Film Deets:
Creator: James DeMonaco
Actress: Amanda Warren
Category: Sexual Harassment
Themes: Harassment, Racism
Why do these screams matter?
Based on the popular film franchise, The Purge Season 1 is notable for both its nuanced and diverse characterizations as well as for its authentically terrifying premise. It is also arguably one of the few horror television adaptations that exceed its source material. Season one takes place in 2027 in a dystopian version of the United States in which crime is controlled by allowing all citizens to “purge” once a year for a twelve-hour period. This means that all crimes, including rape and murder, become legal and all emergency response services are suspended. In one of the series’ three interlocking stories, Jane (Amanda Warren) is an executive who decides to spend the Purge locked away in her office with her subordinates. As part of the Ryker Moore Equity company, Jane and her colleagues are asked to work Purge night with assurances that so long as they stay on the protected floor, they will be safe. But predictably, things don’t exactly go according to plan.
Our first scream comes in episode three titled, “The Urge to Purge.” In the two previous episodes, we were introduced to Alison (Jessica Miesel) and Mark (Adam Stephenson), two employees vying for a promotion that Jane will decide. And at first, it seems like the two are in cahoots to lure Jane off the protected floor so that the two can purge her without ramifications. But things take an unexpected turn when Jane arrives and discovers Alison brutally stabbing Mark.
The revelation that Alison has been plotting Mark’s death all along as a means of quite literally eliminating the competition is shocking because it seemingly goes against Alison’s perky and non-threatening workplace demeanor. The ferocity with which she stabs Mark in this scene is matched by Jane’s scream of horror because Jane, despite her education and her skills in the workplace, simply did not see this coming. Her scream is one of horror at the brutality in front of her but it is also a recognition that her decision to pit the two against each other for the promotion has yielded consequences she never expected, but which are actually the logical extension of the cut-throat tactics she encouraged. Although Alison’s question about whether she needs to notify HR about her promotion is meant to be darkly humorous and to punctuate the brutality of Mark’s murder, it also suggests that women looking for professional success in the workplace are backed into a corner when they are not supported by other higher-ranking women.
In research published in the April 2017 Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, researchers Klea Faniko, Naomi Ellemers, Belle Derks, and Fabio Lorenzi-Cioldi found that women in senior management positions will advocate for quotas for women who are on the same level within a professional organization but not for junior women employees (Faniko et al. 642). Studies also show that women in the workplace experience a higher degree of incivility from women than they do from men. (Young et al). And for Alison, that’s certainly the case as we see Jane project her frustrations onto Alison but not Mark. We initially think that Jane will be the target of an Alison-and-Mark conspiracy because Jane is far from an easy boss. She is shown to be short, demanding, and all business when it comes to those she supervises. It would be easy to dismiss her as simply a cog in a capitalistic wheel if not for our knowledge that Jane is a highly credentialed professional who was just passed over for a promotion because she refused the sexual advances of her lecherous boss, David Ryker (William Baldwin). And so, Jane’s scream at this moment is a tacit recognition of the role she has played in perpetuating the toxic capitalist-masculinity that also limits her own success.
But as a Black woman in a white, male-dominated industry, something the series alludes to in a slow pan of the people who sit with David at the upper echelon executive table, Jane is also navigating racial barriers to success that are informed by both gender and racial discrimination. In this next scream, Jane, who has left the safety of her office intending to purge her boss, finds herself at his mercy instead.
An overt depiction of toxic masculinity in the workplace, David’s yearning for the “good old days” boils down to anger that men can no longer act in the workplace with impunity. Jane’s scream here represents her terror at what is about to occur but it also represents her awareness that men, in particular white men, still hold the lion’s share of power both in and out of the office. Allana Akhtar of Business Insider reports that “Black women need to work an extra 233 days [into the next year] to earn what white men earn” (Akhtar). With this data in mind, it’s clear that Jane’s story is representative of a capitalistic framework rigged toward white men. We know via flashbacks that Jane was passed over for a partnership when she refused David’s sexual advances and that, in effect, her career was essentially stalled at middle management. But as her scream indicates, resisting sexual harassment doesn’t mean that the threat is eliminated. Sometimes, it intensifies and women are often the ones left to deal with the consequences.
Works Cited
Akhatar, Allana. “Lower pay, more harassment: How work in America failed women of color in the 2010s.” Insider, 18 Dec. 2019.
Faniko, Klea, et al. “Nothing Changes, Really: Why Women Who Break Through the Glass Ceiling End Up Reinforcing It.” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, vol. 43, No. 5, 2017, pp. 638-651.
“Lovely Dark and Deep.” The Purge: Season One, written by James DeMonaco, Mick Betancourt & Krystal Houghton Ziv, directed by Tara Nicole Weyr, Blumhouse Television, 2018.
The Purge. Created by James DeMonaco, Blumhouse Television, 2018-2019.
“The Urge to Purge.” The Purge: Season One, written by Mick Betancourt, directed by David Von Ancken, Blumhouse Television, 2018.
Young, Kim A., et al. “Towards Understanding Workplace Incivility: Gender, Ethical Leadership and Personal Control.” Public Management Review, vol. 23, no. 1, Jan. 2021, pp. 31–52.
