The sound of their own angry voices

[dolorosa_12]

Today is the penultimate installment of this year's January talking meme, and wheatear asked me to talk about the trashiest piece of media that I love.

I have to preface this by saying that nothing is trash if it gives you joy and/or sparks fannish feelings, and media doesn't have to be high art or inspire critical acclaim to deserve the space it occupies in your brain. You feel what you feel about the stories that matter, and they don't have to be award-winning novels or considered must-watch prestige TV.

With that preamble out of the way, my answer to today's question is the glorious, messy, often quite terrible TV series Pretty Little Liars — or, specifically, its earliest two or three seasons. It suffered a sharp decline in quality about midway through, and eventually descended into such appalling transphobia that I honestly hesitate to recommend it to anyone, but at its best it was incredible.

It was also deeply silly, ridiculously soap operatic, and unapologetically aimed at teenage girls (hence, in part, its reputation as a frivolous piece of trash). But it took those girls — their fears, their friendships, their world online — seriously, and made them the centre of their own stories. It told the story of four friends who never really felt solid in their friendships with each other until the glue that held them together — their bullying, controlling, unknowable, enigma of a queen bee friend Ally — goes missing, and they begin being tormented by a shadowy cyberbully who knows all their damaging secrets. In the best, earlier seasons, Ally haunts the girls and the show, simultaneously there and not there, her disappearance a mystery, her presence in her four friends' lives still looming large and shaping their fears and actions. And, at the beginning at least, the show's story was one of abuse, power, and control, and the way teenage girls are disempowered by everyone around them, their very lives, secrets and bodies treated as if they do not belong to them. The only thing that will save them is to trust themselves, trust each other, and treat their lives and fears as if they matter. Heather Hogan, who wrote weekly recaps of the show, sums up my thoughts on why it mattered (to me, and as a story in general), on this specific recap:

[I]f there was such a thing as a television show grocery store, you’d find Pretty Little Liars on the junk food aisle, and the packaging would tell you it’s the story of four teenage girls who grab Fashion by the balls and kiss boys and tell lies and get the shit scared out of them on the regular. And that’s this scene right here on the surface. They all look hot as hell, two of them have guy troubles, someone creepy is knocking at the door. But the truth of this show, the truth of this scene, is that it’s about four young women who have been told from the very beginning that they don’t have any power. It’s what A tells them, it’s what the police tell them, it’s what their fathers tell them, over and over. No power over what happens to their bodies, their minds, their actual lives. On the best days, it’s, “You girls hush and behave while the big, strong men figure out what to do.” (Wilden.) And on the worst days, it’s, “I made you, and so even your most personal business, your very sexuality belongs to me.” (Byron.) Right? And but these four girls, they said no to being victims, no to being powerless, no being tricked into hating their bodies and their desires and the sound of their own angry voices. Whatever else is going on inside their love for one another — whether it’s Spencer shutting down and pulling away or Aria catching Avian Flu from her own earrings — they stand together and refuse to apologize for the space they take up in the world.

If the show ultimately disappointed me, it was only because, at its best, it aspired to something, had something to say, and said it well, if melodramatically. I still love it a lot.

Comments

[wheatear]

I say trashy with love. I haven't seen Pretty Little Liars but I know it was very popular, and telling a story aimed at and focused around teens/young women is definitely worthwhile in its own right too.

[dolorosa_12]

Oh, I knew you meant trashy with affection, I just thought it best to make it clear that I meant it in a similar way myself.

[merit]

Oh I continue to watch Riverdale through gang initiations, evil nuns, shawkshank redemption ripoffs, role playing murder clubs and even musical episodes! Trashy and I can be good friends.

Though I suppose a better show, though definitely aimed at a slightly older audience, was The Magicians S1-3. Because when it was good, it was on fire with the social commentary. Also had musical episodes, now that I think about it.

[dolorosa_12]

I think Riverdale has filled a similar niche to Pretty Little Liars (and possibly The Vampire Diaries as well), and I'm glad it exists!

I've not watched The Magicians, but I know a lot of people really enjoyed it (until, abruptly, they didn't, due to some narrative choices?).

[merit]

I really liked the Magicians! I was planning on waiting til S4 has ended so I could watch at my leisure and then /the event/ happened so I haven't gotten around to watching it yet :/

[dolorosa_12]

Sometimes the narrative choices of TV shows can cause you to break up with the shows really abruptly (I still remember that happening with Sleepy Hollow for me. Once I was done, I was done forever).

[cloudsinvenice]

I love this post. I came to PLL late, because two friends were really into it (one of them a guy in his thirties who was very much outside the target audience but dug it SO much because he is smart and appreciates good TV), and so they basically got treated to my intermittent emails that were all, "DON'T TELL ME IF I'M RIGHT, but I think [so-and-so] could be A. Or maybe it's Spencer's dad."

I loved how at first appearances it was about the stereotype (they're bitchy and cliquey!) but turned out to be about the resilience and loyalty of teenage girls - qualities that are seldom celebrated at such length in pop culture.

[dolorosa_12]

You've absolutely hit the nail on the head regarding PLL — that's exactly what I liked about it too. It was, at its best, a celebration of the resilience and kindness and friendships of teenage girls, in the face of all the horror the world throws at them.

Have you actually finished the whole show now? Because I want to say more in response to your comment, but I won't if it means spoiling you.

[cloudsinvenice]

I've finished it - I'd love to hear more of your thoughts! Also, did you ever see the sequel series, The Perfectionists? It was cancelled after one season and I've never heard people talking about it, so I guess it didn't land well, but it revolved around Alison and Mona working at a university: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretty_Little_Liars:_The_Perfectionists

[dolorosa_12]

I didn't even know they made a sequel series! I know they tried a weird sort of spin-off centred on Caleb, but that didn't seem to gain much traction and it was cancelled, and back he came to PLL.

Given you finished it, all I was planning to say is that I remember really wishing that A — or at least who was ultimately pulling A's strings — was one of the fathers, preferably Byron, because all the adult men in the show, the fathers especially, were really, really awful (apart from Emily's dad). They were such appalling hypocrites! Also, I preferred the idea that the person tormenting these girls was some patriarchal figure, because it felt to me that the show was about adult men's fears of teenage girls' autonomy, and the way that dominant narratives weaponise teenage girls against each other as a way of deflecting their attention from the real source of their disempowerment. But the show never quite dared to be that dark, or that direct, and degenerated into soapiness, and transphobia.

[cloudsinvenice]

Apparently the Caleb-centric spin-off was to do with that town he went to for a while that had ghosts; they just went for a fully supernatural premise there. I like things like that in general, but in the context of PLL I always found those episodes a bit odd and so the series didn't draw me.

To me it really made sense for it to be one of their fathers - they seemed so hypocritical, and you're absolutely right about why it would've made such sense thematically. I thought the whole reveal with Ezra was great, but it was disappointing that ultimately the show didn't take the questions it raised about the relationship to their logical conclusion: instead, it felt like we were meant to think it was okay because Aria's so mature or something, but she's a kid who's been forced to grow up fast because she's being stalked and manipulated.

There was a lot going on there about the transition from childhood to adulthood generally. The picture aspirational teen shows from the US paint of the adolescence is often of freedom that feels quasi-adult: they drive young over there, the casting (Alison excepted; the production team didn't realise how young Sasha Pieterse was at first) tends to be of people who are not in their teens, I think partly because of child labour laws, and despite plot points around financial trouble, the PLL girls seemed to have the clothing budgets of adults with freedom to spend money how they wanted. So it kind of plays into the idea that they're little adults who are only being thwarted by A and by their parents' rules.

I think in a lot of ways the fact it riffed so much on traditions (film noir, the femme fatale) with very gendered dynamics imposed limits (or rather, they didn't let it transcend those limits often enough), but they could've so easily NOT made it transphobic. There were so many plausible options for who could've been A, and why.

On a less serious note, I also think it was a bit of a mistake to do the five-years-later thing: the girls going off to uni (finally getting out of bloody Rosewood!) felt like a really fitting end. Naturally people want to know what happened to them, but it felt like something best left to fanfic.

[dolorosa_12]

Yeah, I was not a fan of the five-years-later story, and I think they should have found a way to end the series when the girls finished secondary school.

You're absolutely right about the way US teen shows (and films) portray the teenage experience — I suppose it is realistic that they're all driving, but it's also helpful from a narrative perspective if all teenage characters have a way to get quickly to whatever random locations the plot demands of them. And there's a sort of aspirational undertone, with everyone being comfortably upper middle class, with huge suburban houses, expensive wardrobes, and so on.

They chickened out when it came to the reveal with Ezra, because they'd already decided that he was Aria's designated endgame love interest, and so they had to walk back anything that painted him in too negative a light — even though what he had done was really awful. Weirdly, though, the fact that they chickened out when it came to the reveal with Toby annoyed me much more, and I remember writing really ranty things about that either here or on Tumblr at some point. [I dug back through my tags and found it here, although I think my thoughts have changed somewhat since 2013!) I couldn't stand Toby, and I hated that the narrative excused and explained away the things he did.

[cloudsinvenice]

And it feels like the narrative kind of forgot all that about Toby over time - like later, when Spencer's working on her mother's campaign and meets Toby's wife/fiance there's a whole "what might have been" mood and it's like... no, that was actually a lucky escape.