American Horror Story Treats Women Like Shit, So Why Do I Love It?

So what makes American Horror Story okay for a feminist like me to watch? I have a theory: The women of AHS are strong as hell. They are the kinds of women who, when punched in the face, will spit out a bloody tooth then throw a punch of their own. I’m not watching because I like to see them brutalized. I am watching because I like to see them fight back.

Take Lana, for example. She has everything taken away from her — her freedom, her dearest loved one and her claim to sanity — but rather than crumble or give into her circumstances, she keeps fighting tooth and nail, never giving up on her own right to existence. She, in the words of Dr. Thredson (Zachary Quinto), the therapist/secret serial killer who kidnaps her, has “pluck.” Eventually, when Lana escapes to freedom, a police officer tells her she’s a tough cookie. “I am tough,” Lana replies. “But I’m no cookie.”

Then there’s Sister Jude, played with austere resoluteness by the incomparable Jessica Lange. A hardened New England nun with a wild past, Jude runs Briarcliff with a cruel edge, often committing inhumane acts for what she believes is the greater good. She is smart, maybe the most intelligent individual in the institution, and yet she is cowed because of her gender. At one point, Satan (yes, literally The Devil — he’s got a recurring role) taunts her: “It drives you cra-a-azy. To be the smartest person in the room, with no real pow-w-wer. Because of that smelly clam between your legs.” Gross clam remark aside (granted, it’s the Devil talking here so it should come as no surprise that he’s impolite), this line could be applied to all of the women in American Horror Story: Asylum. They are all brighter than their male peers, but they are deprived of the systemic power that could help them to better their situations. Nevertheless, even when it’s hopeless, they continue to fight back. As poor Jude eventually slips into madness, she continues to remain as headstrong and obstinate as ever.

Compare Lana and Sister Jude to AHS: A‘s male protagonist Kit (Evan Peters). Kind and simple, Kit, who has been accused of heinous crimes, lets his heart, not his head, guide his actions. While this is admirable in its own way, it leaves him suggestible and considerably less capable than his female cohorts. Rarely does he ask why and most of his actions are based on the suggestions of others. At various points, he is tricked, blackmailed, victimized, and always left to clean up the mess.

Even the female villains are more capable and exceptional than their male counterparts. Sister Mary Eunice (Lily Rabe), once a sugar sweet nun, becomes the walking incarnate of evil; she’s sadistic, cruel — and almost constantly level-headed, never losing control of the situation around her. Contrast that to the institution’s villainous doctor in residence, Dr. Arden (James Cromwell), an actual Nazi who performs revolting and cold blooded experiments on Briarcliff’s patients and yet, at the same time, seems forever hovering on the brink of his own mental collapse. Not a fighter, Dr. Arden cowardly commits suicide; Sister Mary Eunice, however, must be murdered in order to be stopped. While the female villain had to be forced out of this world, the male villain goes voluntarily, weak and sniveling.

In a way, I’ve almost come to appreciate American Horror Story‘s treatment of its female characters because they rarely try to make it sexy. When Lana is raped, it’s heartbreaking and blunt. Another depiction of sexual assault is scary and violent. (An aside: Almost as many male characters have been victims of sexual violence on AHS as women.) And I don’t want pop culture to deny that things like rape and battery exist — in the end, that serves no one. What I do want is more characters like Lana and Sister Jude — characters who, rather than being crushed or objectified by their experiences, brush themselves off, take a deep breath and then threaten to bash in their abusers’ brains with an ashtray. Extra points for when they actually do it.