Gender and Seriality 66583_Sulimma.indd583_Sulimma.indd i 005/11/205/11/20 111:351:35 AAMM Screen Serialities Series editors: Claire Perkins and Constantine Verevis Series advisory board: Kim Akass, Glen Creeber, Shane Denson, Jennifer Forrest, Jonathan Gray, Julie Grossman, Daniel Herbert, Carolyn Jess-Cooke, Frank Kelleter, Amanda Ann Klein, Kathleen Loock, Jason Mittell, Sean O’Sullivan, Barton Palmer, Alisa Perren, Dana Polan, Iain Robert Smith, Shannon Wells-Lassagne, Linda Williams Screen Serialities provides a forum for introducing, analysing and theorising a broad spectrum of serial screen formats – including franchises, series, serials, sequels and remakes. Over and above individual texts that happen to be serialised, the book series takes a guiding focus on seriality as an aesthetic and industrial principle that has shaped the narrative logic, socio-cultural function and economic identity of screen texts across more than a century of cinema, television and ‘new’ media. Titles in this series include: Film Reboots Edited by Daniel Herbert and Constantine Verevis Reanimated: The Contemporary American Horror Remake By Laura Mee Gender and Seriality: Practices and Politics of Contemporary US Television By Maria Sulimma 66583_Sulimma.indd583_Sulimma.indd iiii 005/11/205/11/20 111:351:35 AAMM Gender and Seriality Pr actices and Politics of Contemporary US Television Maria Sulimma 66583_Sulimma.indd583_Sulimma.indd iiiiii 005/11/205/11/20 111:351:35 AAMM Edinburgh University Press is one of the leading university presses in the UK. We publish academic books and journals in our selected subject areas across the humanities and social sciences, combining cutting-edge scholarship with high editorial and production values to produce academic works of lasting importance. For more information visit our website: edinburghuniversitypress.com © Maria Sulimma, 2020 Edinburgh University Press Ltd The Tun – Holyrood Road, 12(2f) Jackson’s Entry, Edinburgh EH8 8PJ Typeset in 11/13 Ehrhardt MT by IDSUK (DataConnection) Ltd, and printed and bound in Great Britain A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 1 4744 7395 8 (hardback) ISBN 978 1 4744 7397 2 (webready PDF) ISBN 978 1 4744 7398 9 (epub) The right of Maria Sulimma to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, and the Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 2003 (SI No. 2498). 66583_Sulimma.indd583_Sulimma.indd iivv 005/11/205/11/20 111:351:35 AAMM Contents List of Figures vi Acknowledgements ix Introduction: Serial Genders, Gendered Serialities 1 Part I Serial TV Criticism and Girls 1 The Thinkpiece Seriality of Girls 25 2 Carousel: Gendering through Controversy 47 3 Navigating Discourses of Universality and Specificity: The (Feminist) Voice of a Generation? 68 Part II Television Audience Engagement and How to Get Away with Murder 4 The Looped Seriality of How to Get Away with Murder 91 5 Outward Spiral: Gendering through Recognisability 113 6 Evoking Discourses of Progressivism, Social Activism, and Identity Politics: Such an Important Episode! 134 Part III Television Authorship and The Walking Dead 7 The Paratext Seriality of The Walking Dead 153 8 Palimpsest: Gendering through Accountability 175 9 Neoliberalising Discourses of Serialised Survivalism: You Make It . Until You Don’t 195 Conclusion: Archiving Snapshots 215 Bibliography 225 Index 244 66583_Sulimma.indd583_Sulimma.indd v 005/11/205/11/20 111:351:35 AAMM Figures 1.1 No Sex and the City family dinners: rare instances of all female characters appearing together in one scene 33 1.2 ‘I hate you!’: Shoshanna reacts with anger to Marnie’s confession of her affair with Shoshanna’s ex-boyfriend Ray 37 1.3 The ‘erotic’ photo shoot breaks with the fetishisation of Hannah’s body by, for example, prominently placing photographer Ray within the camera frame 43 2.1 Shoshanna admires Marnie as the apparent embodiment of her aspirations 53 2.2 Contrasting female and male intimacy in the ‘bathroom scenes’ of ‘Pilot’ (1.1) and ‘I Saw You’ (3.11) 62 2.3 Transparent masculinity: Ray’s final appearance concludes with a kiss on a carousel 66 3.1 Girls’s last season did not deviate from its previous textual practices, which also meant that the portrayal of Hannah’s parenting a baby of colour was fraught with ambiguity and omissions 75 3.2 A self-absorbed Hannah cannot get enough of her bright red coloured drink, which evokes vampiric associations of the ‘unruly woman’ as a parasite 78 4.1 Tableau staging in a ‘client shot’ and promotional poster from the second season. This distinctive display characterises by contrast, highlights the cast’s diversity, and positions the characters as jury-detectives 99 66583_Sulimma.indd583_Sulimma.indd vvii 005/11/205/11/20 111:351:35 AAMM FIGURES vii 4.2 By dramatically comparing being shot to the attempt to follow the show’s complex timeframe, this meme adopts Murder’s melodramatic mode 104 4.3 Leading ladies Kerry Washington, Ellen Pompeo, and Viola Davis share red wine and popcorn (with one another and with their viewers) in this #TGIT advertisement from September 2017 108 5.1 In contrast with the prisoner’s uniform of her client Rebecca, Annalise’s outfit negotiates the pressures placed on black professional femininity within the racialised and gendered space of the courtroom 117 5.2 Annalise kisses Eve go odbye on her porch. Some black female viewers found Annalise’s willingness to wear a turban in front of her love interest to be an indicator of their strong connection 124 5.3 Annalise arranges for Eve to defend Nate. Viewers were as torn as the character herself over whom they wanted Annalise to pursue a relationship with 130 6.1 Annalise comforts her friend and client Jill before the transphobic behaviour of the authorities requires her to adapt her defence strategy 138 6.2 In a rare scene of collaboration (4.4 ‘Was She Ever Good at Her Job?’), Annalise joins the defence team of fellow lawyer Tegan and her former intern Michaela to defend their client Soraya 143 7.1 Top to bottom: first-season showrunner Frank Darabont with comic book writer Robert Kirkman; Talking Dead appearance by Kirkman, Laurie Holden (Andrea), and showrunner Glen Mazzara (1.13); Kirkman, showrunner Scott M. Gimple, Jeffrey Dean Morgan (Negan), and Norman Reedus (Daryl) (Talking Dead 5.16) 159 7.2 Villain Negan’s speech implies authorial self-reflection and reveals him to be a stand-in for Robert Kirkman (#100) 166 8.1 Michonne equipped with her katana and zombie escorts/pets in the comic book and television show 178 8.2 The brief appearance of Daryl’s ‘fanboys’ Patrick and Zack in the fourth season amuses Carol and allowed the show to reflect on the idealisation of its most popular character 185 66583_Sulimma.indd583_Sulimma.indd vviiii 005/11/205/11/20 111:351:35 AAMM viii FIGURES 8.3 Her selfless and gruesome death – a caesarean performed with a pocketknife – aspires to redeem the most disliked character Lori (3.4 ‘Killer Within’) 193 9.1 Screenshots from the first episode (1.1 ‘Days Gone By’) illustrate the comparison between Rick, Morgan, and the female zombies they set out to kill 197 9.2 Talking Dead ’s sequence ‘Survival Tips’ featuring Matt Mogk (2.14); the ‘Survival Kit’ of AMC’s online shop 201 9.3 Survival essentials worth risking your life for: colourful cat decorations 208 66583_Sulimma.indd583_Sulimma.indd vviiiiii 005/11/205/11/20 111:351:35 AAMM Acknowledgements ost of this book was written in the Staatsbibliothek West in Berlin, one Mof the greatest libraries I know. I owe thanks to the librarians, cafeteria workers, and the security staff at the Stabi. There are many other people with- out whom Gender and Seriality would not have been possible. I am grateful for the academic community surrounding me, my biological and chosen families. A very special thanks to: My editors, Claire Perkins and Constantine Verevis, as well as Richard Strachan and everyone else at Edinburgh University Press. I am proud to be a part of the Screen Serialities book series and look forward to the future scholarship it will publish. My advisor, Frank Kelleter, who has been as central to this project’s concep- tion as to the final book. Frank is an incredible mentor who takes his students seriously as scholars right from the start and engages in our work as if we were his peers. Thank you for being a role model for what a university professor should be, a critical thinker but also an empathetic intellectual, for trusting in my capabilities from early on, as well as for all your sound (and fast) advice when I was freaking out about issues small or large. My second advisor, Katja Kanzler, whose own sophisticated writing on tele- vision and gender I greatly admire. It is due to Katja’s support, pragmatism, and expertise that this project became manageable and did not proliferate into a confusing mess like the serial materials I investigate. Kathleen Loock, Emily Petermann, and Abby Fagan, for reading and commenting on the entire manuscript. Your unfaltering support, diligence, and knowledge carried me through the writing process – and made this a much more compelling read. Emily was my first office mate and formed my writing and teaching immensely (how did you never make fun of me for all 66583_Sulimma.indd583_Sulimma.indd iixx 005/11/205/11/20 111:351:35 AAMM x ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS the things I did not know?!?). In a weak moment, Kathleen told me she’d hunt me down if I ever dropped out of writing my dissertation. I believe she would have. Kathleen’s confidence in my work has been an important driving force over the past years.