Big Love

This show is one of my guilty pleasures. As I watch season 5 weekly I am also re-watching the series with Brian. It has me thinking a lot about the feminism in the show.

There is no doubt the female characters are well written. They are diverse, fully developed characters with strengths, flaws and interests, but their lives revolve around their family. For the wives it is about their husband, their homes, their children, yet for Bill the focus is often his job and career. As the series progresses the women are repeatedly asked to sacrifice for his career decisions, making his concerns theirs.

It is all about the husband, although he discusses things with his wives it is ultimately him who leads them and makes the decisions. The show does a great job of displaying how hard this can be on women, even women who believe so strongly in the principal. The struggles they face in wanting to control their own bodies and reproductive systems is an area I wish they had of discussed more in depth.

There is a scene in an early episode that shows a teenage girl, pre-married to an elderly man who is the prophet. She feels proud of her place and convinced that this is what she wants for her life. When yelled at by another male she sticks up for herself in a very strong way. Telling him to never talk to her like that, to never raise his voice at her. This girl is what many would consider a victim, young, almost married, possibly brainwashed, uneducated and given few freedoms.

Another girl, the same age is growing up far more free. She makes her own decisions, she works part time, she parties on occasion, she is a rather typical teenager aside from her parents being polygamists. She remembers it wasn't always this way and she knows it isn't the life for her. She seems stronger, yet when confronted with this same man she screams, terrified.

Showing the free girl as scared was interesting. Perhaps the writers where trying to show just how brainwashed the married teen had become, her power as a wife had given her a kind of twisted confidence or superiority. While the other girl, although free, is presented as lacking this confidence. I would think a terrified scream would be more typical in this situation.

It isn't easy analyzing a show for feminism that is so far from my own reality. I don't want to make generalizations about polygamy based on 5 seasons of an HBO show.