Phryne, Jack and Phrack - response to comments

Back in June I published the entry The Development of Phryne Fisher. I discussed a little how I see how Phryne's background has affected her. It seems like the entry was very well recieved, but I also got some strange comments that I have felt I need to address. I know it was a long time ago, but as you probably have noticed, I have not been able to keep up with my regular posting speed in quite some time due to PhD applications and other projects in real life. In the last week however, I have been bedridden with a nasty cold, wherefore I have been forced to stress down, which I think was well needed because of the circumstances.

If I, in any way, insinuated that I thought Phryne was "damaged goods", I think you must have misunderstood what my intentions with the entry were!

Phryne has had a difficult time in the past and she clearly has suffered from some heartache due to the loss of her little sister and her, from what it seems, rather traumatic relationship with René Dubois (I think I will have reasons to explore that part of Phryne's life more in a future entry.). However, to me she cannot be considered "damaged goods". To be honest, I think that term is very degrading of her as a character. (Not least, if this was said in regard for the many men that occupy her bed from time to time.)

Flight is the method Phryne uses to avoid having to deal with the darker sides of her past. She might have picked this up because the family got an opportunity to move to England after the abduction of her little sister Jane. She is not "damaged", broken or even unhappy however. In fact she flees just to avoid being any of it. This is probably also why she does seem to keep other people at arm's length. This does not mean that she does not have many friends. In fact she seems to know pretty much everyone. However, she also seems to only opening herself up to a small numbers of select few. Mac is one of them and I would so love to see more of their back story on the show because of this.

To me season 1 is pretty much all about Phryne being forced to face the demons from her past. This is illustrated by the overarching plotline with her sister’s kidnapper Murdoch Foyle. Right before Cocaine Blues, she has come to know that he will be released from prison. This is what makes her return to Melbourne in the TV show (not the books, but I am focusing solely on TV-Phryne in this blog post). In the episode Murder in Montparnasse she also comes face to face with her abusive ex-boyfriend René Dubois. But instead of fleeing yet again, Phryne deals with both of these past abusers and this is where she stabilise as a character (mature if you so want, but that was another comment I got and if that is so important I will rephrase it) and grows.

However, she does not do so all alone. Over the course of the first two episodes of the show, Phryne starts tying people to herself and they become family. Anthony Sharpe who plays Cec on the show, said in an interview with Sherri Rabinowitz for her podcast Chatting with Sherri a while ago that the people around Phryne are all so different that you would expect it not to work out, but it does. Phryne has made it clear that the others are in her life, but they need to except that the others are also parts of it. For Ethnology class, I recently read the article En säker plats. Alternativa familjer, relationsanarki och flersamhet bland unga queeraktivister (2010) by Swedish anthropologist Fanny Ambjörnsson about how chosen families can make you feel better when your biological family does not understand you. I found myself thinking about Phryne’s situation as I read it. It deserves its own entry when I have the time, so I will leave it for the time being.

Phryne: Which reminds me, you never did tell all about the Chinese brothel. 
Jack: I have trouble recalling trauma. 
Phryne: Jack Robinson, you promised me. Do I have to put you on the couch and psychoanalyse you?

~ Death and Hysteria, Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries 

If you still go ahead claiming that Phryne is damaged, you really cannot deny that Jack Robinson is at least just as much damaged as she is. To be honest, after the madness that was my last Jack entry, Detective Inspector Jack Robinson, I never thought I would delve into his character again, but here we go.

Phryne was greatly affected by the war, but from the little we have learned about his past, Jack was even more so. Another theme from the show that I wish to address one day is the sort of collective posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that was a result of The First World War. It is a side to the war that I have not seen so much in other portrayals, but still makes sense as part of the outcome of the war. Like with the chosen family theme, mentioned above, I would not be able to do it justice in this entry, since it will be far too long anyway. Therefore it will have to wait.

Jack: I went to war a newlywed. 
Phryne: But you came home. 
Jack: Not the man my wife married... 16 years ago. 
Phryne: War will do that to you.

~ Raisins and Almonds, Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries

We do not exactly know how much Jack was affected by the war, but his sensitive nature and the little we have learned about him in the show indicate that it might have given him a depression and making him at least a bit shell shocked (the term used for PTSD at the time) from his war experiences.

Like I wrote in my former Jack post, I think the Swedish notion of vemod suits Jack very well. Just like Phryne, he is not broken or damaged! There is a sad aspect to his character, but I would not say that he is unhappy per se. I do think both he and Phryne have been broken, but time and circumstances have provided them both with reasons and energy to pick themselves up again.

I do not like the insinuation about them being total messes who can only be cured by love and I do not really think that is how they are portrayed in the show either to be honest. 

I normally am a bit opposed to the cliché of crime shows about how a male and a female crime investigator who work together also for some reason need to get together romantically, but to me the Phryne and Jack pairing is different from most of those. In my latest entry Phrack, a kickstarter video and romanticized farewells, I mentioned how the show often takes troupes and clichés and twist them and that really is the case when it comes to the Phryne and Jack pairing, by fans named Phrack. I wonder how much of it comes from the gender fluidity of the characters. Both are created with both traditionally male and female traits and regarding their characters, Jack is actually more traditional female with his sensitive and Phryne is the traditional much less feeling man. I absolutely love how they come together. They are clearly attracted to each other at least from Murder on the Ballarat Train and forward, but neither of them is really prepared to act on it. Instead they both need to grow as characters and they do so together. This, to me, creates a better foundation for a lasting, equal relationship.

Since I received those comments in June/July, I have reflected a lot upon it whenever Vikings have not “raided my brain” too much. It is so easy to just ask if the commentators are watching the same show as I do, but I think there is more to it than that. Maybe we are so used to see movies and TV-shows where gender roles and romantic relationships are portrayed in a certain, stereotypical way reflecting societal norms that our expectations and prejudices somehow try to interpret whenever we see something different according to those norms and stereotypes.