Filed under: feminism, TV | Tags: being taken seriously, Detective Anna, period drama, Russian TV, TV
Folks over on the Period Drama subreddit recommended the Russian series, Detective Anna, and as previously established, I am a particular fan of period workplace dramas about women, so this seemed right up my street.
Anna is not really a detective, though. She has visions of dead people who then help her solve their murders. It’s a ghost detective show, I guess. Like a Pulling Daisies or The Ghost Whisperer or Medium. (There’s a genre now, it seems.)
Detective Anna takes place in the late 1800s in a small Russian town called Zadonsk so it has a pleasing amount of period overcoats and hoods and hats and such. I’m enjoying it for the most part.
There’s something about it, though, that feels very familiar and a little uncomfortable. The titular character, Anna (not a detective), is a young woman who has a talent, surrounded by men who do not acknowledge it. Despite the fact that I’ve now seen 12 episodes in which her abilities as a medium have solved the crime, everyone around her either ignores her skill or finds it hilarious that she thinks she has it. Only her uncle acknowledges her abilities. She forges ahead in this world of men, flirting with the police detective who is clearly in love with her but teases her about seeing murder victims in her sleep. He likes her but he doesn’t take her seriously. No one seems to.
This feels very familiar to me, even though I have no supernatural abilities. I know what it’s like to not be taken seriously, to be liked but, not respected for my skill.
At first, I was a little annoyed with this show, for putting its heroine in so many positions alone in which she has no allies and no authority but still has to make a difference. I asked myself why I was still watching this program set in this world of only men. But then I thought, right, this is often what we’re up against, trying to sneak our insights in, to pass on our intelligence without getting kicked out of rooms of power. We let the fellas laugh at us and patronize us so we can solve the problem.
Anna cannot work as a detective in the world of the show, because it’s the late 19th century and she’s not allowed, but she can circumnavigate certain restrictions just by virtue of the fact that she’s in communication with the dead. She’s constantly soft pedaling what she knows. She often pretends she doesn’t know things she does know. She has to frame what she says in the most careful of terms. She has to tolerate people laughing at her in the moments she would most want to be taken seriously.
Here in our modern world, a woman could be a detective but she will likely still have to find subversive ways to be heard. The skills are almost the same. We probably don’t have to worry about our mothers trying to marry us off to rich suitors in this day and age – but the feelings of being dismissed and ridiculed are very familiar. Maybe this show will give us the tools to get past those dismissals and minimizations.
Maybe not.
Meanwhile I will enjoy the lovely preponderance of 19th century warm Russian hats and coats.
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1 Comment so far
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Songs for the Struggling Artist 
Interesting blog! Do the men in Anna’s work world take credit for the crimes she solves? I haven’t watched that show, but I bet they do! And I haven’t lived in the South since 1976, as you probably know, but I bet there are still plenty of mothers trying to convince their daughters that they must get married and preferably to a wealthy man–but married at all costs!
Xoxox and much love, Virginia
Comment by vlowery2f3e459693 June 13, 2024 @ 8:35 pm