Challenging Typical Ideas of Heroism and Toxic Masculinity in Jessica Jones

Challenging Typical Ideas of Heroism and Toxic Masculinity in Jessica Jones

Superhero stories have often been derided by critics and others in the artistic community as being shallow and devoid of import. Late last year award winning director Martin Scorsese described the Marvel films as lacking any “revelation, mystery or genuine emotional danger” (Scorsese, Nov. 4 2019). Indeed, authors such as Peter Coogan have also argued that even though superheroes have often been purported to be champions of liberal values, they are in actuality defenders of the status quo and, by extension, the objectionable ideals that said status quo contains (Chambliss, Donaldson and Svitasky 2013, 3). One character that bucks this trend however is Jessica Jones, whose adventures in the comic book Alias, as well as the subsequent Netflix television series—titled Jessica Jones—has analyzed themes of gender violence, trauma, and toxic masculinity, by challenging and inverting typical superhero tropes. This is exemplified by Jessica’s relationship with her chief antagonist Kilgrave aka the Purple Man, whose past sexual abuse of Jones remains the chief source of her trauma. Both Alias and the Netflix series, therefore, reveal the traumatic nature of sexual abuse, with or without superpowers. This chapter will show how both these texts—focusing on their respective narratives surrounding Kilgrave—are able to grapple with these confrontational ideas and challenge common popular, but unhealthy tropes about sexual abuse and toxic masculinity in narrative fiction in order to create narratives that reflect voices such as the victims which are too often silenced or distorted. Finally, this chapter will examine ideas surrounding rape culture as well as popular constructions of superheroes to examine how the Netflix series of Jessica Jones moves beyond the restrictions of the superhero genre to create a piece of fiction that confronts much more directly the failures of society to accept their responsibility in creating perpetrators of toxic masculinity such as Kilgrave. By doing this, the chapter will show that Jessica Jones has a protagonist that not only challenges the status quo, but a villain that the current power balance actively protects.

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