Anne Sweet, Université Paris Sorbonne Nouvelle

“It’s about a bunch of women who get stuck on an island and it will want to make you binge-watch,” was how a student in my TV class quite enthusiastically recommended The Wilds (Amazon Prime Video, 2020-) to me before Spring Break. Ah… The students in my TV class… In our world of filter-bubble targeted content, they direct my attention to that which I would not otherwise notice, and for that I am forever grateful.

Stuck in lockdown, and needing a bit of mindless diversion, I decided to have a look at The Wilds. Upon viewing the first episode, it seemed to be a banal series, a Lost (ABC, 2004-2010) derivative featuring moody teenagers. Unimpressed, my husband rolled his eyes, and sighed, “Ah, the young, why are they so miserable?” However, this series is what Jason Mittell would call a “drillable text” with multiple mysteries inciting the viewer to be a “forensic fan”[1] and want to solve them: how the young women ended up on the island, how they get off of it, and what happened to them to render them so maudlin. My attention thus engaged, I continued watching, and found there is a twist, quite a major one, as this series is perhaps the most overtly feminism-based series I have ever seen and perhaps that ever was.

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In the past, using the words “feminism” and “feminist” in a series was considered almost as bad as using the “F-Word” in terms of potential offense to viewers. Feminist messages were often conveyed through representation, symbolism, and metaphor, and by showing empowered women leading by example, but the word “feminism” was rarely spoken and the movement rarely directly acknowledged.[2] In The Wilds feminist discourses and issues are not only directly and overtly featured in the plotlines, but the words feminist and feminism are actually spoken, and repeated. This makes the series quite distinct from many others featuring a female cast, and quite exceptional in its depiction of gender and gender issues. It is an interesting example of the way streaming platforms are targeting niche audiences, rather than mass audiences. It also interesting that the show is broadcast on Amazon, a commercial capitalist giant, in light of the fact that women are still considered to be the motors of retail-consumer capitalism and are desirable target shoppers.[3] Yet what version of feminism is being sold to them?

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In The Wilds, the young women (mostly high school students) are not actually alone on the island but were unknowingly put there on purpose as part of scientific experiment to demonstrate that women are the superior sex. The study is orchestrated by a social scientist called Gretchen Klein, a nefarious villainess who has deceived the young women and their families to trap the girls on the island and who also spouts feminist rhetoric at the drop of a hat. While the series is a drama, at times, it feels as if it descends into mockery. And the question that went often through the mind of this media studies scholar when viewing the series’ feminist (or “feminist”) messages was, “What on Earth?”

First, before examining the more dubious aspects of the series’ feminist and gender politics, it is important to note that the series can in some ways be innovative, and was even created by a woman, at a time when gender parity behind the scenes in production has still not been achieved.[4] The Wilds is part of a recent trend that Sandra Laugier defines as “a second wave of feminist series” that appeared in the wake of #MeToo and give viewers a framework for conceptualizing feminist issues, picking up where the first wave of feminist series of the late 90s-2000s left off.[5] Within that trend I have noted a second wave of both Girl Power series, and other sorts of series featuring empowered girls and young women. As part of the second wave of feminist series, The Wilds embraces many of the values of the fourth wave of feminism, notably body positivity, inclusivity, and LGBTQIA+ rights. It features a large cast of women who are of different shapes, sizes, ethnic groups and sexual identities. The young women are smart, physically fit, capable and can survive in nature. They can hunt, purify water, build fires, and construct a shelter. They are violent, they kill things, and they fight. Yet, as their life stories rollout in flashbacks, we learn that they are not merely moody adolescents but that they were all victims of trauma. Many are on the edge of losing their sanity, if it is not already too late. The reason for this, Gretchen Klein clearly states, is the damage done to them by the patriarchy and patriarchal society, and that is why these women in particular were chosen for her study.

TV series can be pedagogical in nature and attempt to educate people about society and societal issues.[6] Through the girls’ back stories, the series deliberately brings to light many contemporary women’s issues. Dot is exhausted from the burden of being a caregiver. The love of Nora’s life is killed by fraternity hazing, a particularly brutal patriarchal ritual. Rachel, who is told she has grown too big to compete in her sport, becomes bulimic. Many of the women are victims of toxic masculinity. Martha, as an 11-year-old, was molested by her doctor. Leah, as a 16-year-old is seduced by a man in his thirties, and then coldly dumped and driven mad from the shock and grief. Toni’s life blows up after she reacts violently to being accosted by some drunk men in a parking lot. Fatin catches her adulterous father sexting other women. While some of the storylines can seem clichéd and well-trodden, the fact that the women are all connected by (and selected for) their patriarchal victimhood is not.

The interest for the viewer is in identifying with each character, understanding her pain, and how it relates to her actions in the present. This fact that the women’s plights are linked by patriarchy is openly revealed belatedly in the series, explicitly detailed by Gretchen Klein. But, at the beginning, it passes a bit under the radar. Thus, the viewer relates to the characters and the stories, first, before the feminist shoe drops, and is almost “tricked” in a way into identifying with a feminist narrative, and potentially caring about women’s issues. Yet larger feminist issues like gender inequality and discrimination are not tackled, and the storylines repose upon the personal rather than the political, and essentially upon issues of male cruelty that most people feel are wrong, whether feminist or not. Thus, there is a certain lack of depth to the feminist issues that are being exposed, and in that way, Amazon is taking few risks.

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Perhaps the most significant plotline is that of Shelby, a blond southern belle and beauty queen, the epitome of ideal standards of beauty and feminine behavior, and whose last name Goodkind is symbolic, as she seems perfectly poised, kind, and well mannered, even if others on the island find her conservative Christian values hateful and despicable. However underneath the façade of perfect evangelical Christian, Shelby is hiding the fact she is attracted to women in order to conform to her father’s and her community’s moral beliefs which hold that homosexuality is wrong. After Shelby’s father catches her kissing her best friend Becca, she ends the relationship, which causes Becca—another victim of toxic masculinity, who is already on edge from having been the recipient of her adult stepbrother’s sexual advances—to commit suicide. The island frees Shelby from all of the constraints put on her by her conservative family and church, and she enters into a sexual relationship with Toni. But even if the island seems to have somewhat healed her, massive damage has also been done. The men who interview her after she leaves the island note that her file mentions that she has dissociative personality disorder, and they wonder which personality she will show when they interview her. When she appears, her is head shaven, and she is dirty, and seems unhinged. The ideal version femininity she displays at first on the plane, and then on the island, is thus officially debunked as not only a masquerade, but potentially as a manifestation officially diagnosed mental illness. Thus, on the surface the series would be seem notable in bringing to light LGBTQIA+ characters and issues, and it would seem as if Amazon was showing little fear of consumer backlash from its conservative customers in the Red Belt States. However, the fact that Shelby is potentially mentally ill leaves the possibility open of an alternative reading of her predicament for those who wish.

The feminist potential of the series takes a hit in another way. It is important to note that the most feminist character of all is Gretchen, who is also the villain, which thus associates militant feminism with evil. Most of the girls do not identify openly as feminist, even if, before they ended up on the island, they were bound for a feminist retreat called “Dawn of Eve”, which is highly symbolic as Eve is arguably the first victim of patriarchy. In many Girl Power and girl-centered series of the 90s, there was a tension between the cool, young, trendy heroines of the third wave and the older women of the generation of the second wave, who were depicted as kooks, criminals or bad mothers, and absolutely not to be admired, which could also be read as a glorification of youth in a consumerist society.[7] In The Wilds, once again the young are the heroes of the piece. Yet this now demonstrates a tension between the third and the fourth waves, whereas it was once between the generations of the third and second wave (and in the series, older and gray-haired women are almost completely out of the picture—I cannot recall one who had a speaking role). Gretchen seems like a relic, and behind the times in her feminist and academic thinking. Her blowout, nice suits and stiletto heels, which she acknowledges are patriarchal rubbish but make her legs look good, show her as a fashion-plate of another era. While third-wave is debatable as actual movement, it definitely associated with a particular cultural moment of representations women in popular culture whose empowerment is linked to consumerist discourses, fashion and spike heels, which were notably made popular as an expression of “fabulousness” by Sex in the City (HBO, 1998-2004), a series which valorizes the non-inclusive, patriarchal high-fashion industry and toxic masculinity in the form of Mr. Big. Yet by emphasizing the “good” young people, over the “bad” older lady (and not by representing truly older women, or even older-looking women at all), The Wilds is still aligning itself with a certain set of patriarchal and consumerist discourses concerning youth and beauty.

Gretchen emphasizes the power of women, and her goal is to scientifically prove that women should be in charge of the world through her research in order to save the world. In real-world contemporary academia, her study would be considered problematic. The premise of her research is proving that men and women are inherently, fundamentally and irrevocably different, and that women are the superior gender, whereas much of current gender research and thought would lean towards examining gender as a social construct, ending discrimination, and promoting equality. Moreover, Gretchen’s research sublimates the non-binary, as does the series. She clearly separates people and their behavior into the binary categories of male and female, ignoring the concept of the gender spectrum. And, while some of the characters are lesbian or bisexual, all of the female characters are very clearly cisgender. While the series potentially possesses some LGBQTIA+ positive aspects, in ignoring the existence of different genders, it falls flat and seems out of touch. When asked if she hates men, Gretchen says no and that she even loves some of them—an important point to make as feminists are often derided as misandrists. Yet Gretchen is also shown to be a victim of patriarchy. Her son is a criminal, arrested as one of the perpetrators of the very hazing incident that killed Nora’s boyfriend. Gretchen says she tried to do everything, right to make him a good man, even reading him Adrienne Rich’s poems, and yet the lure of the patriarchy was too strong. He joined a fraternity, became a toxic male, and was subsequently lost to her. Thus, if Gretchen, seems a bit over-the-top, to the point of almost being a mockery of feminist and feminism, patriarchy has also unhinged her as it has the young women in her study.

The patriarchy drove them to it—to violence, to rage, to despair, and to extremes. The Wilds presents a dark, yet poignant, feminist message, unlike any other. One I find questionable, superficial, and at times corny, yet at the same time intriguing and raising many questions for further research…   

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[1] Jason Mittell, “Web-only Essay: Forensic Fandom and the Drillable Text.” Spreadable Media web site (no publication date), http://spreadablemedia.org/essays/mittell/#.YIsn3C8Rp0t [Consulted: April 29, 2021].

[2] See, for example, Anne Sweet, “’Unreal’ Gender Messages in Late 90s Women-Centered Action Dramas,” TV/Series 1 (June 2012): 209-224, https://journals.openedition.org/tvseries/1205 [Consulted: April 29, 2021].

[3] A web site for a communications agency called “girlpowermarketing” [sic.] interestingly features some key statistics on its home page, including the fact that women are still the main shoppers and key purchase decision-makers for the household, including for what can be considered as traditionally male products [Consulted: April 29, 2021].

[4] For more data on this, see the statistics gathered by the annual Boxed In study conducted by the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at the University of San Diego, https://womenintvfilm.sdsu.edu [Consulted: April 29, 2021].

[5] Sandra Laugier, “Sur la deuxième vague des séries américaines féministes,” AOC, November 3, 2020, https://aoc.media/critique/2020/11/02/sur-la-deuxieme-vague-des-series-americaines-feministes/ [Consulted: April 29, 2021].

[6] See, for example, Divina Frau-Meigs, Médiamorphoses américaines dans un espace privé unique au monde (Paris: Economica, 2001).

[7] See, for example, Karin Beeler (2007), “Old Myths, New Powers: Images of Second-wave and Third-wave Feminism in Charmed” in Investigating Charmed: The Magic Power of TV, ed. Karin Beeler and Stan Beeler (London : I.B. Tauris, 2007), 101-111; see also, Anne Sweet, Le Girl Power en question dans Xena: Warrior Princess et Charmed: Enjeux sociaux et  commerciaux dans des politiques de genre, doctoral thesis archived at the Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, 2014.

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