Two young women leave the safety of their community in a monster-plague-infected land for the purposes of revenge.
Against all manner of objections, a rape and torture survivor returns to a fascist country in the hopes of finding her daughter and overthrowing a theocratic government.
A cancer patient walks out of a stifling marriage and takes control of what is left of her life through a crotch-kicking foray into BDSM.
A silver-haired matriarch coolly picks off those who would steal her land from an upstairs window with a rifle almost as big as she is.
Women on the street may no longer be marching in pink pussy hats, but television’s new aspirational model appears to be women with no more f—s to give.
In shows as disparate as “The Handmaid’s Tale” and “Dying for Sex,” “The Last of Us,” “1923,” “The Penguin” “Yellowjackets,” “Bad Sisters” and even “Hacks,” female characters are not just objecting to whatever tyrannies or struggles threaten them. They are taking action against them, often in openly vengeful ways.
Of course we’ve seen angry, ruthless and violent women on television before — who wasn’t a fan of “Killing Eve,” “Scandal” or “The Walking Dead”? Screenwriters love to play with the trope of the beautiful but deadly female assassin (often trained as such coercively), who uses her charms as the ultimate cover. But never before have there been so many storylines devoted to “regular” women (as in not spies, cops or political leaders) taking matters into their own hands to survive, escape or deal out bloody justice.
In the final season of “The Handmaid’s Tale,” it’s June (Elisabeth Moss) and the resistance group Mayday attempting to overthrow the patriarchal theocracy of Gilead. In “Dying for Sex,” it’s Molly (Michelle Williams) walking out of a stifling marriage and embracing her inner dominatrix in the wake of a terminal cancer diagnosis. Season 2 of “The Last of Us” follows a spiral of female vengeance — Ellie (Bella Ramsey) is out to kill Abby (Kaitlyn Dever), who murdered Joel (Pedro Pascal) for killing her father — while Season 4 of “Hacks” sees Deborah Vance (Jean Smart) finally becoming the first female late-night host after deciding to throw caution to the wind and tell her own truth.
For some of the female characters, the survive-at-all-cost notion has driven them nuts — Sofia (Cristin Milioti) in “The Penguin,” and virtually all of the characters in “Yellowjackets” — while others are simply doing what needs to be done. Helen Mirren’s Cara Dutton of “1923” has a much higher body count (wolves and murderous men) than her husband Jacob (Harrison Ford); in the series’ final season, she literally holds down the fort before the cavalry, in the form of nephew Spencer (Brandon Sklenar), can arrive.
Either way, many of these characters are engaged in behavior that defy traditional female pushback on television — scheming and blackmail on one end; self-care and sisterhood on the other — without the benefit of Daenerys Targaryen’s (Emilia Clarke) dragons. Or, more important, without Daenerys’ sticky “that woman’s gone crazy” end.
As groundbreaking as “Game of Thrones’” Khaleesi seemed at the time, she was not allowed the kind of warring complexities that audiences might have found acceptable in a male character. In television drama, men can kill lots of people, including those considered collateral damage, and still be considered acceptable enough to remain a main character. After all, Ned Stark (Sean Bean) remained a hero after beheading a man for running away from White Walkers. But when Daenerys killed civilians during a battle of liberation, the male characters whose lives she had saved decided she clearly had to go.
Instead it is Arya Stark (Maisie Williams), successfully ticking off her list of offenders, who appears to have sparked the current template of women unwilling to take it anymore. Small, young and armed with only her wits, a sword and, eventually, the ability to change faces, Arya had no thought of power or glory, just the grim determination to right the scale of justice by ridding the world of one ruthless murderer at a time.
That she was allowed to do this, and make it to the end of the story without being forced to die or renounce her actions in any way, made her the most groundbreaking character of the series and, perhaps, of recent television history.
Women, like men, can now decide to become active arbiters of justice, righters of wrongs without social censure or even the aid of men.
This is not an argument for more unrepentant violence and general bloodthirstiness on television, where women are still too often faceless victims in crime/horror dramas. Righting wrongs does not necessitate violence — in “Hacks” and “Dying for Sex,” it is an issue of changing the game by refusing to play by the old rules, which include women finally saying and doing things they previously believed should be suppressed.
But it is certainly worth noting that at a time when many women are increasingly angry about the curtailing of their rights with the overturning of Roe v. Wade and the potential harm done by federal funding cuts to programs like Head Start, female characters are increasingly refusing to accept any level of powerlessness.
Instead of throwing themselves under a train, fleeing an abusive relationship — be it with a man, an illness or a government — or simply scheming behind the scenes, they are marshaling forces and taking matters into their own hands.
They are angry, but more than that, they are committed to, and capable of, personal defense and redress. Aspirational television is still awash with enviable domiciles, endless couture-filled closet space and brooding handsome men and their fancy cars, but increasingly it is also filled with women who are not afraid to leave the safety of family, community or civilization and take down the forces that threaten it.
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