![]() ![]() It's worth noting that Queenie and Marie Laveau were billed as supporting characters, despite the fact that they appeared in more episodes than five of the leads, including Bates' Delphine. If the women of color on Coven served as a commentary on racism, what exactly was the show trying to say? And why was the character of sadistic homicidal racist Madame Delphine LaLaurie (Kathy Bates) afforded more development and motivation than either Queenie or Marie Laveau? Delphine even got the beginnings of a redemptive arc, though that was abandoned halfway through. Surely there was a reason Coven included so many stereotypes, from the fried chicken joint where Queenie (Gabourey Sidibe) worked to Cornrow City, the barbershop where Marie Laveau hid out for centuries. Without discounting what either group faces, the "witches are gay people" coda reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the specific concerns of feminism versus those of the LGBT community. (Fiona essentially became the Axeman's prisoner, and Madison's corpse ended up in the arms of Denis O'Hare's Spalding, who treats her as a doll.) Beyond that, the speech Cordelia (Sarah Paulson) gave about witches being "born this way" and subject to ignorance and hate crimes was an obvious allegory for LGBT identity - a sloppy way of addressing the real-life misogyny women endure. But there is something unsettling about a series that prides itself on complex female characters concluding its season with two of the strongest female characters left as playthings for men. Though violence against women is a common trope in horror, it's not inherently misogynistic. It's not only that these women's powers were inconsistent - and more on that in a bit - but they seemed thoroughly ineffective in the face of male violence. Earlier in the season, Marie Laveau (Angela Bassett) stood helpless in the face of witch-hunter Hank (Josh Hamilton). In the finale, Madison, who proved to be a seriously powerful witch, was strangled to death by Kyle (Evan Peters), and later, Fiona (Jessica Lange) was doomed to an eternity of being smacked around by the Axeman (Danny Huston) in the afterlife. Beyond that, however, the women of Coven mostly fought each other - note how much precious screen time was devoted to the "catfight" between Madison and Misty (Lily Rabe) in the season's penultimate episode.Īnd while the women did have moments of triumph over their male oppressors, they were far more successful fighting each other than the men in their lives. The season began with a retread of the rape-revenge convention, as young witch Madison (Emma Roberts) was drugged and gang raped by a group of frat boys, whom she then murdered with the power of magic. The themes of female power were explored on occasion, but the writers didn't delve much deeper than the Spice Girls did in the '90s. The Marie/LaLaurie rivalry was miles removed from the Zoe/Kyle flirtation, which was itself completely cut off from the Axeman/Fiona entanglement, which only briefly took place in the same galaxy as that whole Witch Hunters of Wall Street tangent, and don’t forget about Misty Day forever twirling.There's something admirable about a series where seven of the nine leads are women, but Coven was not nearly as feminist as it appeared to be on the surface. (The aliens and Satan and the mutants and the Bad Santa never crossed paths, but they all walked to the beat of the same crazy drummer.) Coven split its characters into a whole series of stories that only occasionally made sense in the same universe. All versions of American Horror Story have felt rollicking and scattered, of course, but Murder House and Asy lum had a certain unity of tone and theme. Left alone with the younger witches, it felt more than ever like Coven was really 10 different TV shows in one. Marie Laveau and the Madame LaLaurie are trapped forever in their ironic hellscape Fiona appeared only briefly, about which more later. Last week’s death orgy left this season finale shorn of its most interesting personalities/best actors. But now, a word about Madison for a second. ![]()
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