The HBO original series “True Detective” had its season finale March 9, and fans went crazy analyzing it. The story centers around two detectives, Marty Hart and Rust Cohle. The two were assigned as partners in 1995 when a mysterious homicide, indicative of cult actions, led them down dark paths to solve the case. The series takes place over 17 years.
Life’s ups and downs take their tolls on Hart and Cohle. As the series progresses, viewers see the drastic changes in their relationships with each other and with their loved ones. Warning: spoilers ahead.
Prostitutes, strippers, nagging wives, mistresses and corpses: These are the adult women of “True Detective.” While it seems unfair that women in the show get a bad rap, the truth of the matter is that the show centers on Hart and Cohle and their mission to solve a case while also trying to keep their lives from falling apart. However, it seems, in this show, a woman can’t keep her crap together long enough to not get metaphorically kicked down by a man.
This is the most apparent in Maggie Hart, Marty’s beautiful wife. Out of all of the women in the show, the audience gets the most complete story about her character. In her conversations with other characters, she seems like a woman with a great head on her shoulders. However, when it comes to her relationship with her husband, she turns a blind eye to all the red flags he continuously throws up.
While the audience and even Cohle become aware of Marty’s affairs with younger women, Maggie needs the evidence completely spelled out for her before she really takes any action against her husband. She leaves him but only temporarily. A matter of months pass before she reconciles with her husband. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks, so Marty cheats on Maggie again. She finally leaves him, but not before she runs over to Cohle’s house and has the world’s fastest revenge sex. The message: Maggie was docile, purposefully ignorant and driven into spite. This is the classic misogynistic depiction of women since early history.
Furthermore, Hart and Cohle work for the Louisiana state police, and yet the only woman working there is Marty’s secretary. She is a vivacious, curvy black woman who calls everyone “Honey” and “Sweetie” and offers the men coffee every day. No female officers are ever seen.
The last woman we are introduced to in the series is the aunt/girlfriend of Errol Childress, the main antagonist of the series, who is inbred and mentally unstable. She is sexually and emotionally exploited by Errol and is no more than a piece of scenery that helps explain Errol’s twisted way of life.
When all is said and done in “True Detective,” women don’t ever “save the day” or do anything of importance besides make things worse. Since the series focuses more on the relationships people have with one another than with the crimes, I would go as far as to say the viewers see women through the eyes of the southern cops, Cohle and Hart.
The duo becomes self-involved, and they alienate themselves from their loved ones; in return, the audience experiences a similar effect.
It would be more comforting to know the writers purposely portrayed women in negative ways rather than them unintentionally disrespecting women. If there is a “True Detective” season 2, hopefully the writing staff will figure out a way to wriggle in a strong female character that doesn’t get the life sucked out of her by a male character.
[Rachel Kalisher is a UF anthropology and classics junior. Her columns appear on Tuesdays. A version of this column ran on page 7 on 3/18/2014 under the headline "The real ‘True Detective’ mystery"]
