In her talk about
the use of bathrooms in Girls, Insecure, ans Broad City,
Susan Friaman argued that bathrooms have a specific function as locations that
show a certain kind of feminine realism. They are spaces of vulnerability, intimacy,
female friendship, a crucial space where women have a chance to be freely “gross”
together. Even though using the bathroom is obviously not an exclusively female
activity, Fraiman claims that its representation on TV is a feminine phenomenon,
as we rarely see men in bathroom on screen, at least not in a way that is
crucial to the plot or their character development.
I agree with the
idea that invisible spaces of femininity such as bathrooms should be treated as
equal parts of the “main” plot, which is usually the “masculine sagas” as
Fraiman put. She contrasted these three shows she was talking about to the
classical male stories such as Mad Men and Breaking Bad.
This contrast she
established kept my mind busy for the next week. As I am developing my TV
show for another class, I have been tackling with a very similar question of
how to carry the invisible spaces of women to the foreground while making my
female protagonists go through a saga in the outside world as powerful as the
men in these classical shows go through.
Then I realized
her assessment is a bit unfair. Breaking Bad, in particular, uses
bathrooms in a way similar to Friaman’s description of the function of bathroom
in these three shows. Throughout the show, we see Walt in the bathroom countless
times, and these scenes contribute to his character development greatly. He passes
out in the bathroom naked, vulnerable and weak many times, he shaves his head there
because of his chemotherapy, he takes his medications there, he throws up in
multiple bathroom stalls, coughs blood, and has secret phone calls. He is
efficient and ruthlessly rational in the outside world, but bathroom is where
he hides his weaknesses and his secret life. In addition to Walt’s use of
bathroom, maybe the most crucial scene of the entire show takes place in an
extended bathroom scene with another male character:
All of which
leaves me with the question of how to create a saga for women while still situating
the spaces of intimacy and vulnerability at the emotional center. Would
appreciate if you have suggestions to watch and get inspired!
I was trying to parse the radicality of the bathroom for Fraiman too ...Broad City's abject humor between women never felt radical to me, only familiar -- as much as I hate to say it, the bathtub in Girls as a shared or even primary space seemed the closest to revelatory. Issa in the mirror in Insecure is also a good case. Bathrooms in TV are so often peripheral to work/labor: law firm procedurals where women talk each other down from crying in the office?, high school locker rooms, etc...). But maybe there's something to water as mirroring...conversations around pools in Love Island and the Bachelor come to mind. Then water's relationship to vastness...I'd look at vehicle for quote unquote older stars like Kim Cattrall's Sensitive Skin, Sharon Stone in Mosaic. They are not only transposed into material situations that are generally reserved for men (business, power), but given the same visuals: looking out onto vistas, boats; yet this is where they have conversations about their interiority...?
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