Obscuritus.ca A nerd making a nerdy blog

Jessica Jone

And kinda Daredevil

My fundamental theory is that Jessica Jones is about feminism, and Daredevil is about racism. And the difference is that Jessica Jones is feminist, and Daredevil is racist.

I always got the sense that Kilgrave was basically a metaphor for the Patriarchy. A powerful male figure which no one truly believes in, attempting to use it as a defence gets you laughed at, has the ability to draw people in and control them, and, finally, many people (of any gender) attempt to use it to gain power. Jessica Jones spends most of the show as a victim of violence that no one truly believes in, and basically assume that she's violent, insane, or dangerous. That's a super powerful image. She is a victim of violence who is attacked by the system as bad or wrong.

Jessica decides to opt out of the system, rejects the job at the powerful law firm, and generally denies the things that others find important, and then, becomes immune to Kilgrave. Again, an image I like, not sure if it's as good, but I still am ok with it. I don't know if I love the idea "Women are only free if they stop buying into society" - but definitely believe it's valid for people to hold.

Then, an important part of the series is about love - Jessica tellingly never tells a male character that she loves them. However, she also, importantly, is not implied to be anything but heterosexual - and love for Trish is purely true love, not sexual.

The last thing that seemed great was that Luke Cage - who was going to be her saviour had to be shot in the head, and then she had to burn an entire episode of time (and many lives) to rescue him - and give Claire Temple the coveted title of Worst Job in the MCU.

I feel like Daredevil had issues. There was a series of different gangs - each of them from a different part of Asia - the Russians, who were large and violent, and spent time a gulag. There were the Japanese, who were, obvioudly, ninjas (because, of course). The Chinese were evil and patient, waiting out the others. And there was a big powerful white guy who outsmarted them all. And all their victims were Latinos. Really, this is a bit of a problem, in that the main characters of the show were white people who entered the stories of minorities and uplifted them. And to that end, they killed a bunch of Asians. I am really not ok with that story.

I understand the core story of the series was about gentrification, and the struggle to remain true. But the way the Kingpin was sketched (millionaire drug dealer brutal philanthropist) - he was taking people out of housing where they lived in danger of violence or rats, and was helping them get better homes, and giving them the resources to do so. He didn't feel like an evil land developer who was going to sell condos to rich people, instead, he was attempting to get people out of the hell he grew up in, and into better places. As much as I am sure the writers were trying to tell a story about gentrification - the amount of time they spent trying to make the audience sympathize with the Kingpin (since, you know, getting to know the people affected by the bad things, is less important than getting to know the white guys, assholes) meant that their whole system broke down.

Jessica Jones was about feminism, Daredevil was about racism. Jessica Jones was feminist, Daredevil was racist.