

Using this basic theme, and the fantastical framework of literal mind control, it condemns the way we as a society ignore the claims of abuse victims. It explores the damage that an abuser deals in both the long-and short term. It shows the fundamental damage that can occur when you are violated in even a small way. We meet several of the villain’s victims. One is a guy who comes off as a bit of a whiny douchebag, because once, Kilgrave took the guy’s coat via mind control. Wahhh, he took my coat. And the others (initially) don’t seem to think that’s a big deal in the scheme of Kilgrave’s sins, but for that guy, it was tremendous, in that he had the ability to say no stolen from him. And he had no way to regain that control.

The entire show is 13 episodes showing the battle Jessica wages in an attempt to regain the feeling of control that Kilgrave took from her. Trish tries to regain control by learning how to fight and turning her tastefully decorated home into a tiny fortress. Luke Cage spends his time running a little bar, a small, enclosed environment where he can control things, unlike outside, where the world took his wife away.  Malcolm tried to regain control by helping others who were Kilgrave’s victims. But the one that I found most interesting is Will Simpson, a cop that Kilgrave controlled. At first, he tries to regain control of his life by helping Jessica and Trish capture Kilgrave, but that isn’t enough for him. Before long, he starts thinking he knows best, and acting as though the women were just in his way. At that point, he becomes an action movie cliché, except that he’s not in an action movie, and he’s not the star. And his lack of control and journey to find it turns him into a villain. Especially after he starts taking these combat enhancement drugs, specifically a *red* pill. And this is a brilliant little bit of the show, because when he’s on the red pills, he becomes a walking embodiment of MRA types, even to the point of literally mansplaining to the women why he’s the one who has to take Kilgrave down, while he’s trying to kill Jessica for simply being in his way and not submitting to his will. It’s a superb condemnation of the MRA culture while at the same time, tying into how the character functions in the comics (he’s powered by red pills).

Kilgrave is a walking demonstration of toxic masculinity and the perception of consent. Because he can’t be sure if his victims are doing something because they want to or because he told them to, he essentially acts under the idea that on some level, they are consenting to it. This allows him to not see himself as a rapist and abuser. He repeatedly tells Jessica to smile in the series.  It doesn’t seem like much, but how often are women told something like “You need to smile more” or “You’d be prettier if you smiled?” He doesn’t want her to smile for her benefit, it’s for his; to make his world more palatable and to exert control, however minor.

And those are just some of the things the show explores, but doesn’t sensationalize. It’s about rape, but there’s no titillating, done for shock rape scenes. It’s not shy about sex, and while I’ve no doubt many viewers see the sex scenes as standard sex scenes, watch them, and watch the aftermath. They aren’t about the sex, they’re about damaged people using sex in an attempt to feel something other than contempt and self-loathing, and it fails every time. It’s about PTSD, but it doesn’t hammer you with it; it’s simply a fact of existence for the characters. It’s about shame and guilt, but doesn’t offer any easy solutions or any at all really. It acknowledges that even when undeserved, shame and guilt impact your ability to function and think, and there is no way to just make them stop.

JJ isn’t presented to us from the male gaze. It’s not constructed and filmed for the pleasure of the male viewer. There’s very little to titillate the male viewer, unless they’re the type to fantasize about controlling women as Kilgrave does. Really, the only character the show comes close to objectifying in a sexual manner is Luke Cage, with several lingering shots of his bare flesh.

Alrighty. That’s enough about that bit for a while. Let’s address the less weighty aspects of the show.

The show has some flaws. Mostly in that it needed to be about 2-3 episodes shorter, because there’s some filler in there that is unnecessary and not even remotely entertaining. There’s a horrible woman who loses a brother to Kilgrave, and blames Jessica, blah blah blah. We’re supposed to feel some sympathy for even such a terrible seeming person, but the writing, directing, or acting screwed this up, because I just wanted her to die. At no point did I stop wanting her to die.

Krysten Ritter was a damn good choice for Jessica. I’m not familiar with the actress (apparently she was in Breaking Bad, but I don’t remember her). She’s not conventionally attractive, or even really unconventionally attractive, and that was a good choice, because going for a Charisma Carpenter beauty queen type would have damaged the credibility of the show I think. However, she certainly has a distinct charm and engaging screen presence. She was most believable as a fucked up hard-boiled detective and as a victim of abuse.

Mike Colter was an adequate choice for Luke Cage, but after watching him, I stand by my opinion that they should have cast either Terry Crews or the best option, Michael Jai White. Preferably playing the Black Dynamite character in all but name. But I admit, I still see Luke Cage as the 70s Blaxploitation hero.

But I know, I know, you don’t care about Jessica or Luke. You want to know about the 10^th Doctor as the villain of the piece, Kilgrave.

David Tennant doesn’t stretch his acting chops in a bold, obvious way in this part. In fact, if you close your eyes, you may at first think you’re just hearing the Doctor. Then you’ll realize that what you’re hearing is the Time Lord Victorious from The Waters of Mars. If you’ll recall:

The Doctor: Adelaide, I've done this sort of thing before. In small ways, saved some little people. But never someone as important as you. Ooh, I'm good!

The Doctor: Little people? What, like Mia and Yuri? Who decides they're so unimportant? You?

The Doctor: For a long time now, I thought I was just a survivor, but I'm not. I'm the winner. That's who I am. A Time Lord victorious.

Adelaide: And there's no one to stop you?

The Doctor: No.

Adelaide: This is wrong, Doctor! I don't care who you are! The Time Lord victorious is wrong!

The Doctor: That's for me to decide. Now, you'd better get home. Oh, it's all locked up. You've been away. Still, that's easy... All yours.

Adelaide: Is there nothing you can't do?

The Doctor: Not anymore.

And then you’ll realize that you’re not hearing the 10^th Doctor. You’re hearing Tennant play The Master, and the most evil, manipulative Master at that. No, he doesn’t bring a bold, different performance to the screen. He brings a familiar, but subtly different menacing performance to the screen. He’s almost friendly, almost charming, but there’s always a hint of disdain at best, and malevolence at worst in every single thing he says. And this stays true even when he’s being overtly evil.

If you aren’t paying close attention, you’ll absolutely think he’s phoning in his Doctor performance. IF you pay attention, you realize it’s a masterful performance that is absolutely designed to play on the meta expectations of the actor.

At the end of the day, Daredevil was the more *entertaining* of the MCU Netflix projects, but Jessica Jones wants you to think about some seriously fucked up , genuine shit in our society, and it does a damn fine job of doing that without using a tremendously heavy hand.

A lot of viewers won’t be comfortable with it or appreciate what it tried to do (seriously, don’t look it up in any forums, just don’t), or be willing to examine the issues it touches on. It’s not a “safe” super hero show. And that’s okay. There is a vast amount of space in the MCU in which to tell stories of all kinds, and they don’t all have to appeal to everyone.

So give it a whirl, but don’t go into it expecting an Avengers, or a Supergirl, or Flash, or Iron Man. That’s not what you’re gonna get.