Netflix recently released two shows based on Marvel comics: Daredevil and Jessica Jones. They are both set in New York City within the Marvel's cinematic universe. Though set in the same city, the two narratives tell of two distinct cities.
New York City portrayed by both shows are within the Marvel's cinematic universe, meaning that it is a city once battered by the alien invasion that occurred in The Avengers. Its citizens are still trying to recuperate from the damages of the alien invasion while criminals are taking advantage of the harsh situations of the city. It is a dark city overrun by evils of men.
In Daredevil, however, all is not lost among the darkness. The show's main character, Matthew Murdock, also known as the Daredevil, is a Catholic whose motives for becoming a hero is deeply rooted in his moral conscience. The show is not stingy when it comes to highlighting his Catholic identity; the show starts with Matthew in a confessional with a priest. Furthermore, at the end of episode 1, the show ends with the protagonists talking of virtue, a word that is quite rare in modern moral language apart from the religious. In recognizing that he is gifted with superhuman senses and advanced martial arts techniques, he finds himself suited to fight against the evils that corrupt the city. In becoming a hero, his alias "Daredevil" gives new meaning to the word. Daring to go against the tide of evil is indeed audacious in line of the traditional understanding of the word. Yet he is a person who dares to go against the devil, someone who dares the devil. In fighting evil, he does not become evil himself; in defeating the villains, he refuses to kill.
Matthew is a lawyer, a morally conscious lawyer at that. The profession in the show, however, is not portrayed in such a way. Lawyers are portrayed as Machiavellian individuals who show no sympathy for the disadvantaged. In fact, they work their hardest to exploit the disadvantaged. Matthew stands out among other lawyers in the show in that he has a sense of purpose driven by his moral convictions. New York City in Daredevil is thus a ruined city with hope wherein a hero delivers divine justice through his deeds.
Jessica Jones is quite different, however. The heroine Jessica Jones, although gifted with super strength, is a victim of a mind controlling villain Killgrave. Under his control, she lived in a hell.... She was forced to kill, forced to show affection toward him, and force to have sex with him (which is in effect rape). She wanted to do them while not wanting to do any of them; her sense of autonomy was totally depraved under his control, rendering her super power irrelevant. She is portrayed as a victim, to be sure. She suffers from PTSD and behavioral issues that impede her from having meaningful relationships with people.
The show doesn't portray Jessica as the only person incapable of meaningful relationships. In fact, the show portrays romantic relationships in general in an extremely poor light. Jessica gets into a sexual relationship with Luke Cage, a person gifted with unbreakable skin. There is a hope for romance between the two, but the relationship does not progress far; they end up using each other for sexual pleasure in hopes of curing their loneliness. A lesbian lawyer (keeping up with the portrayal of lawyers in Daredevil) Jeri Hogarth seeks to divorce her wife to be with her secretary Pam. Even with Pam, Hogarth is incapable of establishing a meaningful relationship... Pam ends up killing Wendy, Hogarth's Wife, while Wendy is trying to kill Hogarth by giving her 1,000 cuts as ordered by Killgrave. Trish, Jessica's best friend Trish gets into a romantic relationship with Will Simpson who turned out to be a villain. What is the show trying to point at through these negative portrayals of sex and romance? I believe that it is the moral depravity of its characters and the city itself.
The failures of romantic and sexual relationships are grounded in characters' moral failures. Jessica is intemperate, Luke is lustful, Hogarth is manipulative, and Simpson is a cold-blooded killer. Apart from the main characters, the city is run amok with sexual vices. In fact, Jessica is a private investigator often hired by Hogarth whose clients are in need of exposing their cheating spouses in order to get more money at the divorce court.
Sexual immoralities are "insignificant" when compared to the consequences of violent crimes, to be sure. But the same vices of main characters lead them toward causing violence. Out of her intemperance, Jessica delivers her heroic justice in morally questionable ways. She used Killgrave's parents to have Killgrave turned in to the police, fully recognizing the danger of the parents being killed (which they do), and she also tortures Killgrave, killing him by violently twisting his neck at the end of the show. Jessica, unlike Matthew, becomes evil to fight evil. Hogarth, through her manipulations, causes Killgrave to escape and consequently cause her wife to attempt to kill her.
These signs of moral depravities is not hidden in the show's choice of words. The cuss-word of choice in this show is "god damn it"; the word is said by characters too often to be left unnoticed. The choice is not a mere attempt for Marvel to keep the level of verbal vulgarity to a PG-13 level. The motive is to portray the city in a contrary light from Daredevil. Daredevil portrays New York City through the narrative of a hero with religious and moral convictions; it perhaps portrays a city werein the will of God is being done. However, Jessica Jones portrays the city as a city damned by God. In fact, Daredevil portrays religion, Catholicism in particular, in a positive light through Matthew Murdock whereas Jessica Jones does not. In Jessica Jones, Hogarth proposes to Pam despite her legal status of being married to her wife. When she does, Pam says that she can't because she's a Catholic. Here, the show uses Pam to portray a world where religion is meaningless; Pam commits adultery and homosexual acts, both of which are condemned by Catholic teachings, all the while calling herself "Catholic."
To me, both shows were excellent. Their narrative styles were engaging and also their efforts to build up characters were better than most shows out there. I was pleased how Jessica Jones, a show that came out later than Daredevil, is in a quiet philosophical dialogue with Daredevil. It almost seemed to me that the writer of Jessica Jones was saying: "No, this is the kind of world the characters live in." Perhaps this dialogue will continue throughout the years, season after season, one I am anxious to spectate.
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