Intersectionality in quality feminist television: rethinking women’s solidarity in The Handmaid’s Tale and Big Little Lies

ABSTRACT

The first seasons of two female-centric television series—The Handmaid’s Tale (Hulu, 2017) and Big Little Lies (HBO, 2017)—mutually tackled the masculinization of quality TV discourse, winning major categories during the awards season. Both originals centralize women’s solidarity against the existing social hierarchy and are manifest in post-network television’s renewed interest in (post)feminism. This study argues that U.S. quality feminist television paradoxically simplifies the exclusion and alienation of minority women through the ongoing centralization of white female protagonists in gendered solidarity, as well as through racial dichotomization within the gender category. It also points out that the lack of intersectional sensibility in the televisual representation of women’s solidarity reveals the complexity and multiplicity of gender inequalities in U.S. television industries.

KEYWORDS:

• The Handmaid’s Tale
• Big Little Lies
• quality feminist television
• intersectionality
• women’s solidarity

Acknowledgments

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to two anonymous reviewers who gave me insightful feedback on earlier drafts of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. The television adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel, THT, received the Best Outstanding Drama Series award, making Hulu the first streaming service to win in that category, and HBO’s BLL drew attention by collecting eight awards, including Outstanding Limited Series, at the 69th Emmy Awards. In January 2018, the Golden Globe Awards joined in lauding these two series by choosing THT as Best Television Series and BLL as Best Miniseries or Television Film.

2. Before then, the industrial hierarchy between film and television was obvious, and few filmmakers and actors wanted to be associated with cheaper and inferior television production (Nelson 2007, 39).

3. Such an atmosphere is possibly intersected with the masculinization of cable television series because the inflow of filmmakers and production crews to premium channels has resulted in the domination of “heavily serialized, high production value programs with narratively complex stories, most often centered on a male anti-hero” (Nygaard and Lagerwey 2017, 107).

4. Kraeplin (2012, 17) argues that “segregated” television series tend to be more sensitive to the issue of race than integrated television series, in which the subtexts are indispensably developed by the fact that women of color play all of the main characters.

5. In Brüning’s (2019, 464) view, “the dual employment of colorblind and post-feminist discourses” erases the racialized aspect of Olivia’s character, and a black postfeminist character participates in her own marginalization.

6. According to their assigned roles, handmaids go grocery shopping and bear children for their commanders; Marthas are in charge of cooking and preparing meals; Aunts discipline the handmaids; and wives raise the children created by their handmaids and husbands.

7. The conflict between these women is revealed when Serena Joy confines Offred to her small room due to her failure to become pregnant. In this process, THT uses space as a metaphor for women’s helplessness, isolation, and distress within men’s sovereignty.

8. When the male guards point guns at the handmaids as a result of refusing their duties, Aunt Lydia protects the handmaids by saying, “They are my responsibility!” and lets them go home (THT 2017, episode no. 10). When two guards come to take Offred, she secretly informs Rita about a bundle of letters that she has kept behind the tub. Rita locates the letters, which are written by other suffering handmaids.

9. Tina Brown, a journalist and magazine editor told, “Roy Price, […] passed on Big Little Lies because he didn’t think it had enough nudity” (Brown, quoted in Maer Roshan 2017, 79).

10. It is notable that the first season of BLL did not include Bonnie’s backstory of abuse, contrary to the original story. David Kelley stated in a media interview that the production team did not want to “[be weighed] down with [an] explanation because her backstory came after the crime” (Kelley, quoted in Lacey Rose 2017, 50).

11. The multiple natures of feminist movements have been silenced, while many of the winners (who are mainly white and already-successful media celebrities) emphasize “one category of action above others” during their acceptance speeches (see Colllins and Bilge 2016, 3). It is a foregone conclusion that women of color are marginalized if one looks at the centralization of the white protagonists in THT and BLL.

12. The term, “allied” was borrowed from Alsop’s (2019, 1026) description of “ally-ship” in female-centric series.

13. The eighth season of CBS’ Hawaii Five-O returned with the elimination of the Asian actors and actresses. According to Sonia Saraiya (2017) report, their contract negotiations were not successful because they wanted pay parity with their white colleagues.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ju Oak Kim

Ju Oak Kim is an assistant professor of the Department of Psychology and Communication at Texas A&M International University. Her research interests include global media systems and industries, production studies, media representations of race, gender, ethnicity, and nationality, and East Asian media and culture. Her work has appeared in Media, Culture & Society, Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, International Journal of Communication, Culture, Theory & Critique, and The Journal of Popular Culture. E-mail: [email protected]