[Spoilers | Read Time: 10 min]
The new Punisher series by Netflix, released last November, validates the old adage that sometimes less is more. The show is a grueling twelve hours (and change) of mind-bludgeoningly trite characters drooling their personal philosophies to each other. This wouldn’t be so bad if not for the really mediocre acting and the really generic and drawn out scenes. Anything that was interesting or made me smile was seldom and fleeting. This show did not need a thirteen episode commitment.I had originally planned to do a review of Punisher, but then I watched it. I didn’t think it was going to be this bad, so bad that I really don’t want to waste any more time on this. However, I did sit through it all and so feel I should at least impart something to everyone and expound on some of my problems with the show, not the least of which is the discomforting sex scenes.
The Wayne Brady Effect
Punisher’s deployment of unnecessary sex scenes makes the show sleazier and all the more misogynistic for me. I’m referring to the show’s predilection for chokeholds of its women. The first one occurs between Dinah Madani and Billy Russo. The second between Frank Castle and Maria Castle.
These images of men choking women during sex is textbook pornography. Not only are the men simulating rape, the women aren’t allowed to react in any other way than pure carnal pleasure. How is this serving the story? We didn’t learn much during the Dinah/Billy sex scene. As for the Frank/Maria scene, one might argue that Frank blames himself for his family’s death and, therefore, constantly imagines scenarios in which he’s causing Maria’s death. But this doesn’t hold water because the expression on Maria’s face tells me she’s not fearing for her life, but that she’s really into it. Depicting these scenes serves little but to desensitize us to images of violence against women.
I want to stress that I’m not opposed to a steamy love scene necessarily, but I do believe it needs to be in service of something more than cheap titillation. As weird as it is to defend Fifty Shades of Grey, at least in this context, its scenes were serving its story because the story was cheap titillation. What’s worse is that this isn’t the first time Marvel has done this. During Daredevil, Matt Murdoch chokeholds Electra Natchios during their unnecessary sex scene.
I have not watched Iron Fist or The Defenders, so I can’t speak to whether Marvel has continued this trend and, if so, how the dynamics of these scenes might have changed. With this in mind though, I do want to point out that Jessica Jones had its own sex scene that did not feature a chokehold. And I want to float the question as to why this was? Did it have anything to do with the fact it would have meant depicting a black man choking a white woman during sex? Did the studio think that, while white men doing this was fine, a black man doing it was beyond the pale?
I’m sure that there are several ways to defend these scenes. One could argue that Dinah/Billy and Matt/Electra have antagonistic relationships marked by violence and therefore this is expressed during their intercourses. This may make sense on the surface but it still fails to account for why the violence is always that of men dominating women, why the women aren’t chokeholding the men (and the brief moment when Dinah hovers her hand over Billy’s neck is a hard sell. She wasn’t actually gripping his throat, so I’m disinclined to say that this qualifies as Dinah dominating Billy).
I don’t mean to pick on Punisher or the Netflix Marvel Universe in general. There are other shows that do this (looking at you HBO), but Punisher just happened to be the show that finally made me decide to comment on this trend. And sure, lots of people aren’t going to be bothered with the line that’s being straddled here (zing!), but by comparison, the sexualities of The Punisher (2004) with Thomas Jane or even the ultimate The Punisher (1989) with Dolph Lundgren, are starkly tame.
Call the Super Nanny
The portrayal of Sarah Lieberman as a helpless, depressed, semi-alcoholic, grieving widow, who just needs a strong man in her life and in the lives of her children represents attitudes and stereotypes a little too antiquated for me. Sarah needs support, but there’s no reason she needs to rely on a complete stranger for it, nor does that support necessarily have to be a man’s. While one can contend that the show is trying to convey how much Sarah and the kids need David Lieberman/Micro back in their lives and not just a beefy man, the show sabotages this through her reckless parenting. It would be one thing for her to marshal her willpower and reach out to her family and friends yet still struggle to make due. It’s another when we see no signs of her really trying but instead see her inviting skeevy vagabonds into her home and letting her son run roughshod over his sister. From what the show gives us, it looks more like Sarah doesn’t need a man and instead needs to put forth some actual effort.
When she’s first introduced, she hits Castle with her car in a scene that suggests that she’s just blind, doesn’t know how to operate a vehicle or was just looking for an excuse to invite this creepy homeless man into her house (for what, I can’t fathom). Sarah then breaks down into tears when her garage door malfunctions. If only there was a strong man around that knows his way around a toolbox!!! To which Frank offers his services.
In the next encounter, Castle commends Sarah’s daughter, Leo, on her affinity for mechanics and plumbing, saying “I think you got a future engineer on your hands.” Sarah replies, “I don’t know who she gets it from. I’m useless. And David was brilliant, but he never really got his hands dirty.” Besides being a really crummy thing to say, the subtext here is that Sarah just needs a strong, brawny man around in order to be sufficient since she’s so useless. The additional subtext packed into this exchange is the implication that Sarah is incapable of encouraging/fostering Leo’s interests and simply needs a man for this.
I suspect the purpose of these moments are to contrast Castle with David, but the show can do this without reinforcing old sexist tropes and reducing Sarah to a damsel/shuttlecock for Castle and David’s dicey relationship.
Sarah’s role deteriorates even further when Castle shows up at her door in the middle of the night. She’s stand-offish at first, but decides to invite him in (“Can I get you a glass of wine?”), because Sarah be lonely, yo. And risking the lives of her kids on the hopes that Castle is packing more than six-inches of Chrome Molybdenum Steel is apparently okay if you’re a drunk, depressed widow. Girl! You don’t know him! You aboutstaget Red Dragon’ed up in there!
Sometime later, Sarah finds a knife in her son’s backpack and apparently decides to do nothing about it until Castle shows up. School counselors and extended family were just too busy, I guess. In a state of despair, she sobs to Castle until he does what she was hoping for the whole time: for a man to deal with it, because apparently she’s just useless. Castle obliges, “Where is he? Maybe you should go get him, yeh? Maybe you should go take a walk?” to which Sarah replies, “Yeh, thank you.” ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Then Castle sits little Zach Lieberman down and puts the knife to his throat. And, granted, this leads to a somewhat vulnerable and touching moment for Zach, but why couldn’t Sarah have been the one to share that moment? And why did it have to come at knife-point? Apparently, there can be no connection or growth both between and for Sarah and her kids unless a man is involved.
You don’t need a man, Sarah. You need to not leave your kids alone with people you hardly know. You need to talk to your kids. Believe in yourself!
You Go, the Beard Stays
The hackneyed premise of Punisher doesn’t really help the show stand out. From the beginning, Frank is retired, having settled his previous vendetta. He lives in isolation under a false identity as a blue-collar construction worker, swinging a sledgehammer all day to help vent his bitter rage. And this is where it all starts—with a seemingly decent, average Joe with a scurfy beard but not a cause. So it’s only a matter of time before he’s caught up in some circumstance that forces him out of hiding and/or before an emissary comes offering him a new purpose, a chance for atonement and redemption for and from a past tragedy or trauma that refuses to leave him in peace. And then the next thing you know, he’s shaving the beard and back in action, kicking ass and taking names.
How many times have we seen this trope but done better? At the beginning of season two of 24, Jack Bauer is retired and burned-out, still grieving the murder of his wife and on rocky terms with his daughter. Once the country’s best counter terrorism agent, Bauer is reduced to suicide ideation on his couch, that is, until President Palmer comes-a-calling. “Jack, we need you. We need you to shave the beard.”
In Person of Interest, former CIA agent (presumed dead) John Reese is a dirty hobo in NYC who aimlessly rides the subway, that is, until the mysterious Finch comes along to offer him a chance to help people again and maybe a way to atone for past mistakes that still haunt him. This is very similar to the foreign film Man from Nowhere, not to mention The Chronicles of Riddick, The Wolverine, and, to a lesser extent, Arrow and Batman Begins.
Angry White Castle, What You Crave
One last thing I’ll comment on is that the Punisher as a character is the walking embodiment of what sociologist Michael Kimmel calls “aggrieved entitlement.” In his book, Angry White Men: American Masculinity at the End of an Era, Kimmel writes that
“what transforms the aggrieved into mass murders is also a sense of entitlement, a sense that using violence against others, making others hurt as you hurt, is fully justified. Aggrieved entitlement justifies revenge against those who have wronged you; it is the compensation for humiliation. Humiliation is emasculation: humiliate someone, and you take away his manhood. For many men, humiliation must be avenged, or you cease to be a man. Aggrieved entitlement is a gendered emotion, a fusion of that humiliating loss of manhood and the moral obligation and entitlement to get it back. And its gender is masculine.”
It’s disappointing that the show never makes this connection and offers us nothing to think about in this regard. The show pretends to engage in earnest discussions with issues like gun violence, PTSD and mental illness, but never sustains this discourse long enough to feel genuine. Nor does the show make the connection, as Kimmel does, that nearly all mass shootings are committed by white males, particularly with school shootings.
The show would have been more interesting if Zach had tried to carry out a school shooting, forcing Castle to intervene and deal with the consequences of his own perverted brand of justice. If it’s okay for the Punisher, why can’t it be okay for everyone else? But, no, showing a kid attempt a school shooting is just too much, so instead the show chooses to simulate rape in its sex scenes. That takes less effort. Only classy entertainment from the NMU.
There are plenty of other things to comment on but are better articulated elsewhere. I won’t say that the show is complete garbage, just that there aren’t too many gems to root for. At the conclusion, the Punisher’s actions are either ignored or excused, and he’s let off the hook to disappear into obscurity. The message here is that the white man with a gun ought not to be judged so long as he kills people we also deem as unworthy. ∎
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