Jessica Jones and the complex power of female rage

Jessica Jones makes space for women to be angry, strong, scared, traumatised, determined and weak, showing them as complex human beings rather than the one-dimensional characters you see in other superhero stories

Just as Jessica Jones isn’t a typical superhero, neither is her life as one. The Netflix character, played by Krysten Ritter, is the physical embodiment of the fight women endure on a daily basis: physical and sexual violence, a lack of safety, emotional manipulation, harassment, discrimination and abuse.

In season two, the plot is centred on issues surrounding her mental health, identity, alcohol abuse and the aftermath of Kilgrave (David Tennant) – as Jessica finds herself confronting memories previously buried at the back of her mind and investigating how she ended up with super-human strength.

Because it’s fiction, the show is bloody and violent, but the reality of women and their relationship with anger is thoroughly examined. Jessica serves as kind of release for the anger and frustration women feel in real life, but she isn’t necessarily healed by being able to hurt those who have wronged her. Ending Kilgrave’s life hasn’t ended her trauma, season two reveals – if anything it has exacerbated it – as she struggles to decide whether she is the hero vigilante the public wants her to be, or the killer that Kilgrave tried to turn her into.

Instead of the stereotypical, male-centric superhero story, where women are included almost as an after-thought; Jessica Jones puts women at the very forefront, with season two serving as more of an origin story for its lead character. Some people, particularly since the release of season two, seem to have missed that point.

When the reviews rolled in for season two, Ritter’s character portrayal was lauded, but critics felt there wasn’t enough Kilgrave in the show. The Hollywood Reporter seemed to think Ritter wasn’t capable of carrying the story enough on her own, saying that she “remains superb ... but the new season initially lacks the narrative momentum brought by [Kilgrave]”.

The Verge had a similar opinion, commenting: “Without a clear villain in the early going, the show revolves around less compelling plot lines and dour confrontations.” The Washington Post agreed: “It’s the lack of Kilgrave that at first seems to be what’s missing from season two.”

But while other superhero stories often give villains more screen time, Jessica Jones isn’t really about Kilgrave, Jessica’s love interest Luke Cage (Mike Colter) or any other male character: it’s about Jessica and her relationships with the other women around her – like her friend/sister Trish, former employer Jeri Hogarth (Carrie-Anne Moss), her birth mother Alisa (Janet McTeer) and fellow Kilgrave victim Hope Shlottman (Erin Moriarty).

And these relationships are far from simple, because the exploration of morality in Jessica Jones has never been about “good and evil” – it’s about the shades of grey in between. Season one saw Jessica and Trish building back their rocky relationship, but season two follows the latter’s borderline obsession with having superpowers of her own.

Trish’s desire to have Jessica’s power – or something resembling it – seems to be a way for her to take control of her own life and trauma (being sexually exploited and physically abused as a teenager by her mother) and also to save people she thinks actually need saving (doing what she thinks Jessica doesn’t do enough of with her powers).

Her intentions, like Jones’s, are honourable and selfish, and ultimately self-destructive, but they explore the spectrum of emotions women face when it comes to ambition and ways of dealing with trauma. Both Jessica and Trish spend season two dealing with an ongoing mother/daughter power struggle, whether that be mental or physical, or both.

Jessica discovers her long-lost mother, Alisa, survived the car crash that killed her brother and father, and was given powers equal or even greater than her own by Dr Karl Malus (Callum Keith Rennie). But her rage consumes her. Alisa’s resentment has built up for years, as Angelica Bastien for Vulture explains, “about the years apart from the daughter who believed her dead, the experimentation that robbed her of autonomy, the terrifying nightmares, the way her life went awry in her previous marriage”. You see her react to a comment most women experience on a daily basis, but are forced to internalise: “Don’t get your panties in a twist.” The cab driver who said it is lucky to drive away with his life.

Despite seemingly having everything she could want on the surface, Trish seeks powers to protect herself and give herself the one thing her mother never could. At the same time, it establishes a power struggle between her and Jessica who wants to protect her from herself.

While Trish claims to be hell-bent on using her powers to fight off evil, she ends up using them for her own gain. Vulture explains her intentions as textbook privilege: “White women who are more interested in amassing the power of their oppressors than dismantling the systems they represent.”

Through Alisa, the show “acknowledges the thankless work of the women that came before”. It’s no wonder Alisa is angry: she gave up her dreams to take care of her family and then was lied to and experimented on by a man – Dr Karl. In the case of Jessica Jones, the ingratitude stems from trauma that turns into inner turmoil.

As is the case for many women, Jessica’s greatest enemy is often herself – the shield she holds up like a pre-emptive defence to emotional hurt. Not much has changed in season two – she continues her long-standing pattern of self-sabotage and alienating others while coping through drinking and meaningless sex. We may not have her powers, but at times her behaviour as a reaction to traumatic events feel all-too familiar.

Jessica Jones makes space for women to exact their rage and let those emotions run riot – perhaps that’s why it feels so cathartic.