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| In Chris's fantasy, Dick (Kevin Bacon) snuggles a lamb in I Love Dick (Jill Soloway, 2016) |
I'm not much of a binge-watcher, even though I know it's all the rage these days. Yet, I found myself whipping through the entire 8 episode season of
I Love Dick (Jill Soloway, 2016) in the last couple days. Granted, the entire series clocks in at less than 3 1/2 hours, so it's not that much of a time suck. Yet, I did not want this show to end! Let me regale you with its pleasures, of which there are so, so many.
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| So Many Women!--Jill Soloway, Chris Kraus, Andrea Arnold, and all the women-directed clips. Wow!! |
First off, this show is created, written, and frequently directed by WOMEN. I'm sure you have heard of Jill Soloway from her hit Amazon show
Transparent. While that show carries her trademark thoughtfulness and wit, this new show is a different fish. The show does similarly highlight nuanced and sophisticated representations of women, but it focuses very specifically on women's interiority and desire. If a show deliberately tried to embody a "female gaze" in its characters, then this show IS IT!
The show follows Independent filmmaker Chris Kraus (the author of the feminist novel
I Love Dick on which the show is based, and one of the series' producers) as she moves to Marfa, Texas to be with her husband, Sylvere, an academic doing work on the Holocaust at a residency at the Marfa Institute. She does not originally plan to stay in Marfa, until she has her first, rather fateful encounter with Dick Jarrett, a famous minimalist artist who runs the institute and basically draws acolytes to his desert artist's retreat. (While Kraus was writing about media theorist Dick Hebdige, the show seems to be having fun with someone more along the lines of Donald Judd, who did have a foundation in Marfa, although he was NOT the charismatic cowboy played so winningly by Bacon on the show).
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| Dick (Kevin Bacon) busily mansplaining at dinner |
During dinner, Dick tells Chris that women cannot be filmmakers because they are just not passionate enough and that their oppression gets in the way. Chris points out "Jane Campion, Sally Potter, Chantal Ackerman," but Dick is a first-class Dick of the highest order. Instead of dismissing this guy as a sexist a-hole, though, Chris gets highly stimulated by this battle, and it's "GAME ON." He becomes her muse, and drives her creative writing of a group of "Dear Dick" letters that shake the town, and everyone's lives, including Dick's. And she will not be muzzled!
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| Kathryn Hahn as the sexy, beautifully-flawed, and creatively inspiring Chris Kraus |
Hahn's Chris is a bit of a hot mess, but wildly funny, and as the show goes on, deeply admirable and somewhat inspiring to those around her. She has an incredibly rich fantasy life and it fuels the creativity of others, including Dick himself, who when she meets him hasn't created a new piece in over a decade. The wry digs at the precious academic and art world community in Marfa are actually very gently cutting, making fun of the artist and academic residency racket in a rather kind, but genuinely funny way.
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| Chris's desiring letters fuel a creative upswing among the Marfa community |
Chris is not the only female artist/academic on which the series focuses, as her letters stimulate everyone in the town, especially Toby (India Menuez) who writes on the formal aspects on hard core porn, and is inspired to create her own performance piece (one that is called out for its own entitled privileges). Paula (Lily Mojekwu) is the curator of the Marfa Institute, but her hands are tied by Dick's stranglehold over the exhibitions. She wants to curate feminist work by women! By far though, the show is often stolen by Roberta Colindrez's Devon, a queer Latinx who is inspired by Chris and Sylvere's drama next door to write a play and construct a performance that lifts the men of the town up high. She is sexy, charismatic, and the heart of the show in many ways.
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| Sylvere (Griffin Dunne) and Chris's (Kathryn Hahn) marriage transforms over time |
The show really never wavers from Chris's desires. They drive the series. Nevertheless,
I Love Dick is also a careful examination of a contemporary marriage and people who truly love each other exploring who they are and what they need. While Sylvere can be a bit of a "dick" many times, his love for Chris is pretty unshakeable, and he wants her happiness above all. His encounters with Dick change him in important ways.
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| I Love Dick highlights women filmmakers in extraordinary ways--here Carolee Schneeman's Fuses (1967) |
The show is also an educational journey into some of the best female experimental filmmakers' work, including pieces by Schneeman, Chantal Ackerman, Marina Abromavic, and the beloved Maya Deren, among many others. Not only does the show formally and stylistically manipulate the politics of representation, but it also deliberately inserts feminist work to remind people that women are creative forces with which to be reckoned. This show inspired me to think about using more experimental work in my Women Directors class, or, quite simply, requiring students to blog about this show.
While there are many deliciously sexy people on the show, and the whole atmosphere is riddled with desire, I have to give kudos to Kevin Bacon's handling of Dick. He serves as the object of desire, and muse, for so many creative and talented women, and he handles that mantle quite well, admitting to feeling flattered and humiliated in equal measure. Dude. Welcome to our world. See this show. For a very brief time commitment, it's really, REALLY great.
