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ozmissageI signed up for Sarah Linden less because of what fandom thinks of her (because really, The Killing doesn’t have anything resembling a real fandom…there are five us and we meet in a broom closet every week to eat stale donuts and discuss when Linden and Holder will make out who killed Rosie Larsen), and more for how the mainstream media approaches her. Go Google “Sarah Linden worst”, I’ll wait. I’m planning on talking about the general suckiness of the media when it comes to this show/Sarah in more depth throughout the week, but I want to start out by addressing this “brilliant” bit of journalistic deduction from a recent Jezebel article:
"Sarah Linden, didn't bring any of the internal drama to the table that we get with our troubled patriarchs (or even their complicated female friends). It didn't help matters when the show tried to raise the stakes for Sarah by making her a workaholic with a whining son and fiancé; audiences have long grown weary of stories portraying women as incapable of having a work life when home life calls, especially when said women have teenage children who can feed themselves."
Okay. Let’s start at the top. Since the days of Dana Scully (and possibly before that, I don’t know, I haven’t watched many pre-X-Files police/detective shows), television has relied on a handy formula for their partner-centric police procedurals. You take one stoic, level headed, ultra-competent female detective and team her up with an eccentric, but brilliant, possibly wise-cracking male detective and BAM you’ve got yourself an excellent UST-filled yin-yang personality combo that will keep viewers happy for the next 232 episodes of your show. Castle does it. The Mentalist does it. Fringe sort of does it with Olivia and Peter. It’s a good formula. It works.
But sometimes, I want the lady to be the erratic, work-obsessed loose canon. Sometimes, I want her drive to come not from ultra-competency, but from an all consuming need to solve the case. Basically, I want lady!Mulder. Sarah Linden is the best of both worlds. She’s Scully on the outside, all cool and calm, keeping Holder in check, and she’s Mulder on the inside, which is to say completely, 100% addicted to the work in a way that is not at all healthy, but is fascinating as hell to watch. To say Sarah Linden is without internal conflict is to say the sky is plaid. It’s empirically wrong.
Sarah once became so involved in a case that it literally drove her over the edge. We don’t know the particulars of what happened to her yet, but we know it nearly cost her her sanity and her son. Sarah’s conflict is not the normal work vs. family debate. She’s not a workaholic, she is her job. It’s her passion; she is driven to help people no matter the cost (and often no matter the method) but she knows if she stays in Seattle, if she continues to be a detective, she runs the risk of losing control again, of letting herself become involved in a case to the point of obsession (have you seen Luther? she’s basically Luther). She’s an addict and the Rosie Larson case is her drug of choice.
But she’s also a mother (of a thirteen-year-old, I might add, the article makes Jack sound like he’s two ticks away from going to college). Now I don’t want to get into the Jack/Sarah dynamic here because I’m saving that for another post, but for now I will say this: Sarah grew up in foster homes. Now she’s a single mother who has already nearly lost her son once. Jack is her most compelling reason to leave Seattle and the internal tug-of-war that she goes through over the season isn’t dull and it’s not a rehash of the tired “why can’t ladies have it all?” argument, it’s a compelling picture of a woman (of a person) being forced to choose between the thing that defines her and her child. What makes the story even more tantalizing is that midway through when it becomes apparent that Sonoma is a pipedream, it becomes a story about a person struggling to restore balance to her life.
Like Mulder and Luther and any number of other male characters that the media (and fandom) loves, Sarah can’t stop herself. She’s relentless. But she’s also quiet and methodical. She’s not as showy as her male counterparts, but all the internalized pain, all the brilliance, all the drive is right there roiling under the surface… as long as you’re willing to pay attention.
Okay. Let’s start at the top. Since the days of Dana Scully (and possibly before that, I don’t know, I haven’t watched many pre-X-Files police/detective shows), television has relied on a handy formula for their partner-centric police procedurals. You take one stoic, level headed, ultra-competent female detective and team her up with an eccentric, but brilliant, possibly wise-cracking male detective and BAM you’ve got yourself an excellent UST-filled yin-yang personality combo that will keep viewers happy for the next 232 episodes of your show. Castle does it. The Mentalist does it. Fringe sort of does it with Olivia and Peter. It’s a good formula. It works.
But sometimes, I want the lady to be the erratic, work-obsessed loose canon. Sometimes, I want her drive to come not from ultra-competency, but from an all consuming need to solve the case. Basically, I want lady!Mulder. Sarah Linden is the best of both worlds. She’s Scully on the outside, all cool and calm, keeping Holder in check, and she’s Mulder on the inside, which is to say completely, 100% addicted to the work in a way that is not at all healthy, but is fascinating as hell to watch. To say Sarah Linden is without internal conflict is to say the sky is plaid. It’s empirically wrong.
Sarah once became so involved in a case that it literally drove her over the edge. We don’t know the particulars of what happened to her yet, but we know it nearly cost her her sanity and her son. Sarah’s conflict is not the normal work vs. family debate. She’s not a workaholic, she is her job. It’s her passion; she is driven to help people no matter the cost (and often no matter the method) but she knows if she stays in Seattle, if she continues to be a detective, she runs the risk of losing control again, of letting herself become involved in a case to the point of obsession (have you seen Luther? she’s basically Luther). She’s an addict and the Rosie Larson case is her drug of choice.
But she’s also a mother (of a thirteen-year-old, I might add, the article makes Jack sound like he’s two ticks away from going to college). Now I don’t want to get into the Jack/Sarah dynamic here because I’m saving that for another post, but for now I will say this: Sarah grew up in foster homes. Now she’s a single mother who has already nearly lost her son once. Jack is her most compelling reason to leave Seattle and the internal tug-of-war that she goes through over the season isn’t dull and it’s not a rehash of the tired “why can’t ladies have it all?” argument, it’s a compelling picture of a woman (of a person) being forced to choose between the thing that defines her and her child. What makes the story even more tantalizing is that midway through when it becomes apparent that Sonoma is a pipedream, it becomes a story about a person struggling to restore balance to her life.
Like Mulder and Luther and any number of other male characters that the media (and fandom) loves, Sarah can’t stop herself. She’s relentless. But she’s also quiet and methodical. She’s not as showy as her male counterparts, but all the internalized pain, all the brilliance, all the drive is right there roiling under the surface… as long as you’re willing to pay attention.
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no subject
Date: 9/11/11 09:57 am (UTC)I haven't seen Forbrydelsen but from what I know Sarah has less edge than the original character. Imagine how the audience would react to a ostensibly tougher Sarah...
That's a great essay, thanks!
no subject
Date: 9/13/11 04:05 am (UTC)I'm so glad you enjoyed it! <3
no subject
Date: 9/11/11 02:23 pm (UTC)(And you knew you were dragging me in to this post with that lj-cut quote, right?)
no subject
Date: 9/13/11 04:15 am (UTC)I rec The Killing with this caveat: I know how you feel about cops using questionable methods to gain information and I want to let you know that Sarah and Holder don't always play by the book and occasionally they do make mistakes that lead to some pretty horrible consequences. The difference between The Killing and something like Hawaii 5-0 is that we see the consequences to their actions, their methods aren't glorified (not by the series or their boss). I actually like how screwed up they both are and how relentless she is because like I said above, we don't often see female characters who are allowed to be so on edge. Sarah is constantly on the brink of letting her cases consume her and that fascinates me.
I only made it through the pilot episode of Luther, but I think Sarah is the same type of character/cop. She's goes too far, but she can't help it, that's just who she is.
no subject
Date: 9/12/11 03:30 am (UTC)I've found that female characters who don't do large expressions of emotions are more likely to be criticized. (See: Lena Headey's Sarah in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles being labelled "wooden", when she was clearly stoic. Possibly even a stoic woobie if she was male.)
no subject
Date: 9/13/11 04:18 am (UTC)I've found that female characters who don't do large expressions of emotions are more likely to be criticized.
They definitely take a lot of flak. I've seen people bash Olivia Dunham for the reasons and I don't understand it all.