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We are living in the golden age of the humiliated woman.
Britney Spears, once a cultural laugh line, is actually a human caught in a terrible situation.
Monica Lewinsky, once a cultural laugh line, is actually a human caught in a terrible situation.
Janet Jackson is, you guessed it, a human.
To borrow from the podcast that helped define the redemption genre: Youre wrong about that woman.
This genre is about revisitation, emphasis on thevisit,and its exemplars are period pieces first and foremost.
The towering achievements of HulusPam & Tommyare its costuming, makeup, and production design.
The genre may be about womens redemption arcs, but the mode is empathy tourism.
We absorb the details of a world that is no longer ours.
OnImpeachment,Monica paces around her apartment, unwilling to leave because the president might call her landline.
When we register how alien this setting feels, it frees us to see its values as outdated.
Of course he had all the control!
Of course she didnt deserve an avalanche of criticism!
Any kind of story can be transporting, but empathy tourism asks its viewers to travel for a reason.
This is a mission trip, not a vacation.
(A little astonishing how often its Jay Leno.)
How do you feel about her now that youve taken this trip through her life?
Just in case you need some prompting, blunt dialogue is often there to help you out.
This is a place youve never been before, but I have.
The wrinkle of empathy tourism is the same unavoidable trouble that exists for all kinds of tourism.
When you visit from far away, youre never really seeing what its like to live there.
The redemption arc presumes we are visitors from a more enlightened time.
We look into this world as outsiders and cluck at the things they got wrong.
The womans redemption plot makes a similar return to humiliating scenes of public mockery.
This show is for its audience, not for Anderson, which she herself has made very clear.
Still, theres no consistent correlation between a work that is considerate of its subject and one thats entertaining.
Any film or series is immensely collaborative, and the result is often alchemical.
Then there is the other trap of empathy tourism.
Surely there must be more women whose stories can be shaped into a pleasing eight-episode journey to the past!
That grouping is its own form of erasure.
Andersons story isnt the same as Bobbitts, which is different from Hardings and Jacksons.
Formula does not necessarily mean a work has less power.
There is obliteration in lumping these stories together, and there is strength.
Tourism, for all its flaws, is still better than never leaving home.
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