I will love you until you suddenly develop a personality and become as powerful as me
Grimm fell into the predictable trap of US television shows which dictate middle class protestant morality which requires:
- You must always marry and stay with the mother of your children. (If you have a second love interest you must always return to your first love interest if children are involved.
- If a woman becomes empowered there is something wrong with her and she must be forced to conform.#
- A woman is property and if a male sleeps with someone else the new woman will become their responsibility
Throughout the first season, the Grimm’s partner Juliette is the perfect doormat to her partner. He lies to her about his true nature and results in her near death. In this season Julette gets powers. She is no longer dependant on her Grimm partner for protection. Rather than welcome someone who can really share his life Nick responds by rejecting her. He insists that she “turn back” and practically forces her to “turn evil.”
He refuses to accept the new empowered her and this puts her into confusion. In fact she is so frightened how her partner will respond to the new powers she puts off telling him.
Meanwhile the woman who is responsible for Julette’s powers becomes pregnant with his child. She takes a potion so that she no longer has powers and needs to be protected. Nick sides with her because of the child.
What is telling is that in such circumstances the male character is justified by the show into beating and killing his former partner and if for some reason he is unable to do that he can get a mate to do it for him.
In other words domestic violence is acceptable to get a strong female to conform.
This is all opening dark stuff and yet it is going unacknowledged by anyone in the reviews. It is all “Julliete got too dark” in other words it was the woman’s fault. Yet Julliete in this season was far more interesting than in previous seasons.
If Nick had just once said “cool” when she turned into a Hexing beast she would not have gone dark at all. In practice there is not a single occultist who, on returning home, finds his or her muggle partner now a super magician who would not be pleased to have someone share that part of his life with.
It seems American television writers can’t take strong women without making them evil. What is telling is that Joss Whedon who does create strong women – and yet unless a comic book is involved studio execs don’t give his programmes much of a chance.
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