- This video is brought to you by Magic Spoon.
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What's up Wisecrack, Greg here
with another look at everyone's favorite
witch girlfriend and robot boyfriend.
That's right, we're talking "WandaVision".
One of the defining aspects of the show
is how it plays with familiar sitcoms tropes and styles
from the last 60 or so years.
From the suburban setting and hammy overacting,
to Vision giving a "to the camera" interview,
Jim Halpert style,
these references create a strong, fresh tone
for this MCU project.
It was a risk too, as it breaks with much of what
the past 13 years of the MCU has taught us to expect.
For the most part, "WandaVision" gives us
a more subdued, meandering experience than we're used to.
One of the biggest ways it does this
is by setting everything in the suburbs.
A location most associated with things
like cookie cutter homes, kids on bikes
and neighborhood watch groups for the fellas,
you know how we do.
So why does the show lean so heavily into sitcom tropes?
And why did they choose to place Wanda's story
of repressed trauma
in the relatively bland setting of the suburbs?
We've got some thoughts.
So draw the curtains,
make sure that nosy neighbor isn't spying,
and settle in for this Wisecrack edition
on "WandaVision" and the suburban dream.
And spoilers ahead for "WandaVision" and the MCU.
But before we begin,
I'm gonna take a quick break
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Now back to the show.
But first a quick recap.
"WandaVision" takes place in the post Blip world.
After finding out that her ex-lover's corpse
is being dissected at a lab,
Wanda heads to the land of broken hearts, New Jersey.
There she does a casual burst of spontaneous creation,
reshaping an entire town and creating a new Vision,
all in ready for TV black and white.
Wanda also made some fake children.
Her dead brother comes back to life,
and her neighbor turns out to be a witch.
♪ It's been Agatha all along ♪
Eventually, S.W.O.R.D. and the FBI
will investigate the massive bubble
over her new New Jersey town.
And after a whole lot of drama,
Wanda eventually puts things back where she found them
and heads to the mountains
to do some maybe bad witch training.
(laughs)
To understand the meaning
of "WandaVision's" deeply suburban setting,
we're gonna focus on three things from her personal life.
Her Sokovian heritage,
the massive amount of trauma she's experienced,
and her lifelong obsession with American sitcoms.
Via flashbacks, we see that Wanda's creation of Westview
is informed by a deep love of American television.
She uses these sitcoms as a form of escapism.
First, from the war-torn Sokovia of her childhood.
Then, from Hydra's experimentation on her.
Then from the death of her brother.
To her, sitcoms offer a vision of predictability and safety.
A stark contrast from the compounding traumas
that have defined her life.
They offer a consistent and clear narrative
in which everything works out in the end
for those with good intentions.
She's relied on this coping mechanism since childhood.
As we see when she's trapped in the rubble of her home,
with the TV still playing the Dick Van Dyke show.
- By the end of the episode,
you realize it was all a bad dream.
- [Greg] The concept of a suburban utopia
that Wanda is describing, where problems are easily resolved
with no lingering damage or effects
is a defining trope of the genre.
Especially in the early examples
that form her initial basis of Westview.
The types of shows that have informed Wanda's worldview
are referred to as domestic comedies.
Which "portrayed the conservative values
of an idealized American life.
Studiously avoiding prevalent social issues,
such as racial discrimination and civil rights,
the shows focus on mostly white middle-class families
with traditional nuclear roles,
and imply the most domestic problems
could be solved within a 30 minute time slot,
always ending with a strong moral lesson."
And intentionally or not,
these shows created a new set of cultural values.
The urban historian Robert Fishman
said that the American suburban ideal
was developed solely by the 19th century middle class
reflecting their economic desires and cultural values.
The result is what he termed,
"The Cultural Creation of the Bourgeois,"
i.e. middle-class utopia.
By 1950, a huge number of Americans lived in the suburbs
and chased their ideals of the times,
comfort, security, and home ownership.
Which is exactly what we see reflected in the TV sitcoms
of that era, shows like the Dick Van Dyke show.
And for the most part, the first two episodes
of "WandaVision" depict the perfect version
of the suburban utopia.
The inhabitants own comfy homes
with everything they need, and have no real worries.
Or at least any that they seem willing to acknowledge.
In other words, they fulfilled the American dream.
And in "WandaVision", it's only possible
because Wanda, standing in the foundations
where she planned to build her home,
creates it by literally altering reality.
The implication is pretty clear.
It takes magic to achieve the unattainable goal
of the suburban utopia.
Within the Hex, Wanda occupies a similar role
to those of actual women living in real life suburbs,
full time housewife.
She's initially only concerned
with planning the perfect evening for her husband,
only to get sidetracked by a real life or death situation.
Most of her active desires within the Hex
are informed by the stereotypically feminine duties
mid-century women were expected to perform.
She keeps up the house, plans neighborhood parties,
and takes care of the kids,
while Vision goes off to work.
This strict adherence to gender roles
was baked into the American suburban ideal
and was reflected in the sitcoms
that inspired Wanda's creation.
In chasing the dream of suburban utopia,
Wanda casts herself in that role.
The thing is, if Wanda had been familiar
with the effect that the suburban ideal had on women,
perhaps she could have avoided
the Westview snafu altogether.
See, in the post-suburban boom of the early 60's,
feminist thinker Betty Friedan
analyzed the depression and malaise
affecting suburban housewives.
She found that most women were unsatisfied
with their apparently perfect lives
and the strict gender roles they occupied.
They felt a lack of drive or purpose,
often extending quick household tasks
over their entire day to fill the time.
Many turned to alcohol and prescription meds
just to get through the day.
Friedan also found
that despite the majority of women feeling this way,
they wouldn't discuss it with their peers
because if everyone else around them seemed happy,
surely they were the problem.
We can feel this energy in Westview
as Wanda tries to get along
with her constantly grinning neighbors,
who at first seemed to be ideal suburban residents
and not prisoners of sad, witch mind magic.
- Please help me.
What day is it?
How long has it been?
Where's my phone?
I have to call my sister.
- Norm.
- [Norm] She's taking care of our dad, he's sick.
Where is my phone?
- Informed by both her research
and her experience in the magazine industry,
Friedan dubbed this phenomenon "The Feminine Mystique."
It's the false notion
that the only thing women needed to live a fulfilling life
was the glory in their own femininity,
as defined by the culture at large.
So according to society and mass media,
all they needed for true happiness
was to keep a house, take care of their husband,
and raise the kids.
These are the exact boundaries of the role
Wanda cast herself in.
And it's no coincidence that Friedan pointed at mass media,
Wanda's main point of reference,
as a major contributor
to the maintenance of the Feminine Mystique.
The dominant media image of the happy family
largely adhered to the Feminine Mystique,
which reinforced the idea
that women who weren't fulfilled were abnormal.
What's more, media studies only came about
around the mid 70's.
So folks didn't have carefully crafted video essays
to critically analyze these shows.
(bell dings)
Wanda's consumption of sitcoms was also uncritical.
She formed an entire coping mechanism around them.
And being Sokovian wasn't close enough
to American suburban life to examine it critically.
It's unsurprising that she internalized these norms.
It would be like if your whole conception
of what Florida was like
came from watching MTV spring break specials
from the 90's.
If you rolled up to a modern day Daytona Beach
hoping to actualize what you had seen on the screen,
you'd be sorely disappointed.
Also, you'd probably have a new COVID variant
that emerged from a foam party.
All of this explains why Wanda
was never gonna be able to live a happy and trauma free life
within a sitcom based Hex,
regardless of all the uncontrolled chaos magic
and interference from the outside forces.
But just as Friedan can help us understand Wanda's misery,
she also can explain the satisfaction
of watching Wanda escape.
Friedan argued that the only way
for women to find fulfillment was to forge an identity
outside of housewifeliness.
Saying that every woman "Must create,
out of her own needs and abilities,
a new life plan fitting in the love and children
and home that have defined femininity in the past
with the work toward a greater purpose
that shapes the future."
We start to see Wanda doing just that,
aided in part by Agatha and Monica,
she is able to break out of the feminine mystique,
and start to more intentionally create a new life.
This destruction of the Hex and embrace of a new life
still carries it's own sense of loss and trauma,
as it requires Wanda
to say goodbye slash destroy her husband and sons.
Friedan describes this experience
of breaking out of the feminine mystique
sans witchcraft of course,
as such, "For the woman who moves on,
there's always a sense of loss that accompanies change.
It is so much easier for a woman to say 'yes'
to the feminine mystique,
and not risk the pains of moving on,
that the will to make the effort 'ambition'
is as necessary as ability itself,
if she is going to move out of the housewife trap."
In trying to force the suburban utopian fantasy
into reality, Wanda experiences the feminine mystique
firsthand, but eventually she realizes
that the American sitcom dream
isn't going to cure the pain and loss she's endured.
She symbolically lets go of these unattainable ideals,
undoing the Hex around Westview
and resolving herself to fully realize
her own inherent power.
I mean, she does do this by embracing her role
as a witch, who uses chaos magic
and leaves to study "The Darkhold",
a literal book of the damned.
But hey, at least she saw through the false promises
of the American sitcom right?
Satanic magic aside,
it's an apt metaphor for how the ideals of suburban America
can lead women and men alike to repress key aspects
of who they really are for the sake of fitting neatly
into pre-determined boxes.
Like how I spent all of the early 90's
trying to dress like Kris Kross.
Y'all remember those dudes?
Everything backwards, yeah.
I couldn't even pee.
But once those boxes are hexes, are smashed,
people can fully self-actualize
and become who they really are, rather than playing a role.
But what's next for our favorite ex-suburban witch?
With Wanda set to bring her new Scarlet Witch persona
into the up and coming
"Dr. Strange And The Multiverse Of Madness,"
we can only hope she'll be able to work through
all of her trauma without completely breaking bad
and becoming a villain.
Unless she trades her sitcoms
for a binge session of "Breaking Bad,"
in which case we're screwed, man.
But what do you guys think?
Does "WandaVision" show us what happens
when we let sitcoms inform our worldviews?
Can kind of evil witches still be loving mothers
for their kind of fake children?
Let us know in the comments.
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And as always, thanks for watching.
Peace.
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