6 From Devils to Milquetoast Little Man-Boys

Jessica Seymour

The Jessica Jones TV series is a smorgasbord for gender theorists. Not only is there a range of exciting feminist themes, and a number of exciting and powerful female characters, but there are also several different representations of masculinity on display. When it comes to popular culture, particularly mainstream film and television, gender tends to be portrayed on a spectrum—with hyper-masculinity and hyper-femininity on either end and characters tending to fall somewhere in the middle. This is not a perfect system because it feeds into the expectation of a gender binary and does not include transgender representation (which is thin on the ground in mainstream media and virtually non-existent in the superhero genre). Using the hyper-masculine to hyper-feminine gender spectrum does not mean that this chapter is arguing in favour of a gender binary. It is just that viewers/readers are taught to associate certain personality traits with gender through repeated modelling by media, which is conceptualized as a binary more often than a spectrum. Identifying the hyper-masculine and the hyper-feminine as conceptualized in mainstream media is expedient for understanding how gender is generally performed.

There has been a strong tradition of the hyper-masculine in superhero films and television, even though superhero comics offer much more diversity—in terms of gender, sexuality, and race (Kirkpatrick and Scott 2015). Jessica Jones draws from this comic tradition of diversity more explicitly than other offerings from the superhero genre in the television and film formats. Jessica Jones shows a nearly fifty-fifty split between male and female characters, and there is a diverse range of masculine personality traits on offer to viewers.

What is interesting from this chapter’s perspective is that, while the male characters move across the spectrum between hyper-masculine and hyper-feminine, most traditionally hyper-masculine traits (violence, female objectification, and self-regarding behaviours) are portrayed as toxic and destructive. By contrast, caring behaviours associated with the female gender are viewed as more useful and healthier in the context of the narrative. This chapter focuses on the male characters’ gender performance in the first season—specifically, those of Kilgrave, Luke Cage, Will Simpson, and Malcolm Ducasse—in addition to offering a brief exploration of masculine gender performance in the female leads.

The Theory

The fact that hyper-masculine behaviours have an overall negative impact on the Jessica Jones narrative is telling. Gender performance is a relational concept, and so male characters who are shown to complicate their relationship to traditional hyper-masculinity are interesting from a contemporary gender theory perspective. “Masculinity” is a term used to refer to a set of assumptions about what men are supposed to be like. These expectations are then repeated in media and projected onto young male characters.

Butler’s (1988) theory of gender performance structures gender as a series of character traits that are culturally associated with a given gender. There are a range of masculinities that a male-identifying person can adopt, and some are more highly prized than others (Connell 1997a, 1997b; Reynolds 2002). Literature and popular culture often act as a method for “reaffirming or challenging cultural ideologies, including those of gender and masculinity” (Potter 2007, 28), so it is interesting to see how masculine characters are portrayed because this can be considered to reflect what the popular consciousness considers “masculine” at that point in time.

As discussed above, gender tends to be portrayed in media on a spectrum running from hyper-masculine to hyper-feminine. Romøren and Stephens (2002) developed a list of “masculine” traits that are typically associated with hyper-masculine gender performances, including

be[ing] self-regarding, a physical or verbal bully, overbearing in relation to women and children, (over)fond of alcohol, violent, short-tempered, neglectful of personal appearance, hostile to difference/otherness, actually or implicitly misogynistic, sexually exploitative, insistent upon differentiated gender roles and prone to impose these on others, classist, racist, generally xenophobic, sport-focused, insensitive, inattentive when others are speaking, aimless, possessive. (2002, 220)

Romøren and Stephens further argue that viewers are conditioned through repeated experience to associate most of these traits with a hyper-masculine gender performance. They claim that the presence of three or more of these traits in one character is generally an indication that they are performing hyper-masculinity. Female characters can also perform hyper-masculinity, particularly in Jessica Jones, which has so many diverse performances of female characters on offer. But that is beyond the scope of this chapter.

Popular conceptions of masculinity and femininity are very important in understanding how the average viewer might categorize or understand specific traits. In a video about Disney villains published by the website Cracked (2013), one of the featured panellists argues that Gaston, the hyper-masculine counterpart to the male protagonist in Beauty and the Beast (1991), should be considered a hero because the character is a masculine power fantasy. He is an arrogant fighter with bulging muscles, with women falling at his feet and a gun on his hip. The masculine power fantasy drives a lot of character design in superhero comics as well, so it would be expected that hyper-masculine traits would be glorified and celebrated in the genre. Popular culture helps reinforce conceptions of gender performance.

In Jessica Jones’s case, however, I argue that hyper-masculine traits are generally portrayed negatively—both in relation to characters and in the narrative as a whole. By contrast, the hyper-feminine trait of caring is portrayed positively. Jessica Jones initially does not like this aspect of her own character (“My greatest weakness? Occasionally, I give a damn”; ep. 1.02, “AKA Crush Syndrome”), and the characters who care are often taken advantage of by hyper-masculine characters displaying self-regarding behaviours. Nel Noddings (1998) argues that caring as a trait is often specifically connected with the concept of femininity, while Lindsey Averill (2012) builds on Noddings’s thesis by arguing that female characters’ ethics of care are frequently positioned in opposition to the hyper-masculine traits like self-interest and impartiality. But caring also acts as a catalyst for action. Noddings writes that “although philosophers have long denigrated emotions and put a high valuation on reason, most have recognized that emotions often motivate action” (2012, 135). In Jessica Jones, male characters who are portrayed in a positive light as developing caring relationships drive the plot, while more toxic, hyper-masculine behaviours have a clear negative effect on the plot and characters. These caring relationships lead male characters to move away from toxic, hyper-masculine behavioural indicators typically associated with the superhero genre.

The Toxic Masculine

Kilgrave’s behaviour is typically hyper-masculine according to Romøren and Stephens (2002). He is a rapist, self-regarding (interested only in himself and his comfort), and he works steadily through the characters in the series, violating each one either physically, sexually, or mentally by getting into their heads and forcing them to comply with his desires. He incites physical violence (assault, murder, etc.) because he is not strong enough to be violent himself, using proxies like Jessica and Luke Cage. He also displays gaslighting behaviours, which are typical of emotional abuse.

Since Kilgrave is the main antagonist in the series, these examples of hyper-masculine behaviours on his part demonstrate how such actions should be viewed—that is, negatively. If the fact that he is the antagonist were not enough to indicate how these behaviours should be interpreted, the effect that his behaviours have on the narrative and on the other characters demonstrate the toxic, destructive nature of these traits.

The rape of Hope Shlottman is the catalyst for the narrative. Jessica Jones would have been ignorant of Kilgrave’s return from the dead if it weren’t for his violation of Hope. The narrative is driven by Jessica’s desire to defend Hope from the legal ramifications of the things Kilgrave made her do while under his control. The act of rape also creates the embryo that Kilgrave’s father, Albert Thompson, eventually uses to make his son more powerful later in the series, so his hyper-masculine behaviours create a continuing, self-reinforcing cycle of power, control, and destruction (ep. 1.13, “AKA Smile”). Hope becomes so disempowered by Kilgrave’s behaviour that she decides the only way to regain her agency is to kill herself—an act that, in itself, is problematic because it requires her ultimate destruction. Hope’s control over her own body is so limited at this point in the story that the most active choice she can make is to destroy herself quickly, rather than allow herself to be erased slowly through Kilgrave’s manipulations. This behaviour robs Kilgrave of a bargaining chip, but that is the only direct consequence he suffers when Hope dies (Jessica’s desire to stop Kilgrave is reinforced by this event, but it was already present before Hope’s final act of autonomy). Without facing any direct consequences, Kilgrave has no reason to change his hyper-masculine behaviours. The more that Kilgrave thinks that he can benefit from these behaviours, the more he chooses to behave that way.

As his fight with Jessica in episode 1.09 shows, Kilgrave is not a fighter. Violence (both physical and non-physical, though in this case it is the physical that is Kilgrave’s main limitation) is an element of hyper-masculinity, but since Kilgrave cannot exhibit this behaviour himself, he uses others—violating their minds and objectifying them so that they will perform in the way that he cannot. Jessica is his primary weapon before the events of the narrative. When she is able to break his control, he uses other proxies: the men and women in the police department, Luke Cage, and the people at the docks in episode 1.13. While Jessica is a strong opponent against Luke, when it comes to ordinary people, she is well out of their league because her care ethic prevents her from acting to her full potential. Kilgrave takes advantage of this by using ordinary people to fight each other and controlling Jessica through her caring instincts.

Luke Cage is almost certainly Kilgrave’s most powerful weapon when he is unable to control Jessica, made doubly effective because using Luke violates Jessica sexually at the same time that it hurts her physically. As Kilgrave says in episode 1.12, while explaining that Luke had been under his control while Jessica and Luke had been looking for him, “Those tender moments, those sweet things he shared, it was all me. It was our sexual tension.” Even when he cannot violate Jessica himself, he is able to use other men to do it.

Kilgrave is an actively antagonistic character from the beginning, so it makes sense that his hyper-masculine traits would have such a toxic influence on the narrative. Other male characters are more complex. Will Simpson is introduced to the viewer in episode 1.03 as one of Kilgrave’s violated pawns, positioning him in the narrative as another victim and inciting sympathy from the viewer. This is supported further in episode 1.04, when he is shown to be desperate to see whether Trish Walker is alive or dead after Kilgrave’s power wears off. The viewer, like Trish, takes his somewhat hyper-masculine approach to keeping her safe (trying to force his way into her apartment, giving her a gun, insisting that he help Jessica to take Kilgrave out) as a positive reflection of his caring personality—at least, at first.

Unfortunately, Simpson becomes more and more victim-oriented throughout the narrative, which leads him to rely on increasingly toxic behaviours in order to avoid the powerlessness that all victims of Kilgrave feel. After he is caught in an explosion during episode 1.08 (an attempt by Kilgrave to have him killed) and witnesses his fellow soldiers die, Simpson makes the transition to unbridled toxicity by aligning himself with his former regiment.

In episode 1.09, Simpson takes an unnamed medication from his former army doctor, Koslov, in order to heal quickly from his injuries. After this, however, he immediately becomes more ruthless, and he continues to take the medication to become physically strong and immune to pain. The medication is framed in the show as almost a hyper-masculine steroid that impedes Simpson’s caring behaviours. He murders Detective Clemons because he has decided that the only way to protect himself is to kill Kilgrave, and Clemons’s plan to jail Kilgrave will only create more victims. He also intends to murder Jessica because he believes that she will impede his plans.

Although Simpson’s desire to neutralize Kilgrave is commendable, his approach is destructive because it victimizes other characters. It leads directly to the death of Clemons, the assault of Trish and Jessica, and (potentially, if his plans had worked) the life-long incarceration of Hope Shlottman. Jessica repeatedly emphasizes at crucial moments the need to keep Kilgrave alive in order to clear Hope’s name, so the fact that Simpson’s plan ignores that concern indicates that it is negatively aligned with the caring behaviours exhibited by Jessica. Simpson is more focused on removing Kilgrave and preventing further victimization than he is in helping the victims who have already been violated. Again, this is admirable but toxic: it places emphasis on pragmatic, aggressive prevention rather than caring for others.

Simpson’s behaviour also triggers Trish’s fear of helplessness—both when he almost kills her in episode 1.03, and when he has her and Jessica trapped in episode 1.11. Trish takes a military-grade stimulant to be able to fight Simpson. In an effort to meet his violence with equal strength, Trish nearly kills herself. Although Trish survives and wins the fight, the fact that Simpson’s attack on her and her sister made her desperate enough to risk death is a telling element in the narrative; it shows that the hyper-masculine desire for complete power can lead to collateral damage in several different ways, especially when a character is forced to make themselves as hyper-masculine as their opponent in order to survive the confrontation. The fear that drove Trish is similar to Simpson’s. She decides that the only way to survive and avoid victimization is to take performance-enhancing drugs. Interestingly, the narrative treats men’s displays of hyper-masculinity as toxic to others, and women’s displays of the same as toxic to themselves.

Masculinity and Intersectionality

Luke Cage initially appears to be hyper-masculine in his performance of gender. He is extremely muscular, the owner of a bar, sexually proficient, and non-monogamous. His behaviour during episode 1.06, when he intends to take revenge for the murder of his wife, could be considered hyper-masculine because he does not listen to reason, remains focused on his goal, and displays aggressive violence in his pursuit of the man he believes is responsible for his wife’s death.

However, like Will Simpson, Luke Cage exhibits other traits that serve to develop his character as the series moves forward. Unlike Simpson, who started in the middle of the spectrum before moving toward hyper-masculine, Luke is located at the beginning of the series near the hyper-masculine end of the spectrum before moving toward a more neutral gender performance as the series progresses. His hyper-masculine behaviours are softened and rendered less destructive when he simultaneously performs more traditionally feminine behaviours such as caring and self-sacrifice.

When viewed from the perspective of traditional masculinity, Luke’s performance of gender is important because it represents to the viewer the possibility of non-traditional masculinity despite expectations to the contrary. There is a racial element to this representation, of course, with contemporary feminist critics arguing that gender identity and race are inextricably linked because a society’s expectations of gender are often affected by shared expectations of race. A white man, for example, may face different expectations than an Asian or Latin American man. This is called intersectionality, a term coined by Black legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw (1989) in her essay “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics.” It is unfortunate that stereotypes governing how African American men should comport themselves continue to be perpetuated in mainstream media, but Luke Cage subverts many of these expectations.

Luke is portrayed as forming several caring relationships. Specifically, he is portrayed in relationships—platonic or otherwise—that involve explicit caring behaviours such as taking responsibility for others’ well-being, offering comfort, and maintaining honesty. He is portrayed as generally soft-spoken, as breaking up with a woman because she is married, and as engaging in the minimal amount of violence necessary to neutralize a confrontation in episode 1.02. This serves as an alternative representation of masculinity for mainstream audiences, one that is perhaps unexpected for a Black man with a history of jail time and an extremely muscular physique. These alternative representations of Black masculinity are important not only for privileged people, who may have stereotypical expectations without even realizing it, but also for young Black men who may feel that society does not have room for them to move away from these expectations. Characters like Luke Cage move across the gender spectrum by mixing hyper-masculine behaviours with caring behaviours, and their alternative performances of masculinity reflect positively on the narrative in which they are portrayed.

While Luke’s masculine-coded behaviours are generally not destructive or toxic—either to himself or to the people around him—his obsession with vengeance does nearly cost him his life when, ignoring Jessica’s advice to stay away from Kilgrave, he falls under Kilgrave’s control in episode 1.11. Luke is then forced to destroy his bar, violate Jessica Jones by proxy, and eventually attempt to murder her. His violent, toxic need for vengeance puts him squarely in Kilgrave’s path. Luke’s love for his wife is commendable, but it leads to him behaving in reckless, violent ways, and this forces Jessica into the unenviable position of having to choose between harming Luke and allowing him to harm her.

At the last moment, however, we see Luke’s caring nature overcome Kilgrave’s mind control. At the conclusion of episode 1.12, when Jessica is holding the shotgun under Luke’s chin, she says, “Please stop,” to which he replies, “Do what you’ve got to do.” This is self-sacrificing behaviour and creates a more empathetic approach to the hyper-masculine—or, rather, helps to alleviate some of the damage that Luke’s (and Kilgrave’s) hyper-masculine behaviour has caused. Because Luke is no longer in a position to control his actions, he gives permission to Jessica to do whatever she has to do to keep him from hurting her. This gives Jessica agency, and it also allows Luke to extend his care to her even though he is not in a position to actively protect her.

Of all of the male characters in Jessica Jones, I argue that the least hyper-masculine is Malcolm Ducasse. Before the events of the series, Malcolm was a social worker. This places him squarely between neutral and hyper-feminine in the gender spectrum because care-based jobs are traditionally and overwhelmingly held by women. After meeting Kilgrave, however, Malcolm is forced to become addicted to drugs—making him perform more self-regarding behaviours (such as spying on Jessica) in order to secure more heroin from Kilgrave. And yet, Malcolm exhibits caring behaviours even while he is high. When Jessica needs money, he offers her his TV unprompted and, apparently, without hesitation.

Malcolm is played by an Australian actor of Jamaican heritage, Eka Darville. Like Luke Cage’s, Malcolm’s performance of gender is portrayed as intersectional. In episode 1.03, his race and the expectations that come with it are actively addressed when Jessica uses him to break into the hospital and steel surgical-grade anaesthetic. This is prompted by a comment from Ruben, who had been carrying Malcolm back to his apartment: “If you see someone like Malcolm, you make a snap judgment.” Later, Jessica takes Malcolm to the hospital under the guise of getting him treated for an injury, only to throw Malcolm into a nurse and incite fear by shouting, “Somebody help! . . . He just lunged at her!” (ep. 1.03, “AKA It’s Called Whiskey”).

This is an unfortunate but relevant narrative point because it treats Jessica’s ability to get the drug she needs to stop Kilgrave as a direct result of the racism of which Malcolm is a victim. The scene ends with Jessica walking past Malcolm on her way out of the hospital. This scene is run in slow motion, with mournful music playing as Jessica and Malcolm lock eyes, and this shows that Jessica’s use of Malcolm’s race is meant to be read as toxic and wrong. Malcolm is the one to break eye contact, and Jessica’s facial expression is meant to portray her guilt.

I would argue that Malcolm begins to exhibit more masculine behaviours after he kicks his drug habit in episode 1.05. But, again, these masculine behaviours are based in a caring instinct, so they are less destructive overall. When Malcolm is wavering over whether he wants to get sober, Jessica tells him, “Save me for once,” in reference to her having saved him from a mugging before the events of the narrative. It is immediately after this conversation that Malcolm throws his drugs into the toilet, which creates a narrative link between Jessica’s desire for protection and his own sober behaviours from that point onward. He puts himself between Jessica and Luke Cage in episode 1.06, even though Luke is significantly larger than him, because he seems to be under the impression that Jessica requires protection. This would generally be considered hyper-masculine—taking on a larger opponent in order to protect the female—but when Jessica tells him to back off, he complies, so the behaviour is less toxic and framed as stemming from his concern for her.

Malcolm is also shown to be resolute and pragmatic when Kilgrave murders Ruben in episode 1.07. Rather than allow Jessica to take the fall for the crime, Malcolm quickly decides that the best course of action is to destroy the body and hide all evidence so that Jessica can remain in a position to fight. In this sequence, Malcolm makes his decision quickly, reaches out to Trish, implements his plan, and does so in such a way that by the time Jessica returns home from her business that day there is virtually no indication that a man had been murdered in her home. In normal circumstances, the fact that Malcolm is able to so easily dispose of a dead body would be cause for alarm. But the narrative seems to imply that Malcolm would not consider this behaviour if Jessica’s freedom were not on the line.

Malcolm performs care when he starts the support group for Kilgrave’s victims, and he continues to care despite all of the horrors he has seen. He questions and gets frustrated (“Everything I learned in church, all the praying my mom did for the sick and dying, . . . all the community projects my dad worked on, basically everything that they taught me . . . it was all bullshit?”; ep 1.11, “AKA I’ve Got the Blues”), but he remains hopeful. He extends this care to Ruben’s sister, Robyn, when he helps her put up fliers to find her brother, shows her the stretch of water where her brother’s body has been hidden, and waits with her while she says her goodbyes.

Malcolm’s strong caring instinct leads to him picking up the phone for Jessica in the final episode, when she is being contacted by potential clients and finds herself unable to do so herself. This act symbolically links the pair in a caring relationship (one that goes both ways, from carer to cared-for, and vice versa) and shows the viewer that Malcolm intends to continue supporting Jessica in her private investigator/crime-fighting lifestyle.

Other male characters of note include the thoughtful and protective Detective Clemons and the subservient and defenceless Ruben. These men also engage with the more feminized side of the gender spectrum, and they are both summarily murdered—Clemons by Simpson, and Ruben by Kilgrave. It could be argued that their murders can be read as a condemnation of feminine personality traits. Clemons was too trusting of Simpson; Ruben was too desperate to be loved by Jessica, allowing him to fall into Kilgrave’s clutches.

These murders are narratively expedient. Ruben’s death feeds into Jessica’s desperation to stop Kilgrave, while killing Clemons is the line that Simpson crosses to show the viewer that he is moving beyond the point of redemption. Considering that neither of the victims could reasonably have been expected to stop their murderers, even if they had embodied hyper-masculine traits, the fact that they exhibit more feminine traits is more of a condemnation of destructive hyper-masculinity. These murders push the narrative forward at the same time that they demonstrate to the viewer how toxic the hyper-masculine characters are becoming.

Conclusion

The Jessica Jones TV series offers a range of exciting feminist themes for scholars and viewers to engage with. Popular culture often includes hyper-masculine traits in characters of both genders, but the portrayal of these traits and the effect that they have on the narrative in Jessica Jones is the primary factor for interpretation from this chapter’s perspective. Simply put, how a male character’s hyper-masculinity affects the narrative will determine whether it is toxic or healthy. Masculinity intersects with race in the characters of Luke Cage and Malcolm Ducasse, and I think that it is particularly telling and important that these men negotiate the gender spectrum so that their performance is more care-based than those of their white counterparts, Kilgrave and Will Simpson. Their race affects how people expect them to perform their masculinity, and by subverting these expectations Jessica Jones contributes to the positive representation of non-white masculine characters.

Hyper-masculinity is not entirely limited to male characters, though that has been the focus of this chapter. Hyper-masculine behaviours are just as toxic for the women in Jessica Jones as they are for men, and not just because they are victims of the masculine characters. Female characters who embody the hyper-masculine are, as discussed above, more self-destructive than generally destructive: Jessica Jones drinks in excess not because she is cool or reflecting the stereotypes associated with the character of the hard-boiled detective, but because she has PTSD. Trish Walker takes performance enhancers to make herself stronger, but they nearly kill her. Jeri Hogarth is self-regarding and attempts to use Kilgrave’s power to force her ex-wife to sign divorce papers, but this leads to her current girlfriend killing her ex-wife. Hyper-masculinity is portrayed as toxic regardless of the gender of the character exhibiting the behaviour.

While the male characters in Jessica Jones move along the spectrum between hyper-masculine and hyper-feminine, most of the traditionally hyper-masculine traits (such as violent, self-regarding, and female-objectifying behaviours) are consistently portrayed as toxic and destructive not only to the characters in the story, but to the story itself. This is contrasted by the traditionally feminine caring behaviours, which are healthier and have a positive impact on the narrative as a whole, regardless of the gender of the character performing them.

References

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