Killing Eve: Five reasons why we love watching women obsessed with women
If you’re a fan of ±«Óãtv One’s Killing Eve, you’ll know that Villanelle, the elegant psychopath, and Eve, the MI6 agent tasked with bringing her to justice, are clearly obsessed with each other with something of an erotic charge between them.
It’s a familiar theme in film, TV and books: Mrs Danvers is obsessed with Rebecca in the novel; in the film The Favourite, the Queen, the duchess and the young baroness have equally strong feelings; and in the book Notes on a Scandal, an older teacher, Barbara is preoccupied with the beautiful young Sheba.
Why do we like to watch or read about women obsessed with women?
±«Óãtv Radio 4's Woman’s Hour spoke to novelist Joanna Briscoe and journalist Sirin Kale to hear their five reasons.
1. We like to see women indulge in their darker sides
“Very often when we view female relationships depicted on film, they’re sisterly or they’re friendly or they’re sorority sisters”, says journalist Sirin Kale.
“We don’t often see women who are maybe a little bit darker or a little bit more disturbing.
“Women are just as capable of being horrible and cruel and nasty and backstabbing and treacherous as men.
“To see The Favourite and to see that power struggle between those three women play out in such a magnificent way, and to see these women be conniving and treacherous and devious, I adored it because it was a side of the female lust for power that is so often not represented.
“I think audiences respond really well to that because it’s something a bit different and it’s something...unique.”
2. We enjoy the ‘hunter’ and the ‘hunted’ dynamic
“I think we enjoy watching stories about female obsession because you get to see the interplay between the person hunting and the person being hunted and that is often a very interesting dynamic to see”, says Sirin Kale.
“For example, in Killing Eve, you have Eve on the hunt for Villanelle and that cat and mouse game that they play and the pull and the push and the erotic charge between them. Their chemistry is fascinating and compelling to me and it’s also fascinating and compelling to other viewers.”
3. It feels like a taboo
“I think we love watching women obsessed with women because it’s still slightly taboo”, says novelist Joanna Briscoe.
“Even though there is a craze for it at the moment with Killing Eve, I think that it’s still a little bit transgressive and exciting and it verges on the sexual.
“We’re never quite sure if it’s erotic or not and it all just makes absolutely fascinating viewing and reading.”
4. Many of us will have had a school crush
“I think a lot of us can identify with [the feeling]”, suggests Joanna Briscoe.
“I think in youth a lot of us have been fixated on another female, whether it’s entirely innocent and not erotic or whether it does verge on the more erotic.
“At school, we often fixate on someone who seems more exciting and popular and has it all.
“I think a lot of it is about another character who is much more daring than we ourselves are, so the person who’s watching and fixated is absorbing another person’s energy and courage and daring.”
5. We like seeing two female leads on screen
“I love it that we’re in an era where there are now two female leads [on screen]”, says Joanna Briscoe.
“When Thelma and Louise did it, it was revolutionary, it was this huge deal that there were two female leads, and it’s happening more. It’s almost becoming the norm which is just fantastic.
“It’s also very refreshing having two female leads who aren’t just talking about men which has often been the case in terms of screenwriters in the past.
“This is far from the case in Killing Eve, they are absolutely fascinated with each other and certainly Eve is largely thinking about or talking about Villanelle – which is wonderfully exciting if perverse, given Villanelle is an assassin.”
You can listen to the full Woman's Hour discussion about women being obsessed with women in TV, books and films here.
Woman's Hour is on ±«Óãtv Radio 4 on weekdays at 10am and at 4pm on Saturdays. You can catch up on all episodes via ±«Óãtv Sounds.
