Abstract
With so many television series circulating the airwaves and beyond, it can be challenging to find those worthy enough to fill our precious leisure time. Thankfully Milly Buonanno’s edited collection of essays not only draws our attention to the contemporary television landscape’s changing typography, but it is also a useful resource for those looking for their next binge-worthy programme. The book’s emphasis on ‘female-centred forms with a particular focus on the liminality of women associated with criminality’ (xi) historicises the range of unconventional portrayals of womanhood in the 21st century, defines these depictions in terms of their antiheroine aspects and investigates some specific international instantiations.
Divided into four sections, the volume boasts contributions from some heavy hitters within television studies scholarship. The first part – ‘Mafia Women’ – discusses the female characters who are explicitly involved in the Mediterranean underworld in American and (unsurprisingly) Italian television. Buonanno’s familiarity with the latter is evident in the first chapter, in which she deftly stages Italian melodrama Antimafia Squad (2009–) and Gomorrah (2014–) as exemplars of complex depictions of womanhood that ‘challenge persistent male domination in the very terrain of the most testosterone-driven genres’ (p. 42), at least within the specific context of Italian television drama. Her narrative analysis ultimately equates their creative experimentation of dramaturgical practices with an intent to construct alternative opportunities that both expose and subvert normative cultural gender representations.
In the same section, Kim Akass and Janet McCabe reflect on how the steely and conflicted character of Carmelo Soprano (Edie Falco) in the much-hyped HBO series, The Sopranos (1999–2007), reveals ‘the very power structures that continue to condition and circumscribe women’s lives’ (p. 76). Rightly observing that the persistent economic dependency of wives (with children) on their husbands is inscribed in the wage-disparate constraints of an ascendant neo-liberalism writ into its narrative structure, Akass and McCabe articulate a private sense of self that is ‘defined by self-reliance and personal initiative’ (p. 75) and does not defer to the idea of the ‘feminine collective’. While arguably self-centred in its constitution and agency, a character such as Carmelo Soprano reifies individual survival and professional ambition as a necessity in a world where men still dominate ‘the means of production and economic privilege (p. 78).
In the following (and longest) section – ‘Drug Dealers and Aberrant Mothers’ – the chapters revolve around themes of motherhood. Especially, strong is treatment of Jenji Kohan’s award-winning Weeds (2005–12) by Elisa Giomi. She meticulously analyses the narrative trajectory of recently widowed Nancy Botwin (Mary-Louise Parker), as she struggles to support her children and maintain her comfortable upper middle class lifestyle in the wake of her husband’s sudden death. Giomi also cautions us against Botwin’s moral ambiguity as a complex blend of ‘self-control and physical agility, capable to exercise [sic] power and calculated violence’ (p. 109) which strains and destabilises the concept of the antiheroine with her unapologetic social and gender deviant behaviour that elides conventional tropes of domestication and maternalism. The other chapters, too, moralise on how the dangerous coupling of motherhood and self-interest often has destructive consequences for the family members involved, while also pointing out the necessity of distinguishing whether the ambivalence associated with these portrayals is being transgressive and/or critical of heteronormativity or is simply the construction of unequal standards between male and female characters whose ‘actions position them as heroes or villains in their narrative worlds’ (p. 138).
The third part – ‘Women in Prison’ – focuses on the extreme circumstances of survival while being incarcerated. These chapters assess how shows such as the Netflix original series, Orange is the New Black (2013–), and the Australian readaptation, Wentworth (2013–), generally feature ensemble casts to highlight the necessary comradery, intense conflict and shades of sexualities for women on the wrong side of the criminal justice system. With little else besides their wits and bodies, this section examines the coping strategies and identities adopted by antiheroines that are at once ‘predatory…[while still] really exhibit[ing] feminist solidarity’ (p. 203).
The final section – ‘Villainesses and Anti-antiheroines’ – takes the idea of ‘antiheroineism’ to its logical endpoint whereby women who engage in criminal pursuits are cast as wholly irredeemable. This is most striking in Bruce Williams’ and Andrea L. Press’ incisive critique of The Wire (2002–8). While praising the diversity of the series’ female characters and the richly detailed sophistication of its shifting POV narrative across seasons, the authors take the programme to task for its ‘demonization of inner-city men and women of colour’ (p. 240). The remaining chapters similarly serve as warning that we should remain vigilant with regard to series which, in devoting too much of their creative energies into aesthetic concerns, can fail in their portrayals of other equally important intersections of representation.
Television Antiheroines will prove a useful introductory guide for those interested in exploring the many different permutations of the antiheroines who have begun populating television in the last few years. While Buonanno and her fellow contributors acknowledge the significance of increasingly visible and multifaceted antiheroines in television’s so-called ‘third golden age’, they reserve final judgement for the viewers. This book is best considered as an invitation to those who are sympathetic to indulging in television programmes that provide spaces for alternative, if occasionally unsavoury, femininities.