“Definitely a creepy stalker and probable serial killer but he is soooo hot“
Navigating Questions of Romance and Monstrosity in Netflix’s You
Author: Linda Kopitz Student ID: 12023361 Contact: l.kopitz@uva.nl Submission Date: 20th of June 2020
University of Amsterdam Research Master Media Studies Television and Cross-Media Culture
Supervisor: Dr. Toni Pape Second Reader: Dr. Joke Hermes
Table of Contents
Abstract 2
1. Introduction 3
1.1 Romantic Killers, Killer Romance: Situating a Television Phenomenon 3
1.2 Introducing the Series: Netflix’s You 5
1.3 Methodology 7
1.4 Chapter Outline 10
2. Of Private Attraction and Public Approval: Negotiating Experiences 11
2.1 Theoretical Framework: Realism 11
2.2 “But I feel for him, ya know?” – Private Attraction as Shared Experience 12 2.3. “I swear I was #beck in a psychotic relationship” – Connecting Fictional
Events and Lived Reality 15
2.4 “I REAL LIVE said ‘what in the Joe?’” – Sharing Humor and Disbelief 19
2.5 Conclusion 22
3. Of Love and Hate: Romanticizing the Serial Killer 24
3.1 Theoretical Framework: Genre and Gender 24
3.2 “I need a Joe in my life” – The Fantasy of Romance 26 3.3 “In my eyes he’s not guilty ... doing it all for love.” – Romantic Intentions and
Voice-Over Narration 31
3.4 Conclusion 36
4. Of Monsters and Men: Physical Attractiveness and the
Appearance of Monstrosity 39
4.1 Theoretical Framework: Monstrosity 39
4.2 “Okay, Joe Goldberg is hot. I think I have some issues.” – Physical
Attractiveness as Diversion from Monstrosity 41 4.3 “Penn Badgley is hot, but his character is a fucking psychopath” – Reading the
Character Joe Goldberg through the Star Text of the Actor Penn Badgley 45
4.4 Conclusion 49
5. Conclusion 52
6. References 56
Abstract
Hannibal Lecter, Dexter Morgan, Joe Goldberg: Are there fictional characters so monstrous that we should not consider ourselves fans? While the serial killer has been the object of television crime procedurals for decades, the last years have seen a shift in this dynamic: Following a broader interest in anti-hero narratives, the serial killer has morphed from the antagonist in (mostly detective-led) criminal dramas to being the protagonist himself. The Netflix series You, which has been framed as a “global cultural phenomenon” (Larson 2019), is taking this trend even further by establishing the main character, played by former Gossip Girl heartthrob Penn Badgley, not only as the protagonist but romantic lead in a format blurring conventions from both the psychological thriller and the romance. Through a discourse analysis (following Potter and Wetherell) of viewer comments posted on Twitter and YouTube about the show and its main character, I will discuss how viewers navigate the similarities and differences between the series and ‘identifiable’ tropes, actions and concepts – including the ideal of the romance, the concept of fantasy and the (gendered) body of the hero – in an attempt to make sense of the series’ ambiguity. This navigation of questions of attractiveness and monstrosity in relation to the series You can be traced through the three different interpretative repertoires
Experience, Romance and Embodiment . The Experience repertoire, which places the fictional
events of the series in relation to the lived and shared experiences of viewers, can be understood as a strategy to both validate the private attraction to the series protagonist and deflect judgement in the public online sphere. The Romance repertoire expands on the notion of shared attraction and approval by linking the interpretation of the main character to the ideal of the (literary) romantic hero, thus providing a further acceptable explanation for a notion of ‘rooting for the bad guy’. The third repertoire, Embodiment , underlines this gendered romanticization by highlighting different aspects of the actor’s appearance to interrogate questions of monstrosity and morality through the visuality of the body. Ultimately, the interpretative repertoires viewers employ can be understood as a practice of meaning-making that is aware of, but does not necessarily follow an ‘intended’ reading by the producers of popular culture.
Keywords: Television, Television Studies, Netflix, Fictional Characters, Genre
1. Introduction
1.1 Romantic Killers, Killer Romance: Situating a Television Phenomenon
Hannibal Lecter, Dexter Morgan, Joe Goldberg: Are there fictional characters so monstrous that we should not consider ourselves fans? As Cornel Sandvoss has argued for an understanding of fandom as a “space used by fans for the articulation and reflection of self” (2003, 27), taking a closer look at controversial, yet beloved characters becomes especially interesting in understanding the relationship between viewers and television programming. While the serial killer has been the object of television crime procedurals for decades, the last years have seen a shift in this dynamic: Following a broader interest in anti-hero narratives, the serial killer has morphed from the antagonist in (mostly detective-led) criminal dramas to being the protagonist himself. As the center of attention in both fiction and non-fiction narratives (see true crime documentaries, for instance), the fascination with the serial killer “as mirror images of our darkest selves, frightening reminders of the human monster that lies latent in Everyman” (Santaulària 2007, 63) could be considered a cultural phenomenon of the 21st century. Understood as the contemporary version of the monster, which serves “as the ultimate incorporation of our anxieties – about history, about identity, about our very humanity” (Cohen 1996, xii), the serial killer embodies questions of morality and monstrosity, power and control, normality and deviance. While Steven Jay Schneider argues that “it is the cinematic serial killer's compulsion to commit acts of violence that are as intimate as they are extreme that makes him so compelling” (2003, 3), the examples listed above point towards a somewhat different fascination in the context of the televisual serial killer: understanding.
Whereas both Hannibal (NBC) and Dexter (Showtime) provide on the one hand a (generally) understandable explanation for the main characters transgression – psychological childhood trauma and a clear moral framework respectively – and on the other hand continue to follow the consistency of the crime procedural, in which each episode “anticipates and delivers a spectacular kill scene, each catches a murderer, solves a mystery, relieves the audience, and momentarily restores the social order – albeit a trifle bloodstained – providing viewers with that tidy feeling of having wiped down the benches and taken out the trash” (Green 2012, 583), the newest addition to the list of television shows centered on fictional serial killers seems to deviate from this established logic. The series You, which has been “ propelled into the cultural zeitgeist” (Stern 2020) since the first season became available on the streaming platform Netflix in December 2018, has introduced a protagonist at the same time in line and notably different from other serialized serial killers. In the absence of a larger redeeming narrative for the main character Joe Goldberg, the series has been simultaneously criticized for romanticizing psychological abuse and applauded for “igniting conversations around hot-button
topics like abuse, social media safety, and white male privilege” (Stern 2020) by television critics. Following Greg Smith’s argumentation that “the persuasive force of images depends not only on the images themselves, but also on the frame we use to interpret them” (2017, 166), the interpretation of the series and its main protagonist takes place at the intersection of seemingly contrasting and conflicting interpretative frames. This reading is also supported by the emphasis both the author of the novel the series is based on and the showrunners of the series have placed on their intent to polarize the audience through the portrayal of a series protagonist at least partially open to interpretation.
Part of this ambivalence of interpretations appears to be connected to the series’ position between different genres. Understanding meaning-making as a “process whose aim is to produce fully satisfactory and plausible meaning; a process which offers us myths with which we are already familiar, and seeks to convince us that these myths are appropriate to their context” (Fiske and Hartley 1978, 88), the blurring of different genre conventions and fictional prototypes complicates how viewers arrive at a ‘plausible’ – and shared – meaning. By Netflix itself, the show is characterized as a thriller, a genre that is characterized by “a metaphorically downward movement into the psyche” and “concerns itself more with questions of subjectivity and the psychological basis for transgression, and makes no guarantees regarding narrative resolution” (Pittard 2012, 2). In popular discourses, however, the series is also labelled as horror, romance and “a self-aware work of melodrama, [which] combines the best elements of murder-mystery series, Millennial sitcoms, and revenge fantasies” (Georgis 2019), thus referencing genres with established narrative solutions – in other words: a happy end. If “genre dictates how a series may tell a story as well as what is to be expected of characters and the relationship they enter into” (Hermes 2007, 163), the intricate ways in which You blends and distorts genre boundaries arguably lead to a dissonance in these expectations. In relation to genre, Graeme Burton claims that “the very process of categorizing, of identifying a category of television material, is in itself a cultural statement” (2000, 33). Following his line of argumentation, labelling the series as both a thriller, horror and romance, then, does not highlight the similarities between the series and the conventions of these televisual genres as much “as the importance of those similarities” (Burton 2000, 33). Stressing the connections to other genres and the affective reactions we might have to these genres in turn informs the search for an interpretation of the series and its main protagonist between romance and thriller, empathy and (moral) judgement.
In an interview on his relation to the role, Penn Badgley, who plays the main character Joe Goldberg in the series, refers to this ambiguity as intentional, claiming that “there’s no doubt that we’re using constructs to make people like him. And so that’s where the show, to
me, is never meant to be like a clinical portrayal of a real person. He and the show is like an allegory. I mean, it really is like a social experiment and a reflection of the stories that we tell, because in a way, we’re taking the same tropes and devices you’ve seen and simply following the logic in a way that challenges the entire premise” (Ferguson 2019). How viewers navigate the similarities and differences between the series and ‘identifiable’ tropes, actions and concepts – including the ideal of the romance, the concept of fantasy and the (gendered) body of the hero – is the main interest of this thesis. Through a discourse analysis of viewer comments posted on Twitter and Youtube, the interpretative strategies viewers employ to navigate the ambiguity of the series become the focus of attention. As a way to compare and contrast both the narrative format and the viewer reactions, I will further draw on academic scholarship on other ‘serialized serial killers’ – specifically the previously mentioned Hannibal Lecter and Dexter Morgan – to further highlight what makes the positioning of You between psychological thriller and romance so different from other contemporary serial killer narratives. If our “cultural fascination with monsters” is based on the “twin desire to name that which is difficult to apprehend and to domesticate (and therefore disempower) that which threatens” (Cohen 1996, viii), the emphasis on the romantic reading of the series arguably functions as an extension of this ‘domestication’ of the serial killer as televisual protagonist.
1.2 Introducing the Series: Netflix’s You
Based on the novel of the same name by Caroline Kepnes, the television series launched on the American network Lifetime in September 2018, followed by an international launch on the streaming platform Netflix in December of the same year. According to data provided by Netflix, the show was an instant success with close to 40 million viewers for the first season – just within the first month of streaming (Kafka 2019). Although these numbers are not independently confirmed, the series has been the topic of conversation in both traditional media outlets – with reviews, articles and interviews from the New York Times to Fox News – as well as online discussions, which can be seen as an indication of the significance of the series as a “global cultural phenomenon” (Larson 2019). One year after the release of the first season, the second season aired in December 2019 – this time exclusively on Netflix in the popular ‘binge-watchable’ format. According to data provided by Netflix, the second season of the series ranks as the 5th most popular series on the streaming platform in 2019 (Andreeva 2019), considering the launch in late December an especially impressive achievement.
The official description on Netflix summarizes the plot of the series as follows: “A dangerously charming, intensely obsessive young man goes to extreme measures to insert himself into the lives of those he is transfixed by” (Netflix 2020). Played by former Gossip Girl
heartthrob Penn Badgley, the objects of transfixation of this “charming creeper extraordinaire” (Di Trolio 2019), “deranged stalker” (Larson 2020) and “handsome-but-deadly protagonist” (Ferguson 2019) named Joe Goldberg are Guinevere Beck and Love Quinn in the first and second season respectively. The phrasing of these critical descriptions – ‘charming creeper’, ‘handsome-but-deadly’ – highlights the juxtaposition between the character’s charm and attractiveness on the one hand and his monstrous actions on the other. In both seasons, this act of ‘inserting himself into the lives of those he is transfixed by’ does not only involve stalking behavior both online and offline but also an escalation of violence, leading ultimately to his killing of Guinevere Beck in a bookstore-basement-turned-plexiglass-prison at the end of the first season. Although getting away with this murder by framing Guinevere Beck’s psychotherapist (and romantic rival for her attention), the return of another presumed dead – murdered – girlfriend leads Joe Goldberg to abruptly leave New York and assume a new identity. Beginning his new life – under the name Will Bettelheim – in Los Angeles, the second season follows 1 Joe’s attempts to evade his past and change his behavior, ultimately failing at both. How, then, does a character who stalks a woman, kidnaps and murders his presumed competition (both male and female) and ultimately kills his love interest qualify as a romantic lead and object of fan love?
While the attraction to the (apparent) villain might not be an entirely new phenomenon – considering characters from Dexter ’s Dexter Morgan to Buffy the Vampire Slayer ’s Spike – the absence of a larger redeeming storyline for the main character of You , Joe Goldberg, in the first two seasons of the show has fueled the discussion about this precise fan love both among critics and viewers themselves. At the beginning of 2019 – following the release of the first season of You – one interaction especially garnered attention. With 1.462 Favs, 97 retweets and a wide number of comments including one from Penn Badgley himself, the tweet
“Said this already but @PennBadgley is breaking my heart once again as Joe. What is it about him? 💔” – @nobia_parker
has become emblematic of the way viewers of the show are engaging online with the show, the actor and most importantly each other. With both the tweet and Penn Badgley’s response – “A: He is a murderer” (Badgley 2019) – the center of following articles and interview questions, the importance of studying online discussion as a way to ‘read the audience’, and in turn approach an understanding of the series as cultural phenomenon, is highlighted. At the same time, the online interaction between @nobia_parker and Penn Badgley makes the attempts of the actor – and by extension the production team – to emphasize the intended, highly reflexive meaning of the series visible. Portraying the narrative as a commentary on “some really strange and 1 To avoid confusion, the character will be referred to as Joe Goldberg throughout this thesis. Interestingly, this also coincides with the references to the character in the viewer comments.
distorted ideas about love and relationships that seem more like lust and possession than actual love” and a way to “encourage this reflection on why we’re so willing to watch a character like him” (Zaragoza 2020), then, could be understood as both a reaction to the criticism directed towards the show by television critics and towards the enthusiastic viewer reactions. Labelling the comments about the character Joe Goldberg as “problematic and disconcerting” (Zaragoza 2020) hints at a discomfort connected to a positive, romantic reading of the series and its main character, that does not (or at least not sufficiently) follow the reflexive – almost educational – intentions of the series’ producers. Confronted with both the genre-blurring format and the repeated emphasis on an ‘intended’ reading in third-party articles on the series, this thesis is interested in the interpretative strategies viewers themselves employ to explain, validate and frame their love for the series and its main protagonist.
1.3 Methodology
Twitter becomes a productive platform to take a closer look at viewer practices surrounding media objects: Organized around openly visible and searchable hashtags instead of closed (fan) communities, these tweets allow for an analysis of how viewers are navigating their love for ‘hateable’ characters, both to themselves as well as the broader (online) community. Using an open-source archiving tool, tweets posted between December 2019 and April 2020 were extracted from the social media platform. This time frame corresponds to the release of the second season of the series on the streaming platform Netflix, which in turn sparked an increased interest in the first season through both marketing and critical discussions of the series. To limit the scope of the results, only tweets in English using either the hashtag #NetflixYou, #YouNetflix, #YouSeason1, #YouSeason2 or the names of the main characters #JoeGoldberg, #GuinevereBeck and #LoveQuinn were analyzed . The hashtags as 2 selection criteria were chosen for practical reasons, but also as an emphasis on the community aspect of the discourse: Within the Twitter universe, hashtags function as a filter, thus allowing viewers to find relevant tweets and connect with others within the broader community of Twitter users. The hashtags analyzed for this thesis can be considered the most ‘obvious’ choices for viewers wanting to connect with others to discuss the series. At the same time, Twitter does not limit the amount of hashtags per tweet, allowing viewers to use a variety of series-related hashtags – arguably making the inclusion of either one of the hashtags mentioned above likely.
Following Anselm Strauss and Juliet Corbin’s urging for “alternating between collecting and analyzing data” (1990, 46), the open coding of the tweets led me to include the comments posted underneath the respective season trailers on YouTube as a form of verification for my
initial hypotheses. Considering the different organizational logics and levels of anonymity of Twitter and YouTube, the inclusion of YouTube comments allowed for a provisional testing of the themes developed through the coding of comments posted on Twitter. While tweets are limited to a length of 140 characters, Youtube does not restrict the length of comments, which I supposed would lead me to include longer explanatory comments. However, most of the comments collected from YouTube were equally short and concise, thus hinting at an understanding of the comments on both platforms as short discursive statements not necessarily ‘needing’ longer explanations within the online community. At the same time, an understanding of the interpretative repertoires as not just platform-specific, but representative of a broader cultural phenomenon becomes strengthened through the combinations of these two data sources. As the streaming platform Netflix mostly promotes new series and seasons within their interface (which does not provide a commenting function), the official YouTube channel could be understood as the site for both existing and potential subscribers to discover and discuss new Netflix series/seasons. For this thesis, a total of 8.915 comments underneath the trailer for the first season, published on December 13th, 2018, the recap video of the first season as lead-up to the launch of the second season, published on December 19th 2019, the teaser for the second season, published on December 5th 2019, and the official trailer for the second season, published on December 16th 2019, were collected in addition to the aforementioned tweets. As the trailers appear to function both as preview and review, the comment sections connect viewers who have already watched (one season of) the series with potential viewers. Additionally, these official YouTube videos – in contrast to reviews and discussion videos posted by both professional and amateur critics – can be considered as ‘neutral’ information on the series, thus providing a blank canvas for viewers to express their thoughts.
The comments collected on both platforms were then analyzed in a grounded theory approach to discourse analysis, connecting the approaches of Wetherell and Potter (1988) and Strauss and Corbin (1990). Understanding grounded theory as the “constant comparative method of analysis” (Glaser and Strauss 1967, 101), a first round of open coding of the Twitter comments was followed by an open coding of the YouTube comments, which led to the provisional labelling and categorizing of the combined viewer comments (see Fig. 1). These labels included, amongst others, the search for approval, the moral judgement of the character and his actions, the connection to personal experiences, varying degrees of self-reflexion, physical descriptions and references to the actor and his previous roles. In a second round of axial coding, these labels were connected and grouped into six themes: validation, knowledge,
themes allowed for the emergence of three interpretative repertoires, which were then linked back to the original comments. As both Twitter and YouTube are social media platforms that can be accessed without registration, the comments analyzed for this thesis are considered to be in the public sphere – and were therefore not anonymized.
The three interpretative repertoires – Experience , Fantasy and Embodiment – which will be discussed in detail in the following chapters, represent different strategies viewers employ to understand and explain their love for the series and its questionable main protagonist. Following Potter and Wetherell, within audience research interpretative repertoires can be understood as “the building blocks speakers use for constructing versions of actions, cognitive processes and other phenomena” (1988, 172). The interpretative repertoires Experience , Fantasy and
Embodiment discussed in this thesis, then, represent the strategies viewers of the series
employ to construct ‘acceptable’ models of their positive reactions to the series in the online setting.
1.4 Chapter Outline
Following this introduction, the second chapter will focus on the first repertoire, which I have termed Experience . The comments in this repertoire place the fictional events of the series in relation to the lived and shared experiences of the viewers – both in regards to television
viewing and dating in the 21st century. Drawing on different notions of experience to arrive at realism judgements takes on a social component within this repertoire: Personal and larger cultural experience function as a vehicle to emphasize a knowledgeable position as well as to create connections with others, thus being emblematic of the belongingness afforded by television. At the same time, the shared aspect of these experiences can be understood as a strategy to both validate the private attraction to the series protagonist and deflect judgement in the public online sphere.
The third chapter will focus on the Romance repertoire, which expands on the notion of shared attraction and approval by linking the interpretation of the main character to the ideal of the (literary) romantic hero. Considering the positioning of the series between romance and psychological thriller, the comments within this repertoire reflect the viewers' negotiation of the tension between contrasting genre conventions. Supported by both the romantic tropes embedded in the narrative – both in terms of aesthetics and storytelling – and the continuous voice-over through the character of Joe Goldberg, the comments within this repertoire are exemplary of a ‘selective reading’ that privileges the romantic intentions of the character while de-emphasizing his violent actions, thus providing a further acceptable explanation for ‘rooting for the bad guy’.
The fourth chapter further expands the romanticization of the character’s action through the repertoire Embodiment , in which viewers highlight different aspects of the body – from physical attributes to the embodied performance of the actor – to interrogate questions of monstrosity and morality through the visuality of the body. In addition to the romanticization of the character’s interior motives, then, this emphasis on an attractive and non-threatening appearance functions as another explanatory strategy to interrogate the attraction to the questionable character following the psychological concept of the physical attraction stereotype. At the same time independent and intrinsically linked, these three interpretative repertoires highlight how viewers are engaged in practices of meaning-making that are aware of, but do not necessarily follow an ‘intended’ reading by the producers of popular culture, which will be discussed further in the conclusion of this thesis.
2. Of Private Attraction and Public Approval: Negotiating Experiences 2.1 Theoretical Framework: Realism
“One key element of an enjoyable media experience is that it takes individuals away from their mundane reality and into a story world” (2004, 311), Melanie Green, Timothy Brock and Geoff Kaufman argue through an analogy to the experience of physical travel. In this understanding, media enjoyment is based on the transportation – absorption – into a fictional world that is decidedly separate from the everyday. Mentioning horror stories as well as melodrama, Green, Brock and Kaufman note that these fictional worlds do not need to be strictly positive: “The enjoyment of a transportation experience, thus, does not necessarily lie in the valence of the emotions evoked by a narrative, but in the process of temporarily leaving one’s reality behind and emerging from the experience somehow different from the person one was before entering the milieu of the narrative” (2004, 315). Although agreeing with the potential of narrative transportation, this chapter will propose a somewhat different connection between reality and fictionality: drawing on the concept of perceived realism functions as an emphasis of the link between transportation – and the enjoyment of fictional narratives as a result – and lived experiences. Instead of leaving reality behind when entering a fictional world, our experiences of reality rather inform and shape the experience of narratives.
Using both ‘fitting’ commercials screened before or between fictional narratives as well as the use of real-world-detective norms in crime fiction, John Fiske argues that “the self-contained universe of classical realism is neither contained nor sufficient; the narrative crosses into the everyday world of the viewer and requires a connection with this world to complete it” (1990, 133). The permeability of boundaries, then, allows viewers to draw connections between the narrative and their own experience – which is in turn informed by realism judgements. Realism, here, does not (merely) imply factuality. As “complex and sophisticated processes of comparison and contrast” (Shapiro et al. 2010, 275), judging realism becomes multidimensional. According to the communication studies research conducted by Alice Hall, viewers perceive realism in media texts “as plausibility, as typicality or representativeness, as factuality, as emotional involvement, as narrative consistency, and as perceptual persuasiveness” (2003, 629), with plausibility being understood as something that could happen in reality, typicality as something that could happen to everyone, factuality as the portrayal of specific real-world persons/events, emotional involvement as the potential to relate to the narrative, narrative consistency as an internal coherence and perceptual persuasiveness as the creation of a compelling illusion. What makes Hall’s approach especially interesting for the purposes of this thesis is the adaptability of these markers of realism: Instead of arguing for
an either/or, these terms can be understood through a language of more/less, thus both demanding and affording a constant re-negotiation.
As a disclaimer: This thesis does not focus on the consequences – in terms of persuasion or attitude changes – often related to transportation, realism or identification from both psychological as well as communication theory perspectives, but rather on the experience in itself. Drawing on Michael Shapiro, Claudia Barriga and Jordana Beren’s argument that “judgments of realism predict reactions to stories themselves” (2010, 275), understanding how viewers arrive at these judgements – and how they navigate them in private/public settings shifts into focus. This chapter will argue that viewers draw on different notions of experience – television viewing as shared experience, individual experience and an emphasis on an experienced cultural position – to arrive at realism judgements, and thus explain their enjoyment of the series discussed here. In this regard, the comments within the Experience repertoire tie together everyday experiences with fictional narratives through an active process of en/decoding. As Stuart Hall has argued, “it is this set of decoded meanings which ‘have an effect’, influence, entertain, instruct or persuade, with very complex perceptual, cognitive, emotional, ideological or behavioural consequences” (1999, 509).
Drawing on Marshall McLuhan's differentiation between ‘hot’ and ‘cool’ media, John Fiske and John Hartley conclude “television, a cool medium, gives its audience plenty to do. This view accords with our suggestion earlier that the television message is made meaningful only at the moment when the semiotic codes interlock with the cultural awareness supplied by the viewer, whose own context will play a part in shaping that cultural awareness” (1978, 98). In an attempt to define realism in relation to television, Smith similarly concludes that “realism is both individual and shared. It is not ‘natural’; it is something that people do” (2017, 166). This notion of ‘doing’ in both accounts does not only infer an active position of television viewership, but also takes on a social component: Despite their differences, I will argue that all three links to experience to be discussed in this chapter ultimately follow the same goal of establishing a sense of connection and belonging among viewers. Realism, then, does not signify an inability to distinguish between the ‘real’ and the ‘fictional’, but rather the ability to read the televisual text through its resonances with shared experiences of everyday life.
2.2 “But I feel for him, ya know?” – Private Attraction as Shared Experience
In an experimental study, Jaye Derrick, Shira Gabriel and Kurt Hugenberg found that “belongingness needs to elicit high frequencies of self-reported consumption of favorite television programs, and that self-reported feelings of loneliness are minimized when watching favorite television programs” (2009, 356). Television, then, can be understood as a social
experience as well – one that fulfills the fundamental human need of belonging – by connecting viewers with their favorite characters as well as other viewers. The adjective ‘favorite’ remains important in the study, as the results emphasize a difference between “a mere escapism via the consumption of other televised media” (2009, 358) and the effects of belonging experienced when viewing beloved programs. What is considered ‘beloved’, however, appears to be constantly shifting. Drawing on characters like Daredevil and Dexter ’s Dexter Morgan as examples of a new type of anti-hero, Ashley Donelly argues that in the early 2000s, “a new line needed to be drawn between good and bad violence, thus a new fixation on vigilante justice emerged in popular media” (2012, 25). Joe Goldberg, however, does not follow this characterization as a ‘vigilante’: His actions are not necessarily directed at an objective injustice, but rather a subjective one – instead of punishing the ones who wronged society as the vigilante anti-hero does, the aggression of Joe Goldberg is directed at the ones who have personally wronged him or the ones he loves. I would argue that the absence of a larger redeeming storyline and motivation behind the character’s actions in turn fuels the viewers’ need to interrogate their private attraction. Within the Experience repertoire, this is achieved through an emphasis on the ‘shared’ experience of both viewing the series and identifying with the main character.
“Watching @YouNetflix and wondering why I’m attracted to this freaking maniac! Tell me I’m not the only one?! Gotta love a bad guy #YouNetflix” – @lauradooley_NI
“So am I the only psycho who actually likes Joe from #netflixYOU” – @EstiLyssa
“Does anyone else find joe/will attractive or do I just need help? #YouNetflix” – @MannieNorman
While acknowledging the questionability of their own attraction by calling themselves ‘psychos’ and potentially ‘needing help’, these comments are also connected through an undercurrent theme of shared experiences – of not being ‘the only one’ identifying with the main character. Jonathan Cohen explicitly links the experience of identification to an intentional design by the writers and producers of television, claiming that “unlike a purely psychological theory of identification or a conception linked to sociological notions of identifying with social groups or leaders, identification is defined here as a response to textual features that are intended to provoke identification” (2001, 251). Following this argumentation, by telling the story from the perspective of Joe Goldberg and overlaying the visual narrative with his voice-over, You explicitly invites identification with the character. At the same time, I would argue that precisely this identification – as an experience of the narrative through the narrating main character – in turn increases the viewers’ need to discuss this process in retrospect with others who have
made similar experiences. In Cohen’s conceptualization, “identification focuses on sharing the perspective of the character; feeling with the character, rather than about the character” (2001, 251). Juxtaposing spectatorship as a distanced mode of media reception and identification, Cohen argues that “identification is a mechanism through which audience members experience reception and interpretation of the text from the inside, as if the events were happening to them” (2001, 245), which in turn functions as a connective experience among viewers, something that has happened – or is happening – to not just the individual viewer, but can be sanctioned through the communality of this experience. In her discussion of the television experience, E. Ann Kaplan further adds an emotional dimension to processes of identification, as “along with desiring identity via identifying, we also desire emotional connectedness. Identity is constructed in the process of establishing emotional connection. We respond to being ‘hailed’ because the process of subject-formation offers both identity and emotional connectedness” (1989, 197). Asking for a confirmation of ‘not being the only one’, then, could be understood as both a strategy to contextualize as well as a deflection of moral judgement for identifying with an immoral main character.
Other comments within this repertoire are less apologetically phrased, but still represent an understanding of a shared experience. Understanding identification as an imaginative process of taking on another perspective, Cohen argues that “after someone identifies with a character, he or she may be aware of having been deeply absorbed in the text and be able to assess the degree to which he or she empathized with the character and was able to understand and share the characters’ feelings, goals, and perspective” (2001, 255). Similarly, Green et al. tie their understanding of transportation to identity play – the exploration and experimentation with other forms of self, “those that individuals might become, wish to become, or fear becoming” (2004, 318). Discussing the empathetic identification with a questionable character online could then be seen as a further attempt at assessing this experience. The comments analyzed here in this regard also reflect the understanding of fandom as both private and collective: Through their comments, the viewers are struggling with their ‘private’ admiration for the character of Joe Goldberg in a (partially) ‘public’ sphere.
"If you haven’t watched #NetflixYOU your missing out ,is JOE right ? for what he does for the one’s he Ioves or is he a psychopath.” – @4Nickyy
“Don't we all need a Joe #YouNetflix” – @b_khaleeesi
“I’m falling in love with Joe! Send help!” – @DudeAboveMeIs Gay “My boy is not bad he just does not meet the right people” – @Kaito .X .otaku
“Ik something was wrong with me when I agreed to everything Joe did ♀ #JoeGoldberg #YouNetflix” – @SoleilCherise
In their work on fandom, Brianna Dym and Casey Fiesler have argued that “there is a creeping sense among fans that private and public spaces online might be collapsing into one another” (2018). Expanding this understanding to also include casual viewers (who might not consider themselves fans or necessarily fit the implicit prerequisites of fandom) allows for a different view of public online spaces like Twitter and Youtube. As opposed to more anonymized fan spaces, for instance Tumblr or independent communities, interaction among virtual strangers with potentially differing opinions plays an important role on the open social media platforms discussed here. With a focus on words like ‘we’ and ‘you know’ and a broader direct address, it can be argued that the tweets within this repertoire are not just rhetoric tools to connect with others, but also a search for (public) approval by other viewers, urging them to either agree or ‘send help’. In the temporally and spatially dispersed post-television landscape, connecting with other viewers online thus takes on the role of the ‘watercooler talk’ as a way to reassess and re-evaluate the individual viewing experience. As Mareike Jenner argues, “these moments of socialising can happen online as one’s viewing behavior is shared on Facebook or tweeted. Thus, viewing behavior (and consumer behavior) is projected as part of one’s (online) identity and can be commented on by others” (2016, 268). As being ‘commented on by others’ implicitly also includes the possibility of being (negatively) judged in a public sphere that is online, but not necessarily anonymous, framing the private attraction for a questionable character as a shared experience thus becomes paramount to deflecting judgement. Through the repetition of similar sentiments in separate comments as well as the social interaction (in terms of likes, retweets and comments) with individual comments, the private, almost confessional nature of the examples discussed here changes into a connecting feature among viewers.
2.3. “I swear I was #beck in a psychotic relationship” – Connecting Fictional Events and Lived Reality
While emphasizing the shared experience of televisual viewing, there is also a theme connecting the narrative to specifically personal experiences – which in turn are framed as part of a larger societal and cultural reality. If “the delight of the narrative is its safety: the story-world, unlike dream worlds and the real world, is above all safe and nonthreatening” (Nell 2002, 17), the comments within this repertoire explicitly challenge this clear distinction. By drawing a connection between the characters and their actions on the screen to a lived reality, the ‘safety’ of the narrative is questioned – while at the same time further underlining the perceived realism
of the series. In Hall’s experimental study, “personal experience not only served as evidence, but also established a standard to which specific media portrayals were compared” (Hall 2003, 631), which is reflected within this repertoire. Following the argument that “the viewer supplies the conditions, both semiotic and social, under which any specific message becomes meaningful” (Fiske and Hartley 1978, 100), the direct relation of the behaviors of the character on the screen to off-screen experiences adds additional meaning – and importance – for both the writers and readers of these comments.
“Omg I’m just now watching #YouNetflix & I swear I was #beck in a psychotic relationship” – @quiiannaa1
“i dated joe from You for almost a year and i don’t know how i didnt end up like beck💀 #YouNetflix” – @draculuve
“So today I saw the guy that used to stalk me 24/7 in high school and my anxiety said 📈📈📈 #JoeGoldberg” – @monica_kristal
“I should probably be concerned about my boyfriend... @PennBadgley #YouNetflix” – @stephplusverb
“When you keep falling for toxic boys #joegoldberg” – @sarahstarlightx
“Got some stalkers don’t know if I should be scared or flattered #joegoldberg?” – @pieceorea
With exclamations like ‘I swear I was #beck in a psychotic relationship’ and ‘I don’t know how I didn’t end up like beck’, the commentators appear to make sense of their experiences through the narrative – and in turn find a language to share those experiences with others. In this regard, the comments within this repertoire also blur the boundary between the (scary) portrayal of a fictional relationship and the real fears and concerns in the lives of the viewers. Interestingly though, viewers drawing on this repertoire do not just relate to the narratives by sharing their experiences as victims, but also by emphasizing their similarities to the main character of the series. As “the serial killer, arguably, is not simply someone that evokes our fears of being killed, but he/she also makes us fear the Otherness within ourselves as a society and as individuals” (Donnelly 2012, 19), addressing this fear becomes a significant process of connection among viewers.
“I suck at dating cause once i like you .. i turn in to Joe nfs 😭😭 #YouNetflix” – @crownkeyy
“Not to be dramatic but being ignored realllllllllyyyy triggers my inner Joe Goldberg #YouNetflix #YouSeasonTwo” –
@netflixyoumemes
“Being ignored really triggers the Joe in me. 😓🙄 #YouNetflix” – @neenahc2
“You know Joe from ‘YOU’ on Netflix. I be like that sometimes. #you #netfilx #netflixyou” – @berriesofficia1
While hinting at a somewhat critical – read: acknowledging – understanding of the problematic of this behavior, the comments within this repertoire could also be seen as part of the normalization of questionable dating behavior. As Jay Bamber argues, “You is tantalising television; sexy and sophisticated, pulpy and poetic, but where it distinguishes itself from other slick YA television is in its genuinely insightful unpacking of the ways in which threatening (male) behavior has been packaged by society as 'normal' dating practises” (2019). Independent of the individual positions of the commentators, the comments surrounding the show thereby function as a gateway to discussing broader questions of contemporary dating practices, toxic masculinity as well as notions of privacy and intimacy in a time in which everyone and everything is ‘public’ online. While acknowledging the fictionality of the narrative, what is happening on the screen seems to be real(istic) for the viewers drawing on this repertoire – especially if we understand realism as corresponding “to the way we currently perceive the world” (Fiske and Hartley 1978, 128). In an experimental study testing Hall’s hypotheses, Hyunyi Cho et al. came to the conclusion that “plausibility, the most fundamental form of perceived realism, is necessary to stimulate the audience’s emotional involvement in narrative messages in addition to perceptual quality and narrative consistency” (2014, 843). The reference to shared experiences – both in terms of personal experiences and conceptions of cultural phenomena – within the comments correspondingly reflects both the plausibility and the affective dimension of the fictional narrative:
“I know this is a fictional show but it gave me something to think about: we play a dangerous game when we fuc* w
peoples emotions. #YouNetflix” – @SUNOalumni06
“The #creepy thing is that this guy actually exists in real life. Makes people rethink their #socialmedia sharing! #YouNetflix
#JoeGoldberg #stalker” – @MyGirlKeto
“#YouNetflix is so messed up!! Like so messed up! Is there no normal guys out there?!!!” – @SophieKathir
“Its funny how Joe tries to pretend like hes happier in a better place w the safer, less problematic Karen but still longs for (and attempts to deny it) the skanky, slightly dishonest, troublesome Beck. How many times have we (including myself)
done this in our lives? #YouNetflix” – @SUNOalumni06
“Is there a penalty for lying and manipulating to break someone's heart? I guess I suck at choosing the good guys, but
I'm good at spotting the bad guys. #YouNetflix” – @ShroukE23856697
Again, the link to an experienced reality is emphasized by expressions like ‘in real life’, ‘we (including myself)’ and ‘we play a dangerous game’, thus hinting at the fictional narrative hitting a nerve in the demographic of the social media active viewers of the show. Understanding the series as representative of a larger cultural phenomenon rather than an individual experience,
thus appears to shape the judgement of plausibility. The repeated references to ‘guys out there’ and ‘good boys’ vs. ‘bad boys’ also hints at another shared experience among the viewers: toxic masculinity. Through both the romanticization of his actions, which will be the focus of the next chapter, and an inherent self-understanding as one of the ‘good guys’, Joe Goldberg apparently opposes conceptions of toxic masculinity – or, as journalist Roisin Lanigan puts it: "He projects the persona of the anti-fuckboi" (2019). In an exemplary scene from the first season, the character muses "Sometimes I swear I’m the only real feminist you know”, thus arguably voicing the most direct contrast to a masculinity “that glorifies stoicism, strength, virility, and dominance, and that is socially maladaptive or harmful to mental health” (“Toxic Masculinity” 2020). Ultimately, hower, the series contrasts the character’s “supposedly feminist-leaning sensibilities with his obsession", making visible "just how easily some misogynists can conceal their beliefs" (Giorgis 2019). The attempts of Joe Goldberg to dominate the lives of those he aims to ‘protect’, reflect toxic behavior both in mental terms through following, manipulating and ultimately taking over their social (media) life, as well as in physical terms by literally imprisoning them in an inescapable glass box. Although this – in all but one instance deadly – imprisonment takes controlling behavior to an extreme, the underlying characteristics of toxic masculinity nonetheless appear to resonate with the lived experiences of the viewers.
Experience, in this context, is not only addressed in retrospect, but also present- or even future-oriented. As Fiske argues, “once the narrative shifts into the everyday, closure itself is called into question, for the stories by which we live and make sense of our lives are always in process: they are constantly retold and redesigned to fit contemporary needs” (Fiske 1990, 138). Recognizing the ‘reality’ of the events depicted on the series does not only function as a retrospective acknowledgment, but also takes on the form of a warning – which in turn appears to shape future experiences as a response to ‘contemporary needs’. In this regard, the comments within the show echo the realization of Guinevere Beck in the last episode: Writing about her relationship with the series’ protagonist – and her relationships with men in general – while being locked in the glass prison, she concludes: “You learned you didn’t have whatever magic turned a beast into a prince [...] Now in his castle you understand: Prince Charming and Bluebeard are the same man”. The comments within this repertoire follow this understanding of both the viewer experiences and the series itself as a cautionary tale, in which fairytale fantasies and real-world experiences might be quite different:
“2 days ago I was living my best life, carefree, a lol stress about school and shit. Today, after 15 episodes of #YouNetflix i’m becoming so paranoid and seeing everybody from joe’s perspective HELP LMAO” – @AmeliaNicholss
“The show #YouNetflix is one reason why I stopped posting on Instagram & other social media sites” – @tiny_dancer_26
“Does anyone else keep seeing Self Storage places differently since watching #YouNetflix series 2? Every time I pass one I wonder who’s being held hostage inside” – @ShellyAsquith
“Got a text from an unknown phone number this morning. I can only assume it’s Joe Goldberg, right? #You #JoeGoldberg” –
@oh_lalalivia
Framing the series as the reason for ‘becoming so paranoid’ and ‘starting to get trust issues’, these comments perceive the narrative as realistic to such an extent that they are willing to adapt their (online) behavior. While this notion of a direct learning experience might be one strategy to deal with the tension between fictional events and real experiences, especially the last comments hints at yet another approach: humor.
2.4 “I REAL LIVE said ‘what in the Joe?’” – Sharing Humor and Disbelief
In his discussion of topical humor on Twitter, Tim Highfield concludes that “as a joke attracts more attention, other users may look upon these tweets as a means to receiving additional retweets and followers themselves” (2015, 2728). Within the networked logic of social media, then, humor becomes a vehicle to increase the reach of one’s comments – and thereby the connection to a broader audience. Through an emphasis on humor as a form of shared culture, the repertoire discussed in this chapter takes on another dimension. As another strategy of connection and shared value creation, the comments placed within this interpretative repertoire also encompass content fitting an understanding of meme culture. In their discussion of spreadable media, Jenkins, Green and Forn claim “content spreads, then, when it acts as fodder for conversations that audiences are already having” (2013, 199). In this context, the following tweets add a humorous layer to the online discussion about the character:
“Hats are the best. Bad hair day? Put on a hat. Sun in your eyes? Wear a hat. Need a disguise to stalk your girlfriend after you just killed her best friend? Put on a hat #joegoldberg” – @Rbcca_Pwll
“Day 1764 of Being Single: I’m reconsidering my method of approach. Might try the ‘Joe Goldberg’ method ♂ #YouNetflix” –
@jqdising
“I seem to have misplaced my favourite pair of panties. Should I be worried? Do I have my own Joe Goldberg? #YouNetflix” – @petitelua
“This dude just asked me for my address. I REAL LIVE said “what in the Joe?” 😂😂😂 #YouNetflix” – @MissShaReCee
“Joe Goldberg be texting back and making phone calls while killing people. Don't settle for less ladies. If he loves you he will text you back. Lol #YouNetflix #you #PennBadgley” – @radhapriyanka4
“Joe: Anything for you Beck! Joe: Anything for you Love! Anybody to me ever: I can’t! @YouNetflix #JoeGoldberg” – @Aa_kassey
Representative of the potential appropriation of punchlines Highfield analyzes in his research (2015, 278), these comments follow the logic and structure of a variety of online memes. As humorous exaggerations, the almost too-real-seeming experiences discussed in the previous section somewhat lose their threatening nature. Instead of foregrounding the representativeness of the series for a lived reality, the potential meaning of these narratives is turned around: Expressions like ‘Don’t settle for less ladies’ and ‘Might try the Joe Goldberg method’, then, appear disarming. More than a mere ploy to increase follower numbers, I would argue that the creation and publication of online memes do not just qualify as a labor of fan love, but also function as another emphasis on the shared experience of watching – and loving – the television series and its main character. After all, these comments will only be funny to those who can relate – through a pop cultural knowledge of the series as well as an understanding of the lived experiences fictionalized within the series.
While humorous exaggeration can be seen as one strategy to deflect and disarm the perceived realism of the series, disbelief appears to be another one. When judging realism, viewers draw on “knowledge of the typical ways television presents stories, as well as direct and indirect experience of the world to make realism judgments about what is seen on television” (Shapiro et al. 2010, 275). Following this argumentation, a discrepancy between personal experience and the narrative portrayed in the series as well as a discrepancy to established televisual conventions will result in viewers judging a fictional narrative as unrealistic. Here, the notion of narrative consistency in the sense of “realistic programming that is internally coherent, that doesn’t contradict itself, and leaves nothing jarringly unexplained” (Hall 2003, 636) returns. Even considering the rules and affordances of fictional narratives, what happens next – or rather what doesn’t happen – is experienced as disruption.
“How does nobody notice Joe? 😂 #YouNetflix” – @yeeitsken
“My entire take away from this first series is the bitter irony is that she would have been completely fine if she had only bought some sodding curtains! Always get curtains no one can see through. Also, this is not a euphemism. #You #YouNetflix” –
@NiceQueenCersei
“Just started watching #YouNetflix Why are her windows wide open all the time? The lights inside are too bright. If you're a New Yorker, you're smarter than this -_-” – @ArthikaK
“So #YouNetflix is basically a clumsy #Dexter that just gets somehow lucky with all the things he do along the way. 🤔” –
A ‘clumsy Dexter’ getting away with his crimes as well as the naive behavior of the other characters – ‘If you’re a New Yorker, you’re smarter than this’ – result in a sense of disbelief within these comments. Instead of linking the fictional narrative to a lived reality, the knowledge acquired in this lived reality rather places You decidedly in the realm of fiction, and an unrealistic one at that. In this regard, comments within this repertoire also explicitly emphasize the discrepancies between their own experiences – and a presumed contemporary experience – and the narrative. Considering Shapiro et al.’s emphasis on televisual experience as one type of acquired knowledge, the absence of clear genre definition of the series – as discussed in the introduction – comes to mind again. While “the progress of detective fiction in general is one that goes from order disrupted to order re-established” (Santaulària 2007, 55), the format of You is clearly deviating from this logic. In the most extreme response to the notion of disbelief then, viewers explicitly demand this re-establishment of order:
“F*cking ending. #NetflixYOU #NoJustice” – @FreakyrobinL
“Pls tell me there’s going to be some justice and he ends up in prison. We have enough white guys getting away with stuff in reality” – @Linda Candy
“Season three of ‘You’ should just be the Criminal Minds team trying to solve all of Joes murders #Netflix #YouNetflix” –
@JustinCOnTheAir
“Honestly Joe Goldberg constantly fucks up he deserves to get caught, send Dexter in to show him how it’s really done #you #joegoldberg #dexter” – @krissie2212
“Ever wonder what #joegoldberg would look like on #dexters table?” – @podaboutnada
Linking the portrayal of violence on television to questions of social power dynamics, George Gerbner and Larry Gross argue that “the symbolic representation of violence is also communication about social relationships and human types, about goals and means, about winners and losers, about the norms of society and the price for transgression, about the risks of life, and about a variety of other messages – most of them dealing with who gets away with what, when, how, why, and against whom, and demonstrating some aspect of social typing and the exercise of power” (1974, 4). Calling for a fictionalized justice, enacted through other fictional characters – like Dexter ’s serial killing main character Dexter Morgan or the forensic specialists of Criminal Minds – thereby connects the conceptual understanding of relative realism (Shapiro et al. 2012) with the shared knowledge of a television viewing audience, while at the same time functioning as a deflection of judgement for potentially liking the series ‘too much’.
2.5 Conclusion
“We watch the monstrous spectacle of the horror film because we know that the cinema is a temporary place, that the jolting sensuousness of the celluloid images will be followed by reentry into the world of comfort and light” (1996, 17), Cohen offers as an explanation for our enjoyment of monstrosity in the cinema. What, then, does this mean for the experience of viewing monstrosity on the television screen – in a setting where the lights figuratively remain on and our attention is constantly divided between the actions on the screen and the ones around us? As this chapter has argued, the enjoyment of fictional televisual narratives is tied to an active and shared process of realism judgements: Viewers drawing on the Experience repertoire place the fictional events of the series in relation to their lived experiences in both personal terms and larger cultural phenomena – with the notion of ‘realness’ being an important one throughout different lines of argumentation.
Through an emphasis on the shared experience of television viewership, the private attraction to a morally questionable character becomes a site for public approval. As Hall has argued, “even when audience members are watching a TV program or movie alone, they are interpreting it through criteria they have developed through interactions with others” (2003, 638). Interacting and negotiating meaning through online discussion thus becomes a strategy to assess the individual experience of streaming a series like Netflix’s You in a post-television landscape. From a social psychology perspective, Derrick et al. have argued “that seemingly asocial human technologies, such as television, can actually serve a social function” (2009, 361). Introducing the term ‘social surrogacy’, the researchers draw on an experimental study design to show how “humans can use technologies, such as television, to provide the experience of belonging” (2009, 360), which in turn potentially allows for a broader sense of belonging by connecting with other viewers – as exclamations like ‘Tell me I’m not the only one’ suggest. At the same time, the comments within this repertoire correspond to self-reflective discussions of so-called 'problematic faves' in fandom, which "provides space for fans to love a text even while admitting its representational problems" (Salter 2020, 144), through a shared deflection of moral judgements.
According to Derrick et al. “television programming, particularly reliably-followed favorite programs, allows viewers the opportunity, week after week (or even day after day), to regularly immerse themselves in a narrative about a recognizable ‘social’ world in which familiar people, situations, landscapes, and events become intimate and comfortable” (2009, 353). In addition to acknowledging the shared experience of viewership, the comments within this repertoire interrogate this notion of a ‘recognizable social world’ by drawing connections between the
fictional narrative and their real-life experiences. Emphasizing a knowledgeable position through their personal knowledge as well as an awareness of televisual conventions thus functions as a strategy to navigate intense responses to the series. Arguing with and through lived experiences – in the sense of realism judgements – might in this regard also function as a strategy to distance themselves from their attraction. As Catherine Roach observes “to the ancient and perennial question of how to define and live the good life, how to achieve happiness and fulfillment, American pop culture’s resounding answer is through the narrative of romance, sex, and love" (2016, 3), the Experience repertoire emphasizes the complicated positioning of the series as a ‘narrative of romance, sex and love’. While this repertoire functions as an acknowledgement of fan love for ‘unloveable’ characters, the following two repertoires validate this love by providing (equally public) explanations: The romantic – and therefore morally good – intentions behind the character’s actions, which will be the focus of the following chapter, and the emphasis on physical appearance as a diversion from monstrosity, which will be discussed in the fourth chapter. Following Potter and Wetherell’s understanding that “people do things with their discourse: they make accusations, ask questions, justify their conduct and so on" (1988, 169), the way viewers draw on these different interpretative repertoires helps us to understand online discussions as a productive space to interrogate the questions of masculinity, power and emotions. If “specific emotional experiences and outcomes are also, to some degree, shaped by our ideas about emotion, particularly by our emotion prototypes and our prototype narratives” (Hogan 2003, 242), interrogating which underlying prototypes are drawn on in a shared experience of television viewing will be the focus of the next chapters.
