This is a nostalgic and meandering trip I took analyzing the 1998-2002 WB series Felicity, a show I found to be very feminist at turns and rather unfeminist at others. Some of the discussion here is for pure unfeminist fun and obsession, but my thoughts about gender roles, masculinity/femininity, and relationship equality continually creep in.
Crossposted at: Library Cat
(Spoiler warnings)
This summer I marathoned the entire Felicity series with my sister. I was in college during its 1998-2002 run, but she, seven years younger, had never seen the show (and barely heard of it, actually). I hadn't seen it in years, save for a few re-runs on the WE network, although I had always, without question, reserved for it a special place in my heart. I wasn't quite sure how she would react to it, being a devotee of more recent shows like The OC, One Tree Hill, and Grey's Anatomy, and I basically had to twist her arm to get her to watch it at all. She was skeptical, it turns out. But as we popped in disc one, and freshman year started to unfold, she was sucked in -- immediately. And then we both spiraled into a DVD-fueled obsession that would. not. die.
So, here's the thing. I still love the show. I adore it, actually, probably more so than any other series, except for maybe Brothers & Sisters. Like B&S, the characters on Felicity are so well-crafted, flawed, and endearing, and the dialogue so smart, funny, and insightful, it's hard for me not to worship this show even when I admit I'm not in love with every storyline (cough, David, cough, Maggie, cough, Natalie, cough), or when I'm despising the second theme song (as much as I treasured the first) and fast forwarding through it as if to save my own life.
As we plowed through, I discovered my memory of each season was a bit hazy. It's amazing what you can forget over time, even about your favorite show. But, there were two things I remembered clear as day -- that she ended up with Ben, and that she and Noel never got back together.
I thought maybe that my feelings about these two facts -- being rather intense at that time, while I myself was in college -- might have lessened. But upon revisiting the Ben-Noel question all these years later, I found that my already-intense (thought dormant) feelings had only intensified.
Why the hell didn't she end up with Noel? (And I willingly admit that it's probably unfeminist even to think this! So, okay, why did she have to end up with anybody at all?)
I still -- I don't get that. In my eyes, although Ben had endearing qualities and had his own path of growth to follow as a character, and while I didn't even mind him and Felicity dating in order to answer some questions and satisfy Felicity's insufferable high school obsession (which, come on, you never end up with that person), it just always seemed to me that she and Noel had the best possible thing -- real, lasting love based on an amazing, solid friendship.
Think about it. Felicity and Ben were all grand disappointments and unrealistic expectations (as the "popular" guy and the "brainiac" girl, they were stuck in high school categories that made them insecure), while Noel and Felicity were more about idiosyncratic flaws, humor, and realistic possibilities (they could relate to each other on an equal level, in which mutual honesty about their individual shortcomings actually made them stronger). Okay, well, that's just my take on it. I know everyone can't -- and won't -- agree.
Both couples were charming, I'll admit that, but I can't help but register a major injustice when a show glorifies the most unrealistic type of relationship, while throwing away the one that could actually work. And it's not just Felicity that does this -- television and movies do it all the time, ad nauseam. I mean, talk about expectations! No wonder there's this screwed-up cultural obsession with fairy tales -- they're perpetuated every single day. As a feminist, I recognize a fundamental problem in the way a show like Felicity emphasizes the main female character's relationships with men above all else -- yet, I can't help but feel this factor could be mitigated somewhat were the main character to choose (if she must) a less stereotypically masculine, more nontraditional type of guy. Or, gasp, a girl.
And so here's where I admit that despite my love for Felicity, or maybe because of it, this show breaks my heart every time. And simultaneously pisses me off. And not just in that Felicity and Noel don't end up together. I would have enjoyed (and probably preferred) a more open-ended finale in which Felicity asserted her independence yet the possibility of a future relationship still remained for them, and in which the egalitarian nature of their relationship/friendship was stressed as romantically valuable over time (rather than as inferior to the Felicity/Ben tug of war, that so-called "force," which tended to be fueled by drama and rooted in the crisis of the moment). Because that's what Felicity and Noel felt like to me -- the real deal. Future life partners who respected (and admired) each other's spaces and choices. So when they married Noel off to Zoe and Felicity forgave Ben once again after another charismatic apology (orchestrated through the elaborate time travel dream in which Noel ends up dead, which I guess was supposed to resign us to an unquestionable Felicity/Ben "destiny" but only ended up feeling cruel for Noel, unsettling for Felicity (uh, how can she ever trust Ben again?), and bitter in that Ben seems to get everything he wants, without true sacrifice (meaning, Arizona was Lauren's chosen location, not his, so Ben "following" Felicity to his own hometown after Lauren magically agrees to move there just does NOT feel like a legitimate hardship)) -- well, that was a crushing blow, a sour pill to swallow. And hard to forgive, quite honestly.
Truth is, I've found it's almost too painful to watch the whole series beginning to end anymore. The fact that Noel ends up in therapy and on depression meds, and Felicity in a psych ward by the end of season 4, seems entirely appropriate given that by then that's also where I feel I belong. In a mental hospital. Because as I get caught up in the stories and the way the romantic arcs were set up, starting in season 1, the same thing happens -- every time. I get hopeful. Just about the time Felicity and Noel confess their love during "Docuventary," and they kind of, almost, get back together then -- I have hope. But then Ben swoops in under the pretense that he "likes" her, whoopee!, and Felicity and Ben take that mysterious road trip together, only to come back in the fall to find that Ben's utterly incompetent to be in a relationship... Well, but then hope returns in early season 2 when Felicity cuts her hair, drops pre-med, drops Ben, and wants Noel back -- well, at that point it all feels inevitable. Surely, these two must get back together. Even if they don't stay together, they must get back together at some point.
Except they don't. Although there are a few close calls, many endearing scenes, and even time travel, they never really get back together. Look in the freaking drawer, already. Damn it. But she doesn't. Or she does, but slams it shut. And so that unresolved suspense of the Felicity-Noel relationship, never satisfied, is a very particular form of storytelling torture. I think it's called hell.
It's like zoning out to your favorite song only to have the original artist come along and smash your iPod to the pavement before you can savor those last few notes of satisfying resolution.
Or, you know, it's like a held breath -- you're always waiting for them to get back together and they never do (those time travel episodes help ease the pain a little, at first, but are ultimately a bucket of salt in the wound, let's be honest). So you suffocate. You never exhale.
This all might sound a bit dramatic or overly analytical, but I have to say, in a TV landscape littered with McDreamys and Mr. Bigs, there was something really special about witnessing a relationship based on unconditional friendship and chemistry at the same time. Ben was definitely a McDreamy, a Mr. Big. But Noel was... Noel. I'm really not sure there is, still, any other male character quite like him. Not in my mind, anyway. He sort of transcends gender categories of masculinity/femininity in that he was the funny guy/computer geek/best friend/adorable boyfriend who wasn't a sexist "nice guy" and who wasn't afraid to be kind. Or talk about things. McDreamys, Bens, and Mr. Bigs -- they don't open up because at some level they're fundamentally freaked out about who they are. Which always seems to become, unfairly, the chief problem of the person they're dating, and not a problem they stand up and own and deal with themselves. In a word, they're cowards; yet because of their masculine charisma, they get away with it. Over and over again. Noel wasn't like that.
I will say, I think the appeal of Noel has a lot do with the way Scott Foley portrayed him. He was really incredible in that role. The character was written well and with depth, especially by J.J. Abrams, but I think Scott Foley was the clinching factor, in that he has that intangible something. A genuine, authentic quality that goes beyond gender. And even my sister confessed in the middle of our marathon that on most similar shows, she would have been all about the Ben/McDreamy/Mr. Big character, no questions asked... But on Felicity she was all about Noel. Swoon.
These gripes aside, in general I feel like the show has aged well. I still, overall, adore it. The themes -- self-discovery, survival, embracing and maintaining your independence, the definition of love, finding your way, finding your passions -- still ring true, even at age 30. There were also a few amazingly blatant feminisms, such as when Felicity leads a sit-in at health services to fight for the morning-after pill, not to mention a few episodes later when she runs for student council president. And who could forget that super short hair cut, or Felicity and Elena taking a self-defense class together? These empowerments, over time, sort of cancelled out the fact that she had followed high school crush Ben to New York in the first place.
But, more than anything, since I was in college while the show was running (1998-2002), Felicity also holds this intense nostalgia that will forever be bound up with my own college years. The music, the clothes, the hair. My god. Those plaid flannels, the Lilith Fair references, the lack of cell phones, subplots involving Episode I and Late Night with Conan O'Brien. These details make Felicity priceless to me, no matter how much of a malcontent I can be about the Noel question or the mixed bag of feminisms throughout the series.
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From what I recall of this show, the whole premise was that she rearranges all HER life-and-college plans simply to attend the same school her high school crush will be going to. So while I'm not saying you shouldn't enjoy the show, I wouldn't approach it with high feminist expectations.
Also, it kind of irked me that "alternative girl" roommate Megan was portrayed as being so mean. Felt like a throwback to that 80's trope where only nice, preppie, clean cut girls like Felicity can be "good", and anyone who deviates is a troublemaker.
Definitely, the premise itself IS problematic (she follows Ben, her high school crush & a virtual stranger, from California to New York), though it's probably not surprising this is the particular angle the WB chose to play up.
On the other hand, that initial choice to follow Ben is almost immediately complicated when we learn that she was also motivated to break away from her parents' expectations (especially her father's). She says they basically had her life planned out since she was "a zygote," in that they expected her to go to Stanford undergrad and then to Stanford med school -- fall in line without thinking for herself, basically. (And it unfolds later on that her own personal dream for herself was to be an artist, not a doctor.)
So once she begins to deal with these issues (with the help of a counselor) it comes out pretty quickly that the Ben fixation was a stupid excuse to make a decision on her own, even if it did turn out to be a mistake (which she admits within a few episodes that it was).
One thing I really liked about this show was that each character's motivations were written as fairly complex and almost never black-and-white. While it still bothers me that they never let the Ben obsession totally die, they did balance it with insight & commentary on what was problematic with her following him to NY in the first place. She is, at times, pretty embarrassed about it, I have to say, and some of the supporting characters are embarrassed for her.
I remember watching felicity back in the day. This post is inspiring me to watch the whole series too with fresh eyes because I really didn't like noel for some reason...
I would love to hear your take on "six feet under" It is my fav tv of all time!
You should definitely track down those DVDs... they are addicting. :) "Six Feet Under" has always been on my list of shows to marathon... just haven't gotten around to it yet. I love Rachel Griffiths on "Brothers & Sisters" though, who plays Brenda on SFU, so that's one reason SFU appeals to me.