Gender in Twin Peaks: The Return

[sylvia_north]

Ok, but feminist criticism is about how cultural myths are reinforced and perpetuated. Obviously art reflects reality/real issues and power dynamics and class struggles, no one is contesting that, but to not exercise critical thinking about the status quo is to submit to it.

The Death of Ray Monroe- An Arm Wrestling Odyssey into Toxic Masculinity

http://exploretheglassbox.weebly.com/no ... asculinity

Are the other posts on this dude's blog this excellent?

I like his article about ep 8 and Vedic wisdom (Lynch obsession.) DL and Frost's spiritual philosophies are sorely overlooked in crit. Def a smart blogger... for a guy

[whoisalhedges]

I've gone a couple back, but haven't got to 8 yet... I might wanna start at the beginning, I'm enjoying his insight.

It's too bad Martha Nochimson isn't blogging TPTR. The one thing in shorter supply than analysis which isn't just completely wrong (can't count the number of paid writers in major publications who think Coop went into Dougie's body) is analysis from a different perspective. One of my favorite things about Lynch is that you can come at him from myriad perspectives, and there's something in the text to engage with you... yet it's so rarely done. Any idea if she's planning on a TPTR appendix to Swerves, or if she's planning another book?

[sylvia_north]

Not a clue if she has anything in the works, but maybe lostinthemovies has insight on that :

http://www.lostinthemovies.com/2014/11/ ... artha.html


So far we've had four fully naked females. It was always a question how far it would go on Showtime.
c***, arguably the worst gendered slur, has been used twice in scenes of violence and threatened sexual violence by men against two mother figures of Twin Peaks.

1) Jade, prostitute
2) Tracy, behind view
3) Ruth Davenport, headless corpse *it's not a dummy, dummy*
4) Naido, interzone traveler - I guess outer space whipped her dress off

Two of three literally have no voice, one is stripped of dignity by the nature of her work (except for the sense of superiority she creates to survive it, by Dworkin's definiton.) Hooker with a heart of gold trope.

Tracy, as we've discussed, gets the punished promiscuous female slasher victim trope. Fetches coffee for her boyfriend, trangresses the borders of a male space of occult secrets.

Naido is childlike and handicapped; eyeless communicates with primate vocalizations, might be tongueless. Could fall into the Born Sexy Yesterday trope. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0thpEyEwi80 , she hypermasculinizes Andy by contrast

Ruth the would-be snorkeling homewrecker librarian decapitated by demonic entities in the Zone. You don't get more dehumanized than abjection- "The abject is that which is repulsed because it cannot be assimilated... Death is the absolute in life that I recognize and turn away from simultaneously. The potential corpse resides within me at all times – it is me, but the rejection of that notion is what defines me as living" (Julia Kristeva) "The ultimate consummation of that act [objectification] is to turn a woman into a corpse" -Mackinnon

It will be interested to see where else Return goes with female nudity.

Briggs's body is the only male body, but it's a fat --> feminized body

[Wally Brando]

Always found it 'interesting' that in America 'c***' is almost exclusively used as an insult towards women.

In the UK it's generally more likely to be directed by men at other men, or in certain parts of the country used as a term of endearment. It would certainly usually be a more loaded insult when directed at a woman, which is perhaps why it's used a lot less in that context.

See also Twat, which Americas pronounce incorrectly and in the UK is now often just a more extreme method of calling someone an idiot.

Sorry that doesn't really have anything to do with Twin Peaks, I just find the US take on these words interesting as it does appear more gender specific.

[sylvia_north]

Ha! I agree, Wally. In US men call one another bitch and P**** to challenge one another's masculinity because the worst thing is apparently to be female. It's not really a threat to call a man a, what? dickhead/knob. Nutsack if you're Canadian. (Fan of the show Letterkenny.) c***/twat (rhymes with flat?) etymology: https://stronglang.wordpress.com/2015/0 ... ive-power/ Flashbacks of Bobby Peru jumping around that hole

[Wally Brando]

Yes, rhymes with flat, not plot.

[starmand]

I had the feeling watching Sarah Palmer's scene this week that whatever she is possessed by is a defensive entity, possibly antithetical to BOB. It appears as though it may be triggered by male violence against women. If BOB was a representation of hyper-masculine patriarchal violence, perhaps whatever's inside Sarah is the feminine "avenging angel" so to speak.

[Novalis]

I had the feeling watching Sarah Palmer's scene this week that whatever she is possessed by is a defensive entity, possibly antithetical to BOB. It appears as though it may be triggered by male violence against women. If BOB was a representation of hyper-masculine patriarchal violence, perhaps whatever's inside Sarah is the feminine "avenging angel" so to speak.

It's high time that there was some kind of site of struggle or resistance for women in TP, who Lynch all-too routinely writes as disrobing at gunpoint/malegaze. I'm not sure that using a proxy (not Sarah herself) is the best way for that to happen though. I'd be happier if the women of Twin Peaks had some kind of collectivity to them rather than being so isolated by their marriages/workplaces/male-written histories. It's interesting that, in his string of insults, the Truck Me abuser figure zooms in on the thing he feels most contempt for: the lesbian. The idea of female enjoyment occurring independent of his idea of masculinity, independent of his tool, is so unthinkable that he has to masculinize female homosexuality, in the figure of the 'bull dyke'. He is literally terrified of female sexual enjoyment. Ironically, this does perhaps suggest that what Sarah might benefit from most is more female companionship in her life -- not necessarily sexual, but in terms of strong community and mutual support. In a sense, the darkness in her is like a reification of that void.

[sylvia_north]

Thinking about Sarah's lack of female support- her sister Beth in Missoula was always missing from the picture.

It's not unusual for wives of pedophiles to isolate from friends and become dependent on sleeping aids to avoid dealing with their fears. Of course if she had suspicions of what Leland was doing, which she seems to in the Laura Wash Your Hands scene in FWWM, especially as she had psychic powers as indicated in the Diary and the show that would have allowed her to see BOB, she is accountable. **Excepting the possibility of lodge-related amnesia.

Albert seems certain Sarah was drugged so Leland could "keep his actions secret." You can see in part 13 that Sarah is quite medicated. Doc Hawyard gave her at least one injection in season 1, and she offered her arm to him as he prepare a syringe - then changed her mind- before Leland's funeral in season 2, suggesting he might have been medicating her since Laura's death. She's backgrounded so we don't know if there's women in her life besides that one call to Betty Briggs looking for Laura and Bobby, and Eileen at her side during the wake.

If Laura's decline was a consequence of drugs, as Sheryl Lee has stated, and this is what made her vulnerable to evil-- the drugs, and the ignorance faciliated by the drugs- 25 years of drug and drink in isolation as a means to numb awareness may be what opened Sarah up to the something she says happened to her. Considering Gerard and the Haldol, the drug probably made Gerard easier to manipulate by Mike instead of keeping Mike at bay. When you're numb, you are a void -- > vessel for dark forces. Drug and alcohol abuse can have the opposite effect of what a person is taking it for if habitual/in excess. Earle used Haldol on Major Briggs, and possibly took it himself to open himself up to evil entities. Blackie was a junkie and quite evil. Jerry is a pothead and not in very good shape, come to think of it...


In TSHOTP, Dr. Jacoby's gives up the practice of Western psychiatry because he knows in his heart Leland was not just a child abuser. Thus his views on Laura's self-medication probably also changed with his shift to a more spiritual, bullshit-free value set and his ayahuasca work with medicine man friends in Hawaii.

Women greatly outnumber men in the west as psychiatric patients and medicated citizens. Feminist thought says this is because doctors medicate the distress class struggle has created, and pathologize the symptom. The statistics are as bad in the 50's and 60's when households were poisoned by Freud as it is today. The pharmacology and diagnoses have changed, but the general idea is that women are just crazy- not made crazy by systemic oppression- endures. Big pharma exploits women with these harmful sexist ideas just as the beauty industry and mass media exploits women with other sexist ideas. .

The horse's presence in the Lodge early in the Return challenged our assumptions about it being just a drug hallucination as it appeared in 2x14 and FWWM. White horses feature in Buddhist myths as positive entities. They signal miracles and more: the white horses are Nichiren, and the neighing of the white horses is the sound of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. Nichiren Buddhism is a form of Buddhism from Japan that emphasizes repeated recitation of the mantra namu myoho renge kyo ("salutation to the Lotus Sutra") for health, happiness and enlightenment.
In one myth, the white horses' neighing is soothing and restorative- the lotus is also associated with a detached state and "purity of mind speech and body." When the woodsman says the horse poem, all who hear it are eased into slumber. Purity, blankness, susceptibility.

Critics of TM say TM puts your mind in a hypnotic, suggestible state, for the record. And like the woodsman, Sarah- as Laura, and Diane and formerly Gordon- are very devoted to their nicotine habits. Most people become hypnotized to quit smoking. Sarah even warns Laura about addiction in The Missing Pieces. A negative reverse force would create a state of wanting to smoke. Smoke = fire = forest and nuclear fires= hypnotic woodsmen. Smoking indicates an evil or darkness when it appears in Twin Peaks, even when it's just Audrey or Evelyn being bad girls. Emphasizing the theme of malevolent male violence: she tells the cashier, when buying cigarettes, "Men are coming."

The demonic energy behind Sarah's face is like a storm of suppressed emotion, rage at powerlessness, betrayal, feelings of dirtiness and self-loathing at being a passive bystander in Laura's abuse and a monster's lover.


tl;dr I'm interested in Sarah's ignorance and susceptibility to evil, and that functions as a metaphor for the wife of the abuser in denial.

She quickly became the most interesting character in the series in the last three parts, especially if she's 1950's Manhattan project bug girl.

[Snailhead]

The demonic energy behind Sarah's face is like a storm of suppressed emotion, rage at powerlessness, betrayal, feelings of dirtiness and self-loathing at being a passive bystander in Laura's abuse and a monster's lover.

Totally, that was my feeling too. It's interesting that many viewers feel that the scene "ruins" the character of Sarah Palmer and take it at face value as us being told that she was always evil or something. Despite the fact that it happens in the 'real' world of Twin Peaks, it felt highly symbolic to me.

[sylvia_north]

Forgot to add the Vegas mom neighbor of Dougie who says 119. She's high as hell. Like Ella (miss armpit rash) and Becky and Stephen. I wonder if 119 mom has a sinister connection to Dougie.

Chantal Hutchens interests me as a femme fatal character and all that implies. Like Darya and Jade, she's adapted to male supremacy by becoming a criminal element, one of the guys. She tortures men ("I'll make him sing for me") and her sex partners are Mr C and husband Gary the laid back hitman. She's glad when Darya is killed. She is the anti-Tammy, her sex appeal is vulgar and raw.

And I forgot that the Log Lady mentions the pale horse in the 2x14 intro http://twinpeaks.wikia.com/wiki/Pale_horse (called white horse in the script.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwnwvtM0yYU

[Cipher]

The demonic energy behind Sarah's face is like a storm of suppressed emotion, rage at powerlessness, betrayal, feelings of dirtiness and self-loathing at being a passive bystander in Laura's abuse and a monster's lover.

Totally, that was my feeling too. It's interesting that many viewers feel that the scene "ruins" the character of Sarah Palmer and take it at face value as us being told that she was always evil or something. Despite the fact that it happens in the 'real' world of Twin Peaks, it felt highly symbolic to me.

Just want to say I loved reading sylvia_north's post above, and am also quite intrigued by the newly revealed presence inside Sarah as a reflection of her emptiness, susceptibility, and guilt.

As part of a pattern, it's yet another female character who isn't in control of her own actions when an alternative has yet to be shown. But removed from that pattern, it's an intriguing and fitting place to take the individual character (to accidentally summarize what makes The Return so frustrating in this area!).

As far as Snailhead's last line there, I feel that the supernatural goings on of the "real" world of Twin Peaks are nearly always highly symbolic. It's what keeps the series working in the mode of a visceral, surreal, emotional experience, rather than falling into off-beat genre. (Though it does, when it suits it, occasionally tiptoe along that line.)

[sylvia_north]

Thanks, Cipher! Agreed about symbolism. All the Twin Peaks "wannabe" shows (David Lynch's word) that came after really did only use weird for weird's sake, what Lynch usually gets blamed for, so they're weren't successful.

It got gendery the last few pages at the Disappointed thread when nude Naido was mentioned casually and other posters got defensive, a response typical that comes from internalized attitudes about power dynamics of the sex classes.

I'll consider that Andy took time to conceal her from an embarrassing rear view while being carried, and if Lynch concedes to no one, I guess this was Lynch's decision. Should we give him his feminist ally cookie yet? The attachment is from Images 1994- in the context of that book, Lynch chose that view. He had to set up the nakedness by having her descend through space as the easy justification for the moment, and then resolve the nakedness with absurd explanatory dialogue (if Lucy came in wearing the pajamas, what was she wearing when she left?)

The jail is co-ed. Women don't get arrested in Twin Peaks, I guess. Curious there isn't some kind of holding cell they could have employed for her, if keeping her safe from the unknown people trying to kill her, and illustrating Andy's concern, was important to the story.

The woods scene is admittedly nice enough to look at and reminded me of the Images Nudes and Smoke set. Her reveal no pun intended qualifies as nude (undressed for art,) but her character is very much naked (vulnerable.) As soon as she's exposed, including breasts, she's vulnerable. Her vulnerability is the point Lynch was making, but a tattered/dirty dress and her general condition would have had the same effect.

Naido is the obligatory Lynch 'woman in trouble' for Return and Lynchian women in trouble must be naked, and the nature of Lynchian nakedness by the same token means they are in trouble.

[douglasb]

Lynch-ian imagery and tropes aside, the Ike The Spike murders struck me a particularly unnecessary. Did either of his victims have any lines, or were they just two more mute women? (The 'target' particularly seemed like a potentially interesting character but we're told nothing about her, and are only shown her fear and then her brutal end.)

[sylvia_north]

Well this just happened.

http://www.tmz.com/2017/08/17/twin-peak ... ed-murder/ Mickey taking notes from Stephen in the trailer park. I loaded a bong for this guy! Name the problem...