“Genre as Feminist Platform: Diagnosis, Anger, and Serial T.V.”

Abstract

How has the creation of neurodiverse female protagonists worked to make women’s anger generically viable, stripped of conventional stigma? The female T.V. showrunners of Crazy-Ex Girlfriend, Physical, and I May Destroy You fashion genres from musical comedy to autofiction, as feminist platforms through their leads’ diagnoses. These diagnoses facilitate serial generic narratives where the distinction between norm and pathology (the basis of feminized stigma, shame, and abjection) is inverted or blurred. What results is an intersectional complexity (of genre world and angry, neurodiverse character) that calls normative social strictures pointedly into question. These shows’ female, of color and queer characters generate intersectional “trouble” from stigmatized affects (shame, abjection, depression, rage) and bad behaviors (stalking, bullying, lying, and deception, vengeance, violence). Their narratives of angry, neurodiverse characters provide trenchant feminist platforms for rewriting cultural norms concerning women’s anger, sexuality, ambition, and appetite.