I think the British TV show The Fall came to my attention because it stars Gillian Anderson. I've been somewhat smitten with her since her appearance in Hannibal. In the brilliant TV series based on Thomas Harris's books, Anderson plays a character not created by Harris as far as I can recall, and I've read the books. She plays Hannibal Lecter's psychiatrist, a woman named Dr. Bedelia Du Maurier.
Anderson plays this character with a kind of stiff, halting, affectless demeanor. She looks like she had some botched botox that left her permanently incapable of making facial expressions. It would not be terribly surprising to learn that such a thing had in fact happened to actress Gillian Anderson who looks more beautiful now than she did in her 20s on The X-Files. She looks more gaunt now, and yet somehow more feminine.
I began watching previous episodes of The Fall on Amazon, buying them one at a time. It's a cop-and-serial-killer show. I don't care how many shows there are about serial killers, I think I'll always find them fascinating so long as they are well written. And this one is.
In The Fall, Gillian Anderson plays the cop. Actually, she's some kind of high-ranking English police investigator, and she arrives on the scene to take charge of searching for a serial murderer. Anderson speaks plausibly enough with an English accent to my ears, but I'm an American after all. The really jarring thing here is that Anderson plays her cop character, Stella Gibson, with the same kind of affectless, robotic monotone she used in Hannibal. Granted, it's not quite the same. Stella Gibson doesn't speak in exactly the same halting cadence of Dr. Bedelia Du Maurier—and that's an impressive feat—but she never displays any emotion at all until Season 2, Episode 3 (I think) when she discovers that the killer has been in her home and written a note to her in her own personal journal. For just a moment, she displays something that looks like surprise and fear.
Why has Gillian Anderson taken to playing these robotic, emotionless women? And why do feminists call this a “strong” woman? I came upon this article while reading about Anderson and her character: The Fall: feminist, anti-men and sadly accurate. It seems to support my idea that would-be feminists view her unyielding lack of humanity as some kind of vanguard of feminism into television. She displays characteristics that aren't exactly “feminine” (nor exactly human), and that's some kind of win for females everywhere.
I think what is interesting about The Fall is that both the serial murdered and the cop who is chasing him (Anderson) are sociopaths. That is the thing nobody else seems to have put to words just yet. Gillian Anderson isn't playing a strong female lead. She's playing a person devoid of all emotion, empathy, and restraint. She's playing a sociopath. She's playing a very high-functioning sociopath who has been very successful in climbing the ladder of her choice and gaining power over men. If you want to see a strong female lead who isn't a sociopath, watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Murphy Brown or Mary Tyler Moore. Being a strong woman doesn't mean being an affectless sociopath.
None of that is an indictment of the TV show—only a disagreement with some of the idiots who have commented on it before me. It's an interesting show: sociopath versus sociopath. Very watchable.
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