Netflix ‘You’ Review

Hey guys! Happy Thursday!

So if you have seen ‘You’ on Netflix, I wanna talk about it with you, if you haven’t DO NOT READ AHEAD IMMA SPOIL IT SO HARD. I’ve been holding off with this review so that I didn’t ruin it for everyone but since it came out at the start of this month I think I have waited long enough! Okay cool, let’s go.

So, ‘ You’ centres around Joe, a bookstore manager who becomes obsessed with Beck, a writer/teaching assistant/socialite and by his constant appearance in her life (through following her every move) they eventually start dating. The couple break up and get back together and Joe going to such stretches as to kill both Beck’s ex boyfriend and also her best friend. The plot climaxes to Beck finding out about Joe’s stalking, obsession and murders. Joe kidnaps Beck, locking her away until she says she will stay with him. Beck tricks him, knocks him over the head and tries to escape with no luck. Joe kills Beck, framing all the murders on her therapist who she cheated on him with.

So as someone who has been stalked and a raging feminist, when I first started to watch this I thought the whole thing was a satirisation of the way women are treated in movies and tv shows. The way men are seen as doing things ‘out of love’ which are actually completely creepy and wrong. Joe himself says this when caught in Beck’s shower – this is what happens all the time in rom-coms.

But as the show went on I found myself genuinely happy for Joe when he got what he wanted and when him and Beck were happy. I’m not sure if this is intended by the director, to play with the audiences mind the same way Joe plays with Beck. But after seeing other people’s reactions to Joe, being ones of love and obsession themselves – I feel super uncomfortable about it, he is a murder and a psychopath.

Was the intention of this show to reveal the horrors of men? Add fuel to the fire of the Men Are Trash movement? Or is Joe the protagonist of this text and am I meant to root for him?

This became even more confusing when we as an audience learn that Beck has been killed off. If this is tv show is setting out to provoke thought about the way men treat women WHY kill off the female protagonist. If we are meant to side with Beck and not with Joe why are we left to face season 2 without her.

Also in the last episode we see the return of Candace, joes ex who we believe he’s killed. She’s alive and ready for seemingly revenge for whatever Joe did to her. I’m not sure how I feel about the continuation of the series, I like the most part of season 1 and after killing Beck off. How can a continuation happen of a satirisation of the tendencies of men?

However, apart from this confusion I love the setting up of the narrative, I love the female characters in the series – their downfalls and faults, their quirks and determinations. Beck for me presents a talented woman who fails in her personal life and for me, the presentation that she needs a man to come in and tell her how to live makes me want to die. It makes me pray this is a satirisation after all. The actors are amazing, their engagement with the roles – the emotion they present is high quality for a Netflix original.

As a feminist anthem, this series is an interesting vailed attack on the male gaze and the treatment of women. As a series not about that, even Penn Badgley describes Joe as an ‘Anti Hero’ reeks of a gross misunderstanding and mistreatment of the subject matter.

If there was confirmation of what they were aiming for, I’d know out of my two opinions what I was meant to go with. Will I watch the next season? Yes. Will I hope it’s feminist? Absolutely, I cannot deal with another series which presents men as the saviours of lost females who can’t find their way.

Let me know in the comments below if you guys enjoyed the series, if you agree (or disagree!) and if you like me doing move/series reviews, or even feminist segments.