Jessica Jones

In the US/UK: All 13 episodes are available on Netflix

When superhero comic books first became popular in the 20th century, it was largely because they were fantasies. Male fantasies for boys. Superman may have been a fantasy of immigration, but it was also about a mild-mannered man who could never reveal his all-conquering power to anyone, not even the woman he loved from afar. Of course, if she knew what he was really like, then she’d fall into his arms without a moment’s hesitation.

Batman? A boy orphaned by crime who devotes himself to destroying those who would make him feel frightened. The Hulk? A ‘milksop’ scientist with a terrible temper that others better not unleash by bullying him. Spider-man? A nerdy boy with pretty much the same issues as Superman. Captain America? A man who could defeat the Nazis while remaining true and good and honourable.

You get the picture. Lots and lots of power fantasies for lonely boys.

Superheroines took a while to appear and represented different kinds of fantasy. The first, Wonder Woman, was originally intended as both a male and female fantasy – a precursor to a better, future, female-dominated world, with Wonder Woman an icon of feminine power that women could embrace and men could accept. But with a slightly kinky subtext and male authors, her popularity often stemmed from… other sources. Future superheroines didn’t fare much better, and frequently fared much worse.

Which meant for decades, many girls and women found comic books to be female-unfriendly areas that were practically a panopticon of the male gaze. There were plenty who became involved or who became readers, but they were the exceptions. And although male authors came along who tried to make female characters less fantasies than they had been before, that was pretty much the rule.

That was even the case when comic books started being adapted into movies. Think Sue Storm perpetually having to disrobe in the street in Fantastic Four. Think Black Widow in lingerie shots in Iron Man 2. That Wonder Woman movie? Only just being made, just as we’re about to get our third series of Batman and Superman movies in the past 40 years. And try to find superheroine merchandise from those movies for your daughters if you dare.

But the times have been a changing, of course. Have a look on Facebook and you’ll discover that more than 50% of the people who identify as comic book fans are women. And while only 3% of the people who’ll step into a comic book store are women, more than half of those who read digital comics are women.

Marvel, of course, has been doing rather well at the movie with its comic book adaptations. However, it’s got considerable stick over the years for not giving any superheroines their own movies – particularly Black Widow. Now that’s changing, with a Captain Marvel movie due… in 2019, a full 11 years after Iron Man came out.

On TV, of course, we’ve already had Marvel’s Agent Carter, except she’s not a superheroine, per se. But finally, we have our first, fully fledged superheroine TV show, the second of this year’s Marvel’s Netflix ‘Defenders’ shows following Daredevil – Jessica Jones. And what’s interesting about Jessica Jones is that despite being based on a character and a story created by two men, I think what we have is the first instance of an on-screen superheroine who’s there for a female audience and who’s a female fantasy.

Or should that be nightmare? It could be both. After all, it’s got David Tennant in it.

Beware: some spoilers ahoy.

Continue reading “Season review: Marvel’s Jessica Jones (Netflix)”