aphrodite_mine | Misfits

Crossposts: http://aphrodite-mine.livejournal.com/621856.html

Misfits

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think there is much/any meta being written about Misfits.

Today I watched my last episode.

Let me tell you why.

Misfits is a British program that airs on E4, starring some really talented young actors. The premise is fun: a group of teens enrolled in community service for various reasons are caught in a strange electrical storm and struck with super powers, that they soon discover and keep secret from the world. Eventually, the group come into contact with others who have been influenced by the storm, and engage in other adventures including keeping their powers secret from their probation workers.

In case spoilers are an issue for either of my flists, the rest of this will be under a cut. What follows are discussions of powers, episodic encounters and a description of what happens to the two main female characters, Alicia and Kelly, up to and including episode 2x5.

To spoil the entirety of season one and two, I will go ahead and list the powers of the group members by gender.

Boys:
- Curtis - The ability to move back and forth in time, often proactive, limited control
- Simon - The ability to become invisible, used proactively, control (at first this is a passive power, but at first Simon is a much more 'feminine' character, and shown to be a victim of his circumstances and surroundings); Simon also "becomes" Future!Simon, who no longer relies on his invisibility but uses ninja-like skills to rescue the team frequently
- Nathan - The ability to come back from the dead, proactive, no control; can see dead people, proactive, no control

Girls:
- Alicia - When touched, the toucher becomes overcome with violent lust, only once used proactively, otherwise a hindrance, no control
- Kelly - Telepath - used proactively often, no control (Kelly is the 'butch'er girl, curvy and busty, definitely on 'par' with the guys)
- Nikki - Teleportation - unable to be used proactively, limited control (this power was thrust upon her when she received the heart of a dead man who had the power)

So... just in the basic premise of the show, you'll notice that there is a pretty strong disconnect between how the men and women are allowed to function. The females tend to have powers that are abusive to themselves (overhearing sexually abusive thoughts, accidentally touching someone and 'making' them want to rape you) and out of control, while the men have powers that are useful (becoming invisible to break into a bank, turning back time to re-do a combat scenario, literally, coming back to life).

And that is just the main characters.

When it comes to week-to-week characters, there is a similar problem.

I'll run down the list of characters from the wikipedia page, to prove this point.

Males:
Tony, first probation worker, Hulk-like power, killed by Kelly
Finn, baby with the power to mentally manipulate - not significant in itself, but he is the child of a single mother seeking out a father with his powers
Vince, tattoos with his mind, tattoos affect mental state, control and proactive
Ollie, teleportation, has control - however when he dies and this power is passed on to Nikki, she cannot control it
Tim, believes he is living a video game, plot involves getting money from his boss, and abusing his former girlfriend (he substitutes Kelly, making her wear a wedding dress)
Bruno -- I will get to him.
Jessica's father, when a man gets close to his daughter, he is overcome with rage and kills them

Females:
Sally, fiance of Tony, in the wrong place at the wrong time, killed and then literally refrigerated by Simon
Ruth, power to appear young but is really 82, seduces Nathan, dies of natural causes (frequent disgut of old people)
Jodi, power to turn people bald (make people feel how she feels), has no control
Rachel, power to influence, uses it to encourage virtue - conservative clothing and disdain of sex, killed by Nathan (Individuality)
Lucy, power to shapeshift, uses it to 'seduce' Simon, has no control, causes her pain
Lily, ability to generate ice because of her intimacy issues, spontaneously combusts while not initiating sex with Nathan's brother, shown with Nathan's brother after death as his girlfriend -- or rather "I'm fucking her" despite the dubious nature of their deaths

And... I'll just let those facts speak for themselves.

On to episode 2x5, which requires a bit more explanation.

I love Kelly. She is a fierce bitch, and one of the few full-figured main characters on television to be given a sexual identity. She holds her own against anyone she comes in contact with. She is the reason I've stuck out this show for so long. So when she got a love interest in 2x5 who wasn't horrible looking, was actually a nice guy (and she can read minds, so she would know) I was getting excited.

I should have known better.

During their hookup, Kelly insists to Bruno that she's not a slag (it is, after all, their first 'date') but the music playing insists that she's getting slutty. Nice move, Misfits. Nice move Number One, that is.

The next time they see one another, Kelly is happy to see Bruno. After all, he's a nice guy and they seem to have good sexual chemistry.

Not so.

They're just starting to have sex a second time when things get rough. Really rough. The camera doesn't pan away. Bruno's face is... near terrifying. Kelly screams for him to get off of her, and, I suppose to his credit, he does.

Kelly goes from fierce and in charge to wounded and dejected.

Later on, Bruno begs to explain. She wouldn't want to be with him if she knew.

The rest of the episode plays on obvious visuals -- Bruno is on the run from the police, and is chased to the rooftop. There are helicoptors and gunshots. Bruno, as he dies, reverts to his prior form. The storm, it seems, turned this gorilla into a human.

He was merely giving in to his animal instinct.

And Kelly, brokenhearted at this brutality (on the behalf of the police) and this honesty (he loved her, after all, and only wanted to be human) forgives him. Kisses him on the gorilla-lips. The episode ends with his death and her sadness.

My favorite character was raped by a gorilla.

And that, Misfits, is why I will never be watching you again.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Thank you. I was considering giving this show a try, as I was once a big fan of Heroes. Your review has changed my mind. ;)

I have avoided Misfits, because it gave me an icky vibe. And now I'll never need to go there.

I'm sorry that the show treated a character you love so shabbily.

Ruth actually kills herself, I believe, over not having a man to love her ever again.

Okay, I see your point.

I could edit this post, but I'm pretty sure the point is moot at this stage.

Thanks for the correction anyhow.

I was linked to your entry by a friend and I want to tell you thank you. I had the exact reaction when I first saw Misfits last week and I'm pretty disturbed that by and large most of the audience is just reacting with "LOL gorilla" or is too concerned about the gap in Jessica's teeth.

Another thing that really put me off was the juxtaposition of Jessica's father and Kelly's storyline in the same episode. Alone the father might make an interesting story but having negative connotations of a man watching out for his daughter while a young woman is raped absolutely reeks of negative connotations.

If it was a one-time occurrence I might be willing to forgive gorilla rape (well. No.) but this perpetual habit is something that is impossible to overlook any longer.

Thanks for stopping by.

Oh, god dammit. I only recently started watching this show, and I really did enjoy the first season but some things left such a bad taste in my mouth. Particularly the girls' powers, actually - the fact that Alisha's power basically makes people want to rape her, and yet it's almost always shown as being something she does to them, because they're not consciously deciding...yeah. And then for the period of time she was using the power proactively, no one really ever seemed to explicitly say "hey, you know, um, this is rape". I liked that Curtis got weirded out about it, but that was pretty much it. I really hated the whole thing with Ruth, too.

I haven't actually watched the latest episode, and now I'm thinking I probably just won't. God, that sounds disgusting. DAMMIT, MISFITS. YOU HAVE SO MUCH POTENTIAL.

Yeah.

Sigh.

Ollie, teleportation, has control - however when he dies and this power is passed on to Nikki, she cannot control it

She uses his power better than he did. He couldn't manage to go any far distance even left his flip flop behind.

She does, yes. But it seems like the power uses her -- takes her to a place where someone is she is thinking about. Where Ollie could use the power -- he focused, concentrated, and teleported. Poorly, perhaps, but there is an inherent difference.

I think there is some meta out and about on LJ etc. on this subject, the treatment of women on the show, powers; how disturbing Alisha's is in light of how discourse on race, rape, women converge etc. Not as much as I'd expect given how insanely problematic this show can be and I hope to see more discussion on these issues because there's a lot to critique and unravel here. TBH, I'd feel better about things if I knew people were discussing and thinking about the show on this level --- I know they are but it's not always easy to find, I have read some great stuff.

I think I'm yet to reach the breaking point with this show, although last week really put me off on so many levels with the gorilla storyline and 'poor Bruno giving in to his "inner beast"' juxtaposed with the near-incestuous violence and control of Jessica's sexuality by her father (I was disturbed by that A LOT, didn't see it as a father looking out for his daughter personally and yet much of the time the show decided to have Jessica fending off aggressive male advances so... idek), amongst other things.

I've been trying to figure out if Overman is even thinking about how deeply WRONG these things are, particularly Alisha's power. God. I'm fine if a writer decides to approach something without an overt 'political'/whatever agenda; in fact, I support that wholly. I don't want to walk away with a 'lesson' or whatever, that's never what it's about for me. But I just keep wondering if he's at all self-aware of the show and what he's doing with these characters on a meta level. I honestly can't tell, I think you'd have to be brain dead to NOT be but... jeez.

EVERY (very nearly) female character has been the victim of violence in one way or another and oftentimes that's somehow inverted so that SHE bears the blame for suffering that violence and SHE has somehow brought it upon herself. Let's not even start with the sexist, heteronormative, ageist, you name it tone to most things that happen.

I think what's still keeping me watching is that I'm drawn to the characters, imperfect and really problematic, I'm interested in them and their experiences and just how miserably human and complicated they are. I don't think that Overman is trying to romanticize or idealize any of them, and I find that fascinating --- they're all really f*cked up. And I mean all, women and men. Fandom is a whole other issue when it comes to this but, then again, it always is. I'm also compelled by how the show works with certain genres, subverts them, plays with them (even though I don't think it's as ZOMG!groundbreakingly smart as they say it is, it really isn't most of the time *shrug*).

So, I guess I'll have to see how it goes. It takes a lot for me to quit a show because of my problems with the way women/minorities/'others' (and that's really important to me) are depicted because I feel like I wouldn't watch anything; or read etc. But hopefully I'll get my ass into gear and start working through the problems on my journal or find more of the folks who already are.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, agree with so much here, and it's really worth it to put these on the table. I'll try come back to discuss things a little deeper since I feel like I've just rambled about irrelevant things :/

eta: forgive me for the excessive additions.

Edited 2010-12-16 03:07 (UTC)

Lucy has perfect control over her power. She uses it in several ways to cleverly fuck with the main cast. Though unfortunately the only reason for her actions is a man, Simon, who she is in 'love' with.

Thank you for this comment! You've put what I was trying to say into wonderful words. Thank you for expressing yourself so wonderfully!

Post has been edited to reflect this mistake on my part.

I feel like she's a smart, I know what I want kind of girl (despite the fact that she's going with Curtis) so she'll eventually figure out ohhhh this is how it works.

LOL, I'm just going to lurk on your journal!

Thank you!

I think you did a fabulous job of expressing yourself, seriously! I love that you went through each character and thought about the ways that power is working in all of them. When you laid it out like that, especially with the women, it kind of hit me over the head. Just SO happy to see people talking about it!

Hey I'm here via the post in the misfits comm. I know you said that you had read other meta after writing this, but I thought I'd post links in case anyone reading this post hadn't seen these yet.

kohler's Representations of Race and Gender in Misfits on E4 --> http://kohler.livejournal.com/466611.html

da_phoenix13's Misfits paper: Femininity and Female Disempowerment in Misfits --> http://da-phoenix13.livejournal.com/69859.html#cutid1

My Alisha-centric meta: "Feel free to check out my tits, yeah?" --> http://goddess09807.livejournal.com/20815.html#cutid1

You are right, Misfits treatment of it's female characters has been problematic at best. And there have been several times when watching it that I've had to turn off my inner feminist otherwise I'd just scream in rage. However, I don't agree with some of the points you've made here.

First, how are you defining proactive? Because Nathan's power is incredibly passive at this point. He is immortal and can see dead people. These are not actions that he takes but rather just things that are.

Secondly, I would say that Kelly's control of her power is either on par with Simon's at this point or she's a close second to him in terms of control. Other than Simon (and Alisha's brief exploration in episode 1x03) she is the only other character to use her power at will. She still can't block the occasional errant thought but she can read people's mind at will now. She is also the only character to have been called a superhero in the show. Of course this was jokingly in the Nathan steals a baby episode, but still. Her power has also been one of the ones most consistently used to further the plot and story-lines.

I'm confused by you defining Nikki's power as "unable to be used proactively." She definitely has very little control over it but it is very proactive. One, it is triggered every time she thinks extensively about a person. First with Ollie, her donor, then twice more with Curtis. She's already shown more mastery over it compared to Ollie who could teleport at will but only a few feet if that. She can travel large distances and her power is not location specific.

I absolutely agree with you that Alisha's power is abusive towards her, and all of the links I've supplied above get into that.

I don't think you're giving the recurring female characters their due.

Sally wasn't a victim of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. What happened to her was beyond fucked up, I'm not going to argue that. But she was actively investigating and manipulating in order to find the truth about her fiancée's disappearance/murder. Hers is not a passive storyline. And even in the scenes leading to her death puts up quite a fight.

Lucy exerts incredible control over her characters, actually the most we've seen out of any characters thus far. Able to transform at will and multiple times in a short amount of time. And as was noted in the main comm, her transformation looks just as painful as Simon's.

It is never clarified why Lily has her power so your speculation that it is due to her intimacy issues is just that, speculation. She causes the explosion due to a combination of two factors. The drugs reversing her power and the already demonstrated fact that she has no control over her powers.

And you left out Jessica, who is actually one of the better drawn female characters when not viewing her through shipping lenses. Jessica tells Nathan to piss of when she catches him leering at her in the locker-room. When she's flirting with the random red-shirt in the community center and he pushes it further than she is comfortable she makes her displeasure known and removes herself from the situation, causing him to call her a prick tease. She initiates all of the physical contact between her and Simon. And when she tells him she is a virgin, she thinks he might "think she's a freak" but she doesn't apologize for her sexual choices or seem ashamed of them And after the sex act with Simon she seems content and happy with the choices she's made. Her father's storyline IS in credibly misogynistic but Jessica herself is refreshingly proactive especially given that she is a shy personality.

I like what you've said on the matter. Just wanted to say that. This is how I feel.

The show seems like it's not trying to be anything deep and thought provoking but it's not like an intelligent person can ignore some of the really sick things going down. I feel like you go into it and from jump you know these people are a mess and they're actually all horrible. When I first started watching the show I was always turning to my boyfriend like wtf these people have no redeeming qualities they're all such terrible humans except Kelly really.

So weird to run into this post and this comment when I was talking with my friend today about Alisha's "power".

Kelly & 2x05

I share your disgust with Kelly's storyline. But I have to disagree with calling what happens between her and Bruno rape.

The first time they have sex Kelly actively and enthusiastically consents. The second time she initiates it. He gets very rough with her (and I also share your disgust at this being his "natural instincts") and Kelly doesn't stand for it. She pushed him off her and tells him off, She won't stand to be mistreated.

I didn't like the King Kong shout out and definitely think that Kelly deserves better than having the only male thus far to be nice and kind to her and find her attractive turn out to be a gorilla.

THIS! :)

I was really unhappy with all this too and it made me so uncomfortable. It's the first episode of the show that I actually disliked. Usually I'm happy after watching but ugh I was so no.

I was always turning to my boyfriend like wtf these people have no redeeming qualities they're all such terrible humans except Kelly really.

Kelly is a much nicer person them almost all of them, but let's not romanticize her character either. She gets sent to community service for assault. She punches a girl because the girl called her a slag. When her attempt to show that she can be nice with Jodi goes awry and Jodi charges her, she pushes back and then later throws a chair at her.

As she says in 2x05, sometimes she just can't help herself. She is pretty violent and is referred to as the muscle of the gang pretty often.

I love Kelly, I just thought we should look at her objectively.

Thanks :)

Yes, yes, yes THIS--- Kelly and Curtis (some of the time) strike me as the most 'decent' of the lot. Although, I LOVE that Alisha's finally had room in the narrative to actually grow as a character and I really like what they're doing with her personality-wise, she's still got her bitchiness but there's emotional depth that they barely allowed us to see all season 1. Now if ONLY they'd develop that 'power' because, jeebus, it's all kinds of bad.

Nathan was also nice to her (well, by his standards) and found her attractive.

Also: well, in truth it would be Bruno's "natural instinct" to have rough sex with or even rape a female. That's what animals generally do. Is misogyny on a show still problematic if it's presented, loud and clear, as misogyny? 'Cause for my part, I'm usually only bothered by a scene when there's dissonance between my perception of it and the writer's. Not the case with Bruno/Kelly.

ITA with your "Part 1", though.

I don't really agree on the Kelly being 'slutty' at all, I don't like to categorize things that way, she made a choice to have sex with Bruno (as he did with her) and that's hers, and I don't think of it or her pejoratively. But then if the music (which I forget the song now) was selling that message then just what?... jeebus, this SHOW, what even?

Mainly I'm having trouble with how sexual relationships are playing out, I keep asking myself like Alisha: "IS THIS IT??" Is this the extent of it all. F!Simon and Alisha's sex scene was beautiful, perfect, etc. etc. but even then there's weird issues with the timeyness and my problems with that that I can't really get into or I'll be going all day.

It's a funny thing, maybe that's what the show is saying, sex and love etc., like many things, are fucked up. I don't know. I just. Yikes.

Edited 2010-12-16 03:37 (UTC)

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