Jessica Jones-- Marvel/Netflix

[Magellan]

Except a lot of that was a lie. His parents were trying to help him, and he went on deliberately controlling and torturing them long after he figured out his powers.

Besides, most abusers are victims of abuse. There's nothing unusual about that. It doesn't excuse their actions, it just explains how they went so wrong.

Spoiler: Kilgrave

Well there are a couple of indications that perhaps his parents weren't so great. The researcher that Jessica talks to on the phone sounded like there was something fishy going on, and all those other children in the videos. Something weird was definitely going on.

Reasons for being bad don't excuse it but it's hard to imagine that Kilgrave could possibly have turned out "good". He is in some ways a victim of his own powers as well. His story with his parents rings true. He feels abandoned. They were right he was dangerous, but when he says he was ten and he had a tantrum that sounds legit. Ten year olds throw tantrums, but imagine if no one could correct him? No one to ever say no, no one with the ability to teach him his indulgences are wrong. He is very literally a child who never had to grow up and mature at all. It's hard imagine most of us would have turned out very well in similar circumstances. He is the ultimate spoiled brat, and it isn't entirely his fault.

Worst of all, there isn't much of an indication his parents did much to spare anyone these troubles. They were apparently people of some importance and they didn't go to anyone and say "Hey, something went really wrong and our son is really dangerous."

 

[Christopher]

The stories about young Kevin with his parents reminded me of Anthony in "It's a Good Life." A small boy with absolute power to make people do anything he wants would almost inevitably become a monster. The interesting question is whether Kilgrave/Kevin started out with psychopathic tendencies that his power let him indulge, or if the simple fact of having absolute power over everyone (well, everyone who has hearing and speaks English) turned him into a psychopath.

 

[Zaku]

5 Reasons 'Jessica Jones' Is Way Darker Than You Realize

This is not going to be a particularly cheerful article, and it is certainly not full of my usual gum-popping, young-drunk-mess bravado. Also, if you don't want to or can't hear about sexual assault, just click on this link and get away from this tab.

OK! Let's just get the uncomfortable part of the article out of the way: Five years ago, when I was 16, I was groomed and raped by a predatory 23-year-old, Mark (obviously, not his real name). Our "relationship" lasted a whole five months before it was cut short by the police getting involved over child pornography concerns. Starting about six months after that hideousness, he stalked me for two years.

Violence against women is so sexualized and/or casually depicted on TV shows (heeyyy Game Of Thrones) that finding something entertaining that isn't also sort of triggering is hard. There's a limited number of times I can watch Jim and Pam fall in love again, so mostly I end up watching a lot of shows about cupcakes.

However, after multiple women recommended binge-watching Jessica Jones on Netflix because of the way it depicted abuse, I decided to watch the first episode.

Jessica Jones is a story in the Marvel Universe, and I know next to nothing about any of that outside of the show, so here is the most basic of background information: Jessica has super strength and works as a private investigator. As we learn about her backstory in the first few episodes, the bad guy, Kilgrave, is introduced. His superpower is mind control, and he uses it to kidnap Jessica for months, forcing her to do whatever he wants, which includes sleeping with him and killing people. She eventually gets away, but he comes back for her. Traumatic!

(I'm so sorry if you're really into comics and my description is about as nuanced as calling Lord Of The Rings a story about hungry little people on a road trip. Bear with me.)

After finishing the first few episodes, I sat in silence, alone in my room, crying. I was so goddamn excited about this show that it brought me to tears. It's really hard to be an abuse survivor and see no accurate representations of what it is like, but goddamn does Jessica Jones deliver.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Well that review took an unexpected turn.

 

[Christopher]

5 Reasons 'Jessica Jones' Is Way Darker Than You Realize

That's an excellent article, but it's weird as hell to see it at Cracked.

 

[DimesDan]

5 Reasons 'Jessica Jones' Is Way Darker Than You Realize

That's an excellent article, but it's weird as hell to see it at Cracked.

I agree, it was an excellent article and I'm curious as to why you would think that it is weird for it to belong on Cracked.

 

[Turtletrekker]

Cracked.com is far more diverse than one may believe at first glance. They routinely post stuff about science, history and crime.

 

[jbny67]

5 Reasons 'Jessica Jones' Is Way Darker Than You Realize

That's an excellent article, but it's weird as hell to see it at Cracked.

I agree, it was an excellent article and I'm curious as to why you would think that it is weird for it to belong on Cracked.

I always find it weird when I see an article like that on Cracked. While I can't speak for Christopher, I think that for me it has to do with the fact that while growing up, Cracked was a Mad Magazine knock off and not a place for anything like that review.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

Cracked hasn't been anything like Mad Magazine for 10 years. They've written articles like this for quite some time.

 

[Zaku]

5 Reasons 'Jessica Jones' Is Way Darker Than You Realize

That's an excellent article, but it's weird as hell to see it at Cracked.

You mean the same site that hosts articles about...

5 Ugly Things You Learn As A Sex Slave In The Modern World

Your Neighbors Try To Murder You: 6 Realities In A Genocide

Most Victims Are Men: 5 Realities Of Rape In The Military

I Am Young And I Have Alzheimer's: 6 Awful Realities

We Can Let Babies Die: 6 Realities Of Neonatal Nursing

5 Myths About Domestic Abuse Everyone Believes

5 Things I Learned Committing A Campus Sexual Assault

and the classic...

5 Ways Star Trek's Federation Was An Evil Empire

 

[tomalak301]

5 Reasons 'Jessica Jones' Is Way Darker Than You Realize

This is not going to be a particularly cheerful article, and it is certainly not full of my usual gum-popping, young-drunk-mess bravado. Also, if you don't want to or can't hear about sexual assault, just click on this link and get away from this tab.

OK! Let's just get the uncomfortable part of the article out of the way: Five years ago, when I was 16, I was groomed and raped by a predatory 23-year-old, Mark (obviously, not his real name). Our "relationship" lasted a whole five months before it was cut short by the police getting involved over child pornography concerns. Starting about six months after that hideousness, he stalked me for two years.

Violence against women is so sexualized and/or casually depicted on TV shows (heeyyy Game Of Thrones) that finding something entertaining that isn't also sort of triggering is hard. There's a limited number of times I can watch Jim and Pam fall in love again, so mostly I end up watching a lot of shows about cupcakes.

However, after multiple women recommended binge-watching Jessica Jones on Netflix because of the way it depicted abuse, I decided to watch the first episode.

Jessica Jones is a story in the Marvel Universe, and I know next to nothing about any of that outside of the show, so here is the most basic of background information: Jessica has super strength and works as a private investigator. As we learn about her backstory in the first few episodes, the bad guy, Kilgrave, is introduced. His superpower is mind control, and he uses it to kidnap Jessica for months, forcing her to do whatever he wants, which includes sleeping with him and killing people. She eventually gets away, but he comes back for her. Traumatic!

(I'm so sorry if you're really into comics and my description is about as nuanced as calling Lord Of The Rings a story about hungry little people on a road trip. Bear with me.)

After finishing the first few episodes, I sat in silence, alone in my room, crying. I was so goddamn excited about this show that it brought me to tears. It's really hard to be an abuse survivor and see no accurate representations of what it is like, but goddamn does Jessica Jones deliver.

I don't know much about the site, but I really appreciated this article. It's the one thing I appreciated the most about this series. While shows show the rape scenes and the like (Game of Thrones) and don't care about the consequences, this show explored that very idea and the trauma and PTSD felt by the victim afterward. I wish that was followed through to the end, but the first half of the series was really great at showing this.

 

[Christopher]

I always find it weird when I see an article like that on Cracked. While I can't speak for Christopher, I think that for me it has to do with the fact that while growing up, Cracked was a Mad Magazine knock off and not a place for anything like that review.

Exactly. Even the website today, or at least in recent years, has been mostly dedicated to zany and snide humor. Yes, I have seen the darker and more serious articles they've been doing in recent years, but it still seems incongruous and has made the site less fun for me.

Which should not take away from what a terrific article that was about Jessica Jones and stalking.

 

[DimesDan]

Cracked hasn't been anything like Mad Magazine for 10 years. They've written articles like this for quite some time.

I've always thought Cracked was a website and wasn't a print publication given it's what, only eight or nine years old. - The website that is.

5 Reasons 'Jessica Jones' Is Way Darker Than You Realize

That's an excellent article, but it's weird as hell to see it at Cracked.

You mean the same site that hosts articles about...

5 Ugly Things You Learn As A Sex Slave In The Modern World

Your Neighbors Try To Murder You: 6 Realities In A Genocide

Most Victims Are Men: 5 Realities Of Rape In The Military

I Am Young And I Have Alzheimer's: 6 Awful Realities

We Can Let Babies Die: 6 Realities Of Neonatal Nursing

5 Myths About Domestic Abuse Everyone Believes

5 Things I Learned Committing A Campus Sexual Assault

and the classic...

5 Ways Star Trek's Federation Was An Evil Empire

That's an excellent list and demonstrates the "hard hitting" articles they write and proves...........

Exactly. Even the website today, or at least in recent years, has been mostly dedicated to zany and snide humor. Yes, I have seen the darker and more serious articles they've been doing in recent years, but it still seems incongruous and has made the site less fun for me.

..............how differing peoples opinions can be when faced with the same facts as it were.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

Cracked hasn't been anything like Mad Magazine for 10 years. They've written articles like this for quite some time.

I've always thought Cracked was a website and wasn't a print publication given it's what, only eight or nine years old. - The website that is.

Yeah, frankly, I only found out it was a magazine from people talking about how they've changed so much since their magazine days.

 

[kitik]

Suffice it to say, I always think of the corny old magazine when I see "Cracked".

some classic John Severin there

 

[RJDiogenes]

It was 35 cents when I was buying it.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Well, I just finished it this morning. I found the first handful of episodes to be really slow in getting things going, such that I took so long to get through them...once the plot really started taking shape and the pace picked up, I got through the rest quite quickly. If you haven't watched/finished and are still reading at this point, I'd say to definitely keep going and give the show a chance to hit its sweet spot.

On the subject of shows like this taking advantage of their extra length...there were definitely some things in here that could have been trimmed down, IMO. For me, it was the amount of detail we got about the Hogarth divorce drama. It really broke perspective (not helped by the fact that Hogarth virtually lived in a different world from JJ), making me feel like I was suddenly in a different show, and it was dealt with too heavily too early...they might have given me more reason to care about who Hogarth was before they started dumping TMI about her divorce on me. I'll acknowledge that there was some payoff for all of that in the story, but they could have done more with less.

I also thought that the show got a tad too gory for the sake of gore by the end. I was willing to give it a lot of leeway in this area because it was in the service of a strong story, but by the time we saw

Spoiler: Gratuitous gore in one of the back-half episodes

an arm being shoved in a garbage disposal

I'd had more than enough, and it was starting to seem more like Gotham with its joking use such moments.

Spoiler: last few episodes

(And what it is it about the Netflix shows setting up older, bearded black men as empathetic authority figures and then killing them off? Really, I should've seen Clemons's fate coming, given how they kept mentioning that he was two years from retirement.)

Glad I'm not the only one who noticed that. Given the high body count that the show was working on racking up, I anticipated that they might go there, but was hoping that they wouldn't because of the obvious comparisons to that other show. Another similarity between the two characters, FWIW:

Spoiler: JJ/DD cross-spoiler

both were experienced professionals working in an investigative field.

Captain America was plenty colourful.

Yes, but he wasn't a crime-fighting super-hero (like Spider-Man). He was a soldier. A colourful one, but a soldier.

Don't forget his PR...the comic books, the films, the USO shows, the trading cards. The concept of the super-hero was definitely out there in the MCU, whether or not the "actual" superheroes were quite as colorful "IRL".

 

[Christopher]

Well, I just finished it this morning. I found the first handful of episodes to be really slow in getting things going, such that I took so long to get through them...once the plot really started taking shape and the pace picked up, I got through the rest quite quickly. If you haven't watched/finished and are still reading at this point, I'd say to definitely keep going and give the show a chance to hit its sweet spot.

I don't remember finding it slow. Measured, yes, but the characters kept me engaged.

On the subject of shows like this taking advantage of their extra length...there were definitely some things in here that could have been trimmed down, IMO. For me, it was the amount of detail we got about the Hogarth divorce drama. It really broke perspective (not helped by the fact that Hogarth virtually lived in a different world from JJ), making me feel like I was suddenly in a different show, and it was dealt with too heavily too early...they might have given me more reason to care about who Hogarth was before they started dumping TMI about her divorce on me. I'll acknowledge that there was some payoff for all of that in the story, but they could have done more with less.

They probably wanted to get the most out of having a big name like Carrie-Anne Moss in their show. As for Hogarth living in a different world, that's true and intentional, but their worlds intersected heavily. Let's see...

Spoiler: Hogarth was...

• Jessica's frequent employer.
• The only lawyer she could turn to for help with her clients, because she hadn't met Matt Murdock yet.
• The spokesperson for the skepticism toward Jessica's claims about Kilgrave.
• The catalyst, through her firm, for bringing together Kilgrave survivors, leading to the formation of the support group, which was very important to later episodes and to the character arcs for Malcolm and Robyn.
• The one who put Hope on Trish's show, then hung her (and Trish) out to dry.
• The one who brought the abortion drug for Hope, then kept the fetus for study in the hopes of replicating Kilgrave's powers; this decision ultimately led to Kilgrave being able to amplify his powers in the final episode, so it was crucial.
• The one who facilitated Kilgrave's escape from the sealed room.

And probably some other things I'm forgetting. She had a lot of importance that wasn't necessarily evident up front, but she still needed to be established up front -- and since the divorce/triangle plot had to be fit in with all the rest, it needed to be seeded pretty early.

Captain America was plenty colourful.

Yes, but he wasn't a crime-fighting super-hero (like Spider-Man). He was a soldier. A colourful one, but a soldier.

Don't forget his PR...the comic books, the films, the USO shows, the trading cards.

Not to mention the radio show hilariously featured in Agent Carter.

 

[The Old Mixer]

^All of those points about Hogarth are true, and none of them required us to become quite so thoroughly immersed in the divorce drama so early. Also, while I didn't go into this with any great crossover expectations, it struck me that a Nelson & Murdock-style neighborhood law firm would have been a much more natural fit for a seedy PI like JJ than Hogarth's was...and a lower-rent shady lawyer (which would exclude Matt and Foggy) could have checked off those Hogarth plot points.

 

[Christopher]

I think the fact that Hogarth didn't fit in Jessica's world was part of the point. The whole series was a very potent allegory for the experience of survivors of stalking and sexual abuse, and one important aspect of that is that it's often hard for victims of such things to get people in authority to believe them. So the power imbalance between Hogarth as the establishment figure and Jessica as the outsider trying in vain to convince her helped to illustrate that part of the experience -- that sense of being powerless not only in your interactions with your victimizer, but with the authorities who won't believe you.

There's also the fact that Hogarth is originally an Iron Fist character, suggesting that she may return in that series. And Danny Rand is pretty rich, as I recall. So maybe the reasons why she had to be on that side of the class divide will become evident in IF.