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Among Big little lies"Many motives – waves breaking on the coast of Monterey, Leon Bridges singing, Laura Dern (in her role as a rich maniac, Renata Klein) screaming – shouting his female characters running. HBO's melodrama, which ended its second season on July 21, is a celebration of its female stars in motion, a sign of their refusal to yield to conspiring forces to control them.
Women of Big little lies live in a state of constant conflict, with abusive or reckless husbands, mothers and mothers-in-law, while trying to protect their children from the consequences of bad behavior (of which they are guilty), too!).
But they never accept their opposition, whether to stand up to a vile mother in court, to bring a baseball bat to the man's cave, to bademble to say that Perry is " fell "during a lightning party or to hide a case. with the director. When women are running, strong, fast and determined, the viewer is supposed to recognize their persistence, which reflects their spirit, their stubbornness and their determination to move forward, whatever. in itself the price.
A physically strong woman on the screen is a resistance agent
An active woman on the screen is a powerful image, intrinsically resistant, even radical. We are more accustomed to watching men physically exercise on the screen as an expression of their power, whether it's Rocky climbing the steepest steps in Philadelphia sweaty, or a blonde, skinny and flirtatious, Jared Leto smokes competition in the three-mile in Préfontaine, the biopic of the prodigy of the middle distance track Steve Prefontaine. These are memorable moments in sports-oriented films that have nonetheless prepared us.
When she is a woman with impressive stamina, she appears subversive and more stimulating. Take Jennifer Lawrence charging after Bradley Cooper in Reading book of silver liners, a moment that literally concretizes Cooper's Lovelorn Pat attempts to flee her feelings for Lawrence, while Tiffany, stronger, propels herself towards him, clearly explaining her thoughts. And the entirety of Run Lola Run is based on a woman, Lola, who runs against the clock. She is a heroine of action without a weapon. Lola is armed only with an incredible amount of stamina. Both characters draw our attention by their endurance, emotional and physical.
"If a woman is jogging – rather than sitting and moping in her kitchen or bar – she is actively opposed to victimization," says Annette Insdorf, a professor of film at the university. Columbia, and author of Cinematic opening: how to read the opening scenes. "The more the heroine is active on the screen, the more likely she is to stay in control. Mobility is both literal and figurative – the opposite of stasis, suggesting a trap. "
Watching women move across the screen with grace and power is as ambitious as cathartic. "They maintain their physical health in a way that the camera loves: we watch movies or television because they are after all movies, " Insdorf says.
When there is a scene going on Big little liesI would like to tie my shoes and go to the door. This is partly because I am addicted to the sport and partly because I am incredibly impressionable. But I am also drawn to the controlled chaos of how they manage their race, how they exploit this raw emotion and use it to propel it forward and quickly. Knowing that I can channel a spiral into something that seems productive, it's easier to manage an emotionally erratic person.
In the political drama of Netflix Room of cards, Scenes featuring the Machiavellian girl Claire Underwood (Robin Wright) who has become so iconic that they have inspired Spotify's playlists and workout outfits. Other shows that combine a coveted look with physical prowess, such as GLOW (1980s glam women slamming into the ring, wearing big hair, neon polyester and glitter) and Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter as a naughty donkey, leather jacket, superheroine uprisings turned into PI and whiskey pulling) have a similar effect: we too want to embrace fitness and be cool doing it.
Running is not just stress relief, it's a way of dealing with trauma.
As powerful as these women appear in motion, their exercise, and their running in particular, is often used as a mechanism of adaptation. In Big little liesJane Chapman (Shailene Woodley) runs for mental and physical catharsis, with the goal of treating the trauma of her badual badault by Perry (Alex Skarsgard). As she wanders the sand or bluffs over the sea – she walks too fast, she can not get past her goal – the drama of the Monterey landscape is an ideal setting for her exacerbated emotional state.
Her mind races with flashbacks until the night of the incident and fantasies of revenge in which she tracks down her attacker and kills him. When she comes home, she is out of breath, but temporarily relieved, dancing and singing to the sound of music with her headphones (in a live scene of Martha Wainwright's "Bloody Motherbading Asshole").
In season 1, Madeline (Reese Witherspoon) and Celeste (Nicole Kidman) accompany Jane in a common race. Their ferocious expressions and their sturdy steps indicate that they mentally engage in their respective conflicts (for Madeleine, what to face her unfaithfulness; Celeste, what to face her violent husband, Perry; Jane, if she Count the stalker aggressor and kill him). We see them running to the end of a pier and stop at the water – pushed to the edge, to the limit of what they can handle.
Jogging as a method of exorcism has appeared in other recent series; it's become a trend. In the first season of British tragicomedy FleabagFleabag (the creator and writer Phoebe Waller-Bridge) runs daily in the cemetery where her mother and best friend are buried. This is the perfect badogy with how Fleabag manages her grief: yes, she is in mourning, but she continues to move forward. Fleabag is also a kind of lively goth, and his choice of race track bears witness to his sense of humor and contempt for social norms. When his sister, Clare, tells him that "it's really inappropriate to run into a graveyard," Fleabag just looks amused. She wears her depression (and her elegant outfits) without shame.
The new Hulu season Veronica Mars also plays with the trope running. Veronica runs early in the morning, even before she lights up, to try to gain some space and let off steam about her tense relationship with her boyfriend Logan. She refused it after he offered to do it. Now they are stuck and resentful in a cramped apartment. While jogging, she gets blown up, but the guy hits him easily and grabs his knife, stolen wallets and cell phones, shouting, "Come on, go! This is my only moment! Veronica has always been a stubborn loner, but the adult version of the season, though deficient and reluctant to tackle her problems, is safer than we've ever seen before.
What unites all these representations, however, is their connection to the emotional and psychological trials that women are fighting against. According to Katrina Anderson, a psychotherapist and psychotherapist practicing in Manhattan, running can be a tool for reprocessing trauma.
"As the physiological reaction that occurs during the race is similar to an activated trauma response – increased heart rate, difficulty breathing, muscle contraction, pumping of adrenaline – if patients return to the environment in which they are located. found, they can use running to complete the response to the trauma, "says Anderson. "The body is no longer hooked to this material and released it in a conscious and therapeutic manner."
Anderson compares the steps from left to right of the race to EMDR (Eye Motion Desensitization and Retraiting), a trauma-reprocessing tool that uses bilateral stimulation to change the way trauma is stored in the body and in memory. Exercising and exorcising your demons is not only satisfying spiritually, then; its positive effects are physiological.
But television shows must remember that running is a short-term solution, not a long-term solution.
With the literal overtaking of the traumatic past at the heart of the series, Big little lies regularly puts his characters into therapy through fitness. find relief by staying active. But running is not a miracle solution; it can be tiring for the body and the mind. We see it in the last season of Showtime Billions, while Wendy Rhoades (Maggie Siff) starts running at night compulsively to face her power problems with her husband, Chuck Rhoades (Paul Giamatti) and his abusive boss, Bobby Axelrod (Damian Lewis). When she runs, it is with the intention of getting rid of the pain, but instead, she ends up being exhausted and crying in the dark.
"Exercise is a short-term solution, a quick shot of endorphins," says Anna Shults Outfit, a long-time runner based in San Francisco. "Running helps me manage my mental health, but it has never solved a problem for me or removed any trauma."
In Big little lies In season two, as Jane begins to recover from her post-traumatic stress disorder, she does not seem to need these runs as she did before. Since her death, Perry's memory has not haunted her in a way that requires daily clashes; instead, we see her dancing on the sand, surfing or drawing on her couch.
This pbadage of running could be a natural progression on the path of healing, according to Anderson. In the beginning, "sometimes, people have more body stress stored and need a more immediate active release," she says. Over time, running might not feel the same, as they have already treated some of the PTSD. "Tranquility could become more accessible for them, while staying still during the early stages of the trauma could be very uncomfortable," she says.
Bonnie (Zoe Kravitz), the always controlled and uncontrolled frozen yogi in Jane's place, needs more than just carpet to fight her guilt and panic after Perry's murder. She walks the trails in the woods near her home, wandering with a lost expression on her face, replaying the night of the murder in her head. The race is also a way for her to hide from reality and withdraw from her husband, Nathan (James Tupper), to whom she can not confide. In a desperate attempt to get in touch with her (and probably also to keep her close), he buys her a treadmill. In the finale of the season, she told him that she did not love him anymore, and perhaps never again: all these hours spent running and ruminating in a fast loneliness pushed her to action.
Running in real life can seem cinematic, especially when you have a soundtrack in your ears and an awesome view in front of you. When we see her modeled for us by complex on-screen heroines, it begins to seem possible that we can also use the race to regain control of our own story – even if it's only about half an hour fooling around even if we will have to lace up again and again to face the emotional challenges of each new day. I call it a big little victory.
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