The manly version of a female detective
A qualitative study of the protagonists of the shows The Killing and The Bridge
and their struggle with masculine and feminine traits.
University of Amsterdam Master Thesis
Television and Cross-Media Culture Caroline Recter, 10074732
First Reader: Dhr. Dr. Jaap Kooijman Second Reader: Mw. Dr. Leonie Schmidt Words: 17303
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ABSTRACT
Although there are many different fictional detectives, most have the same foundation when it comes to personality and behavior. They are highly intelligent, have an enormous drive to solve cases, and are rational and unemotional when it comes to their profession. While these traits traditionally are contributed to the male fictional detective, nowadays these traits are also taken over by female fictional detectives. Originally, women are not portrayed in this way, as they are predominantly shown as housewives and mothers who have to take care of their children. Furthermore, they are seen as emotional and caring, which are ‘feminine’ characteristics that do not match with the ‘masculine’ ones of the fictional detective. Because of their detective skills, many female fictional detectives have trouble in succeeding in their private life, and fail thus in the combination between work and home.
In this thesis, two Scandinavian series The Killing and The Bridge are analyzed on this struggle between professional success and private failure by examining all episodes of both series on various aspects. An overview of the analyzed episodes is presented in the appendix. It appears that both female protagonists have many characteristics related to ‘masculinity’, what helps them in their professional life. Moreover, in both series the female protagonists are presented as equal to their male colleagues, making them relatively unique in the detective genre. However, the failure in combining their professional success with a private life is still present, bringing to the foreground the struggle between the ‘masculine’ character of their professional world and the ‘feminine’ character of their private and personal world.
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Table of Contents
Introduction 4
Chapter 1 – Book, TV and film detectives throughout the years 8
1.1) In literature 8
1.2) On television 12
1.3) Female detectives on television 13
1.4) Conclusion 16
Chapter 2 – The female stereotype in professional and private life 18
2.1) Stereotyping 18
2.2) Mothers 19
2.3) The professional life in relationship with the private life 22 2.4) Female detectives and their role in the family and in their career 24
2.5) Conclusion 25
Chapter 3 – The Scandinavian detectives 27
3.1) The two protagonists 28
3.2) Their professional life 31
3.3) Their private life 34
3.4) Conclusion 38
Conclusion: The Killing and The Bridge transcending? 40
Work cited 43
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Introduction
“He's got to know botany, geology, ballistics, medicine, chemistry, literature, engineering. If he knows facts—that ash with a high strontium content probably came from a highway flare, that faca is Portuguese for ‘knife’, that Ethiopian diners use no utensils and eat with their right hands exclusively, that a slug with five land-and-groove rifling marks, right twist, could not have been fired by a Colt pistol--if he knows these things he may just make the connection that places the [unknown subject] at the crime scene.” (Deaver 120)
The above quote describes the necessary characteristics of a detective. The detective is an all-knowing figure that has specific skills to identify the killer. A detective must be capable to “narrow down the social and geographical location of the killer as well as his psychological make-up with the support of evidence” (qtd in Gates 45). This evidence, also known as clues, are “possible indicators of the hidden story of the criminal” and are connected with the crime scene in the form of footprints and objects near a dead body or around a murder scene (Hühn 454). Because everything can be a clue, the world of the detective transforms during the case into a world of possible signs; a man walking across the street, cars parked wrong in the parking lot or a suspicious character leaving a bar. All these clues help to create a “systematic development of the detective’s interpretive operations” (Hühn 455), through which he uses different frames and hypotheses to interpret the most important information (Hühn 455). When he succeeds, the detective has the ability to break through the suggestive context of the evidence and to search for the unorthodox connection between different clues.
Originally, this fictional detective in novels was a man living in a world surrounded by male criminals and police officers. A woman was never around, as she was considered a distracting from the case. Even though the female detective was introduced in a later stage, she continued to play a role in a men’s world as the surroundings of male criminals and police officers stayed the same. This meant that these women needed to succeed in the center of a man’s world of criminals and police officers. In their new role as protagonists, Gates discovered two main ‘problems’ in creating a positive and reliable image of the female in this genre (49). One is the “over-identification between the heroine and the victim”, which means that the female detective is also often the victim of the criminals she hunts down (Gates 49). This creates a victimization of the character, which does not benefit her overall image. The other “problem” concerning the persona of the female detectives is the development of masculinization in order to succeed in a masculine environment (Gates 49). Where male
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protagonists are mainly focusing on “investigating the masculinity of the hero”, the female detectives additionally are struggling with balancing their personal life with their professional life (Gates 49).
This struggle illustrates the main point of this thesis, as the problem of combining a professional and private life of two female detectives in television series is being examined through an in-depth analysis of the series’ episodes. The series examined in the thesis are the Scandinavian series The Bridge (FX, 2013-) and The Killing (DR, 2007-2012) with the female protagonists Saga Norén and Sarah Lund, respectively. Both protagonists face, during the seasons, multiple problems between the private and professional life. These lives contradict with each other due to the different typical characteristics of a mother/housewife and a detective in fictional television series. The term mother does not only refer to her being an actual mother, but also to aspects of traditional representation of womanhood like maternal characteristics such as caring for others and being emotionally concerned. Moreover, they are portrayed as domesticated, subordinate women who are always inferior to their family, husband and surroundings.
These qualities are in stark contrast with the qualities that are necessary for a fictional detective. Intelligence, rationality and emotionless behavior are typical characteristics of a detective, as described in literature. The character of Sherlock Holmes is an excellent example of a man who follows these particular aspects. Amy Griswold describes in her paper how Holmes represents an excellent detective (5). Holmes present an ultimate detective based on his deduction skills and intelligence but also because of his supremely masculine behavior, mostly due to his ability to “face some psychical danger without fear for their personal safety” (Griswold 5). Together with his masculine appearance as tall and slim, Holmes is an idealized detective mainly because of these qualities related to ‘masculinity’. According to Sims, Sherlock Holmes can also be such a good detective because he is “unmarried and as a loner dedicated to his mission”; his missing personal life entails him to act properly as a detective (9). For a male character, the absence of having a personal life is accepted because the stereotypical man seems more dominant, and is able put his private life on hold for his job. For the fictional female detective however, these characteristics cause a difficult situation. On the one hand, a female detective needs to focus on her private life, as that is her traditional female position. On the other hand, in order to properly act as a detective, she needs to limit her engagement with her private life, as it limits her ability to do her job. As stated above, this friction is exemplified by two Scandinavian series The Killing and The Bridge. Both series are critically acclaimed and have won multiple prizes such as Best
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European Drama series (2014; The Bridge) and a BAFTA for Best International TV series (2011; The Killing). Scandinavian series are known for their dark take on the detective genre, in which suspense is central and are often praised for their portrayal of their female leads, with The Killing and The Bridge as the two mostly cited (Gray 2014; Agger 43).
In The Killing and The Bridge respectively, Sarah Lund and Saga Norén are followed during their investigations. Both are detectives in a police department and are considered good in their jobs. In both series, the episodes focus on one particular story case that is spread throughout the entire season. In The Killing, additionally to Sarah Lund’s investigation, there is an alternative storyline that involves political complications of the crime committed as well as storylines of suspects and witnesses. According to Agger, this direct link between politics and crime is innovative in this genre, because it is a combination that rarely is been used in police series (45). The Bridge does not display explicitly political scenes but is set in two countries: Denmark and Sweden, as murders are committed in both countries. Most of the stories take place in Malmö, with interplay of scenes displayed in the Copenhagen police force. Both shows have a high pace, with plot twists, murders and kidnappings following each other at high speed. Because of the highly praised plots, high ratings, the familiarity of the shows and as well as their known progressiveness in portraying female leads, both series are interesting examples in showing the struggle between the professional life and personal life as a female detective on television. Therefore, this thesis will attempt to investigate: To what extend do The Killing and The Bridge break with this struggle between their professional and personal life as a female detective?
To answer this, all 60 episodes of The Killing and The Bridge are being examined, as showed in the appendix. In this appendix, the most important scenes of all episodes are highlighted through a system of four sections that present characteristics of the fictional detectives Saga and Lund. The four sections are based on characteristics or positions that are allegedly assigned to masculine and feminine characters, and consist firstly of the professional and private aspects of both fictional detectives, and secondly on their emotional and rational behavior as constructed by the series. By creating these four propositions, the characteristics of both female detectives are highlighted and compared to fully understand the relationship between professional and rational (features assigned to ‘masculinity’) and private and emotional (features assigned to “femininity”) and how both shows deal with these particular aspects. In the appendix, all seasons of the shows are discussed with The Killing consisting of three seasons with 40 episodes and The Bridge has two seasons with a total of 20 episodes, with another season coming up in 2015. Both the characters of Sarah Lund and
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Saga Norén develop throughout the series in different ways in their field of expertise, their personal life and their personalities. After looking at all the scenes, I have broken down the most important moments in the series per scene in the appendix to get an overview of the key scenes that address the tension between the ‘masculine’ characteristics of the professional life and the ‘feminine’ characteristics of the domestic private life throughout the series. Based on these findings and the literature, the characteristics of Lund and Saga are reviewed to understand the particular relationship of being a woman in a field where masculine qualities are required and more masculine in a field where feminine qualities are required.
This qualitative analysis starts with a theoretical framework to support the analysis of both characters of the series. The first chapter is an overview about the characteristics of a detective in novels and on television. This chapter will describe which traits are assigned to a detective and how these traits are useful in the effectiveness of the fictional detective. Moreover, it relates detective qualities to masculine qualities and how they are affective in fighting crime. These characteristics are then assigned to female detectives and how women, throughout the years, have been represented in novels and on television. In the second chapter, the characteristics assigned to feminine qualities of fictional female characters on television are being reviewed through two different aspects: their professional life and their private life. The aim of this chapter is to generate information about how women are represented on television. As these two chapters both illustrate different masculine and feminine representations on television, the next chapter will focus on the character development of Saga and Lund. Instead of exploring particular scenes, the analysis explores a wider range of episodes to fully understand the impact of the representation of female detectives on television and how these particular series deal with this problem. As told above, the analysis is based on the appendix and how the relationships and behavior are constructed in the light of the female and male representation of fictional detectives. This thesis will conclude with a conclusion of how the shows display their main characters within the range of these stereotypes and if the image of the progressiveness within Scandinavian series can rightfully be allocated to Saga Norén and Sarah Lund.
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Chapter 1: Book, TV and film detectives throughout the years
“I mean, goddam. Cooking, fixing things, taking care of the car, paying the bills. You were just a regular man of the house when we were growing up. And then you became my daughter's father-if that does not take the cake. /.../ And I cannot compete with that.
I certainly cannot be her father. I will concede that you're more of a man
than I am. /…/ You win the hell out of that one hands down,” Dr. Scapetta (The Body Farm 249-250)
This quote is from the detective novel The Body Farm (1994) by Patricia Cornwell and describes the protagonist of the story, the female detective Kay Scarpetta. Her sister Dorothy says these words when confronted with the news that her only daughter, Lucy, is a lesbian. She accuses Scarpetta of influencing Lucy by her non-feminine way of living. According to Dorothy, she “fixes things, takes care of the car and pays the bills,” acting more like a father, than a mother or aunt. These masculine features are not only visible through her personal life, but also in her work environment. Scarpetta is a tough girl who “has an established authority” and years of experience (Sims 25). This makes her highly qualified for her job as a detective, which is confirmed by the approval of her (male) colleagues.
While the example displays a female detective; the detective genre is best known for its two most famous male detectives, Sherlock Holmes and Auguste Dupin, who are foundational for the representation of the detectives. In this chapter, the characteristics of a traditional detective are discussed, while looking closely into the female detectives in literature, like Kay Scarpetta. Furthermore, the transformation of detectives on the television screen and in literature is discussed and compared. The last part is an overview of the female detectives on television from the 1970s till the present, whereby the focus is on the friction of a female detective in a masculine genre, such as the detective genre. The main questions of this chapter focuses on how female detective are presented in literature and on television, and how much they differ from their male counterparts.
1). In literature
The detective genre is, according to Hühn, exceptional among narrative genres, because it “thematizes narrativity itself as a problem, a procedure, and an achievement” (451). A
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classical detective story conventionally conducts a reconstruction of a missing or hidden story (the crime) and the reconstruction process (the detection). Some key elements of the story are mostly hidden for the reader, at least at the beginning. The classic plot conventionally consists, more or less, of two separate stories that are intertwined in the narrative. First, the crime that happens in the beginning (the past), which consists of action. Second, the story of the investigation, which contains knowledge instead of action and merely happens in the present (Hühn 452). The traditional detective story conventionally consists with a stable order in which everything seems perfect. As the story continues, the “insoluble crime acts as a destabilizing event” (Hühn 452), whereby the State (the police) cannot control the situation. Therefore the detective arrives as an independent investigator who has to battle with the criminal to overcome justice; a battle he always wins. An essential feature of a detective novel is that the detective always succeeds in his mission, and therefore restores law (Romm 24).
The detective in the novels is most often a scientist who is determined to find the truth no matter what. He is a modern man who is an independent and free individual and therefore separated from the law, because he is not part of a police force. In his cases, the detective tries to recreate the crime by identifying with the criminal (Westlake 36). By doing so, the detective positions himself above the law as an outsider with special rights and duties that allow him to do unlawful things. This outsider behavior is also expressed by the detective’s strangeness, for example through physical disability or social eccentricity (Westlake 36). This “strangeness” is a traditional characteristic of a detective, as derived from the Dupin-Holmes tradition (named after two famous fictional detectives: Auguste Dupin by Edgar Allen Poe and Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle). Another feature related to detectives is having “a dual temperament, both creative and resolvent, combining the intuition of the poet with the analytical ability of the mathematician” (Grella 35). This extraordinary talent leads to magnificent deductive powers, “enabling him to reconstruct his companion’s chain of thought from a few penetrating physical observations,” which is very important for a detective (Grella 35). Therefore, the detective is an intellectual genius, which, combined with the personal eccentricity, creates a very special personality. Many of the fictional investigators share the same similar physical appearance, which is loosely based on the looks of Sherlock Holmes. They generally have a “hawk like profile”, and consistently a very tall, short, fat, thin or unusual attire appearance. Furthermore, the traditional detective is, just like Sherlock Holmes, involved in strange hobbies, has a rare interest or lifestyle, or possesses a “solitary of oral vices” that can include heavily eating, drinking or smoking (Grella 36). Additionally, the detective is completely concentrated on his duty, by which his personal life is almost always
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affected; they have few relatives and often no girlfriends or wives. As Romm argues: “any other role the detective might play (marriage, partner, parent, community member, etc.) is considered secondary” (24).
In the traditional detective story, the criminal is just as smart and keen as the detective. Only the criminal does not have the specific knowledge to know the restrictions of the law. The difference between the detective and the criminals consists of the assumption that the detective embodies the law, whereby the detectives “own conscience is the guarantor of his immunity” (Westlake 36). In the traditional detective genre, the detective is fixated on the criminal, but the criminal is also fixated on the detective; this relationship between the detective and the criminal becomes the central element of the novels (Westlake 36). This fixation forms a speculative novel, by which the reader, just like the detective in the book, needs to try to uncover the criminal. This creates a confusing story in which the reader just like the detective must solve multiple puzzles to discover the truth (Hühn 452).
In the traditional novel, the detective is male, with masculine characteristics that can be described as positive male features, an assumption that Amy Griswold further explains in her dissertation. Griswold traces different detectives in literature (Sherlock Holmes, Lord Peter Wimsey, Mike Hammer and Kate Martinelli) that are all set in a different eras. Griswold argues that “all of these detectives display the traditional traits of the Western male” (Griswold 146). She describes detectives as hunters for their goals. To accomplish those goals, detectives use different strategies, with different masculine characteristics (Griswold 146). This indicates that the detectives all display the ideal Western man on different levels. Sherlock Holmes, for example, uses his dominance in the field of intelligence and deduction as his masculine power. Lord Peter Wimsey is masculine because of his acting. He has not the intelligence of Sherlock, but he is from the army, is talented in sports and is a very strong man. Mike Hammer specializes in looking masculine, because he is “big, tall and powerfully built” (Griswold 146). All of the detectives in Griswold thesis have their own combination of detective skills and masculine characteristics. By specifying these personalities as their special talent, the masculine characteristics are positively highlighted and are centered in the specific character of a detective (Griswold 147). Raymond Chandler, quoted by Caroline Sims in her paper on contemporary woman in crime fiction, highlights the importance of positive masculine features (10). He describes a detective as: “A Hero, he is everything. He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an usual man. He must be the best man in the world and a good enough man for any world” (Sims 10).
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female detectives (Sims 11). As a result, the first female detectives in novels looked a lot like their male colleagues. Created by Agatha Christie in The Murder at the Vicarage from 1930, the female investigator Miss Marple was the “female equivalent to the rational Mr. Holmes” (Sims 11). She possessed a lot of allegedly masculine characteristics in a female body. She was clever, used deduction to come to conclusions and was “always a step ahead of the reader,” whereby “she used her charm to find out the information she needs” (Sims 11). She clearly was female, but mixed with a ‘masculine’ rationality. This phenomenon is also present in the Kate Martinelli books by Lauri R. King. She was a female detective around the 1990s. Again, she was female, but still merely showed her ‘masculine’ characteristics in her job and private life. She was a police officer, just like many of the detectives around that era (Griswold 116). For a police officer, masculine characteristics were required, as Griswold explained in her paper: “a police officer must be willing to face danger on a daily basis, to confront violent criminals bent on harming the innocent, moreover they have to be objective and unemotional and are not expected to have their own feelings” (166). These traits match with Martinelli’s main characteristics as she is “extremely ambitious” and works herself into a high function inside the police department. She has learnt to “control her emotions when confronted with the public” (Griswold 119). This masculine, emotionless behavior also affects her personal life. As mentioned before, the masculine detectives often do not have a personal life because they are too committed to their job. This aspect of the male detective is also woven into the lives of the female detective. Martinelli is “continually woken up by the phone in the middle of the night, leaves for work before dawn, and comes home in the wee hours” (Griswold 119). In the 1930s, Miss Marple is also a “rational spinster not wasted by engagement with family concerns”(Sims 11). For detectives family matters only distract from the job.
But there is one difference between the male and female detectives and that is that fictional male detectives can have a combination of intelligence and a handsome look, whereas, according to Sims, a female detective in the late 1970s and 1980s novels cannot have that specific combination. She concludes, “if a woman is portrayed as intelligent she cannot at the same time be beautiful” (Sims 11). However, the intelligence versus beauty idea did not occur in the books of Patricia Cornwell and her female detective Kay Scarpetta. She is described as “exaggeratedly exceptional due to her beauty in combination with her excessive professional competence” (Sims 12). Based on an analysis of two crime fiction novels with a female lead (Annie Cabot in Peter Robinson’s novels from 1999 and Kay Scarpetta in the books of Patricia Cornwell from 1990), Sims tries to investigate the character development of
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those leading ladies in comparison with their male counterparts. In this analysis, she has chosen three themes “where the definition and interpretation of gender roles have a change of becoming particularly visible” (Sims 6). Firstly, she looked into the role of women and power. Secondly, she focused on their private versus professional life. She ends with the question of rationality and weakness. After analyzing the novels, Sims concludes that both main female characters, Annie and Scarpetta, are portrayed as “alternative ways of being a woman” (47). They are not considered as the perfect wife or the loving mother, but as “free spirits” who both, just like the male detectives, chose work over their personal lives (Sims 47). By choosing this path, they are criticized by their friends, family and colleagues. Furthermore, both characters have enough masculine characteristics just to fit in the male dominant field of police work. They act rationally instead of emotionally, dress masculine, have a hard use of language and lastly behave rationally during crises (Sims 47). In conclusion, they are women but with an allegedly masculine personality. So, to be excellent detectives in novels, they have to have special detective skills mixed with masculine traits. This is not only for the male detectives but also needed for the feminine detectives. This means that they are mostly unemotional, rational and determined to find the truth. Because the detectives are so busy with their jobs, they are failing in having a personal life.
2) On television
There are some differences between the classic detective genre and the TV detective genre, which consists of four different features according to Westlake: “(a) the detective is mostly a cop, (b) his/her primary aim is to capture rather than unmasking, (c) the figure of the criminal is largely suppressed, (d) violence is emphasized” (37). In the television genre, the State is presented differently, because the detective is mostly part of the State because they are part of a police force. This means that the State is a more competent and reliable source than stated in the traditional genre (Westlake 37). Moreover, because the detectives do operate through a police force and not alone, they not only have to rely on their own conscience and knowledge, but also depend on the colleagues of the police. Additionally, the detective works most of the time, under a lieutenant at the department. For a detective, this makes it harder to explore the illegal side of the law without being noticed (Westlake 37). Also, the TV detective genre is about capturing the criminal, instead of a combination between unmasking and capturing. This means that the relationship between the criminal and the detective is mostly not as important in the TV genre; on television it is more about the process of providing evidence to capture the criminal than to unmasking.
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Overall, the criminals role is less important in the TV genre, and he is merely described as a psychopath, misfit or dumb instead of intelligent. The criminal acts irrationally, whereby the detective is seen as a hero (Westlake 37). Lastly, the detective TV genre is dominated by violence. This conclusion corresponds with the conclusion of the article about hyper masculinity and the macho male by Scharrer. He describes this character as a men who “eschews and even ridicules ‘soft-hearted’ emotions, celebrates and views as inevitable male physical aggression, blocks attempts by women or others to appeal to emotions by belittling sexual relations or women in general, and exhibits sensation-seeking behaviors that bring a welcome sense of vigor and thrill” (Scharrer 617). In his article, Scharrer examines the male characters in police and detective dramas from the 1970s up to the 1990s (630). A strong connection between “physical aggression/antisocial behaviors and hyper masculinity” was found in these dramas (Scharrer 630). As a result of this high level of aggression of both the criminal and the detective there is more violence on TV. Although these changes are visible in the TV genre, the basics of the detective genre are similar, only the surrounded components changed on television.
The detective himself survives the transition between literature and television. As Romm describes, they still consist of masculine features, mixed with a preference of strange hobbies and intelligence as their one true power (95). Romm, in her article about female detectives on television, adds some other features to this stereotypical detective, such as independence, assertiveness and physical aggressiveness as noticeable characteristics (95). Moreover, Romm considers TV detectives as “highly committed to their profession and are willing to sacrifice any other aspect of their life (wife, family) for it” (96). Just like the detectives in literature, they mostly have a special ‘power’, like deduction or strong masculine features. These powers do not change in television, where the detectives consist of having special techniques in their police backgrounds, like how to handle an interrogation or how to use weapons exceptionally (Romm 96). Lastly, similarly like the traditional detectives, the TV detectives usually also have an exceptional look or strange hobbies.
3) Female detectives on television
The discussion about femininity and masculinity in detective fiction is also accurate for detectives on television. As mentioned before, a female detective needs to show masculine behavior to fit in. But is it possible to create a new female detective stereotype that does not necessarily fit to an all-masculine personality? Which feminine features, and in addition, which elements of the stereotypical male detective hero, have to be or can be sacrificed in
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order to form a female detective on television? To explore these questions, Romm examined multiple detective series from the 1970s till the 1990s (97). The portrayal of detectives slightly differs from the female detective fiction in books, because the female detectives on TV of that time were exceptionally beautiful, while beauty was not featured in the literature. Apparently, “extraordinary beauty was a necessary attribute to the female detectives” (Romm 97). However, the biggest difference between female detectives in literature and early TV adaptations was that the female detectives on television were passive actors, who had an “inferior status in the knowledge hierarchy in their programs” (Romm 99). They depended on their colleagues, and they constantly asked for help. In their work environment, these women always had a male superior with whom they rarely disagree. In a way they were much more feminine than their colleges in the novels. Romm describes these three different findings in her research about 70’s female detectives series. She found that most female investigators never used violence in their job, had an inferior status and expressed more emotions like crying and laughing than their colleges (30).
But as the detective series developed during the years, did the female detective. Romm noticed two phenomena during this transformation (99). Firstly, the detective series with female leads disappeared completely during the 1980s and the 1990s, with one exception (Cagney & Lacey). Secondly, the representation of female detectives changed drastically with their earlier counterparts. During the last decade of the 20th century, the female leads were
considerably less glamorous and sexually provocative (although that does not say they were not attractive). Additionally, they were less one-dimensional, less stereotyped, less passive and acted more independently (Romm 99). Another change is that some of the female detectives “had a family, were widowed, divorced and/or with children” (Romm 100). This differs from the earlier assumptions that (female) detectives did not have a personal life and instead only focused on their work. In this new detective era, women were ‘allowed’ to have a family of their own, and work at the same time. These changes leaded to two completely different types of TV detectives. On the one hand the still “traditional stereotyped version of the warm, non-assertive detective” of the 70’s, and on the other hand, “a more physically and verbally aggressive version of the ‘liberated’ detective” (Romm 101).
One of the series that developed detectives in both forms is Cagney & Lacey (CBS, 1982-1988). This series started in 1982 and marks a change in the traditional police dramas because of its original narratives, and the integration of individual episodes and multiple storylines about the detectives themselves (Mayerle 133). Moreover, it had two female detectives in the leading roles, both with strong personalities. The two detectives, Christine
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Cagney and Mary Beth Lacey, differ tremendously in their backgrounds, values and personal lives. Cagney grew up in a wealthy family and is a bright and attractive woman. She is still single, and because of that, she finds it difficult to fully understand marriages. Additionally she has style and is very ambitious about becoming New York’s first female chief of detectives (Mayerle 136). Mary Beth Lacey is married and therefore struggles between her family and career. She is slightly overweight, but still attractive and she has a man, with whom she has three children. She is not that ambitious and is more focused on her personal life (Mayerle 136). These two women embody the split in female detectives Romm discussed. On the one hand there is Cagney, who symbolizes the more masculine version of a female detective, and on the other hand Lacey, who cares more about her family and identifies with the victims and therefore can be considered a more female version of the two (Zeck 145). What they have in common is that they are “verbally and physically aggressive even when compared to the male detectives” (Romm 101). Despite their difference, Cagney and Lacey represented a shift for the female detective. They were real woman and not objects of desire as many female detectives were in earlier times (D’Acci 20). Moreover, Cagney and Lacey did not only get masculine characteristics. They became feminine, with some traditional aspects. Cagney, for instance, wore makeup, lipstick, had long, blond hair and was beautiful, while Lacey, “cared about the people she protects” (D’Acci 21). This feminine part of the series expanded when a new actress as Cagney came into the show. This changed the show, as it became even less tough and more feminine.
This transition continued in the 1990s with two other series that had a female lead in a police force, named Under Suspicion (CBS, 1994-1995) with Karen Sillas as detective Rose Philips and Prime Suspect (ITV, 1991-2006) with Helen Mirren as Jane Tennison, who thanked Cagney & Lacey in her Emmy speech in 1996 about the influence the show had in portraying women in a man’s world (Mizejewski 90). Both series did differ from Cagney & Lacey because they both reverted into the old stereotype detective, with a “lonely, besieged female homicide investigator on an all-male police force” (Mizejewski 90). Just like the detectives in the novels, both women failed to have a personal life, and choose work over love. Moreover, they do not know how to act properly as a woman. As Gates describes in her paper about female detectives, they merely do not know how to dress, walk and present themselves as a woman, and are particularly good in firing a gun (50). This tradition of going ‘traditional’ continues through the years with series following the female detectives with their masculine aspects is also known as ‘lesbanization’ of the female detective, when there are aligning with their femininity in order to be masculine (Gates 50).
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Although both women (Jane Tennison and Rose Philips) were strong and independent, they still faced some discrimination. In the series, both the leading ladies of Prime Suspect and Under Suspicion were “sexualized and scrutinized for errors” (Cavender & Jurk 226). In one scene in Prime Suspect, the male colleague of Tennison can have a casual affair with a woman at a conference, but when Tennison does the same, it costs her the job (Cavender & Jurik 226). This problem of sexuality is not the only aspect of discrimination. In Lavigne’s essay about sex and gender in Crime Scene Investigation (CBS, 2000-2015), two components of discrimination of the female investigators are discovered (390). Firstly, the two female detectives of CSI Catherine and Sara are both considered as less knowledgeable than their male colleagues. They need their male colleagues to help them out when in need, even when they are respected women in their field (Lavigne 392). Secondly, because they are less knowledgeable of the world, they are more likely to be treated as children who need assistance when in trouble. In the case of CSI the colleagues acted sometimes like fathers, who cared for their lovely daughters instead of treating them like equals (Lavigne 392).
However, this is not always the case. In her essay about The Killing, Janet McCabe describes a more equally based situation on the professional level between Lund and the police force, in which she is respected by her colleagues and feels comfortable in the male dominant situation (120). McCabe draws a line to another Scandinavian heroin, Lisbeth Salander of the Millennium trilogy, who is also more at home in the professional area in which nonsense is not tolerated and in which she is accepted as a woman (129). Maybe the Scandinavian characters imply a more open view about the equalization of women in a man’s world than their American counterparts.
4) Conclusion
A crime committed by a criminal and a detective that needs to solve is a pattern that is almost always concretely available in the traditional detective story in literature, whereby the detective and the criminal have an intense relationship with each other. The criminal is, in novels, smart and knows how to hide from the State (the police), therefore the independent detective comes around to operate apart from the law to capture the criminal. Typical for a detective is his enormous amount of knowledge, together with his deductive capability, and with his extraordinary personality, hobby or habit, a special individual living in the ‘normal’ world. The use of ‘he’ as a detective was, especially in the early detective series, quite common. ‘He’ was of extraordinary knowledge, power and strength and therefore inevitably a man. The qualities of a male detective were taken over by the early writers of female leads in
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detective stories.
Just like their male counterparts, the women were rational, knowledgeable and did not have any sort of relationships outside their work field. But in comparison with their male counterparts, they could not be smart and beautiful at the same time. This changed on television, where the female detectives were extremely beautiful, but their personality was very pale, one-dimensional and emotional. As the years progressed, some changes developed into a two way female detective: one very traditional, and one very masculine. One good example of that is Cagney & Lacey, but also recently Rizzoli & Isles (TNT, 2010-), in which two female detectives echoing Cagney & Lacey in personality. But nowadays, with series like Under Suspicion and Prime Suspect, the lonely, rational masculine female detective of the novels is back, who in comparison with the male detectives, are still suffering from their female side. They are still considered more weak, irrational, and sometimes less knowledgeable than their male colleagues, which complicate this even more when they have children. The female detectives always find themselves in situations where the masculine detective overrules them, even when they try not to. Therefore they are likely to need features that are connected to masculinity in order to get respect and admiration.
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Chapter 2: The female stereotype in professional and private life
Despite that the professional life as a fictional detective remains very important, the private life is, for women, equally important as it is in the basis of the representation of women on television to perform adequate in their private life. For female detectives, this can be a struggle because characteristics needed for a detective are not necessarily good characteristics needed in the domestic sphere. They can even clash with each other on various aspects, both in the professional as in the private life. For Sara Sidle, detective in the crime series CSI, this clashes especially in her professional life, because even though Sara is a respectable employee in the team of Grissom, her emotional and childish behavior in specific cases make her incapable of being a stronger, more independent woman (Lavigne 394). But for most female detectives, their private life is the beginning of their problems.
To fully understand the struggles of female detectives in the professional and private life, it is not only needed to focus on the detective qualities (the professional life) as stated in the first chapter, but also to explore the qualities of a fictional woman in her private life on television. Therefore, this chapter will discuss how women are portrayed on television in especially in their private life and what qualities normally are assigned to these women on television. First, a small overview about the stereotypes of women on (prime time) television is presented, with a focus on the process of stereotyping and the specific characteristics of female characters. The second and third part consist of women in the roles of mother and professional. In these two sections the combination of having a family and a career as a woman on television is being reviewed which leads to the final part where these findings are addressed in relation to female detectives on television.
1) Stereotyping
Television is seen as the “main cultural storyteller and functions as a message system that expresses relevant cultural stories as a fundamental idea for life standards or judgements about the stereotyping of men and women” (Emons et al. 40). Especially prime time television is an “important contributor to the construction and maintenance of stereotypes” because prime time attracts the most people, and contains predominantly fictional programming (Emons et al 42). For regular viewers, stereotyping can lead to misleading images of men and women based on fictional characters rather than reality. This assumption is often referred to as cultivation theory, developed by Gerbner. Framing enhances this theory as it makes some aspects of a fictional reality more salient than others to influence peoples’
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perception about, for example, social situations (Coltrane & Adams 324). As Coltrane and Adams discuss in their article, frames help to “define problems, diagnose causes, make moral judgements, and suggest specific remedies" (324). While watching fictional television, people will amplify with the fictional situation because it is familiar to their situation at home, work or other places. Common rituals like the family life and the work environment are captured in television, which allows viewers to “place themselves in social roles to which they aspire” and to apply this behavior in real life (Solomon 320). In fictional television, the roles of men and women differ from reality in the following aspects. Firstly, women are significantly underrepresented on television with approximately 40% female characters in fictional programing (Luif 8). Secondly, they are likely to be younger, and more provocatively dressed than men. In their behavior, they are not verbal and physically aggressive, not dominant, but passive and emotional (Glascock 659). Moreover, they are mostly seen as weak, dependent and nurturing. Furthermore, they are shown as less intelligent and non-assertive in comparison to men, who are also assumed to work in a higher position to earn more money. According to Eagly and Steffan, the stereotypical woman on television usually consists of communal qualities like “a selflessness concern with others and a desire to be at one with others” (736). Moreover, the woman is shown as moral, which cannot be simultaneously portrayed as promiscuous (Romm 25). In the family life, women are mostly perceived as homemakers, who live for their children and are often not employed in paid work – this in stark contrast with men who are mostly employed. If women are portrayed within this “homemaker-mother role”, there is a high chance that this role is presented as the key feature of a woman’s life (Romm 24). If women have a job, it is either in combination with their focus on the household or they are so fixated on this career that they lack a private life (Luif 8). When not attached to the family at home, the women in fictional series are commonly shown as young, beautiful, thin, successful and single. For these women, their sexual adventurous and the search for ‘Mister Right’ is regularly the most central story line, for example in shows like Friends (NBC, 1994-2004), Sex and the City (HBO, 1998-2004) and Ally McBeal (FOX, 1997-2002) (Wykes & Gunter 111). All these women are, according to Romm, mostly depicted as unintelligent and frivolous (25). In conclusion, the stereotyped woman is traditional with many traits that are seen as less positive in comparison with men.
2) Mothers
As stated above, the family life and the representation of this are important for the viewers to reconstruct reality. Especially, sitcoms with a central theme of a domestic family situation
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“has a rich history of depicting and transmitting television families into viewers homes” (Douglas & Olson 409) As the communal role describes, women on television are often shown as emotional individuals who have the desire to care for others. One specific character that combines these qualities together is the role of a mother. The mother, as the central domestic figure, can take on many different roles. Around the 1980s, the mother role in fictional series was traditional as work and private life was still strictly divided (Desmuke 24). They were considered to be important for their kids and husbands and functioned as role models for society.
These mothers are mostly known as middle-class mothers, according to Nagy, who examined different types of mothers in the series South Park (Comedy Central, 1997-) (15). This traditional woman is portrayed as “perfectly loving, kind, patient and giving” (Ganong & Coleman 490). These are the homemakers: traditional mothers who cooked and cleaned while the husband is at work. According to Åström, this idea of a mother is illustrated as an emotional figure. In this portrayal, the mother functions as a kind of saint, which is celebrated in the series (4). The mothers are characterized as “central to the wellbeing of not only the child, but of the whole family, and by extension, society” (Åström 4). In this way, the mother is sentimentalized. This is known as “the good mother myth of television”, as it creates such as perfect role model that the real mothers at home are denigrated to fail this representation (Åström 4).
In contradiction to this idea, there is a whole other different mother figure, because according to the myth of motherhood “mothers are either good or all bad” (Ganon & Coleman 496). This negative mother role is clearly visible in the late contemporary television series (Åström 4; Walters and Harrison 51). In many maternal roles today, the mother is portrayed as absent, self-centered and ineffective, and ultimately damaging the children. In Feasey’s essay about motherhood in teen television, she concludes that all mothers played a problematic role in the lives of their kids (156). They are either drunk, addicted to drugs or experienced other severe problems, which caused complications with the child itself. Feasey took the teen show 90210 (CW, 2008-2013) as an example, which displayed several mothers over the course of the series. One of them is a “bi-polar drug addict and abusive alcoholic,” while others are “more interested in her surface appearance than her daughter’s well-being” or “an irresponsible mother and gambling addict” (Feasey 157).
These “bad moms” are also noticeably visible in adult contemporary culture, according to Walters and Harrison (51). Just like their teen equivalents, the mothers in adult shows are “uncontrolled and uncontrollable, full of urges, desires, and identities that are
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antithetical to what we imagine of a good mother” (Walters & Harrison 51). Series like Weeds (Showtime, 2005-2012) where a mother of two sons adopts her husbands’ drug-dealing business when he passed away fit this description. During the course of the series, the mother is described as a horrible mother who neglects her kids and “turns the other way as her eldest starts his own drug business” which results into both sons working in her drug company at the end of the series (Walters & Harrison 51). Another example is Betty Draper of Mad Men (AMC, 2007-2015), who seemingly does not care for her children at all. Throughout the show, she seems mean and self-centered, not fit to be a mother at all. This neglecting, disengaged behavior of the mother in fictional dramas is, according to Walters and Harrison, caused by two reasons (48). Firstly, the maternal melodrama is disappearing as a central genre; the role of mother becomes less important and therefore more neglected in the series. This means that the woman herself rather than the mother alone becomes important (Walters & Harrison 48). Secondly, the aberrant mothers are shown to mock the perfect mom and the “perfect balance between work and family-framework” instead of idealizing it, which is a direct response to the society of the 1980s and 1990s. According to Nagy, it is not surprising that the mothers like the one in Weeds are single, because these mothers are portrayed as the worst of all, as home wreckers, who fail in raising a child alone; and that, because the lack of friends she is not capable of providing her child with the best care (15). They are therefore shown as anti-social, stocked single and subversive (Nagy 15).
As drama series revolving around bad maternity the producers of comedy series came up with a different kind of mother; the unruly individual, who tries to mock the perfect mother framework on a whole other level, which is best exemplified by the sitcom Roseanne (ABC 1988-1997). In her article about Roseanne, Rowe describes this so-called “unruly woman” as a woman who is provocative and violates the stereotypes of a woman, as she lets the audience think about important questions of “social and cultural norms of femininity,” and how women are portrayed on television (411). As a mother she misbehaves, she is loud, rude and together with her fatness, she is considered as “unfeminine, rebellious and sexually deviant” (Rowe 413). Roseanne’s easiness with her figure and non-feminine behavior is at best an uneasey experience, an Bourdieuan term which displays “a sort of indifference to the objectifying gaze of other which neutralizes its power: a sort of indifference to the objectifying gaze of others which neutralizes its power” (Bourdieu 208). It marks a conventional way of living in which Roseanne symbolizes the eagerness of women to be portrayed as normal people and not as the perfect female or mother. Rowe refers to one scene from Roseanne where the unruly woman/mother is described in her fullest: Rosanne, in her
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dream, kills her family (husband and children) for a hot bath (418). For a “good self-sacrificing mother,” such an action is extremely outrageous and unthinkable. But Roseanne does not want to kill her family in this episode, she wants to create acknowledgement for her needs and desires. (Rowe 418). In the series, she makes fun of herself, the ideal role model of mothers and their role in the family. But in contradiction with the aberrant mothers of drama television, Roseanne is not a bad mother: she will always take care of her kids. Yet, even though some mothers are saints on television, the most common image of a mother is now an aberrant mother who fails to take care of her children and neglects them in order to fight against this traditional stereotype of the perfect mother of the 1980s.
3) The professional life in relationship with the private life
Just like people use the television to be informed about stereotypes, it is also an “important source of information about occupations and the world of work” (Signorielli & Kahlenberg 5). The world of work is presented in line with the stereotyped personalities of men and women. Men are mostly shown in a wide range of jobs with a high status like law enforcement, whereas women are narrowed down as secretaries and nurses. However, this has slightly changed over the years, as Signorielli and Kahlenberg found out that especially white women are more likely to be portrayed as professionals than before, although this number is quite small in comparison with their white male counterparts (18). Where men can focus on their job, women are also considered to keep their private life and the household going at the same time. Even more, in soap operas, the work and career is of a marginal significance, according to Czarniawska, who examined three different soap operas from three different countries (Sweden, South-Africa and Italy) (278). She concludes that women in the soap operas were not able to combine work and a career with a family (Czarniawska 278).
This seemingly impossible combination of work with family is particularly visible in the drama show Damages (FX, 2007-2012). These series implemented two women into high functions with lots of pressure: Ellen Parsons (Rose Byrne) and Patty Hewes (Glenn Close). Patty is head of the law firm where Ellen is accepted as a trainee. By accepting the traineeship, Ellen’s engagement, eventually ends, because she couldn’t be at her own engagement party. This was the beginning of her “psychic struggle between professional responsibility and interpersonal responsibility” (Nigro 19). Patty, head of the lawyer’s office, prioritizes one thing: her work. She is rational, with almost only masculine features. Her son pays the price by growing up without a caring mother. Both Ellen and Patty have a talent to alienate themselves from others and are used to being left with only a career and no family
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(Nigro 19). In Damages, Ellen is ‘punished’ for entering the professional sphere and therefore faced multiple negative consequences in her private life.
These negative narratives of working women are also displayed in the series 24 (FOX, 2001-2010), where many women moved into the job because of their expertise and abilities, but ended up dead or injured (Coon 240). In 24, only complications arise when a woman enters the field of work and leaves the domestic sphere, instead of combining the two together as the main figure (male) can. This conclusion differs from the research of Reep and Dambrot, as they found some positive side notes regarding expertise and professionally statuses in series (380). By examining multiple series they found “serious attempts to present realistically the problems of professional women”; some women in TV-shows can handle a high demanding job, and can work successfully with their male partners (Reep & Dambrot 380). Moreover, they are financially independent and are more serious in their jobs than their male counterparts (Reep & Dambrot 380). Once again, this happens only when the female characters drop their emotional communal qualities and are forced into a more masculine profile. Especially in Damages it is indicated that skipping the emotional feminine characteristics leads to a successful career. So, in either way the personal life of the female character pays the price (Reep & Dambrot 381).
In the popular comedy Sex and the City (HBO, 1998-2004), the work/family relationship is completely different as loving relationships are more important than work, which creates an impossible image of combining love and work. In this show, the four central women all represent one part of the work-live spectrum. Charlotte is the traditional housewife, who has a job but prefers to marry a wealthy man so that she does not have to work anymore, whereas Samantha is the career woman who is just like a man in relationships. She wants to have as many sex partners as she can get. Miranda works 24 hours a day and has no time for a private life and Carrie’s (main character of the series) love life is more important than her career as a columnist. One scene exemplifies this work-love framework when Carrie meets Enid, a successful editor of Vogue magazine. Carrie finds out Enid has a husband and congratulates her with this perfect life. But it turns out Enid’s husband is cheating on her and with the words: “Yes, I don’t have time for a full-time man. I have a full-time job” (Layton 366), she firmly confirms that a job and love is not a successful combination. Enid’s conclusion displays the struggles women have in the different series; that the mix between a career and a private life is not an easy combination, not to say impossible.
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4) Female detectives and their role in the family and in their career
The combination of private and personal life is also a problem for the female detective. Gates examined female detective heroes and found a connection with female lawyers in detective films around the 1980s. These female figures appeared as role models in their professional life because of their masculine traits and were considered powerful, but were “not whole but flawed and tended to be married to her job, unable to attain happiness or fulfillment until she found a child and/or love interest” (Gates 50). Those female lawyers just as the female detectives sacrificed the traditional role as mother and wife for their job. Instead of loving a man, they saw him as competition in their work. Even though they think that they are happy deep down they are completely devastated that they have no family to fall down to.
The same happens to the female detectives. According to Gates, detectives are “unable to develop a satisfying and committed relationship with a man because she is married to her job” (56). In this situation career and private life is strictly divided. But when the personal life intertwines with the professional life, for example, when the detective falls in love with a man, then she is vulnerable in the job and unable to perform her job perfectly. This conflict is also assigned to Anita Blake of the book series Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter (Laurell K. Hamilton), a woman who is known as a “tough guy” in the series and as a result she has difficulties with romance and love. She is afraid it will influence her life and thus her job, and therefore she does not want to risk it (Holland-Toll 183).
Thus, when a woman chooses a career, either way she does not want a private life or fails in having one. But when the female detective chooses for her private life, and puts her job second then she is all of a sudden unambitious or less capable at her job. One example is that of Cagney & Lacey. As stated above, this show embodies a mixture of the tough detective and the feminine detective. Lacey is the second one, and therefore more concerned with her children and husband. She is not that ambitious because she wants to take care of her family first, in contradiction with Cagney, who has not got a personal life because of her ambition. Being a mother and having a career is also for Catherine Willows in CSI (CBS, 2000-2015) nearly impossible. She has a high function as a detective, and single mother of a daughter Lindsey. This is partly due to a terrible taste in men, and accepting a promotion. She is not capable of taking care of her daughter, so she leaves her with her own mother. And when she fails to do her work properly, she loses not only her career but also her daughter (Lavigne 393). This difference is deeply rooted in the female detectives and has to do with their ‘masculine’ behavior. Because of their more ‘masculine’ characteristics, they miss the
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emotional behavior, that is assigned to femininity to perform in their private life as traditional fictional women.
In addition to problems in their private life because of their work, fictional female detectives also face the problem that they are considered to have too many feminine traits to perform well professionally. For them, it can be tough to get promoted considering the discrimination and sexism in the work place because of their gender. Brundsen takes The Ghost Squad (Channel 4, 2005) as an example where Elaine Cassidy stars as Amy Harris, a detective who is hired for the Ghost Squad: a team that investigates police corruption in England (381). In the series, Amy is belittled by her colleges and needs to constantly prove herself to fit into the man’s world she operates in. Colleagues do not take her seriously, because she is young, pretty and female. The only way to squeeze in is to play the system as a man: a tough, competent policewoman is not enough (381).
Jermyn, further explores this imbalance between the jobs of men and women in her article about Prime Suspect, a television show with Hellen Mirren as head detective Jane Tennison (50). As for many female leads in (crime) dramas, Tennison does not contain a personal life, with no relationships or children. Jermyn shows Tennison’s private life as “recurrently in crisis and thereby denying women the possibility of having it all” (Jermyn 51). In the series, her personal life is intertwined with work in many different scenes (Jermyn 51). This tendency between work and private life is also seen in CSI. When Catherine Willows struggles with her work to combine it with her daughter, she is considered a bad mother with a poor child. But when her colleague Brass is putting his career on the line to go to Hollywood to save his daughter, he is seen as a good father (Lavigne 393). There is an unbalanced perception of the work and career combination of men and women. Especially in the crime series, it is tough for a woman to combine the two spheres together and if she chooses her career, it is likely the men at the station don’t let her co-operate because of her femininity.
5) Conclusion
On (prime time) television, women are still underrepresented in comparison to men. When displayed, women are mostly shown as emotional, dependent and caring for others. These characteristics come together in the communal features of the TV women and are mostly shown when a female character is a mother. Around the 1980s, the role of the mother was more traditional: a loving wife who took good care of her children and her husband. She was bound to home and did not participate in labor. This changed into a more negative image in
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today’s shows, where the mother figure goes to work. This resulted in multiple series where mothers are neglecting their kids and failing to take care of the household. This happens especially in dramas, like Mad Men and Weeds. The main reason was the career of the woman, who works so hard to earn money, that they forgot their children and their respective position in the household. In comedies and soap series however, the mothers are slightly more traditional, but still not considered as the perfect mother. In particular, the combination of work and private is not successful as a female character. With a flourishing career ahead, a perfect relationship with a husband and children is rarely possible and the other way around – with a perfect relationship, a beautiful career is hard to maintain. And there is another glitch; a top career is almost only possible if some typical characteristics of a fiction woman, like emotional involved, are not involved.
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Chapter 3: The Scandinavian detectives
In the beginning of the detective genre, the fictional detective was a male and considered to have special ‘masculine’ qualities in order to solve impossible cases. These qualities include some characteristics of a detective; determination to solve cases, an intellectual genius with a strange personality (Westlake 36; Grella 35), but also includes traits related to ‘masculinity’ like assertiveness, rationality and independency (Romm 24). Nowadays, detectives are not only male, but the qualities assigned to a detective have stayed the same. Therefore, to function as a detective in this genre, the fictional female detective is also known for her rational and emotional traits related to professional and ‘masculine’ qualities. Qualities that make them, as stated in the literature, troubled in their domestic role, because of their lack of female traits. This failure in combining both worlds as a fictional female detective leads to the ‘problem’ where Gates talks about in her essay, about the struggle between the professional and the private life of a fictional female detective (49).
In this chapter, the two Scandinavian detective series The Killing and The Bridge are discussed with a specific focus on how the two female protagonists combine their professional lives as detectives with their personal lives in an attempt to see how these series either reinforce or challenge the conventional distinction between the professional as ‘masculine’ and the personal as ‘feminine’. Based on viewing both series throughout, I have selected key scenes that most explicitly show the protagonists functioning in both their professional and private lives, thereby highlighting the ‘rational’ characteristics that conventionally are connected to the ‘male’ professional sphere as well as the ‘emotional’ characteristics that conventionally are connected to the ‘female’ domestic sphere. A detailed overview of these key scenes is provided in the appendix. The most important scenes are highlighted and divided into different subgenres; professional, private, emotional and rationality. By linking different scenes to each other, the personalities and actions of both detectives become clear in order to explore whether the series relate to the current trend in fictional detectives or that they can be called progressive in the way they operate as females in a men’s world. In the first paragraph, the characteristics of a detective and the characteristics of men are linked to the personalities of Saga Norén and Sarah Lund. Do they have the qualities to be a good detective? Additionally, their behavior in their work is examined. How do they use their detective qualities in order to solve cases? Then, their private live is examined. What qualities do they have and how does this effect their private and professional life? And more importantly, how is this problem presented in the series?
