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    When TV Becomes a Window Into Women’s Rage

    Over the last few years, TV has offered portraits of female rage that are striking within a culture that still prefers women to carry their anger calmly and silently.In art, the image of the enraged woman often represents an ugly, almost talismanic evil: In Adolphe-William Bouguereau’s 1862 painting “Orestes Pursued by the Furies,” the women sneer, brandishing weapons at Orestes. In Artemisia Gentileschi’s “Judith Slaying Holofernes,” Judith furrows her brow, half of her face cloaked in shadow, and clutches a fistful of Holofernes’s hair as she plunges a sword into his neck. And Caravaggio’s Medusa, a wronged woman transformed into a monster, is just a severed head, and yet her face is animated with fury, mouth open in a scream, brows creased.Over the last few years, TV has offered similar portraits of female rage — striking scenes within a culture that still mostly prefers women either to carry their anger calmly and silently or to express it within a misogynistic framing (the manic or hysterical woman).It’s empowering to watch a woman rage indelicately, like the recent divorcée Rachel Fleishman, played by Claire Danes, in the FX series “Fleishman Is in Trouble.” During a therapy treatment in the penultimate episode, Rachel lets loose a sharp, achy howl that overtakes her whole body. It takes several attempts for her to fully release this deep-seated scream. The first few are abbreviated and strained but then she seems to unload everything, her mouth opened wide, her face contracting so hard it takes on an all around rosy hue. Who said rage couldn’t be beautiful?In fact, it’s an asset to Jennifer Walters (Tatiana Maslany), a.k.a. She-Hulk, who got her own slice-of-life action court drama on Disney+ last year. Her hero-training journey is truncated because she takes to being the hulk much easier than did her cousin Bruce Banner, the original Hulk.“I’m great at controlling my anger; I do it all the time,” Jennifer tells Bruce in the first episode. “When I’m catcalled in the street, when incompetent men explain my own area of expertise to me. I do it pretty much every day because if I don’t, I will get called emotional or difficult or might just literally get murdered.”The series isn’t about her tempering her rage but rather about living with a manifestation of the power her rage has given her: She-Hulk is strong and intelligent, a celebrity and a popular right-swipe on the dating apps.The same is true for Retsuko, the star of the popular animated Netflix series “Aggretsuko,” about a 25-year-old red panda who hates her job, where she is taken advantage of and disrespected by many of her colleagues. She handles the stress and frustration by doing karaoke — death metal karaoke, specifically.The show’s glossy 2D sticker-style artwork, full of heavy lines, loud graphics, straightforward color and bare-bones animation style, recalls other, explicitly kid-targeted brands from Sanrio, like Hello Kitty. Retsuko appears like a critical counterpoint to Hello Kitty, an icon of femininity and softness who famously has no mouth. She’s a blank slate, emotionless, while Retsuko comes alive through her anger, which physically transforms her, her claws bared, her facial fur changing into a Gene Simmons-esque death-metal mask pattern.Feminine rage can be deliciously performative, as with Retsuko’s throaty growl in the karaoke room or with the rap delivered by Ashley (Jasmine Cephas Jones), a hotel concierge in the Starz series “Blindspotting,” as she trashes a detestable couple’s room.Women who show rage in domestic spaces, like Ali Wong’s character Amy in the hilarious and bruising Netflix series “Beef,” disrupt the stereotype of women who are permitted to rage only in relationship to their roles as caretakers. Amy’s anger, even when warranted, is destructive, and everything in her life crumbles because of it, including her relationship with her family.Well-worn characters like the mother who does whatever it takes to save her children or the faithful wife who gets roped into crime to save or avenge her husband are more digestible, women granted the appearance of being multidimensional and emotionally complex when they are just following a formula.But even when female characters are developed outside of these reductive tropes, often the writing eventually flattens and diminishes them again. Take, for example, the rich emotional complexity that the Disney+ series “WandaVision” uncovered within Wanda Maximoff, which was absent from her next Marvel assignment. In the series, Wanda is caught in a sitcom-style delusion spurred by her anger, sorrow and grief. But in the film “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,” she is reduced to fury and nothing else, as fierce maternal protectiveness transforms her into a killing machine. Her personhood is no longer relevant because being an angry mother has become her whole character.In other examples of women raging in a domestic space, there is sometimes comical collateral damage. In Season 1 of “Dead to Me,” Jen, a widowed mother with an attitude problem, takes out her rage about her mother-in-law by punching the cake she got for Jen’s late husband’s memorial. In “Mad Men,” Betty Draper, a 1960s housewife caught in a marriage of spite and deception, stands in her yard in her peach nightgown, holding a rifle pointed toward the sky. With every flex of a manicured pink-nail-polished finger, she shoots at birds as a horrified neighbor looks on, calling to her in horror; she keeps shooting as a cigarette dangles from her mouth.A woman’s rage can be heroic — whether you’re a hulk or Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter), bashing in walls at an anger management class. It can be a barometer of what’s gone horrendously wrong in a world that has taken women for granted. Think the irate faces of Elisabeth Moss as Offred in the misogynistic dystopia of “The Handmaid’s Tale”; or the rage of the ill-fated soccer players in “Yellowjackets”; or the magically endowed young women in “The Power,” who sometimes use their abilities for self-defense or revenge.A woman can rage over privilege, as does Renata Klein (Laura Dern), the reputation- and money-obsessed mom in “Big Little Lies,” or over violent passion, as does Dre (Dominique Fishback), the killer stan of “Swarm.” In many cases, rage may be a last resort, a way for a woman to finally get what she desperately desires — catharsis, vengeance, justice, peace. Whether or not that satisfaction lasts, however, is a very different story.These scenes and storylines are not about the anger itself but rather what has led a woman to speak, to act, to defend herself and others, to have the autonomy to express an unpalatable emotion. To be unattractive and merciless. Because sometimes, in order to change her world — for good or for bad — all a woman needs to do is open her mouth and let out a vicious, unbridled scream.Image credits: “Fleishman Is in Trouble” (FX); “She-Hulk: Attorney at Law” (Marvel Studios/Disney+); “Aggretsuko” (Netflix); “The Handmaid’s Tale” (Hulu); “Yellowjackets” (Showtime); “Yellowjackets” (Showtime); “Medusa,” 1597 (Caravaggio, Ufizzi Gallery, Florence); “Yellowjackets” (Showtime); “Beef” (Netflix); “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” (Marvel Studios); “Jessica Jones” (Netflix); “Blindspotting” (Starz); “Dead to Me” (Netflix); “The Power” (Amazon Prime Video); “Swarm” (Amazon Prime Video); “Big Little Lies” (HBO); “Mad Men” (AMC). More

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    Joseph Fiennes Loved the ‘Catharsis’ of the ‘Handmaid’s Tale’ Finale

    In an interview, the actor discussed the end of Season 4, the future of the show and the emotional toll of playing “an ugly, pathetic, misogynist monster.”This interview includes spoilers for the season finale of “The Handmaid’s Tale.”Praise be, at last: Fred Waterford, the inscrutably sadistic commander at the center of “The Handmaid’s Tale,” has met his demise. And Joseph Fiennes, the actor who plays him, couldn’t wait to peel off his skin. More

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    Bradley Whitford Finds Inspiration in the Theater (and Dog Park)

    The star of “The Handmaid’s Tale” talks about the magic sauce of Yo-Yo Ma and Aretha Franklin, and is ready to do some Ken Burns voice-overs.Sometimes an actor’s harshest reviews come from inside his own home. “My son said to me recently, ‘No offense, Dad, but I’ve seen dogs be good in movies,’” Bradley Whitford recalled. “Well, it’s devastating because it’s true.”But maybe his son isn’t familiar with the full extent of his father’s process.Yes, Whitford has previously compared Commander Lawrence, his Emmy-winning misogynistic architect of Gilead in “The Handmaid’s Tale,” to Robert McNamara, the secretary of defense who helped escalate the Vietnam War and then struggled with its moral consequences.But examine Lawrence more closely and you might recognize the unreadable gaze of a Siberian husky, the soulful danger of a mastiff, the Australian shepherd’s keen intelligence.Because sometimes Whitford trawls for creative inspiration at the dog park, where he spends lots of time with his well-loved rescues: Izzy, a Chihuahua-Jack Russell mix, and Otis, a boxer.So is Lawrence more bite or bark with June (Elisabeth Moss) in Season 4, which begins on Hulu on April 28, as his humanity begins to peek through the cracks in his formidable facade?“I don’t think Lawrence is even aware of it,” he said, “but she is leading him.”Calling from Pasadena, Calif., where he lives with his wife, the actress Amy Landecker, Whitford chatted about his 10 cultural essentials. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.1. “The Story of Ferdinand” by Munro Leaf My earliest, coziest memories are of my mother reading me that book. I was raised Quaker, and we used to joke that “Ferdinand” was kind of a Quaker bible. My mother used to say that when it came out, it was like a commentary on fascism. But for a young Quaker kid, it was extolling these values of nonviolence and nonconformity. Whenever anybody has a kid, I always get them that book.2. WTF With Marc Maron Podcast If I could create an area of study that I think should exist, it would be called “creative studies,” where you study the Beatles, the Renaissance, Steve Jobs, Duke Ellington — people’s creative processes. In the meantime, I listen to Marc Maron because he has those conversations. Whether he’s talking to actors, talking to comedians, it’s just a fascinating way to see how these creative people make stuff. Marc Maron is emotionally pornographic. He’s wide open. And because he’s such an open book, everybody opens up to him. I guess I like fearless people because I’m not. He asked me to do a show and I was terrified.3. Sharon Olds I was driving soon after my daughter was born and I heard someone reading a poem of hers called “Her First Week,” about a baby’s first week. And there’s an image of putting this newborn baby down and how she settles in the crib like a basket of laundry. And it was the most beautiful, true image. I pulled the car over and I was crying, and I started reading all of her stuff. She is so fearlessly intimate and crystalline in her imagery.4. Dog Parks Anybody who knows me knows I’m completely obsessed with dogs. What’s pathetic is when I was shooting in Toronto and couldn’t bring the dogs, I found myself going to the dog park. This very sweet Canadian woman who I saw there every day came over to me and said, “Which one’s yours?” And I said: “Oh, I don’t have one. I just miss my dog. I’m away from home.” And she stepped away from me, like I was a pederast at an elementary school.There are roles I’ve played that are combinations of dogs at a dog park. When I had to play Hubert Humphrey [in HBO’s “All the Way”], I realized he was a cross between a corgi and a boxer. I just find a fascinating display of characters at a dog park. It’s like walking into some four-legged mask class.5. “Aretha’s Gold” My father’s mother was legally blind. She had a record player that came from the Library for the Blind, and I would borrow it. Before every high school performance I would put on “Aretha’s Gold” and lock myself in my room or the basement and turn it all the way up and jump around and sing. And that became a sort of a good-luck warm-up. So when I’m nervous, even to this day, I blast “Aretha’s Gold.”6. ’92 Theater at Wesleyan University When I was at Wesleyan, it was the place where all the student-initiated productions happened, and it’s where I fell in love with acting. It was this joyous venue that had been a church. I just shot “Tick, Tick … Boom!” with Lin-Manuel Miranda, who felt the same. That’s where he started writing “In the Heights.” It’s just this magical place. When I saw “Hamilton” for the first time, I had no idea the kind of emotional response I was going to have, and I remember after the show I was crying. And I said to Lin, “You turn the theater into a church.” There’s something about the ’92 Theater and the freedom in that place — and how audacious you could be before you were trying to do this professionally — that is creatively nourishing.7. Yo-Yo Ma His relationship with the Bach Prelude [of Cello Suite No. 1 in G major] is incredible to me. People always say of “The West Wing,” “Are there any moments that stick out?” And for many of us, it was the day Yo-Yo Ma came, and he was playing that piece, and he was the most generous, unpretentious human being. He came out into a room full of probably a hundred background artists, with his extraordinary cello, and he said: “Does anyone want to play this? Does anyone want to hold it?” He’s all about breaking down the lines of hierarchy and pretension in his classical music world.That day, he was playing that piece and I’m supposed to be having this emotional breakdown. You’re shooting him first, and you have a recording of it, and then at some point you turn around and get to me. He technically doesn’t even need to be there, let alone play it. And take after take after take, he is playing it with his whole heart. It was just astonishing.8. School Plays I really love watching young people perform and navigate instinctively the dilemma of making a spectacle out of themselves. [Laughs, almost diabolically.] I had a weird moment in seventh grade where I was doing a play and it was like this epiphany. I was like: “Oh my God, this is the only thing I’ve ever done that uses everything. When I’m reading a book, I’m shutting off my body. When I’m doing math, I’m shutting off my heart.” And I fell in love with “this is everything” — this is your heart and your brain and your body. You know, we have all these sports leagues and I really believe there should be acting leagues.9. “Amusing Ourselves to Death” by Neil Postman It came out 30-some years ago. What he was talking about was how the values of entertainment have distorted the way we conduct public discourse to our detriment. The problem isn’t the obvious forms of fascism — that people are going to start burning books. The problem is people are going to be so distracted they don’t care about books anymore. There’s a big part of the book that says that television is at its most dangerous when it is pretending to be edifying. It’s basically a condemnation of everything that I mistakenly get celebrated for.10. Ken Burns Documentaries He doesn’t know this, but he’s the only person I’ve ever stalked. I was in New York, and he was walking on the street, and I followed him about 10 blocks. I was doing “A Few Good Men” when “The Civil War” came out, and I remember being blown away by it. But what was striking to me — and I’m contradicting what I said about “Amusing Ourselves to Death” — was this power of visual storytelling to communicate the experience of the Civil War in a way a book could not. And then I watched all of them. And they’re hypnotic to me. “The Roosevelts,” “The National Parks,” “Baseball,” “Jazz,” “Country Music.” I am extremely jealous of everybody who has ever done a voice-over for them. I’m [expletive] available. More