Definitely a Creepy Stalker and Probable Serial Killer but He Is Soooo Hot“ Navigating Questions of Romance and Monstrosity in Netflix’S You
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“Definitely a creepy stalker and probable serial killer but he is soooo hot“ Navigating Questions of Romance and Monstrosity in Netflix’s You Author: Linda Kopitz Student ID: 12023361 Contact: [email protected] Submission Date: 20th of June 2020 University of Amsterdam Research Master Media Studies Television and Cross-Media Culture Supervisor: Dr. Toni Pape Second Reader: Dr. Joke Hermes Table of Contents Abstract 2 1. Introduction 3 1.1 Romantic Killers, Killer Romance: Situating a Television Phenomenon 3 1.2 Introducing the Series: Netflix’s You 5 1.3 Methodology 7 1.4 Chapter Outline 10 2. Of Private Attraction and Public Approval: Negotiating Experiences 11 2.1 Theoretical Framework: Realism 11 2.2 “But I feel for him, ya know?” – Private Attraction as Shared Experience 12 2.3. “I swear I was #beck in a psychotic relationship” – Connecting Fictional Events and Lived Reality 15 2.4 “I REAL LIVE said ‘what in the Joe?’” – Sharing Humor and Disbelief 19 2.5 Conclusion 22 3. Of Love and Hate: Romanticizing the Serial Killer 24 3.1 Theoretical Framework: Genre and Gender 24 3.2 “I need a Joe in my life” – The Fantasy of Romance 26 3.3 “In my eyes he’s not guilty ... doing it all for love.” – Romantic Intentions and Voice-Over Narration 31 3.4 Conclusion 36 4. Of Monsters and Men: Physical Attractiveness and the Appearance of Monstrosity 39 4.1 Theoretical Framework: Monstrosity 39 4.2 “Okay, Joe Goldberg is hot. I think I have some issues.” – Physical Attractiveness as Diversion from Monstrosity 41 4.3 “Penn Badgley is hot, but his character is a fucking psychopath” – Reading the Character Joe Goldberg through the Star Text of the Actor Penn Badgley 45 4.4 Conclusion 49 5. Conclusion 52 6. References 56 1 Abstract Hannibal Lecter, Dexter Morgan, Joe Goldberg: Are there fictional characters so monstrous that we should not consider ourselves fans? While the serial killer has been the object of television crime procedurals for decades, the last years have seen a shift in this dynamic: Following a broader interest in anti-hero narratives, the serial killer has morphed from the antagonist in (mostly detective-led) criminal dramas to being the protagonist himself. The Netflix series You, which has been framed as a “global cultural phenomenon” (Larson 2019), is taking this trend even further by establishing the main character, played by former Gossip Girl heartthrob Penn Badgley, not only as the protagonist but romantic lead in a format blurring conventions from both the psychological thriller and the romance. Through a discourse analysis (following Potter and Wetherell) of viewer comments posted on Twitter and YouTube about the show and its main character, I will discuss how viewers navigate the similarities and differences between the series and ‘identifiable’ tropes, actions and concepts – including the ideal of the romance, the concept of fantasy and the (gendered) body of the hero – in an attempt to make sense of the series’ ambiguity. This navigation of questions of attractiveness and monstrosity in relation to the series You can be traced through the three different interpretative repertoires Experience, Romance and Embodiment. The Experience repertoire, which places the fictional events of the series in relation to the lived and shared experiences of viewers, can be understood as a strategy to both validate the private attraction to the series protagonist and deflect judgement in the public online sphere. The Romance repertoire expands on the notion of shared attraction and approval by linking the interpretation of the main character to the ideal of the (literary) romantic hero, thus providing a further acceptable explanation for a notion of ‘rooting for the bad guy’. The third repertoire, Embodiment, underlines this gendered romanticization by highlighting different aspects of the actor’s appearance to interrogate questions of monstrosity and morality through the visuality of the body. Ultimately, the interpretative repertoires viewers employ can be understood as a practice of meaning-making that is aware of, but does not necessarily follow an ‘intended’ reading by the producers of popular culture. Keywords: Television, Television Studies, Netflix, Fictional Characters, Genre 2 1. Introduction 1.1 Romantic Killers, Killer Romance: Situating a Television Phenomenon Hannibal Lecter, Dexter Morgan, Joe Goldberg: Are there fictional characters so monstrous that we should not consider ourselves fans? As Cornel Sandvoss has argued for an understanding of fandom as a “space used by fans for the articulation and reflection of self” (2003, 27), taking a closer look at controversial, yet beloved characters becomes especially interesting in understanding the relationship between viewers and television programming. While the serial killer has been the object of television crime procedurals for decades, the last years have seen a shift in this dynamic: Following a broader interest in anti-hero narratives, the serial killer has morphed from the antagonist in (mostly detective-led) criminal dramas to being the protagonist himself. As the center of attention in both fiction and non-fiction narratives (see true crime documentaries, for instance), the fascination with the serial killer “as mirror images of our darkest selves, frightening reminders of the human monster that lies latent in Everyman” (Santaulària 2007, 63) could be considered a cultural phenomenon of the 21st century. Understood as the contemporary version of the monster, which serves “as the ultimate incorporation of our anxieties – about history, about identity, about our very humanity” (Cohen 1996, xii), the serial killer embodies questions of morality and monstrosity, power and control, normality and deviance. While Steven Jay Schneider argues that “it is the cinematic serial killer's compulsion to commit acts of violence that are as intimate as they are extreme that makes him so compelling” (2003, 3), the examples listed above point towards a somewhat different fascination in the context of the televisual serial killer: understanding. Whereas both Hannibal (NBC) and Dexter (Showtime) provide on the one hand a (generally) understandable explanation for the main characters transgression – psychological childhood trauma and a clear moral framework respectively – and on the other hand continue to follow the consistency of the crime procedural, in which each episode “anticipates and delivers a spectacular kill scene, each catches a murderer, solves a mystery, relieves the audience, and momentarily restores the social order – albeit a trifle bloodstained – providing viewers with that tidy feeling of having wiped down the benches and taken out the trash” (Green 2012, 583), the newest addition to the list of television shows centered on fictional serial killers seems to deviate from this established logic. The series You, which has been “propelled into the cultural zeitgeist” (Stern 2020) since the first season became available on the streaming platform Netflix in December 2018, has introduced a protagonist at the same time in line and notably different from other serialized serial killers. In the absence of a larger redeeming narrative for the main character Joe Goldberg, the series has been simultaneously criticized for romanticizing psychological abuse and applauded for “igniting conversations around hot-button 3 topics like abuse, social media safety, and white male privilege” (Stern 2020) by television critics. Following Greg Smith’s argumentation that “the persuasive force of images depends not only on the images themselves, but also on the frame we use to interpret them” (2017, 166), the interpretation of the series and its main protagonist takes place at the intersection of seemingly contrasting and conflicting interpretative frames. This reading is also supported by the emphasis both the author of the novel the series is based on and the showrunners of the series have placed on their intent to polarize the audience through the portrayal of a series protagonist at least partially open to interpretation. Part of this ambivalence of interpretations appears to be connected to the series’ position between different genres. Understanding meaning-making as a “process whose aim is to produce fully satisfactory and plausible meaning; a process which offers us myths with which we are already familiar, and seeks to convince us that these myths are appropriate to their context” (Fiske and Hartley 1978, 88), the blurring of different genre conventions and fictional prototypes complicates how viewers arrive at a ‘plausible’ – and shared – meaning. By Netflix itself, the show is characterized as a thriller, a genre that is characterized by “a metaphorically downward movement into the psyche” and “concerns itself more with questions of subjectivity and the psychological basis for transgression, and makes no guarantees regarding narrative resolution” (Pittard 2012, 2). In popular discourses, however, the series is also labelled as horror, romance and “a self-aware work of melodrama, [which] combines the best elements of murder-mystery series, Millennial sitcoms, and revenge fantasies” (Georgis 2019), thus referencing genres with established narrative solutions – in other words: a happy end. If “genre dictates how a series may tell a story as well as what is to be expected of characters and the relationship they enter into” (Hermes 2007, 163), the intricate ways in which You blends and distorts