BWW Column: NBC's THE BLACKLIST Is a Modern Misogynistic Gothic Novel

A young woman is introduced, one who was raised as a foundling and whose antecedents are mysterious even to her. She has only a few precious items from her childhood, but while she is attached to them, they seem to be meaningless and worthless. She is pursued by villainous characters, unsure as to why, discovering that even the man who has declared his love for her is one of the many who are after her for unknown reasons. Invariably, she is rescued from these foul miscreants by a man of mystery. He is older, and has a mysterious past of his own, but he is clearly a gentleman, and he has wealth of his own; however, his own motivations with regard to her, though purer than her enemies', are themselves a mystery. Is he in love with her? Is he a relative of hers? Why does he care about her welfare as he does, and appear to seek nothing in return?

Is it THE MOONSTONE, or some other Wilkie Collins novel? JANE EYRE, or another Bronte tale? It's clearly Victorian, or even a Regency tale.

Well... to be honest, it's THE BLACKLIST.

Despite the trappings of modernity - the FBI, black sites, computers and some totally wizard technology managed by truly cool nerds and geeks, and the frequent use of handguns, machine guns, Hellfire missiles, and other gizmos of modern warfare - THE BLACKLIST is at heart a Gothic romance, and its plots and themes are unrelentingly sexist. In fact, WUTHERING HEIGHTS did more to challenge gender inequality, in its day, than THE BLACKLIST does now.

There are two central characters of THE BLACKLIST, FBI agent Elizabeth Keen (Megan Boone) and career criminal and International Man of Mystery, Raymond "Red" Reddington (James Spader). Keen is young, ill-equipped for her task (she is a psychologist-turned-profiler, thrust into a field assignment), and completely subsumed at the start in a marriage that she does not realize is a sham. In the process, she defends her husband, ignores evidence of his criminal activity, of his probable adultery, and even tries to get past his trying to kill her. Because, love. When she wises up and he escapes, she kidnaps him and chains him in a hidden location and occasionally tortures him. Because, twisted love. And then she lets him go. Because, love. The words for this are "psychological domestic abuse." And she's the victim.

Keen is also regularly attacked, threatened, or otherwise endangered, more than an FBI agent on television other than Spencer Reid of CRIMINAL MINDS has a right to be. This is so that she can be the girl victim who needs to be rescued by International Man of Mystery Reddington. It's a sexist plot maneuver exploited in every television show that has a man-of-action mode and isn't a straightforward procedural (these days, the CBS-formula procedurals have kickass women like Ziva David and Ellie Bishop).

Elizabeth Keen's surroundings and life are also a massive fail in the popular Bechdel Test. The Bechdel Test, named for writer and graphic artist Alison Bechdel, requires that a film or show have two or more women, who talk to each other, and the conversations must be about something besides men. There have been other women regulars in THE BLACKLIST, agents Meera Malik and Samar Navabi, who rarely converse with Keen at all even though they are on the same team. Both agents have been of the "exotic foreign woman" variety, which doesn't help argue against sexism. Keen's more-or-less-deep discussions with females other than her co-workers have all been either about her husband and marriage, in the first season, or about Reddington's former marriage, in the second.

And then there's Reddington. He's demonstrated or alleged deep familiarity of a very intimate nature with gorgeous French intelligence officers with kinks, with glamorous international thieves, with sexy Asian PhDs with hedge funds. His anecdotes to other men involve sexual exploits in expensive European hotels, comments regarding high school cheerleaders, and other hallmarks of a man with an enthusiastic and extensive sexual history. It's James Bond (the sexism of Ian Fleming, including Bond's sexual appetites and their depiction, has oft been noted) with gossip-worthy kissing and telling. That Reddington is experienced in the most interesting things, on a frequent basis, is not unexpected; in fact, it's part of the genre. But there's a clear emphasis on it that's slightly, though alas, entertainingly, unseemly, and his habit of providing detailed commentary to Keen is intended either to amuse himself or to demean, at her expense, which is purely gender-political.

The effect of the show is to present a weak female lead, one who's unrealistically so. No real FBI agent, or CBS one other than Spencer Reid, would still be employed there in the field after her history to date. She is in need of rescue on a perpetual basis. This rescue can only come courtesy of the male lead, whose abilities and resources leave the FBI as a whole appearing nearly as incompetent and compromised as the female lead. It is the foundational Gothic novel myth, the young woman in need of saving and the mysterious man who is always there just when needed. It is compounded with her unknown past, with her possession of a stuffed toy containing powerful secrets that she is unable to decode, and the flawed hero's desire for those secrets as well as (for whatever reason) for her.

Patricia Arquette's leading role as an FBI special agent in the new CSI: CYBER has her, so far, in splendid personal isolation, her motivation to stop the criminal hackers who wrecked her first career; she is not currently encumbered by a personal life or weaknesses requiring rescue. The female agents in CRIMINAL MINDS have had personal issues at home, but so have the males, and their conversations with each other and the men show them functioning on a thoroughly competent and professional level. Notably, in that series, the weakest link is a male agent. The women of the NCIS franchise are talented, competent, and often more kickass than the men. The women of the CSI franchise as a whole have had personal issues that have compromised their work ability due to family connections, which are not individual weaknesses requiring male salvation, or to their own inner demons that have not been exorcised, and which have equally affected male characters. THE X-FILES revolved around a potentially unstable male FBI agent and his unbelieving but spectacularly competent female partner. The Gothic plot of it revolved primarily around him, not her.

The plot of THE BLACKLIST, under the weekly Blacklister of the week and the mythos of international cartels and criminals secretly controlling the major events of the world, is, unlike those other series mentioned, a basic Gothic novel FRAMEWORK of a weak woman with a mysterious past and a strong male with a mysterious present and even more mysterious motivations. Slightly tweaked, it would be the basis of a modern Mills and Boon/Harlequin romance novel, though the producers have suggested it will not run to that. Whatever Reddington's actual motivations are, though, they would fit neatly into the Gothic framework.

The last television series this unrelentingly Gothic was DARK SHADOWS, which had equally frail female characters and equally sexist themes. But in its case, the series was decades ago, and both matriarchal and powerful, independent women were also part of the show's fabric. THE BLACKLIST as yet has no powerful woman who can stand on her own, or protect anyone else, as in DARK SHADOWS, or in the later, less Gothic, X-FILES. Keen has no strong female ally; she is completely dependent on, as well as victimized by, men. It is an uncomfortable position not only for her but for audiences, and it is one that has been avoided in the Belisario and Bruckheimer franchises. It is possible for men to develop shows that have strong female, and even, as in CRIMINAL MINDS and THE X-FILES, somewhat weak male, characters in realistic ways. It seems unnecessary, as well as somewhat ridiculous, to return to the helpless Gothic female story lead at this point in television history. We can only hope that in its upcoming third season, producer Jon Bokenkamp can envision his way into strengthening the female backbone of this series and rescuing it from its nearly soap-operatic JANE EYRE roots.

Photo credit: NBC Universal