I just watched the Barbie movie and while I found it entertaining, it was also expected, ticking off all the received wisdom about women vs. men, feminism vs. The Patriarchy. Women can be anything they dream of being! Women don’t need men! Women are smart and caring and men are self-absorbed half-wits! (I challenge anyone to point out a single non-stupid male character in the entire film. Even America Ferrera’s husband is portrayed as a developmentally-disabled man-child, sitting at home all day learning Spanish — badly! — on a phone app while his wife busts her ass at work). By the end credits my estimation was that Barbie was exactly what I thought it was going to be, no surprises.
How could it be otherwise? Feminism has permeated pop culture for decades, now, such that it’s become the established conventional narrative. And if anyone’s going to subvert that narrative, well, it’s not gonna be Mattel, which already stands to make over $125 million from Barbie box office, not to mention the additional millions in product licensing.
(The movie glosses over the fact that Barbie is fundamentally consumerist as opposed to feminist. The heart and soul of Barbieland is all that molded pink plastic: the Dreamhouses, the cars, the endless outfits and shrink-wrapped goodies. America Ferrera’s character is less excited to see President Barbie than the Barbie clothes and accessories that she coveted as a girl but couldn’t afford. The doll doesn’t encourage little girls to be future doctors, scientists, pop stars or what-have-you so much as future BUYERS OF LOTS OF STUFF).
So if you’re looking for a transgressive movie, Barbie ain’t it. But that’s not to say that subversion isn’t out there in pop culture. In fact, I can think of two recent TV series that challenge the established feminist narrative, particularly with respect to the much-hyped Girl Boss trend: HBO’s Succession and Netflix’s Beef.
Succession: Shiv’s Pregnancy and Defeat by Tom
Siobhan “Shiv” Roy, as portrayed by the marvelous Sarah Snook, is hardly what you’d call maternal. As one of the three Roy siblings vying to replace their father Logan as CEO of media conglomerate Waystar Royco, she’s unapologetically reptilian.
Nowhere is this more obvious than in her treatment of her partner, Tom Wambsgans (my Mr. Darcy crush, Matthew MacFadyen). When we meet Tom in Season 1, he’s an unctuous brown-noser, clearly hoping to parlay his engagement to Shiv into a high-status, big-money position within Waystar Royco. Yet despite his calculating obsequiousness, he has feelings for Shiv. Beneath those oily layers lies a beating heart that both loves her and wants to use her.
As for Shiv? Tom is an accessory, like any handbag or pair of heels she uses to dress up her power-pantsuits. His upper-income Midwestern family can’t compete with the Roy’s wealth – what family could? But that lower class status, combined with Tom’s docility, is the core of his charm. Tom is non-threatening and easily controlled: a “meat puppet,” as Shiv puts it. And meat puppets come in handy for sociopathic Girl Bosses bent on pursuing both their corporate ambitions and libido, untethered by any obligations to spouse or child.
For that reason, Shiv drops it to Tom – on their wedding night, no less – that she wants an open marriage. Desperate to make inroads with the Roys, Tom agrees, but he’s clearly disappointed his wife has no interest in remaining faithful. Tom hoped their marriage would be a business partnership with an added love bonus; instead, it becomes the vehicle for Tom’s ritual humiliation. Shiv has one-night stands while Tom can only awkwardly flirt. Shiv curries favor with Logan in a bid to become his next-in-command while Tom offers himself up as the scapegoat for Waystar Royco’s cruise ship scandal, potentially facing prison – and Shiv could care less. And when Shiv surprises Tom by inviting him to impregnate her, her idea of sexually arousing dirty-talk is to tell him, “You’re not good enough for me. I’m way out of your league. That’s why you want me. That’s why you love me even though I don’t love you.”
All of which begs the question: Why in God’s name did Shiv want Tom’s baby in the first place? The answer lies in the venomous exchange Shiv has with her mother Caroline (Harriet Walter), just prior to sleeping with Tom. Shiv remarks Caroline was an absent mother post-divorce, handing custody of Shiv and her siblings to Logan. Caroline responds as only the worst self-pitying narcissist could: by blaming Shiv for her absence, claiming Shiv “chose” Logan over her as a mere thirteen-year-old. She finishes up with the money quote of the season, telling Shiv: “You made the right decision [not to get pregnant]. Some people just aren’t made to be mothers. I should have had dogs.”
So Shiv runs straight to Tom and asks him to knock her up purely to spite Caroline and prove her wrong. But at bottom, her motivation is that Caroline is right: She isn’t maternal, and her inability to love, nurture or attend to a child – or anyone vulnerable, for that matter – is a deficiency, a fundamental lack. Generally, Shiv is immune to peoples’ feelings about her; “yeah – not widely liked,” she cheerfully describes herself to Lukas Matsson, the tech mogul positioned to buy out Waystar Royco. But Shiv’s face when she reacts to Caroline registers as a wound. She fears her father, but she’s stone-cold terrified of being her mother.
The depths of this terror are revealed during the savage fight Tom and Shiv have following Logan’s funeral. Each excoriates the other for their flaws with sadistic honesty. But ultimately, the knock-out blow is delivered by Tom when he tells Shiv: “I think you are maybe not a good person to have children.” Shiv, who has yet to tell Tom she’s pregnant with his child, reacts with her typical glibness: “Well, that’s not very nice to say, is it?” Yet Snook’s broken delivery and the tears welling in her eyes show us the invincible Girl Boss has been gutted.
Succession portrays Shiv as relentlessly self-centered and monomaniacally focused upon her status within Waystar Royco. That the series concedes such a hard-driving, careerist woman’s deepest insecurity resides in her absence of maternal qualities is – in this day and age, at least – subversive enough. But Succession takes the transgressiveness one step further. In the end, Tom defeats Shiv’s CEO ambitions by secretly tipping Logan off to Shiv and her siblings’ plan to stop Matsson’s acquisition of Waystar Royco. And at the series finale, when Matsson has ostensibly promised Shiv the CEO slot as part of his takeover, Tom swoops in and steals the position by assuring Matsson he will be his compliant “face” of the company, a figurehead as opposed to an independent executive.
In my opinion, this is the meat of Succession’s subversiveness. Shiv, the tough-as-nails, uber-Girl Boss, tries to claim the CEO crown by being a stereotypically masculine “killer”: locking arms with her siblings against their father, betraying her siblings to cement her own chances with Matsson, all the while making no apologies for her ruthlessness and drive. But in the end, it’s Tom whom Matsson names as CEO. Tom, whom Shiv correctly describes as “servile.” Tom, who never – unlike Shiv! – raised an objection to Logan, even when he was looking at a very plausible stint in federal prison. Tom, who wins Matsson over by promising he’ll exercise no agency of his own.
In other words, Tom defeats Shiv by being stereotypically feminine: servile, pliant, non-confrontational. He wins by conceding to being Matsson’s “meat puppet” – the very passivity Shiv derided. Many have (brilliantly!) pointed out how Tom’s long gambit to become CEO parallels the progression of Edgar in King Lear, who begins as a family outsider and winds up sharing Lear’s kingdom. But surely, in the reverse ritual humiliation of Shiv by Tom, Succession nods at The Taming of the Shrew, too. Petruchio withholds food, silks and jewels to break Kate. Tom withholds the very prize Shiv set her heart upon since the beginning of the series. Her only choice is to submit by staying married to him and at least share the spoils.
Beef: Girl Bosses Just Want To . . . Stay At Home With Their Kids?
Beef depicts an all-consuming, ever-escalating feud between Danny (Steven Yeun) and Amy (Ali Wong) that originates in an incidence of road rage. Despite both being 1st-generation Asian American immigrants, the two feuders initially appear differentiated by stark class differences. Danny is a not-exceptionally-talented handyman/contractor, struggling to both support himself and provide for his Korean parents as their first-born son. Amy, meanwhile, is a cool Girl Boss, ready for her glossy spread in Fortune. She’s the founder and CEO of KoyoHaus, a plantscape company about to be acquired by Jordan (Maria Bello), the billionaire magnate of a Lowe’s-style home improvement chain.
Amy is married to George, the son of a late, world-renowned artist. Given Amy’s 24/7 job demands, it’s George who is the primary caregiver for Junie, their young daughter. And while Amy designed their modernist concrete box of a house, it’s George who actually inhabits it – Amy’s too busy working. In fact, we learn, Amy is supporting George and Junie, since George can’t seem to sell his ceramics. (An aside: The show makes a running joke of his bulbous, phallic pottery sculptures, but I, for one, liked them.) Moreover, Amy’s supporting George’s mother, who’s broke despite her late husband’s artistic reputation.
But hey – no problem, right? Any Girl Boss worth her salt should be thankful she can clock in those hours at the office while her husband takes care of house and kid as Stay At Home Dad (with a cute, vanity art “career” on the side). Any Girl Boss should be good with putting in whatever it takes to be the primary breadwinner and a corporate success story and a wife and a mother. It’s the price of having it all.
Except Beef – sometimes quietly, sometimes comically – refutes the notion that all can be had. Even in the first episode, it’s clear Amy isn’t captain of her own ship. She’s not working for herself but for the insufferable Jordan, who flexes her control over Amy by using her desperation for the KoyoHaus buyout as leverage.
In fact, it’s clear Amy isn’t even invested in the ostensible point of her own company: retail houseplants. We never see Amy lovingly fussing over a philodendron or waxing poetic over a fern. Instead, we see her grimly responding to endless business texts and emails. And in a brilliant bit of set design, the interior of KoyoHaus mirrors Amy’s emotional detachment from her work. The shop is no riotous garden, bursting with greenery and color. Rather, it’s curated to death – just a few terra cotta pots containing subdued plants, so minimalist as to be meager. As Amy herself admits at series’ end, she’s no botanical expert: “I just Google shit and pretend to be.”
Beef slowly teases out what Amy really wants, and it’s antithetical to the Girl Boss ethos: to be loved not for her worldly success and ability to make coin, but simply for herself. She plays the stereotypically masculine role of provider, but instead of finding it liberating, she feels the enormity of its weight. She harbors resentment towards George over his inability or unwillingness to contribute to their income. Yet she never demands that he find paid work, follow a family austerity budget, or otherwise sets limits. To do so would be to admit the achievement she’s spent her life chasing has failed to fill the gaping void inside her.
It’s a void rooted in her childhood as the daughter of immigrants. We learn that from a young age, Amy’s parents unthinkingly communicated to her that she was a financial burden, and that their love for her was conditioned upon her performing to their expectations: to sacrifice, to succeed, to care for them in turn. Consequently – as she confesses to her therapist – Amy can’t conceive of a love that isn’t transactional.
All the foregoing challenges the conventional Western feminist narrative, particularly the idea that women will derive meaning and self-worth primarily by competing in the capitalist marketplace. But Beef’s most transgressive stance is that Amy longs to find the unconditional love that has always eluded her through her maternal bond with Junie. As it turns out, Amy isn’t gunning to sell her company so that she can found another one, but to finally stop working. The woman who Takes Care of Business just wants to be taken care of, so that she can stay at home with her child and experience the simple fact and joy of her being. Or, as Amy tells Junie, she wants to recapture the night of her birth, when there were
No meetings. No emails. No pretending. It was just you and me. And there was nothing wrong anywhere in the entire universe. I wish we could have stayed there.
Pretty edgy talk for a Girl Boss.
Now admittedly, at the conclusion of the series, Amy and Danny have a very funny, drugged-out exchange about how tyrannical infants are, and how even the most innocent baby always demands something of you in return. They lament the seeming absence of any unconditional love in this world (a lament I found to be interesting coming from Danny, who professes to be Christian and grew up in the church).
But Beef is too smart a show to discount Amy’s desire to be with Junie that easily. In a hallucinogenic fever dream, Amy hears Junie’s voice crying Mommy, why do you work so much? There’s an ambiguous tension in that moment. Is Amy recalling an actual question by Junie, or projecting buried guilt? Is she tortured by the transactional demands Junie makes, the constant giving-and-taking between mother and daughter? Or is she tortured because Junie’s question reveals the truth Amy can’t fathom: that her presence and love is amply sufficient for her child, and indeed, for herself.
I tend to think the latter. It’s why throughout the series, Amy wears a colorful strand of beads and a silver heart pendant. The jewelry looks home-made and sentimental, a gift of love. In other words, exactly like something a mom would wear – a mom who knows she is enough.
You made me miss Succession! You make good points about Shiv and Tom. While watching the show I always rooted for Shiv as the most interesting contender for the crown and the smartest of the three Royettes. But Tom did play his hand expertly.
If you like Matthew MacFadyen, I recommend Stonehouse in which he plays an inept but somehow charming British spy from the 1970s, based on a true story.
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