Something I have pondering since her talk is the way that TV (and film) seems to respect a certain amount of sanctity to the space. A friend of mine told me that when she was growing up she used to go and use the bathroom if she was home alone and scared because "no one ever got killed by a serial killer in movies on the toilet." Which is a natural expectation when you watch horror TV or movies, because no one does get killed there; we expect very specific places of vulnerability—the shower, a bath, looking into the mirror, even walking around in a towel post bathing.
It's the same idea that follows something like 24, where we ostensibly follow 24 hours in the lives of rugged, manly men saving the world who never use the bathroom. The truth is, they probably (hopefully?) do, but it's not plot relevant, the same way we'd cut away from Jack Bauer driving across town unless he's going to get into a massive car accident that impedes his journey. As part of that, we have a sort of tiered terrain of vulnerability when it comes to using the bathroom (in any capacity) because TV and films inform how we think about these things.
Subsequently, it's interesting that Fraiman is developing a theory about what women's bathroom usage on-screen represents: It means that we (/she) have found that women's stories don't end when they enter the bathroom, that the room represents a key part of their development as characters—in a way that doesn't quite extend to the men, as a universal concept. The characters of Insecure, Girls, or Broad City have lives that don't get put on hold when they're in the bathroom, in the tub, getting their period, defecating, what have you.
Like someone else on this forum, I thought of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend's pilot song "Sexy Getting Ready Song," which sort of pulls back the curtain on what it's like to prepare for a date as a woman (universally, or just as a stereotype), and sort of honors the work that happens there.
This feels like an acknowledgement that women's stories — on-screen and off —involve more (intimate) production that often gets put off screen, contributing to the invisibility of the whole thing. It may be vulnerable to bring people in on your bathroom routine, but it's also normalizing and reflecting a truer form of life.
Zosha, like I said to Jade too, who also cites Crazy Ex Girlfriend, I'm so thrilled this show was mentioned! The Sexy getting Ready Song is a complicated thing, isn't it? On one hand its a meta-narrative feminist comment on the misogyny behind beauty standards and how much blood ("ass blood", ha) and tears figure into the process. But on another level it's a testament to Rebecca's self-hatred that she continues punishing her body despite having the feminist critique of makeup on her mind - after all, her mind supplies all the songs - and that's true of most women who undergo this. Fraiman's talk took note of a trend in which we see the labour and the non-labour behind conforming to or defying these societal injunctions, but the reason I kept thinking about having the voyeur in one's own head is because this is how *I* exist. I know that waxing and applying eyeliner is ridiculous, and the bathroom is my space of grossness. But the grossness is always TEMPORARY, because after all that song-and-dance, grossness is confined to the metaphorical bathroom. In the end I always give in.
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