Core Post for Laboni, and other Fans of Bathroom Realism and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend

     As someone who felt like her whole life had led up to the moment I listened to Susan Fraiman’s lecture “Bathroom Realism and the Women of Cable TV,” I was intensely interested in Laboni’s post- a thoughtful intervention to Professor Fraiman’s whole understanding of private bathrooms inhabited by women, and their relegation as a truly “private” space. In her post, Laboni reveals her doubts and fears about the valorization of “a bathroom of one’s own” being completely dislocated from postfeminism, and its ahistorical framework and lack of reflection in regards to “self-disciplining.” I wondered how a portrayal of a bathroom could encompass not only a “reclaiming” of the space, via realism, but a deeper contemplation on the realities of voyeurism, and its “desecration” of this space as a revelation of the purely feminine ordinary. Then, after reading Laboni’s other core post, I was reminded of the pure joy that is Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, and this amazing bathroom scene from its pilot:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ky-BYK-f154

       Like Broad City, this scene revels in grossness, revealing the actual effort that goes into looking “effortlessly” stunning. Akin to the other shows mentioned in Professor Fraiman’s lecture, the series’ main character (Rachel Bunch) is played by actress, comedian, and co-creator of the show, Rachel Bloom. However, unlike the other bathroom scenes from Fraiman’s lecture, this scene is formatted to be a music video, a mechanism used throughout the show to differentiate Rachel’s “reality” from her fantasies (in the show, other characters use this device as well, but we will concentrate on Rachel for now). The music video format also allows the audience to differentiate the luxe set “bathroom” where Rachel and the dancers live to fulfill an unrealistic vision of what women look like when getting ready from the grungy, starkly lit, realist private “bathroom” where Rachel does her actual preparations for a night out. In the former, Rachel is aware of being seen, performing choreography, licking her lips, and sexily laying in a tub for an assumed heterosexual male audience. In the latter, she isn’t looking into the camera, accentuating the realism of the scene, along with all the unpleasantness that accompanies it. This structure allows Rachel not only to reveal the feminine mundane, but also how she wishes to be seen- the highly stylized, music video portion of the song allowing Rachel’s own interior “voyeur” it’s chance to imagine how it wants to look and attract a male audience.

     While one could argue that this dedication to fulfill male fantasy and achieve sexual attractiveness could point decidedly to postfeminist ideals, I would argue that this song is doing more. Instead of associating the “burden of self-management” with an invocation to relegate feminism to the past (McRobbie, 262), this song staunchly blames unrealistic beauty standards on patriarchal ideals of womenhood. Even Nipsey Hussle (RIP) blames the disgusting state of Rachel’s personal bathroom not on her, but as an exemplar of “nasty-ass, patriarchal bullshit.” Nipsey who, we are supposed to believe previously upheld these patriarchal ideals, is “forever changed” by facing a realist, private women’s space. After this intervention, and Nipsey’s exit to go “apologize to some bitches,” the clear divisions of the two bathrooms dissolve, showing Rachel and fellow dancers in shapewear with rollers, masks, hair foils, and bleaching cream. Reality has invaded the imagined space- validating Rachel’s actual lived experience, and, through the dancers, the realities of women all over the US attempting to live up to societal beauty standards.