GRADO EN ESTUDIOS INGLESES

Curso 2016-2017

MENTAL DISTRESS AND POSTFEMINISM

IN CRAZY EX-GIRLFRIEND (2015-2016)

TRABAJO DE FIN DE GRADO REALIZADO POR

MARÍA GALLEGO GONZÁLEZ
DNI/NIE:

TUTELADO POR

JUAN FRANCISCO CERDÁ MARTÍNEZ

UNIVERSIDAD DE MURCIA
Facultad de Letras
TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT

1. INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………………….…..1

2. MENTAL DISTRESS IN CRAZY EX-GIRLFRIEND……………………………….…3

2.1. Depression…………………………………………………………...………….….6

2.2. Escape to the West…………………………………………………………….…..9

3. THE MEN IN REBECCA’S LIFE………………………………………………….…..12

3.1. Rebecca’s Father………………………………………………………...……….13

3.2. Rebecca’s First Love……………………………………………...………...……15

4. REBECCA BUNCH: A POSTFEMINIST FIGURE…………………………...……..18

4.1. Empowering Feminism……………………………………………………...……21

4.2. Anti-feminist Backlash……………………………………………………...…….23

5. CONCLUSION………………………………………………………………..……...…25

REFERENCES………………………………………………………………………….....28

Bibliography……………………………………………………………………..…...…28

Media……………………………………………………………………………...…….30
ABSTRACT

Given that media helps to shape the way we see and interact with the world, this final-
year project is aimed at analysing the representation of mental distress on television,
focusing its attention on the main character of musical television series Crazy Ex-
Girlfriend (2015-2016). In order to do so, the project exposes what the main character’s
depression represents, as well as what we can discover from her moving from the East
to the West of the USA. Moreover, it reveals how the influence of the men in her life and
the idea of romantic love affect her mental condition and ideology. Furthermore, the
project also explores the show in relation to postfeminism, and gives evidence of how it
falls into the intertwining of feminist and anti-feminist ideas that characterises
postfeminism. Lastly, it concludes with the finding that the show is indeed a postfeminist
product, and that both diagnoses of mental distress and romantic love are social
constructions used to oppress women and maintain the established gender roles.

RESUMEN
Dado que los medios de comunicación contribuyen a moldear el modo en el que vemos
e interactuamos con el mundo, este trabajo de fin de grado tiene como objetivo analizar
la representación de los trastornos mentales en la televisión, centrando la atención en
el personaje principal de la serie musical Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (2015-2016). De esta
forma, el trabajo estudia qué representa exactamente la depresión de la protagonista,
así como su mudanza del este al oeste de los Estados Unidos. Además, se da evidencia
de cómo la influencia de los hombres en su vida, así como la idea del amor romántico,
afectan a su condición mental e ideología. El trabajo también examina la serie en
relación al postfeminismo, aportando pruebas que respaldan cómo Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
entra dentro de la combinación de ideas feministas y antifeministas que caracterizan al
postfeminismo. Por último, se concluye con la confirmación de que la serie es
ciertamente un producto del postfeminismo, y que tanto los diagnósticos de trastornos
mentales como el amor romántico son constructos sociales que se utilizan para oprimir
a las mujeres y mantener los roles de género establecidos.
 1. INTRODUCTION

The first season of ongoing television series Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (2015-2016) tells the
story of Rebecca Bunch, a successful New York lawyer with a Yale diploma who suffers
from a panic attack when she is given a promotion at the law firm she works for. While
trying to understand why she does not feel happy about this new opportunity, she
encounters Josh Chan, her very first love and also her first ex-boyfriend, since they dated
for a few weeks when they both attended camp in their teenage years. Josh is happy to
see her, but he is leaving New York for sunny West Covina, California. In Rebecca’s
mind, this is a sign, an excuse to reject the promotion she has been offered and fly to
California, where she will find real happiness. From then on, in the following episodes of
this first season we will see how Rebecca manages to explain (not just to others but to
herself as well) the ulterior motive behind her moving to California.

Even though there are many representations of women in the media that fulfil a
significant role in the identification of the general public with realistic and well-written
characters1, women still encounter satirical and highly offensive depictions of what it
means to be a woman in the 21st century. Among this mocking portrayals, we find that of
the “crazy woman”: a woman who is perceived as too passionate, or too insecure, or too
loud and not reasonable enough. In short, a woman who does not fall into the norm, into
the idea that society has of what a lady should look and act like.

However, there are also some forms of media, especially contemporary television and
cinema, that sometimes try to invert the sexist idea of the “crazy woman” by explaining
where the mental distress comes from and by challenging the viewer’s preconceived
ideas of what this stereotype actually represents (Harper, 2009, p. 101). This action,
taking a misogynistic term and turning it upside down so as to reflect the sexism behind
it, is often done from a feminist approach. Nevertheless, feminist media products do not
only display sexist behaviour from a female point of view but also allow the viewer to see
women’s living experiences in a more realistic way, since they are told by women (Blay,
2015). Hence, because the main idea behind the title of this television show is precisely
to show mental distress from a female perspective (Bloom as cited in Emami, 2015), we
could argue that the series is at least originally planned to be feminist.

Ehrenreich and English (1978) affirm that madness is seen by some feminist critics
as a symbol of female oppression (as cited in Harper, 2009, p. 5). Understanding
madness as a form of alienation is important in order to see the social implications of

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See Mad Men’s Peggy Olson; Parks and Recreation’s Leslie Knope; How To Get Away With Murder’s
Annelise Keating; Jane the Virgin’s Jane Villanueva; or Game of Thrones’ Sansa Stark

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mental distress, as well as the feminist reaction against it. Since we find ourselves in the
21st century, we have to take into account that we are in what some feminists call a
“postfeminist era”. Postfeminism is, however, an ambiguous concept:

On the positive side, it is understood to be a new form of feminism updated to late

twentieth- to early twentyfirst-century modes of living that incorporate achievements of
previous waves of the feminist movements. Post-feminism, it is argued, enables women to
be both feminist (in the sense of demanding equal opportunities and rights) and feminine
(in the traditional sense of beautification, emotionality, and consumerism) (Moseley &
Read, 2002). On the negative side, post-feminism has been understood to be a form of
backlash (Faludi, 1992) that undermines the achievements of ‘‘second wave feminism”.
(Shifman and Lemish, 2010, p. 255)

There is, nevertheless, another way to see postfeminism. For Gill (2007), the term
should be used to talk about a “sensibility” instead of a movement per se. In this way,
postfeminism can be understood as a contradictory term in which both feminist and anti-
feminist ideas are intertwined. If we take this definition, postfeminism must be regarded
as a complex and nuanced concept which thoroughly describes the situation of feminism
in the 21st century. What we will do here is to take the notion of postfeminism that Gill
offers in order to analyse our chosen television programme..

The focus of this project is to study the first season of ongoing American musical
comedy television series Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (2015-2016) by focusing on the main
character of the programme, Rebecca Bunch. The main purpose will be to make an
analysis of how mental distress is represented in it. In order to do so, we will revise some
of the chapters of season one, with a special focus on two main themes: mental distress,
and the men in Rebecca’s life. The idea behind this is to expose how Rebecca’s idea of
romantic love, which is in part influenced by the men in her life, contribute to strengthen
her delusional believe of love as salvation once she is an adult suffering from depression.
Apart from exploring mental distress and romantic love, we will also discuss the different
elements that make this show a postfeminist media product. All in all, this project argues
that Crazy Ex-Girlfriend falls within the contradictory term of postfeminism and that its
representation of mental distress can be used to explain the oppressions and challenges
that women face in the 21st century.

In this way, we will first address the theme of depression and analyse how this mental
distress is displayed in the show. Furthermore, we will talk about Rebecca’s move from
New York to California and what this moving represents in her life and her understanding
of her mental distress. Secondly, we will talk about the two most important men in
Rebecca’s life: her father and her first lover. This will allow us to have a better

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understanding of Rebecca’s development into a woman with depression and anxiety,
and it will also help us explain her delusional thoughts and beliefs in romantic love. Lastly,
we will discuss the different elements that make this a postfeminist media product by
addressing, on the one hand, Rebecca’s feminist ideology and, on the other hand, her
anit-feminist backlash actions. Therefore, this analysis will help us explain in depth how
mental distress affects Rebecca’s living experiences and why this show falls into Gill’s
idea of a postfeminist sensibility.

2. MENTAL DISTRESS IN CRAZY-EX GIRLFRIEND

Since the first time we listen to the opening song of the first season of the show, we learn
that Rebecca Bunch is not a reliable narrator. Not only that, but we also begin to
understand the reason why “crazy” is used to depict her. Although it is the main character
who starts telling her story, once she moves to West Covina, four supporting characters
appear in animated form chanting that “she’s the crazy ex-girlfriend” after every line she
then tries to say. These four characters, who will eventually become her friends, seem
to be a representation of her inner voices. Even though Rebecca tries to convince herself
that the reason why she leaves New York and a striking promotion offer is not a boy, her
subconscious seems to fail her. By the time the theme song finishes, the audience
already suspects that Rebecca should not be trusted. The question, then, lies in the use
of the term “crazy”.

Now, if we focus on what madness means, we find that there is not one single
definition, but rather several interpretations that often differ much from each other. As
Harper (2009, p.16) states “different forms of mental disturbance vary significantly from
one another in severity and there is not always much agreement among professionals
about what ‘counts’ as mental distress.” Moreover, as Ussher (2011) remarks, we have
to take into account the gendered construction of madness. Like femininity, mental
distress diagnoses can be seen as social constructions – “fictions framed as facts, used
to regulate and control those deemed deficient, dangerous, or merely different from the
norm.” (p. 47). This is similar to what Scheff (1966) and Rosenham (1973) understand
when they explain that “madness is a socially constructed label, based on value-laden
definitions of normality, with a diagnosis of madness determining how a person's future
behaviour will be seen and addressed.” (cited in Ussher, 2011, p. 47).

The use that we choose to make of words can eventually affect not only their meaning
within society, but the way those described people feel about themselves. That is to say,
a word regarded as negative, as in the case of “crazy”, may be used to devaluate and

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take control over a person. By using labels we determine what is normal and what is not,
marking a clear difference between “us” (normal) and “them” (not normal). Nevertheless,
it is important to understand that there is no such thing as “normal”, but rather
“normative”, and that it is society through discursive representations and practices what
marks the difference between the feelings, desires and thoughts that people are
supposed to have, and between those which they should avoid, thus fabricating realities
in which different forms of social control are normalised (Foucault, 1972, p. 49).

In order to understand the reasons behind our study, it is important to acknowledge

diagnoses of mental distress as a fabrication, specifically a gendered one used as a tool
to oppress women (Ussher, 2011, p. 4). Although feminists have been dealing with this
form of oppression for a long time, and there are many books and essays on this issue
(see e.g. Harper, 2009; Ussher, 2011), Crazy Ex-Girlfriend displays mental distress
through musical comedy, thus presenting women suffering from madness from a fresh
and different point of view than what the media is used to portraying.

What we have here is not men calling their exes “crazy”, but a woman who actually
suffers from mental distress and whose ultimate goal is nothing more than getting rid of
her suffering and finding happiness. The show is about “how one comes to embody
feeling crazy. And the idea that love and infatuation and feeling happy take away the
power of your own mind from you” (Bloom as cited in Emami, 2015). Hence, this
television series turns around the pre-existing misogynist idea of the “crazy ex-girlfriend”
and turns it into an instrument used to challenge the viewer’s preconceived ideas about
this stereotype and about mental distress itself.

Coming back to the use of “crazy” in the programme, we find it interesting that not one
single character addresses the term throughout the whole first season. As we have said,
the expression is used during the opening of the show so as to present the contradictory
term and the different ideas that the viewers may have when they are first introduced to
it. When Rebecca’s friends appear in cartoon form to sing that “she’s the crazy ex-
girlfriend”, she defends herself by saying that “that’s a sexist term” and that “the situation
is a lot more nuanced than that” (Schlesinger and Bloom, 2015). According to Lotz (2006,
p. 90), these type of inner conversations, both with themselves and with imaginary
people, are often used to give depth to the character, as well as to show different
viewpoints and information that would not be available otherwise 2. By using this, the
audience can be aware of the character’s inner thoughts, creating a sense of intimacy

2
Lotz gives the examples of late 20th century comedies such as Molly Dodd, Sex and the City, and Ally
McBeal. I would also add Disney Channel’s Lizzie McGuire which, similarly to the musical number of Crazy
Ex-Girlfriend’s theme song, displays this type of inner conversations by means of cartoon characters

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between the character and the viewer. This action allows the spectators of the show to
think for themselves, as it invites them into the mind of the character, thus permitting
them to see the character’s contradictions and flaws.

As we have previously stated, mental distress can be regarded as a social

construction. However, it can also be understood as a “reasonable response” (Ussher,
2011, p. 1-2) to the constrictive social norms which women are under. As Chesler (1972)
remarks, “most twentieth century women who are psychiatrically labelled, privately
treated and publicly hospitalised are not mad (…) they may be deeply unhappy, self-
destructive, economically powerless, and sexually impotent - but as women they're
supposed to be” (p. 4). Therefore, mental distress is not seen as an illness, but as a
reasonable response to the experience of being a woman in a patriarchal society.

With this in mind, we can analyse the main character of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend in regards
to those social and life conditions that have affected and have led Rebecca Bunch to the
state in which we encounter her when we start to watch the show. What we have here is
a young woman who has been medically diagnosed with depression and anxiety. We
learn this in the first episode of the show, when we see Rebecca running away from her
office to get some air and re-order her thoughts. In the following scene, she is walking in
circles, repeating to herself “What’s wrong with you? This is what happy feels like”
(Bloom, McKenna, & Webb, 2015) right before she tries to seat on the floor to calm
herself because she is having trouble breathing. Although these symptoms would be
enough to tell that she is having an anxiety attack, what actually gives us the answer is
the pill bottle she takes out shortly after. Thus, we have a character that has been
medically diagnosed and is medicated to control her condition.

As the show moves forward, we are presented with several characters and past
experiences that may have had something to do with Rebecca’s current mental situation.
The first and most obvious one may be the stressful work life in the city, which is related
to the notion of affluenza. According to de Graaf, Wann, and Naylor (2014), affluenza
can be regarded as a malady of the 21st century characterised by anxiety, permanent
dissatisfaction and a need to have more. These authors argue that “the pressures of
work and consumption create stress and leave people little time for each other,
increasing loneliness and unhappiness while at the same time creating a less inviting or
sustainable natural and built common environment.” (p. 23). As the opening episode
shows, Rebecca is a top lawyer working in New York City, therefore her situation can
explain why she would feel this way.

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 Furthermore, the series shows that Rebecca’s mental distress is also affected by her
upbringing. Because her parents divorced when she was still a child, she has grown up,
on the one hand, without her father’s presence and, on the other hand, with a single
mother who has had to play both parenting roles. Because mothers sometimes see their
daughters as an extension of themselves (Gilbert and Gubar, 2000, p. 37), her mother
pressures Rebecca to succeed in her academic and working life. This, along with the
fact that her father has abandoned her and she is an only child, causes Rebecca to feel
lonely, contributing to a predisposition towards anxiety and depression.

2.1. Depression

As Ussher (2011, p. 16) affirms, several studies show that there is a greater propensity
to depression in women than there is in men, which inevitably reinforces the idea that
women are “crazier” than men. This, however, is not a reasoning of the 21st century.
According to the same author, the concept of depression can be linked to hysteria, a
form of mental distress which has been historically known to only develop in women (p.
10). Ever since ancient times, there have been several male authorities who have linked
the fact that women are more likely to experience mental distress to their reproductive
organs, implying that madness and, more specifically, hysteria, is inherent in women due
to their reproductive body and the hormones that govern it (p. 18). Hence, the author
finds that among the roots believed to be the cause of hysteria we have menstruation,
pregnancy and menopause, as well as “menstrual pain and irregularity, absence of
pregnancy, uterine disorders, and vaginal infections” (p.19). In short, we can argue that
women were thought to be mad just for being women.

Today, hysteria no longer exists as a valid medical diagnosis, yet many still see
women’s sexual and reproductive body as one of the main causes of their mental
distress. In 2008, USA’s National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) published a report in
which it was stated that “biological and hormonal changes that occur during puberty likely
contribute to the high rates of depression in adolescent girls.” (as cited in Ussher, 2011,
p. 20). Nevertheless, other studies dismissed this belief, such as Blehar’s (2006), in
which the author concluded that “with the exception of post-partum onset affective
psychosis and bipolar disorder, there is relatively little evidence for a causal role of sex
steroids in clinical disorders.” (p. 151).

Consequently, we could argue that depression is not necessarily affected by the

biological differences of males and females. What may influence the appearance of
depression, however, is gender inequalities and the consequent discrimination of women

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(Ussher, 2011). As Kaplan (1986) argues, “depression may not be an ‘illness’
superimposed on an alien or indifferent personality structure, but rather may be a
distortion - an exaggeration of the normative state of being female in Western society”
(as cited in Ussher, 2011, p. 64). In this sense, we can see mental distress as “a form of
alienation, the existential and psychological corollary of unequal social relations”
(Harper, 2009, p. 6). Therefore, we can argue that, in Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Rebecca may
already have a predisposition towards depression because she has been born and
identifies as a woman.

Depression, like gender roles, has often been used as a tool to oppress women.
According to Ussher (2011, p. 30), this happens because both insanity and women are
regarded as “the other”, being men and sanity the norm in our society. Taking this into
account, a sane woman would be a good woman, a normative one. Thus, by labelling
someone as mentally unstable, society addresses those who have diverted from their
expected role. In this way, a woman that suffers from depression is regarded as someone
who has strayed from the norm, as a “bad” woman. Ussher argues that this reaction
towards women who suffer from mental distress can be harmful because “once women
receive a psychiatric diagnosis everything they do can be potentially interpreted as a
‘symptom’.” (p. 73). This results in people not taking into account the needs of the
individual and the social environment that may be affecting them (Halleck, 1971, cited in
Ussher, 2011, p. 73).

Furthermore, the gender of a person also affects how individuals understand and live
with their mental distress. It is noteworthy to mention here that, oftentimes, “women who
act out the conditioned female role are clinically viewed as ‘neurotic’ or ‘psychotic’.”
(Chesler, 1972, p. 116). Moreover, as Ussher states, definitions of optimal mental health
are often linked to definitions of masculinity, while femininity is more connected to mental
instability (p. 75). This could explain why therapists are often moved by their gender role
stereotypes when diagnosing depression in women. These clinicians “expect women to
be mad (or ‘depressed’), so are more likely to look for it, and to see it even if it is not
there” (Ussher, 2011, p. 76).

In addition, women have been taught to be more socially engaging, and thus they
tend to see their GPs and report their health problems much more frequently than men
(Pitula, 1995, p. 16B). Conversely, men have learned to be strong and aloof, which
explains why they are “less likely than women to seek help because it may be seen as a
weakness” (Ussher, 2011, p. 77). This author explains that, because men have more
problems expressing their feelings, it makes it harder for therapists to detect and address

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their mental distress. Because of this, Ussher believes that there may be a great number
of men that suffer from depression but have not been diagnosed.

Like we have previously mentioned, addressing the woman’s environment and

upbringing is essential to understand her mental distress. According to Pitula (1995), “the
risk for depression is highest at the times in a woman's life when she's learning what's
expected of her and trying to fulfil those expectations.” (p. 16A). With this in mind, we
have a better understanding of Rebecca and her mental distress. Because she has been
pressured all her life by her mother to get the best grades and the best job, the show
implies that these high expectations that her mother has put on her have affected her
mental health.

Apart from stress, among the most common symptoms of depression we also find
feeling exhausted, being unable to focus, and feeling downhearted (Ussher, 2011, p.
15). We see in Rebecca all of these symptoms in episode 1 (Bloom, Mckenna & Webb,
2015) of the show. While having a panic attack after having been offered a promotion,
she asks herself “What’s wrong with you? This is what happy feels like.” Rebecca feeling
distressed towards something that would make “normal” people happy has its foundation
in the fact that depression is often seen as a synonym of “sad”. Furthermore, since she
is in her late 20s, the show concurs with what Pitula (1995, p. 16A) implies when she
remarks that there is a greater chance for a woman to get depression when they are
young adults, because this is the time when they may be experiencing the most stress
from their career, marriage, or experience as mothers.

It is noteworthy to mention, however, that Rebecca is aware of her mental distress.

As we see in episode 5 (Hardcastle & Hitchcock, 2015), when she is asked the same
question, ‘what’s wrong with her’, by someone else, her answer is “low self-esteem, a
lack of maternal affection and a genetic predisposition for anxiety and depression.”
Recognising her mental distress allows Rebecca to understand her inner self in a better
way since, as Ussher (2011) points out, “recognition of ‘symptoms’ or self-referral for
treatment is a process of active negotiation of psychological and bodily experience,
current life events and lifestyle, and cultural, medical or psychological discourse about
madness.” (p. 52).

Nevertheless, like many other women suffering from depression, Rebecca has a
complicated relationship with her mental distress. Although she does acknowledge that
she is not “normal”, she sometimes executes self-sabotaging actions. For example, right
after having moved to West Covina, she decides to throw away and destroy all of her
medication. Later on episode 7 (Patel & Trilling, 2015), she has a panic attack and feels

8
the need to get new pills. This is the first time since episode 1 that we are able to see
Rebecca having a mental breakdown and acknowledging that moving to the other side
of the country has not improved her mental distress. Even though realising that you have
a problem is the first step towards improvement, Rebecca will still have a long path
towards being okay with who she is.

However, we must also recognise that this show does give a new light on mental
distress. Although “western culture has succumbed to an infantilising celebration of
mental fragility, a development which undermines the capacity of human subjects to take
control of their lives or to engage in political activity” (Harper, 2009, p. 7), this is not
exactly what we see in Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. Not only is Rebecca politically active (she is
a proud feminist and often fights for what is right in her cases as a lawyer), but she also
actively chooses what she thinks is best for her, even though she shows herself to be
rather impulsive. Thus, we can see that this show is not just merely addressing mental
health conditions like depression, but is also giving a new perspective on how people
who suffer from this mental distress live with it.

In this sense, we must take into consideration that depression is “a whole-body

experience involving mood, behavior, thinking, and sociability.” (Pitula, 1995, p. 16B).
Hence, we should not regard mental distress as just an illness, but as a part of one’s life.
Therefore, we can say that, although Rebecca is not completely defined by her
depression, it is indeed a part of herself that intervenes in the way she thinks and
interacts with other people, and that this show allows people to have a better
understanding of how depression works on women in the 21 st century.

2.2. Escape to the West

When Rebecca runs into Josh in New York, she feels that the universe is giving her a
sign to change her life and chase her happiness. After having a small talk, she learns
that Josh is moving back home to West Covina, California. In this first encounter, Josh
compares New York to his home, rhetorically asking “Why get stuck in a rat race?”.
According to BusinessDictionary, a ‘rat race’ alludes to “the competitiveness between
employees for upward mobility in the job market”. It usually involves “no work-life
balance, no independence, high stress, long commutes, and general dissatisfaction with
life.” Thus, when Josh uses this expression, Rebecca suddenly realises that she is in
fact one of those rats running for something that is, now in her eyes, not worth it. In fact,
this idea of her being part of a “rat race” is reinforced by Rebecca’s superiors, who reveal
that some of the reasons why she has been offered a higher position in the law firm are

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the fact that she is “the hardest working young lawyer” and that she has “never taken a
sick day” (in spite of her chronic depression). This, therefore, makes her the rat that has
won the race. However, Rebecca does not seem to find the prize fulfilling.

In this first encounter, Josh also explains to Rebecca how the environment in the West
Coast is much more relaxed, and how everyone seems happier there. The word “happy”
then resonates in Rebecca’s mind. This is the sign she has been waiting for. She knew
that something was missing when she did not feel joy after having been promoted. She
now understands that, if she wants to be happy, she has to go to West Covina. This is
the reason why, when rejecting her promotion offer, she implies that she needs to take
control of her life, saying that she has to “obey the ticking clock that is destiny” – destiny
being her ex-boyfriend and very first love, Josh Chan from West Covina, California.

Leaving a job in the East Coast to pursue a better life in the West is something that
the American people are familiarised with. As Kupchick (2015) states, “the American
story was one of westward expansion from the very beginning”. This author remarks that,
for those coming from the east, the west side of America represents a freer, happier
society, full of new ideas and different forms of expression. In this sense, moving from
New York to California can be interpreted as an escape from the constraint and constant
pressure that characterise the life in the big apple. Since life in the West Coast seems
more relaxed and easy going than in the East, escaping to the golden coast might be a
reasonable alternative to someone who has been participating in rat races for a while.

It is this search for happiness that moves Rebecca to the other side of the country.
For many therapists and psychologists, moving to a new city can be filled with this “hope
for new beginnings” (Kershaw, 2010) that the main character of the show feels. However,
it can also be a sign of trouble, since, as Kershaw notices, the person moving may be
“seeking external changes to change internal problems.” In the case of Rebecca, she is
trying to change the way she feels by moving and going after who she believes is the
love of her life. What she fails to realise is the fact that, as Stirling asserts, even if you
move to a new city, “you still take yourself with you” (as cited in Kershaw, 2010).

“When you decide that a new residence is the best solution to a problem, your
emotional baggage gets loaded in the moving van along with the linen and flatware”
(Fisher, cited in Kaufman, 2013). Therefore, contrary to what Rebecca believes, her new
place will not improve her life because the changes she is looking for must come from
her inner self. As Reimer explains, “the location isn’t going to make a difference if the
unhappiness is internal” (as cited in Kaufman, 2013).

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 Although a sudden need to run away may not always be the best reason to consider
when moving, it can occasionally benefit those who desperately seek a change of
scenery. As Kaufman indicates, sometimes, relocating can be therapeutic and bring a
life improvement because the person going through it sees it as a chance to take control
of their lives. Since one of the symptoms of depression is “feeling out of control” (Ussher,
2011, p. 25), choosing to turn her life around and move away allows Rebecca to feel in
control of her actions and thus distance herself from her mental distress.

Kershaw (2010) also implies that having friends and a sense of community is a
relevant aspect to take into account when deciding to move away. In New York, Rebecca
feels isolated; she does not have many friends, and the only relative nearby is her
mother, who actually does more harm than good because she is constantly pressuring
her daughter to get the best job and the greatest salary. Once she moves to West Covina,
she does not only free from her mother, but she also takes it as an opportunity to make
new friends and chase her dreams. Liberated from the stressful life she had in the big
apple, Rebecca sees in her move a new chance to start over.

Lastly, we should highlight the differences between Rebecca’s apartment in New York
and her house in West Covina. In episode 1 we see Rebecca laying on an unmade bed
in her bedroom in New York City. If we have a closer look, we notice that the room is
barely furnished, with no curtains and blank walls. Furthermore, Rebecca’s clothes,
along with what seems to be office papers, are spread out on the floor. This is noteworthy
to mention because Rebecca has been living in this apartment for months, probably
years, yet it appears empty and lonely as if she had just moved in. By contrast, her house
in West Covina is shown with a new wall colour and decoration by episode 8, with further
changes and more decorative products being added in the following episodes. This
contradistinction seems to represent the different states of mind in which Rebecca finds
herself in the two cities, helping the viewers recognise and understand the different
changes that this character goes through in the West Coast.

Taking these facts into consideration, we can conclude by stating that the change in
Rebecca’s state of mind is clearly visible when she is in West Covina. Even though she
is not instantly “cured” from her depression once she has moved, the fact that she finds
the will to decorate and fully furnish her new apartment is enough for the viewer to
recognise the change in Rebecca’s attitude. Contrary to what she was feeling in New
York City, the lifestyle of the West produces in Rebecca a sense of tranquillity, which
also allows her to be more in control of her life.

11
 3. THE MEN IN REBECCA’S LIFE

Rebecca’s life and personality is significantly constructed around her upbringing and the
problematic relationship she has with her father. Through a flashback in episode 3
(Bloom, McKenna & Davis, 2015), we learn that her father left their family when she was
young. While Rebecca is having a party in the living room with a few friends, her parents
start to argue. Not long after it is revealed that Rebecca’s father is having an affair, he
leaves, never to return again. This event leaves Rebecca devastated and with a fear of
men leaving her.

As we have previously mentioned, mental distress can be regarded as a natural

reaction to certain events in our lives. Thus, we can understand that her father leaving
affects Rebecca’s upbringing, and consequently her mental health. This is also related
to the way she interacts with the people in her life as an adult. In fact, the first season
shows that the way she feels about her father is not much different from what she feels
about her ex-lover. This is the reason why we have decided to analyse both her father
and her first love in the following pages, so as to have a better understanding of the
reasons behind Rebecca’s mental instability.

However, before we start to analyse the men in Rebecca’s life, we first need to
address the concept of romantic love. According to Wolkomir (2009), romantic love is “a
set of beliefs that constructs only a particular configuration of sexual and gender
practices as natural, normal, and right.” (p. 494). In other words, romantic love is the
normalisation of heteronormative practices. As Wolkomir puts it,

romantic love frames the ideal intimate relationship as unique (e.g., "my one and only soul
mate"), exclusive (e.g., committed monogamy), as well as inexplicable and naturally
emergent - a sexual chemistry and emotional bonding that just happens when a man and
a woman are "right" for one another. (2009, p. 495)

This idea of someone being ‘right’ for another person is intrinsic in Rebecca’s
understanding of life. At the end of episode 11 (Averick & von Scherler Mayer, 2016),
while singing a song in which she expresses her self-loathing feelings, she says that
Josh “completes” her. In this sense, romantic love works in relation to “the heterosexual
imaginary” (Ingraham, 1994, p. 203), a type of ideology that hides how heterosexual
relations influence gender roles and “normalizes sexuality” (Wolkomir, 2009, p. 494). By
failing to see how her sexuality influences her understanding of love and relationships,
Rebecca unknowingly participates in this “organizing institution” (Ingraham, 1994, p.
203) that is heteronormativity.

12
 Additionally, we should take into account that, as Wolkomir remarks, romantic love is
a cultural product “forged from the ideal of courtly love that developed in medieval
Europe.” (2009, p. 495). In this context, romantic love is based on the idea of monogamy
and loyalty, contributing to the separation of gender roles inherent in heterosexual
relationships (Coltrane & Adams, 2008, and Coontz, 2006, as cited in Wolkomir, 2009,
p. 495). In the 21st century, however, a combination of “care and assistance with physical
and emotional closeness” (Cancian, 1986, p. 693) is added to the model of courtly love.
Since romantic love “reflects early family configurations” (Wyatt, 1985, p. 200), affection
and protection, two of the characteristics of a child’s relationship with their parents, are
also part of the ideal of heterosexual relations. Because, as Wyatt states, romantic love
is based on father-daughter relationships, Rebecca seeks the affection she lacked as a
child in her love interest. With this in mind, we can have a better understanding of the
connections between Rebecca’s father and her first love, which we will discuss in the
following pages.

3.1. Rebecca’s Father

Parental post-divorce absence is not uncommon in Western society. In fact, in the 1990s
the National Survey of Children stated that around 50 percent of divorced fathers in the
United States did not have any contact with their children (Arrendell, 1992, p. 562). Since
Rebecca is in her late 20s, she would be considered a child of the 90s, thus his father,
although fictional, could fall into this type of survey. For many fathers, Arrendell finds,
being absent in your children’s life after the divorce is regarded as a valid option (p. 563);
some men even see it as a right (p. 568). This point of view goes along the lines of a
masculinist discourse in which the man, in accordance with our gender-structured
society, is the highest authority and is therefore, unlike women, completely independent
to choose his own path in life. Rebecca’s father, like those who participated in Arrendell’s
survey, seems to accept the conventional gender believe of the mother as indispensable
in the children’s life, thus opting to leave Rebecca with her mother.

Even though there are some cases in which fathers opt to be absent from their
children’s lives because they feel as if their offspring do not want to be around them
anymore, this is not what we see in Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. Rebecca is constantly trying to
maintain and develop her relationship with her father in spite of him not showing much
interest in her. Through a flashback in episode 15 (Bloom, McKenna & Tsuchida, 2016)
we learn that, after her parents get divorced, Rebecca pays her father a surprise visit.

13
Although he tries to act nice to her daughter, we can see how he calls her mum behind
Rebecca’s back to pick her up because he does not really want to be with her.

As Wyatt (1985) suggests, “a girl's relation to her father trains her to idealize a distant
and mysterious figure whose absences she can fill with glamorous projections” (p. 202).
However, Wyatt talks about short absences, the type that occur due to the father working
outside the house. In the case of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, we have a prolonged absence, one
in which the father does not seem to be coming back. This situation allows Rebecca to
significantly idealise the figure of her father. Because she does not see him as much as
her mother, her relationship with him is not based on actual contact but on a fantasy.
This explains why Rebecca feels somehow closer to her father, even though it is her
mother who has actually raised her without any involvement of the father in the process.

It is this idealisation of her father coming from his absence that contributes to
Rebecca’s mental instability as she grows up. As Cyranowski et al (2000) state, the lack
of a secure parental base is believed to be linked to a predisposition of suffering from
psychological distress (as cited in Ussher, 2011, p. 32). Because her father is not there
for her, Rebecca feels the need to fill his gap with a fantasy, ultimately leading to her
being quite delusional as an adult.

In relation to the absence of the male figure in the life of a girl, Wyatt (1985) also
highlights women’s perception of their time alone as mere prelude, as devoid of meaning,
something that will make sense once the man in their lives, whether it is their father or
their lover, appear. The man here is in charge of bringing the glamour and excitement
that a woman’s life apparently lacks. In this way, we have a better understanding of
Rebecca’s inner life. Although she is a Harvard graduate and has a successful working
life as a lawyer, Rebecca’s life does not seem to make any sense until she decides to
follow her ex-lover to try and find happiness. Similarly, she feels really excited when she
goes to pay her father a visit.

The similarities between these two events, impulsively deciding to go see her father
and impulsively choosing to move to the other side of the country and chase her first
love, are also highlighted in the show by the character of Dr. Akopian, Rebecca’s
therapist in West Covina. In episode 15, Rebecca coincides with her psychotherapist on
a plane. After falling asleep next to her, Rebecca has a series of dreams that allow the
viewer to see certain events of her past that have shaped her into who she is in the
present. These past events are visited by both her and Dr. Akopian. In the previously
mentioned flashback, when Rebecca pays her father a visit, Dr. Akopian reminds her
that “West Covina wasn’t the first time you made a rash decision to try to win back the

14
man you love.” To which Rebecca responds that both situations are not related and that
her mother “had been keeping us apart and we were meant to be together”.
Nevertheless, Rebecca soon learns that her mother was not the bad cop of the story,
and that it was his father who did not want to be involved with the upbringing of his
daughter.

Opposing the figure of Rebecca’s father we find Darryl Whitefeather, her boss at the
law firm she works for in West Covina. In episode 1 we learn that, similarly to Rebecca’s
parents, Mr. Whitefeather is going through a divorce. However, unlike Rebecca’s father,
he is very involved with her daughter and genuinely wants to win her custody. What we
see in Whitefeather is an inversion of gender roles, with him portraying normatively
feminine traits and being warm, caring, nurturer and oversharer. In fact, his love for his
daughter comes as a surprise for Rebecca, because the father figure that she has is the
opposite of Mr. Whitefeather.

Moreover, Darryl Whitefeather becomes a sort of father for Rebecca in her new home.
By caring and worrying about her, and also by wanting to forge a real friendship with her,
he appears as an opposing force to her real father, doing everything that he has never
done for her. In short, Mr. Whitefeather becomes the father Rebecca did not really have,
while also offering her a different point of view of the role that a patriarchal figure has.
Therefore, with the character of Mr. Whitefeather, the show offers an antithesis of
Rebecca’s father, which contributes to a wider representation of what it means to be a
father in the 21st century.

3.2. Rebecca’s First Love

As Harper (2009, p. 61) explains, there are some media products that put sanity’s
restoration in the hands of true love. This author deffends that the understanding of love
as a key to help people out of their mental distress is not only a common thought, but
one that resonates with many people. Our main character seems to be one of these
people. Right after having had a panic attack as a consequence of being offered a
promotion at work, she encounters Josh Chan, his very first love, and she suddenly feels
at peace. As we have previously remarked, for Rebecca, seeing him again is a sign.

Rebecca’s delusional thoughts make her follow his ex-lover all the way to the other
side of the country because she feels that, once they come back together, she will finally
be happy. In fact, she never abandons this thought throughout the whole of season 1. At
the very end of the season, in episode 18 (Gube & McKenna, 2016), Josh finally breaks

15
up with her girlfriend and “saves” Rebecca from a bad date, thus adding fuel to her
wildest dreams and fulfilling the role of saviour that Rebecca herself had given him. This
goes along the lines of Wyatt’s ideas on romantic love, when she argues that it “channels
desire back into recreating the patterns of female subordination and dependency on a
man that characterize the Western family” (1985, p. 201).

Among the features of romantic love, Wyatt (1985) highlights: “the glamor it gives to
a distant or absent lover; the desire which hope and uncertainty impart to waiting for his
call or his return; the attraction of alternatingly seductive and rejecting behavior” (p. 206).
Some of these features, which are strongly linked to father-daughter relations, can be
seen in Crazy Ex-Girlfriend both in Rebecca’s relationship with her father and in her
interactions with Josh Chan. Because he has a girlfriend and cannot spend much time
with Rebecca, Josh brings the ‘glamor of a distant lover’ and allows Rebecca to
impatiently wait for his call and, because he has feelings for her although he is in a
committed relationship, he also fuels the attraction that arises from alternating seduction
and rejection.

In a similar way to what she feels towards her father’s absence, Rebecca feels that,
by filling the void, by getting the man of her dreams, she will finally be complete. We find,
again, the idea of a woman’s time alone as meaningless, something that needs to be
filled with a male figure and the fantasies of a better life. As we have previously
mentioned, romantic love is linked to father-daughter relations, and this is the reason
why Rebecca’s interactions with Josh sometimes reflect her relationship with his father.

Although they differ in age and race, both Josh and Rebecca’s father are to a certain
extent child-like and irresponsible, unable to own up to the consequences of their actions.
The personality traits that the most important men in Rebecca’s life share allow her to
fulfil the role that society has taught her to perform: being caring and trying to make her
men feel as good with themselves as possible, often avoiding talking about themes such
as responsibility or blame. According to Jack and Ali (2010, p. 7), women learn to
understand others loving them in accordance with how well they react to and meet their
needs. This results in the suppression of women’s desires and feelings, as they have
been taught that who they are is not as important as what they can offer. As women,
they are told that the best they can do is to be caring and pleasant. This characteristic
can be seen in Rebecca in episode 4 (McDonald & Ehrlich, 2015), when she helps Josh
with his resume, or in episode 10 (Schultz & Dolgen, 2016) when, while reading a letter
she wrote to him when they were together, she sings “you're my hero. I believe in you.

16
There's nothing you can't do”. All of these phrases show Rebecca empowering Josh,
and thus fulfilling the role of caring and pleasing woman.

By changing her focus from her father to her lover, Rebecca is able to channel her
initial fixation on his father and the idealisation of him into a fantasised future with Josh,
thus freeing herself from the disappointment that initially came from not getting what she
wanted from her father. In this way, Josh offers a replacement of her father. However,
this is not a replica of him, but a chance for improvement for Rebecca’s needed male
figure.

As we have said before, Josh also performs the role of saviour in Rebecca’s mind.
This is clearly seen in episode 3, when Josh helps Rebecca liven up the party she is
hosting at her new house. During the party, Rebecca’s fantasies materialise into a
musical number in which Josh becomes four members of a boyband. In the song, we
can hear Josh singing

Baby, you can kiss all your childhood traumas goodbye

You’re never gonna miss all that stress you’ve been keeping inside

All your psychological problems

Girl, we’re gonna solve them

(Bloom, McKenna, & Davis, 2015)

These lyrics show us that Rebecca sees in Josh the solution to her mental distress, thus
contributing to the idea of love as salvation (Harper, 2009). As Harper argues, “it seems
commonsensical to suppose that the experience of love may help many people to
overcome some forms of psychological distress” (p. 61). However, this belief has not
been proved to be true (Rosen & Walter, 2000, cited in Harper, 2009, p. 61).

Nevertheless, we must bear in mind that, although Rebecca feels the need to be
saved by her love interest rather than looking for a solution within herself, what we find
in this character is not always a performance of traditional gender roles. To begin with,
Rebecca is incredibly smart. Besides, her intelligence does not come from her Harvard
diploma, but from how resourceful and skilful she is both in her public and private life. In
contrast to Josh, who seems stuck in his life, living with his parents and having the same
girlfriend he has had since high school, Rebecca is always taking important decisions
that impact the course of her life – moving to West Covina being one of them. Having
exposed this, we find that Rebecca fulfils a much more active role than Josh, which in a

17
way helps to invert the established gender roles, changing the traditional understanding
of men as the ones who take action and women as passive waiters.

Having a woman perform a role initially given to men helps to change the balance of
power in a normative male-female relationship, while also distancing from the patterns
of father-daughter relations (Wyatt, 1985). This shift of roles contributes to make
Rebecca’s relationship with Josh a more complex one, since it is not completely based
on traditional dynamics. Their relationship is based, on the one hand, on a shift of powers
in their interactions and, on the other hand, on Rebecca’s passive role, her fantasies only
revolving around love and the idea of a happy ending. According to Freud (1958, p. 48),
men and women’s fantasies differ in that, while women only dream of erotic wishes, men
fantasise with erotic desires but are also able to have ambitious and selfish wishes. Since
Rebecca cannot see past Josh’s existence because she regards him as the solution to
her problems, we could say that the show reinforces Freud’s idea.

Therefore, what we find in Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is a complex dynamic because,

although Rebecca has a more active role than her male counterpart in their interactions,
these communicative acts are often backed up by traditional gender differences, quite
apparent in our female protagonist. All in all, what we have here is a female character
who, although with the tools to improve her life from within herself, innocently believes
that her maladies will be cured once she gets the man of her dreams. In the following
section we will analyse in depth this complex contradiction that arises in the character of
Rebecca so as to further explain where her motivations and view of life come from.

4. REBECCA BUNCH: A POSTFEMINIST FIGURE

As we have previously mentioned, postfeminism is a contradictory term because its

definition varies greatly depending on the author you read it from. According to Gill
(2007), the expression can be used to describe either “a theoretical position, a type of
feminism after the second wave, or a regressive political stance.” (p. 148). This author
explains that the different debates taking place about what postfeminism truly stands for
should be considered because they deal with “the transformations in feminisms and
transformations in media culture - and their mutual relationship.” (p. 147). Since this
project analyses a media product, understanding postfeminism as a change within the
feminist movement that works in relation to media may result quite convenient. However,
the author remarks that postfeminism is better understood as “a sensibility” (p. 148)
rather than an analytic point of view. This approach offers a fresh perspective, since it
allows both feminist and anti-feminist backlash ideas to coexist and intertwine.

18
 For Gill, one of the aspects that characterises the postfeminist sensibility is the
concept of “femininity as a bodily property” (p. 149). In this context, femininity is not fully
seen as a social construction, but as something women can control and use to empower
themselves. Key to this concept is the idea of identification through one’s body image.
Because “the female body in postfeminist media culture is constructed as a window to
the individual's interior life” (Gill, 2007, p. 150), a woman’s image is often used to
understand her mental state. Nevertheless, if we take television shows like Crazy Ex-
Girlfriend in which people suffering from mental distress are portrayed, this approach
may result extremely problematic. On the one hand, we must understand that just
because someone is affected by depression or anxiety, this does not mean that their
mental distress will always show in the way they carry themselves. Mental illnesses are
often regarded as “invisible illnesses” (Sundbom, n.d.) for a reason. On the other hand,
not caring about your image should not be linked to mental distress, since it is beliefs
like these that contribute to the misdiagnosis of mental distress in women (Ussher, 2011,
p. 76).
In relation to this postfeminist idea of a woman’s body being a reflection of their inner
self we can see a connection between postfeminism and mental distress. As we have
discussed earlier, mental distress can be regarded as a social construction used to
control and oppress women (Ussher, 2011, p. 4). In the same way, femininity is also
understood as an artificial construction “that estranges women from themselves”
(Waters, 2011, p. 62). In the same way that femininity appears as masculinity’s “other”
(Waters, 2011, p. 71), mental distress, as Ussher states, works as the opposite of mental
health (p. 7). Within this context, we understand both femininity and mental distress to
be regarded as opposite forces to the norm – mentally stable heterosexual men, socially
constructed to undermine and constrain women.

Another postfeminist concept that works in relation to the idea of femininity as a bodily
property is the sexualisation portrayed in the media (Gill, 2007, p. 150). The author states
that this sexualisation is not only related to sexuality discourses, but also to “the
increasingly frequent erotic presentation of girls’, women's and (to a lesser extent) men's
bodies in public spaces” (2007, p. 150). Since bodily property is associated to
sexualisation, women in the 21st century are taught to assume an active role in their
objectification, contributing to a shift of powers “from an external, male judging gaze to a
self-policing narcissistic gaze” (p. 151). In this sense, women are “free” to choose who
they want to be provided that they become subjects that bear a likeness of cisgender
heterosexual men’s fantasies (p. 152).

19
 Since one of the first things we learn about Rebecca Bunch is that she leaves her
well-paid job in New York behind to go after the man of her dreams, we could assume
that Crazy Ex-Girlfriend would fall on the anti-feminist side of postfeminism.
Nevertheless, we must also take into account that Rebecca is a very knowledgeable
woman who has studied feminism and who frequently points out the patriarchal and
sexist activities the people around her perform. In this sense, we could say that Rebecca
is a feminist in theory, but an alienated woman with a patriarchal ideology in practice.
For this reason, we could argue that the show will fall into Gill’s “postfeminist sensibility”
that we have defined earlier.

What we see in this show is a complex perspective in which feminist and anti-feminist
ideas intertwine and communicate with one another. For example, in episode 1, we are
presented with a musical video that portrays what happens when women get ready for a
date. In the number, called The Sexy Getting-Ready Song (Geier, Dolgen, & Bloom,
2015), we hear our main character state that she is going to “get in touch” with her
“feminine side” to look good for her love interest. Although we listen to words like “fluffing,
flouncing, giggling” that should influence us into thinking of women getting ready as
carrying out an enjoyable activity, we are presented with elements that make us believe
otherwise. For instance, we have a backup singer laboriously trying to make Rebecca fit
into her spandex undergarment, and a chorus singing “bye-bye, skin” after the
protagonist shaves her legs. In addition, we have a rapper who stops his lyrics mid-
sentence to manifest his surprise and horror at seeing what truly happens when women
smarten up, labelling it as “patriarchal” nonsense (Bloom, McKenna, & Webb, 2015).

Hence, what we find in Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is, on the one hand, a woman that has to
learn how to cope with her mental distress and, on the other hand, an insightful portrait
of the contradictions of postfeminism. Within the postfeminist ideology reproduced in the
show, we can see that the representation and understanding of femininity is presented
as one of the core ideas. Therefore, what we expect is to see feminist and anti-feminist
approaches intertwining with one another in this musical television series. As Gill puts it,
“what makes a postfeminist sensibility quite different from both prefeminist constructions
of gender and feminist ones, is that it is clearly a response to feminism” (2007, p. 163).
For this reason, in the following pages we will provide examples to show how and why
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend fits in this concept of postfeminism as a blending of feminist and anti-
feminist ideas.

20
4.1. Empowering Feminism

This show employs an initially derogatory term used by men, the idea of this “crazy ex-
girlfriend”, and turns it upside down. Here, the “crazy ex-girlfriend” is a woman who
actually suffers from mental distress. Moreover, the story is not told from a male
perspective, but from a female one. Besides having a female protagonist and being
written by women, the show offers insight into the mind of a mentally distressed woman
without demonising or dehumanising her. In short, the show offers a thorough portrayal
of a woman suffering from mental distress in the 21st century, allowing the viewer to
understand how these characteristics, identifying as a woman and having depression,
can affect and shape an individual.

Furthermore, we find that many aspects of the television series are not arbitrary, but
contribute to the representation of a deeper, more complex idea that may not be apparent
at first. For example, Rebecca moving to West Covina to find happiness does not only
represent a side of her mental distress. From a feminist point of view, we could argue
that moving to California can be interpreted as a rebellion against the patriarchal society
that has been trying to control her. By taking control of her life and choosing to go after
her happiness, Rebecca is contesting her depression. Since, as we have stated before,
depression works as a tool for the alienation of women (Harper, 2009, p. 6), the mere
action of attempting to fight against it can be seen as a response to this form of
oppression.

In regards to her rebellion against her mental distress, the fact that Rebecca throws
away her pills is also significant. As Ussher (2011) remarks, once a woman has been
diagnosed with depression and takes prescription pills it is very difficult for her to stop
taking them “because of both physical and psychological dependency” (p. 92). This
author also states that there is hardly any information about how and when to stop taking
medication destined to fight depression and anxiety because the pharmaceutical
industry’s main aim is usually “to increase market share for their particular product, not
to help consumers to stop taking it.” (2011, p.92). Since this industry contributes to the
prolongation of mental distress in women, Rebecca getting rid of her medication may be
seen as sign of rebellion against this repressive force.

The way in which Rebecca’s antagonists are portrayed can also be positively
regarded from a feminist point of view. On the one hand we have Josh’s girlfriend,
Valencia. In traditional representations of two female antagonists, we would find what
Gilbert and Gubar (2000) call “the angel-woman and the monster-woman” (p. 36). In this
good woman/bad woman dichotomy, the “monster” serves as a reinforcement of the

21
angel’s virtue and integrity. This concept helps to validate the sexist idea that women are
always competing with each other. If this happened in Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Valencia, the
other woman, would be seen by Rebecca as a threat that needs to be removed in order
for her to achieve happiness. However, what we see in this show is a female protagonist
that admires and wants to get closer to this other woman.

On the other hand, we could see an actual antagonist in Rebecca’s mother. Given
that she has been pressuring her to be successful from a very young age, contributing
to Rebecca’s depression and anxiety, it would be understandable to identify Mrs. Bunch
as Rebecca’s real enemy. In fact, on episode 9, after her mother sees her new house for
the first time, she provides us with enough information to understand why Rebecca does
not want her mother around. Once Mrs. Bunch starts singing, we hear her say

You won’t get a husband this way

At least you have your career

Oh wait, you threw out your career

To chase this California dream

I wasted all that dough on Harvard and Yale

For you to be living in a dump

In Nowhere, USA

(Specter, Wauchope, & Tsuchida, 2015)

Although Rebecca does see in her mother her worst critic, her perspective changes
after episode 15, when Dr. Akopian appears in her dreams and revisits Rebecca’s past
with her. In that dream, Rebecca learns that her mother has been keeping to herself the
ugly truth about her father (the fact that he did not really care about her daughter) in
order to protect her. Hence, after this discovery, her mother, who would initially be
considered the quintessential bad woman, turns out to be otherwise.

Nevertheless, not long before Rebecca changes the way she sees her mother, she
learns who her real detractor is. In episode 14, Rebecca looks in the mirror and sees
herself dressed as a witch. Here, her reflection sings that she’s “the villain in [her] own
story” (Patel & Ehrlich, 2016). Although she still feels entitled to have her fairy-tale-like
happy ending, she also realises that she has selfishly got in the middle of Josh and
Valencia’s relationship. By looking in the mirror, she is trying to find her real self (Gilbert
& Gubar, 2000, p. 36). Nevertheless, what she sees is this side of her that differs in a

22
great way from the image of good, selfless person that she has been trying to project..
As Gilbert & Gubar remark, the concept of the monster-woman is often closely related to
portraits of mental distress (p. 76). Thus, when Rebecca sees in the mirror this dark, ugly
woman facing her, she is not only acknowledging that she is “the witch in [her] own tale”
(Patel & Ehrlich, 2016), she is also facing her mental distress. In this way, the monster-
woman that we find in this show is not a contraposition of the main character, but rather
a part that exists within this character. Similarly to postfeminism’s connection of feminist
and anti-feminist ideas, this fragmentation and intertwining of both angel and monster-
woman within oneself contributes to add value and complexity to Rebecca’s portrait in
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.

Closely related to the fact that the monster-woman in this television show is the main
character, we find that, because Rebecca focuses all of her hatred on herself, she never
talks badly about other women. In fact, whenever she talks about the women around her,
it is always to praise them. In episode 2 (Bloom, McKenna & Scardino, 2015), after she
meets Valencia, Rebecca cannot stop talking about how pretty and nice she is. In fact,
when Paula does not believe her and says that “women of equal sexual viability hate
each other”, Rebecca replies that it is beliefs like that one that “perpetuate the very
misogynistic myth that women can’t get along”. This reflects a feminist way of thinking in
which women should empower each other, a concept Rebecca is very familiar with. In
episode 10, for example, she offers to carry out a “female empowerment program” at a
camp for disadvantaged teenagers to teach them about focus topics related to feminism
such as “wage gaps, leaning in, glass ceilings, internalized misogyny, slut-shaming, etc”
(Schultz & Dolgen, 2016).

4.2. Anti-feminist Backlash

Even though Rebecca goes to camp to work as a lecturer for young women, what moves
her to go there is, foreseeably, Josh’s presence. In the middle of her lecture on female
empowerment, she breaks out crying and acknowledges that she is “not one to speak
about feminism or empowerment. I am desperately in love with a man who will never
love me back. I’m the one who needs to be empowered.” Again, we find that, although
she knows about the importance of feminism and has feminist opinions on institutional
sexism and gender roles, she also seems to forget about all of this the moment she sees
the man she is in love with.

In order to make her feel better, the young women at camp propose to help her get a
makeover, implying that this action will make her feel empowered and better with herself.

23
Nevertheless, this concept of changing your appearance to make you feel better about
yourself alienates women from “interrogating femininity or social relations, or what we as
a society expect of women” (Gill, 2009, p. 157).These teenagers advice Rebecca to wear
high-heels, get plastic surgery and change her appearance “just for yourself”. Although
they mean well and only want to get the message that you should “never put a man first,
put yourself first” across, the original idea of empowerment gets lost in the middle of their
speech.

This idea of girl power is, in fact, one of the contradictory notions of Gill’s postfeminist
sensibility. According to this author, in a postfeminist text, women are presented “as
autonomous agents no longer constrained by any inequalities or power imbalances
whatsoever” (p. 153). Therefore, any political or cultural influence in women’s choices is
forgotten, failing to address “how socially constructed, mass mediated ideals of beauty
are internalised and made our own” (p. 154). Consequently, the initial idea of women
empowerment, if done without reflecting on where the discourse of “freedom of choice”
comes from, becomes part of an anti-feminist backlash.

When talking about an anti-feminist perspective, we cannot forget to mention the

predominant deification of romantic love that we find in Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. In order to
understand this, we first need to address the fact that Rebecca, like most girls in Western
society, has been exposed to the idea of happily ever after that romantic love promotes
from a very young age. As Verheijen (2006) states, “gender roles continue to be
overwhelmingly presented in an affirmative traditional way” (p. 25) in the media. This
goes along the lines of what we have previously discussed about how the patriarchal
society that we live in uses marriage and heterosexual relations to maintain unequal
gender roles (Wolkomir, 2009, p. 494). Because Rebecca fails to see this, she
participates in the consolidation of these gender differences, which demolishes and
invalidates her feminist discourses.

In addition to Rebecca’s blindness to the societal institutions that lead her to find
happiness in a man, she also seems to be oblivious to the existence of other women’s
problems. Within feminism, Rebecca can be considered a privileged woman. To begin
with, she is white and from an upper middle class background, something that has
allowed her to get a higher education in one of the best universities in the USA.
Furthermore, although she does not look like a model, she possesses a normative, able
body. Lastly and, perhaps, most importantly in our discussion, she is heterosexual. All of
these characteristics, added to her obsession with Josh, which takes most of her time,

24
contribute to make her fail to see beyond her own experiences, forgetting to address the
problems of women of colour, queer women, poor women or disabled women.

In this sense, we find in Rebecca what Breines (2002) would call a prototypical “white
feminist” (p. 1906), incapable of addressing issues of race, class or sexuality that other
women face. What white feminists tend to do is to embrace “a political image of universal
community” that cannot and will not resonate with women who are not as privileged. In
this context, we could say that Rebecca’s viewpoint on women’s issues is a liberal
feminist perspective, a position that seems to be common in contemporary media
products (Gill, 2007, p. 161).

The contradictions that feminism “inherited, generated, and struggled with” (Breines,
2002, p. 1097) in the liberal feminist position of the second wave influenced
contemporary postfeminist perspectives. Therefore, it is not surprising to discover that,
although postfeminist female characters like Rebecca appear as more active than pop
culture heroines of the late 20 th century, valuing “autonomy and bodily integrity and the
freedom to make individual choices”, their choices are still caught up in “normative
notions of femininity” (Gill, 2007, p. 162).

5. CONCLUSION
This project has aimed to analyse how mental distress affects women in a different way
that it affects men, and how this distress is represented in Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.
Furthermore, it has covered different topics concerning women in the 21 st century in
order to answer the question of whether or not Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and, more specifically,
the character of Rebecca Bunch, falls into postfeminism, as defined by Gill (2007).

After having done so, we have learned that mental distress can be regarded as a
construction meant to oppress women, as well as a response to the oppressions that
women face in a patriarchal society. In this way, we have seen how the character’s
gender, upbringing, as well as her social condition, have contributed to develop her
mental distress. Furthermore, we have discussed how Rebecca’s search for romantic
love, which reflects the dynamic of her relationship with her father, has been her attempt
at “saving” herself and trying to find happiness. This belief, as we have seen, also comes
from a cultural construction, that of the heterosexual imaginary we have talked about.

In this context, we can say that the construction and development of this character
has been greatly influenced by these social constructions. On the one hand, her gender
has conditioned and contributed to her mental distress. On the other hand, her mental

25
distress has led her to find a solution in the cultural construction of romantic love. Hence,
we can conclude by stating that the character of Rebecca reflects how these social
products can shape someone’s development, personality and ideology.

Furthermore, we have analysed different elements of the show so as to see if it is

actually a postfeminist product. What we have discovered is that, although Rebecca
defines herself as a feminist and the show addresses problems that are only targeted at
women, such as the gendered view of certain mental distresses, these characteristics
are not enough to make this a feminist show, especially not a radical feminist one.
Moreover, Rebecca’s feminism can only be applied in theory, since many of her actions
can be considered as part of an anti-feminist backlash. Therefore, we can say that these
contradictions that arise within Rebecca’s persona make Crazy Ex-Girlfriend a
postfeminist show.

It is noteworthy to mention, however, that this intertwining of feminist and anti-feminist

ideas that characterises postfeminism and that are easily seen in Rebecca are in fact
similar contradictions to those that we could see in many women of the 21st century.
From our viewpoint, the postfeminist sensibility is characteristic of many millennials who
have grown up with a revival of feminism through social networks, but who are also more
exposed than ever to anti-feminist ideas normalised by society such as plastic surgery,
hair removal, or consumerism specifically targeted at women. Hence, although the show
is not completely feminist, it provides a significant attempt at reflecting the contradictions
that many of today’s women face when trying to understand and integrate feminism in
their everyday lives.

Lastly, we would like to conclude by saying that, since this project has focused on the
main character of the story, a woman who is driven by her impulses and who sometimes
does not seem to be able to see beyond her own problems, our concluding findings
reveal a postfeminist character. However, if we were to analyse the show as a whole, it
would be easy to see that Crazy Ex-Girlfriend may actually be intersectionally feminist.
To begin with, both main and recurring casts feature latino, black, and Asian people.
Furthermore, there are gay and bisexual characters, and bisexuality is thoroughly
explored, contributing to give this sexual orientation more visibility. Besides, both non-
white and non-heterosexual characters are perfectly integrated in the story without any
need to fall into stereotypes. Therefore, we believe that a further analysis could be
carried out on the supporting cast of this show because, like the awareness of mental
distress, the representation of a wider range of ethnicities and sexualities also contribute

26
to a better understanding of this world, motivating cooperation and respect with one
another.

27
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