The debut film of Emerald Fennell, showrunner for the second season of “Killing Eve,” is a black comedy fueled by rage, inspired by the sort of activity exemplified by the #MeToo movement, more so for the systematic ignorance that was exposed by it, rather than by any surprises that there is existence of sexual exploitation in the name of unequal power dynamics. It’s an old story to women. What was new was that it would be called out, that what had been hushed up for so long would be made an open secret, and that, if there was any sort of justice, there would be consequences for it. Payback is a bitch, but the ones using it aren’t.
It’s a seizing of power that was assumed wasn’t there, not unlike the 1969 Stonewall uprising when gays decided they’d had enough oppression and would not be relegated to the shadows of shame, and once they’d seen the light, saw, too, that they were disarming the very weapons used against them. That is the destruction of the fantasy of power. For power can only live up to its definition if it is agreed to by both parties: the ones inflicting it, and the ones subjected to it. Without that common ground, it does not exist. “No” is a very powerful and forthright tool against it, but only when it is backed up by resolute action.
