Comments on: Damages: A Tale of Two Women http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/2010/06/21/damages-a-tale-of-two-women/ Responses to Media and Culture Fri, 12 Feb 2016 19:35:04 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.7.5 By: Louisa Stein http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/2010/06/21/damages-a-tale-of-two-women/comment-page-1/#comment-14728 Wed, 23 Jun 2010 21:12:59 +0000 http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/?p=4755#comment-14728 Yes, exactly–I watched season 3 without realizing how much Patty was implicated in past attacks on Ellen. I knew that things had gone very badly between them, but I didn’t know the extent of it–and I still don’t know where season 2 brings them. So in some ways this is a little case study of how I’ve put together serial meaning & gender politics (perhaps incompletely) watching out of order, jumping in mid stream.

But I think what I picked up on was, as you say, how hard to read/open-ended the motivations of the characters are–that it wasn’t clear who was doing the repenting and who the punishing, and that’s something I find very compelling.

I think what strikes me most now that I’ve seen almost all of the first season is how complex Patty is allowed to be when she could have so easily been written off as a villain(ess). And yes, the self-induced miscarriage can be read as parallel to her attack on Ellen, or as explanation and/or punishment for Patty’s ambition, but because no character’s motiviations are ever overtly rendered, I feel that a simplistic causal interpretation isn’t forced down our throats.

Hoping I won’t be eating my words when I’ve seen the series in full!

]]> By: Amanda Lotz http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/2010/06/21/damages-a-tale-of-two-women/comment-page-1/#comment-14340 Tue, 22 Jun 2010 16:15:37 +0000 http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/?p=4755#comment-14340 Spoiler alert (you should be far enough into season one, but it is hard to tell given the lack of a linear time line): So you watched the 3rd season without knowing Patty tried to have Ellen killed in the first? Or that Patty’s distress over the attempt on Ellen’s life (which it never seemed clear whether she was upset she ordered it or concerned that it failed) was constantly linked to the flashbacks of the (largely unexplained) miscarriage in the first season? Even in proper order (at least as presented to the viewer) the motivations of characters are hard to read—I was never sure this season if Ellen was genuinely forgiving of Patty or there was an elaborate scheme to punish her.

]]> By: Louisa Stein http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/2010/06/21/damages-a-tale-of-two-women/comment-page-1/#comment-13094 Mon, 21 Jun 2010 21:11:06 +0000 http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/?p=4755#comment-13094 Hi Amanda–Thanks for commenting! I wonder how much of our differing response does have to do with the fact that I came on in season three and didn’t have an additional two season’s worth of expectations and interpretations informing my response. I completely see what you were getting at in your post (which I had missed, thanks for linking!) and yet it’s not at all how I experienced that final scene or the miscarriage storyline. I found it very resonant that the season closed (as I’m guessing now they always do) with a scene between Patty and Ellen, and I actually found it refreshing that there was so much complex ambivalence just put out there and not resolved in the closing scene–so much left unspoken. I didn’t come away from the scene feeling that it simplified or vilified the choices either Patty or Ellen had to make, but rather that it tried to get at the complexities of the experiences of two different generations of professional/powerful women, with regret only one piece of personal narratives too complex to tie up neatly.

*BUT* I hadn’t fully seen the extent of what Ellen had lost in season one–and as I’m still coming to the end of season one, I don’t yet know all the details. Perhaps if I had seen Ellen’s full journey, I would have missed that anger too.

I’m going to rewatch that season three closer again and see how it sits with me this time round.

]]> By: Amanda Lotz http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/2010/06/21/damages-a-tale-of-two-women/comment-page-1/#comment-13011 Mon, 21 Jun 2010 20:02:50 +0000 http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/?p=4755#comment-13011 Hi Louisa–What did you make of the conclusion though? Perhaps it threw me because I’ve been watching since season one and have gotten drips of the miscarriage storyline from the beginning. I found the centrality of, yet ambivalence toward, the politics of motherhood this season really dissatisfying. Ellen seemed far cooler this season than in the past and it was the detachment or lack of anger about forced choices that left the story feeling empty to me.

My earlier post: http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/2010/04/30/a-damaged-conclusion/

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