Warning: This text incorporates spoilers for season 3 of “Yellowjackets.”
Shauna Sadecki (nee Shipman) was initially our window into the “Yellowjackets” world because the protagonist, however now she’s change into extra of an anti-hero. Within the first season, we felt for her as if she had been a personality in a John Hughes teen film — rebellious, insecure, residing within the shadow of her finest pal. Within the current day, she was a bored, stifled housewife.
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However the trials of the wilderness have taken their toll on Shauna, turning her right into a hole shell of the sympathetic teen lady we as soon as knew, as she grows angrier and extra violent by the day. She goads her teammates to sentence Coach Ben to dying and provokes the cannibalistic hunt for Mari with bloodthirsty glee. Worst of all, she is getting in the way in which of everybody’s rescue. Sophie Nélisse offers Teen Shauna a everlasting snarl and an intense gaze that makes her really terrifying this season. Her face seems extra gaunt, the sunshine in her eyes gone — now flashing with a fury hardened by the brutality of wilderness survival.
As Grownup Taissa says to Grownup Misty within the finale, “The worst of what we went by way of, she fueled it. She thrived on it.” The present is slowly revealing this to be true within the teen timeline. Now, within the grownup timeline, she not solely murdered her lover however has led her fellow Yellowjackets on a sequence of hijinks which have resulted in three of their deaths. Within the finale, Grownup Melissa declares, “Shauna is the issue,” and we’re beginning to see that.
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All of this has led to a variety of on-line buzz about hating Shauna. Whereas her actions have been heinous, there appears to be an additional vitriol towards her. These reactions appear over-the-top when in comparison with how different problematic characters — particularly males — have been obtained and are even beloved in well-liked tradition.
Shauna makes us afraid, very afraid
Throughout TV’s Golden Age, the anti-hero turned a defining character. They had been morally ambiguous and did horrible issues, but nonetheless stored us glued to our tv screens. We liked watching Tony Soprano strangle one among his enemies to dying along with his naked fingers whereas nonetheless sympathizing with him when he broke down in Dr. Melfi’s workplace. We had been captivated by Walter White’s transformation from Mr. Chips to Scarface, as his love for household twisted right into a starvation for cash and energy. Don Draper drank like a fish and slept his manner by way of Manhattan, but we nonetheless marveled at his rise from poverty to asking all the world to purchase a Coke.
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All these males may be ruthless, manipulative, even monstrous — however they’re additionally framed as tortured souls. When ladies like Shauna behave equally, they get tons of of Reddit feedback complaining about what a psychotic b***h she is. Why cannot we view a feminine character with that very same complexity? Why cannot a lady be each “dangerous” and have her moments of vulnerability? One of many causes is that we’re used to ladies being the nurturing, ethical heart of most tales. It is jarring to see her embody the entire darker features of human nature that we sometimes affiliate with masculinity.
Whereas there are a lot of flawed TV ladies, just like the drug-stealing Jackie from “Nurse Jackie” and the manipulative Nancy from “Weeds,” Shauna is a full-blown sadist. Her cruelty is relentless, and her violence is transgressive and disgusting; in season 3 episode 8, she bit a bit of pores and skin off of Melissa and compelled her to eat it. But, viewers appear to neglect that simply as a lot because the well-known male anti-heroes of status TV, we have gotten a glimpse into her psychological motivations — as damaged as they could be.
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Shauna needs to reign once more because the Antler Queen
Many appear to be forgetting simply how a lot trauma Shauna has endured: trying a DIY abortion, the dying of her finest pal Jackie (and subsequently consuming her), slicing Javi’s physique for his or her second cannibalistic feast, and shedding her child. In some of the harrowing scenes in “Yellowjackets” to this point, Shauna swore she might hear her toddler’s cries and known as after him with heart-shattering and guttural screams, terrified that her teammates secretly ate him. Now, she’s left simmering with rage, probably worsened by postpartum despair and even psychosis. If her baby needed to die, then nobody else deserves to be spared. On high of all this, Shauna remains to be solely an adolescent.
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She has unfathomable ache behind her excessive actions, the identical manner we understood Tony Soprano being threatened by his mom to have his eye poked out, Don Draper rising up in a whorehouse, and Walter White being deeply insecure about being much less profitable than his buddies. These painful experiences don’t excuse their habits, it simply makes all of them the extra fascinating to dissect and observe.
Melissa urges Shauna to forgive herself and let go of the previous, however Shauna appears to be heading in the other way. In her voice-over, she declares that the wilderness was a spot the place she felt alive and pleased, the place she wasn’t in a subservient function however a “f***ing queen.” Again house, she was passive and had no energy, enjoying second fiddle to Jackie. Now, it appears Shauna is turning into much more unhinged, along with her standing as an anti-hero shifting into outright villainy. Will the “Yellowjackets” hive nonetheless be capable to embrace her as a multifaceted and engrossing important character? We’re not used to seeing feminine roles problem us on this manner, and that is why “Yellowjackets” is so fascinating to observe.
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