The Undoing (HBO, 2020)

You know when you’ve watched something really good, anything else just pales in comparison.  After The Queen’s Gambit, I settled into the HBO series, The Undoing.  It was not good.

This was not necessarily the fault of the performers.  Hugh Grant gave a credible performance of the charm that comes from entitlement and confidence.  Donald Sutherland chilled as his over-bearing father-in-law.  Nicole Kidman was less convincing as the betrayed wife, as the camera would often linger on her ponderous face without suggesting exactly what it was she was pondering.  However, the final episode saw her come into her own as she gave a nuanced performance of a wronged and un-nerved wife in front of the jury.

The wardrobe of Nicole should also be mentioned.  The green coat was a particular favourite of mine.

But, the series was a reminder of why I usually steer clear from courtroom or whodunnit dramas.  At the centre of the story is a murdered woman.  Her body is presented salaciously. Her undoubtedly beautiful face is focused on.  We learn she is an artist, but her intellect and her art play no part in the drama (except to provide a murder weapon).  She is a hollow character. 

The grieving of her husband and her son play some part, but the devastation of loss through homicide is more of a plot device than a real examination of trauma.

Before I left academia, I was working on a project examining Domestic Homicide Reviews and I am all too familiar with how the loss of  women’s lives can be sidelined by other characters. In a good review, the reader is left with a sense of a life that was valuable and should have been saved.  In some reviews, however, the victim is a shadow, and the drama focuses elsewhere. 

Domestic homicide reviews are an opportunity to tell a full story of what led up to the loss of life and to honour that life.  However, if not fully realized with the victim centre to all of the narratives, the language rather than engaging begins to provide distance and others victims – they become ‘vulnerable’ ‘service-users’ with ‘chaotic lives’.

The Undoing produced a similar effect, concentrating on the motives of potential murderers and a victim who appeared to engineer her own violent end. She was not a character designed for empathy and I think it would have made a more compelling drama if we could also ask, who has died rather than just who has killed.

The Queen’s Gambit (Netflix, 2020)

I started this blog as an academic, looking at ways of connecting the discipline of social policy with the cultural life around me. At the end of August 2020, I took voluntary redundancy from my academic post and have considered just closing this account.  But I still want to write about the culture I consume and how it makes me think and feel.  And to be honest, I have never needed entertainment more.

The Queen’s Gambit has been one of the surprising hits of the Pandemic.  A drama about a young woman playing chess would hardly seem a mainstream choice, and yet the miniseries has topped Netflix most-watched chart.  We have binge-watched a show about addiction…

I don’t have to make any clever connections anymore.  I’m not being paid for it.  So, I shall start shallow.  Boy, did this series look good. The period details of late 1950s and early 1960s America are lushly re-imagined.  Beth Harmon’s wardrobe evolves as she finds freedom (from the orphanage, from boredom, from poverty, from expectations) and she wears the co-ordinated, designer outfits well.  This is a show where the costume and set design are integral to the narrative.  We see time pass from the domesticity of the 1950s to the travel of the 1960s.

The sexism of the time, of chess, of the expectations and limitations placed on women are present.  It highlights perfectly the problem that Betty Friedan describes in the Feminine Mystique:

We can no longer ignore that voice within women that says: ‘I want something more than my husband and my children and my home.’

(1963: 29)

It is also possible to argue that the miniseries, like the Friedan’s book, argues from a particular view point that ignores the marginalization of other groups implicated in supporting those living the Feminine dream.  Mr Shaibel’s obvious intelligence and ability to teach wrapped up in a janitor role, as a Russian Jewish immigrant.  Jolene, Beth’s closest friend is an African American woman, who has tales of her own oppression and who never gets to be adopted.  However, their key role in this drama is to support Beth Harmon.

There have also been criticisms of the way in which addiction is depicted in the drama, as it concentrates on the addicts account of what the pills and drink offer the addict.  Of course, an addict may not be a reliable narrator.  However, the story does make it clear that addiction starts because the substance is fun.  So many tales about addiction miss out the vital information that the reason people become addicted is not because they want their lives to spiral, but because their lives are rotten and drugs and alcohol are often enjoyable, before they become a problem. And it is worth noting that in the context of the 1950s and 1960s America, tranquilizers were routinely prescribed to traumatized children, and women who felt left behind.  They were easier than dealing with trauma or providing women with independence.

Reflecting on the drama, it was so beautifully produced with an exquisite central performance that maybe the social commentary doesn’t matter.  Or maybe, because it was so beautifully conceived and executed, I am happy to think back on what it has to say about the more difficult issues.