But, Mommy, I Love Her

I've been searching for a show or movie other than Gone Girl to depict female psychopathy, and then I stumbled across The Girlfriend on Prime.

Now, there's been a lot of hype surrounding this show, and for some reason the hype was making me feel skeptical about watching it. From the trailers, The Girlfriend sounded so over-the-top but also super cliché.

Women being pitted against women? Like what's the fun in that?

Then, I remembered I fully wrote an article on Catfight which is about two women being pitted against each other, and decided to stop being such a hypocrite.

Seriously, guys, that was perhaps the best decision I made.

**Spoilers below**

I honestly thought that The Girlfriend would be more physically violent. Especially after the opening scene, I was like yeah, this is perfect for the female violence and identity series I want to write; how could it not be? There was pushing, shoving, tripping into pools, knives— but then the show took another turn, and it started making me deliberate on the way violence was depicted, especially with female protagonists. There is something more nuanced in the psychopathic behaviours exhibited by female characters that complicates how violence can be read.

Let's get into it.

Storytelling As A Form Of Violence

The coolest part about The Girlfriend is the way it establishes an unreliable narrative. So, you get the two main characters: the mom, Laura Sanderson, and the new girlfriend, Cherry. Both of these women love the main love interest, Daniel. As the show progresses, the narrative bisects into Cherry and Laura's perspectives. At first, the shift is jarring— perhaps even daring— the episode reaches its climax and then rescinds into the next person's perspective, changing the context altogether. What you think initially is true becomes untrue or blurred by the other character's narrative.

It doesn't seem like a huge deal choosing to lay out the story in this manner, but it is because all of a sudden determining who is the actual bad person is nearly impossible. Maybe both women are evil. Both women are batshit crazy, for sure, but their motives become almost impossible to deduce. Which is so much fun to watch.

By not revealing who the true psychopath is, the show leaves room to really play with the level of craziness each woman exhibits. We get Laura, who isn't just a millionaire mother, art curator, but also a mother who kind of borders the Oedipal Mother figure. At first,her relationship with Daniel feels only slightly weird, but as the show progresses, her emotional enmeshment with her son floats to the surface like algae, revealing an underlying obsession that exceeds one of a normal parent.

Now this revelation doesn't fully come to the surface until Cherry enters the picture. What was originally supposed to be a wholesome mother-son relationship becomes more and more uncomfortable to watch, especially when Cherry is observing. All of a sudden, Laura walks in on her son pleasuring himself multiple times. Which is way too many times, in my opinion. She even hugs him while he's masturbating— presumably an accident, but whether or not that's true is left up in the air. At one point, as Laura starts losing her mind, she even catfishes Daniel, which leads to an entire sexting debacle. These scenes are intentionally uncomfortable, borderline incestuous, planting a seed of doubt in everyone's minds about Laura's motivations.

Yet, as uncomfortable and weird the relationship might be, I was fascinated with how it enabled Laura control over her empire. When Cherry's presence threatened her position of authority, especially over Daniel, her reigns on Daniel only tightened. At first, this was through text messages that constantly kept track of Daniel's whereabouts, but then it became intruding upon his private spaces, including the bedroom. Ultimately, it was taking control of Daniel's body, literally transporting him away to Spain where no one else could touch him. Yes, this behaviour is explicitly psychotic, but it shows just how much Daniel is a part of her realm.

The show might seem to just be about toxic relationships, but it's more than that. Daniel is simply a means to an end despite being the center of both Cherry and Laura's battles. As Laura encroaches more and more upon her son, the question lingers: what is she protecting? It's definitely not just Daniel. What is most important is the Sanderson's kingdom (AKA her wealth and status). In fact, Laura is more than willing to hurt her son in order to keep her empire intact. We see this when she drugs him, or lies to him, or even takes his battered body without his consent to an entirely new country. Daniel is merely a branch of her empire, a doorway for Cherry to enter through. Keeping him in the dark, keeping him in the margins, is all the more important because it ensures that no one enters.

On Cherry's end, her psychopathy begins as a cliché— she's the possessive, jealous girlfriend, a leech that takes over her new obsession's lives. Cherry begins enshrouded by rumours and stays that way till the very end. She's a gold-digger, a compulsive liar. She has parents, her dad's dead. Her dad's alive but super sick. Her ex thinks she's crazy; she punched him in self-defense. Very quickly, however, the show takes the cliché and flips it over on its head.

We get Cherry's perspective, and the story changes dramatically. Not to say that it doesn't make her look crazy, but it does humanize her in a way that complicates her behaviour. So, she meets Daniel, and it's the typical meet-cute that's only slightly off-putting. I mean, she's not a psychopath, just a bit devious or quirky, which is right up Daniel's alley. At that point, the two of them fall in love, and Cherry's hit the jackpot because he's a rich doctor with generational wealth. Now, outside of their relationship, we discover that Cherry's got a hard life. Her dad's out of the picture, her mom's left running the family butchery alone, and Cherry's worked hard to become a real estate agent (although her company does not value her). She's a bit peeved, and just wants some security in her life. Cue Daniel. Who's obsessed with his mom.

As Cherry and Laura's narratives entangle, the battle shifts slowly from who controls Daniel to who becomes erased. It's woman against woman, but the battle is about space and who owns it. Now that Cherry's crossed the threshold, Daniel barely matters at all. What matters is the story. Each perspective rationalizes their own decisions and demonizes the other. For Cherry, more than getting Daniel, is the opportunity to take over Laura's legacy. She grows through her narratives, through her psychological games, even through her sexuality. We see this in the way she embodies Laura's personality, changing even her physical appearance to match that of Daniel's family and caliber. We see it in the way she seduces Daniel, kind of like a Siren, in a way that consumes him entirely, makes him disappear into her.

The battle, therefore, is between two Queens after an empire of wealth. And, they do this through storytelling, through the very act of erasing one truth over the other. As to who to believe? That's left up to you.

It Starts With A Bloody Organ

Don't get me wrong, this show is violent, but not in the way you'd think. Physical violence occurs— Cherry ripping into a dead animal and then placing a bloody organ in her ex's wedding cake, smashing the glass against her head, the knife scene— but it occurs very indirectly. Whenever physical violence does occur, it happens when only Laura and Cherry are in the room together, facing each other off. It happens when a narrative cannot be spoonfed to others.

Again, this is a super cool decision because it demonstrates how these women utilize physical violence as a marker of a lack of control. It is only at a point of check mate, when there is no other option, that either of them resort to hitting one another, or even themselves. Think about the glass smashing scene; up to this point, Cherry hadn't really demonstrated violence towards others (excluding punching her ex). However, what happens when Cherry is faced with the fact that Laura has the upper hand? A moment of confrontation, alone, with her opponent. And, when there is nothing but the actual truth laid out between them? That's when it's time to change the narrative at any cost.

There are a lot of psychopath shows to watch, including Sweetpea, which I think I might check out next. The Girlfriend however blew my mind. I mean, I binged all of it in the span of two days, and I am still craving more. One thing that I've learned through writing these articles is the way in which female violence deviates from physical violence. You don't really see as much psychological warfare when depicting male violence— I'm thinking Dexter, The Sporanos, even, Joe from You— all of these examples depict men whose end goal is physical violence. Yes, there is manipulation and gaslighting, but the use of violence emerges as an unexpressed or repressed desire (but that's a comparison for another article). In The Girlfriend and Phantom Thread, physical violence is the literal last resort. It's not even the main aim for our psychopaths. What matters more is combatting erasure, controlling the narrative, which is interesting because I think it points out a huge gap in the media that we consume, or even about the social landscape of our time.

Think about it, what are women really fighting for? It is for space and ownership in our own narratives. This is what we are seeing bleed into mainstream media, the pent up rage a woman feels. It is all about reclamation, reinstating the self in a narrative that threatens to marginalize them. That's what makes The Girlfriend so cool, because it isn't just about romance and psychopathy for the sake of it; the show explores the act of conquering and ownership of truth, realized through forms of violence. Only one woman can survive, and she will.