[Earlier this year, I shared with Vaughn one of my favorite TV shows and cultural works of all time, Deadwood. Watching and talking about it with her made me realize how many AmericanStudies layers it features, so this week I’ll blog about a handful of them, leading up to a weekend post where I’ll develop my overarching reading of the show’s American ideas!]
Takeaways from two distinct and equally delightful pairings, and one bracing and one beautiful way to connect them all.
Along with the Wild Bill mini-arc on which I focused in yesterday’s post, the opening episodes of Deadwood also focus extensively on a pair of seemingly quite contrasted women: Alma Garrett (Molly Parker), a wealthy New Yorker with an opium addiction whose buffoonish husband Brom is murdered, leaving her a successful gold claim; and Trixie (Paula Malcomson), a headstrong prostitute who is tasked by her boss Al Swearengen (the peerless Ian McShane) with tricking Alma out of said claim. But this being Deadwood, both characters are much more complicated than that, and their relationship evolves from that starting point into a fragile but genuine friendship that endures and deepens over the remainder of the show. There are many factors that draw the two together, including those that I’ll get to below; but I think at the heart of it is the simple fact that these are two profoundly badass individuals, both of whom society has failed to see in that way (for quite different reasons) but who in the fluid community of Deadwood have the chance to develop that side (especially through their shared relationship with the Bank of Deadwood that Alma founds and funds).
Somewhat more in and out across the show’s seasons, but eventually quite central to its overall arc (and even more so into the wonderful 2019 movie with which the show was finally wrapped up), was another pair of initially quite separate and contrasted women: Joanie Stubbs (Kim Dickens), a high-class madam who arrives in town with a competitor for Al, the violent and awful Cy Tolliver (Powers Boothe); and Calamity Jane Cannary (Robin Weigert), a scout and cattle wrangler who arrives in town with her friend Will Bill and their mutual friend Charlie Utter (the peerless Dayton Callie). It’s difficult to imagine two characters who seem less likely to end up together, but this being Deadwood Joanie and Jane do in every sense, finding not just friendship but romantic love in the process. There are many factors that draw the two together, including again those that I’ll get to below, as well as their respective addictions (Joan opium, Jane drink); but I think at the heart of it is the simple fact that the wonderful Charlie, the show’s most moral and righteous character, recognizes that each woman desperately needs the other to complement and complete their identities, and pushes them to get and stay together in some of the show’s most beautiful and moving moments.
Watching the show with Vaughn was a wonderful experience for many reasons, but high on the list was that she saw things I had not previously, and thus helped me see new layers to the show. One of those was her astute analysis of a trauma that links all four of these quite distinct women: that all four seem to have been sexually abused as girls (I say “seem to be” because we only get a clear sense of the details for Joanie and Alma; but multiple lines for Jane and Trixie suggest that this is indeed a shared horror). There’s no way to minimize how bracing and brutal of a reality that is, and I’m not going to try. But I will add that it makes even more beautiful the other thing that connects all four of these women: the ways they bond over care for children that are not their own but over whom they become guardians in multiple ways. For Alma and Trixie that’s Sofia, an orphaned girl that Alma adopts and to whom Trixie becomes movingly close; for Joanie and Jane it’s all of the children being educated at the camp’s school, which is located in a space that the pair help find and construct, and over which they both become honorary protectors. Of all the things I love about Deadwood, perhaps my favorite is how many examples it gives us of hard-won hope, of critical optimism, of beauty amidst pain—and the way these four amazing women construct spaces of care for the future while grappling with the traumas of their pasts is a pitch-perfect example.
Next DeadwoodStudying tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What do you think? Takes on Deadwood you’d share?
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