When I first watched Sharp Objects I finished the mini-series within two short days. While watching the show the overall mystery surrounding the death of two girls wasn’t what drew me in. It was the character interactions. It was impressive watching the actors say so much about who they are and how they view the world with such little dialogue and subtle action. And there is a lot this show has to say about small-town life, the patriarchal standards that exist for both women and men and generational trauma. The show brings an interesting and unique perspective on how the subjugation of women is upheld and enforced by not only men but other women as well. It is common for media that highlights the persecution of women to focus solely on how men take part in this systematic oppression. This is a reasonable focus as men benefit the most and are the most visible perpetrators of this societal structure. Men uphold the patriarchy often through physical violence, sexual assault, sexual objectification, and control over wealth/resources. We see instances of men taking part in various versions of these actions throughout the series but the key thing to remember about systemic discrimination/oppression is that regressive ideas about gender norms and the “rightful place” of the sexes are ingrained not only in the minds of the oppressors but also the oppressed as well. Women are fully capable of upholding patriarchy just as much as men; they just often do it in different ways. Through the use of social ostracization, withholding love, affection, and acceptance, and the spreading of lies/rumors women can force and constrain each other into the established gender roles. Sharp Objects is a series primarily about women and because of this, we see women supporting the misogynistic culture far more than the men. Despite the initial intrigue of the murders, it is these elements that make up the core of the story. Through analysis, we can see how these topics ultimately lead to those gruesome deaths.
Small Town; Big Magnifying Glass
The town of Wind Gap is the epitome of small-town life. The population is incredibly tiny, the job market is terribly limited, the lack of amenities/attractions means that boredom is a constant, and everyone in the town knows everyone else. This humble lifestyle has its appeal but there exists a danger in it as well. Towns like this can be very possessive of its citizens. Wind Gap demands both information and conformity from the people who live there. Every individual in the town is seen as a reflection of the town’s reputation and perceived morals. As such the heads of the town, like Adora and Chief Vickery, take great pains to ensure that the reputation is secured. The small population makes it much easier to exert control and keep a watchful eye on one’s neighbors. Oftentimes the all-female social groups led by Adora and Amma will do their best to ring out any information they can from others and then use that information as a type of blackmail to enforce acceptable behavior. An example of this is when Adora finds out that Camille is visiting with Bob Nash and comes to stop her within minutes of being there. Adora has her personal secret police that feeds her information on anyone in town.
Those who don’t willingly give up information about themselves are instead harassed with baseless rumors. We can see this with the Nash and Keene families. Both families kept to themselves and shared very little information. As punishment for this, the families were ostracized and made the centerpiece of the town’s gossip mill. There are very few options in Wind Gap. You either play by the town’s rules or be used as an example of what not to be. This is why Camille left for the big city and why John Keene longs to return. There are far too many people in larger cities to be able to control others and invade their privacy. In the big city, you are invisible and no one knows anything about you unless you want them to. This means no one can hurt you.
Heirs to Trauma
The hurt that you experience from those close to you is something that can reverberate for years. The tactics that women use to keep other women in line were used on Adora by her mother. It is implied that Adora’s own mother was abusive to her and held her to an unobtainable standard. When Adora naturally failed to reach that standard her mother withheld love and acceptance from her. This caused a deep sense of shame and self-hatred to build within Adora. Adora had been a pregnant and unmarried teenager which made her a failure of a woman by patriarchal standards. Adora's personal insecurity in her womanhood would be eventually pushed onto her children, Camille, Marian, and Amma.
Adora had failed at being a daughter in the eyes of her mother so she was desperate to prove her femininity by being a good mother. Good mothers raise perfect, sweet, obedient, and beautiful daughters. This is why Adora is so abusive any time her children step out of line. Any act of disobedience she views as a mark against herself and her worth as a mother/woman. This behavior started as early as when Camille was a baby and would refuse to breastfeed. Because Adora was not able to show off how natural of a mother she was she resented Camille. Adora attempts to enforce gender norms on her children harder than any man the women counter in the story. This obsession with motherhood eventually spreads outside her own children to Natalie Keene and Ann Nash.
In the same way that Adora’s mother’s behavior fostered a deep sense of self-hate and insecurity in Adora, her behavior did the same to Camille and Amma. Both Camille and Amma feel extremely unloved and will go to great lengths to feel desired and loved. Camille will often make brash decisions like sleeping with John Keene and knowingly accepting her mother’s poison just to feel Adora’s love once in her life. Amma goes so far as to murder those she views as competitors for the affection of her mother and Camille.
This generational trauma is also highlighted in the brief story that Camille tells about the lesbian couple that either killed themselves or were murdered, another example of physical violence used to correct undesirable behavior in women. The couple’s child was so desperate to receive the affection that she never received from her parents or the town that she slept with as many men as possible. Eventually that undesirable behavior got her branded as a slut and ostracized.
Adora’s abusive behavior as well as her insecurity was passed on to Amma. Just like her mother Amma has formed her own all-girl social group with herself at the head. She uses this social group to enforce misogynistic control on those in her age group just like her mother. She spreads baseless rumors and ostracizes John Keene. This can be seen when Amma and her friends discuss their belief that John is somehow a pedophile attracted to his sister and secretly a gay man at the same time. It doesn’t matter if the belief is contradictory, it just needs to paint John as undesirable. Amma later even bullies John into leaving a party. Amma has internalized her mother’s trauma and is now subjecting it to others the same way it was done to her. Camille even wonders if the same abusive cycle is happening to her. She ponders if her enjoyment in taking care of Amma is genuine or if she is selfishly trying to prove her worth like Adora.
The Best Girl is a Dead Girl
One of the primary objectives of patriarchal control is to strip women of their identities and turn them into blank tools or objects. They are only allowed to have personality traits and ambitions that are deemed acceptable. Sweet, kind, beautiful, virgin, homemaker, wife, obedient, and mother. While women are alive and active they have the potential to break off the path set in front of them and disappoint the expectations others have for them. Girls like Camille, Natalie, and Ann were rebellious and often fought against gender norms. They cut their hair, hated dresses, explored the woods, and loved bugs. The reality of who these girls were stood in the way of what the patriarchy wanted for them. That problem doesn't exist when the women are dead. Dead girls have no personality, ambitions, or wants. They don't fight you when you put them in dresses, do their hair, or put makeup on them. Whatever role that the patriarchy wants can be applied to them easily. Their past can even be rewritten.
We get the first glimpse of this when Camille talks to one of the townsfolk about Natalie and the woman initially lies and says that Natalie’s favorite color is purple. Posthumously they have changed a small piece of who Natalie was to better fit their narrative of what girls are supposed to be. This pattern of changing history is repeated often. We see it with Adora’s second child Marian. During her funeral, Adora had make-up put on her. Camille desperately tries to wipe it off because that's not who her little sister was. Adora even turns Marian’s old room into a fantastical shrine dedicated to a girl that never existed. Marian’s room is filled with pretty dolls and pink lace. All of the things a girl is “supposed” to love.
The town of Wind Gap even rewrites the history of its founding in the form of Calhoun Day. Not only does the event whitewash and glorify those who fought to keep other humans enslaved it also glorifies the female victims of those same men. The story that the town tells to itself does not point out the injustice of Millie Calhoun being a child bride or truly acknowledge the horrors that she suffered through. Instead, the story honors her for being a perfect victim. Millie Calhoun endured pedophilia, rape, and assault nobly and more importantly quietly. The town uses her as a role model that every woman should aspire to be.
In a twisted way, Marian’s death was probably the best thing that happened to Adora. With Marian dead Adora can spread the lie that Marian was the perfect little girl and Adora was the perfect mother that raised her. Adora receives constant sympathy from everyone in town. Marian can never disappoint her or challenge the demands Adora sets. Marian exists as the golden child that neither Camille nor Amma could ever replicate. Adora either consciously or subconsciously is constantly chasing the high she got from Marian's death. This is why she continues to try and poison Amma and Camille. She wants them so weak and quiet that they can never make her look like a bad mother ever again. If Adora had somehow succeeded in poisoning Camille to death I truly believe she would have rewritten their history the same way she did with Marian. Suddenly in death, Camille would have been her beautiful and sweet daughter whom she always loved and cared for. All of the hate, resentment, and abuse would have been buried with Camille’s body. And even after that if she had killed all of her daughters Adora would have simply moved on to the next girl to repeat the cycle. If Amma had never killed Natalie and Ann then Adora would have more than likely begun to poison them too. All of this is just to prove to everyone else that she is a good mother.
The Violence You’re Allowed to Use
The use of violence in Sharp Objects is, I think, the most interesting aspect of the series. Earlier I talked about how men and women reaffirm the patriarchy in different ways. Men often use physical assault while women often use their words and withhold affection/love. Both of these methods are a form of violence. When these different forms of violence are performed by their respective sexes things appear normal. When Camille tells the story about the football team raping cheerleaders in the woods it’s disgusting but not shocking or surprising. Stories like that are sadly very common. The same applies when we learn that Adora is verbally and emotionally abusive to her children. If a woman were to be violent that is how she would do it under the patriarchy. When it is revealed that Adora has been poisoning her children it is not shocking. It makes perfect sense. Adora hurts and kills in invisible ways. She never does anything to affect her victim’s beauty, the part of them that she sees as valuable.
Alternatively when the roles are reversed and a woman performs “male” violence that is truly shocking. Vickery and Richard were convinced that the killer had to be male because of the brutality and anger that the murders were committed with. In their minds, a woman could never be capable of such violence. It goes against the established structure. Interestingly enough, we see women commit acts of physical violence often throughout the story. Ann, Natalie, Amma, and Camille are all physically violent in one way or another. And each time we see or hear about these acts of violence it is shocking because these women have crossed over into the domain of men and claim something that was never meant for them.
We eventually learn that Ann Nash would often bite people, in particular Adora. She even pulled some of her hair out. Natalie Keene stabbed another girl in the eye before coming to Wind Gap and also bit part of Ashley Wheeler’s ear off. Both girls were openly violent with those around them and even fought each other. Amma was even more violent but hid it from those around her like Adora. Amma was able to brutally murder both girls and pull out their teeth under her own strength. Even Camille commits violence just on herself. Her violence is a type of merging of male and female violence. She takes words and turns them into physical scars on her body. This disgusts and angers her mother because she believes Camille has done this out of spite. Adora believes that Camille has “ruined” the beautiful body she has given her. Without that beauty, Camille has no worth to the patriarchy which reflects negatively on Adora.
From a specific point of view, all of these actions of physical violence could be seen as acts of protest or expression. Oftentimes they are misplaced but each instance of violence is a release of anger, discomfort, and insecurity caused by the patriarchy. Ann and Natalie lashed out at those who tried to control them like Adora and Ashley. Amma killed the objects of her jealousy caused by her mother’s lack of attention and affection. The words that Camille cuts into herself are a reflection of her internal feelings of inadequacy and show the damage that those words cause. In each case, the women are expressing the emotional turmoil that the patriarchy has caused them. Words and actions used against them by both men and women have created this pit of self-loathing, loneliness, and anger inside them. They have rejected the tools given to them like passive words and cold stares, the tools that Adora uses, and instead forcibly taken the tools of men, violence. Whether they recognize it or not, what they are doing is a form of rebellion against the patriarchy, enforced by both men and women alike, in their own small way. We are seeing what happens when girls and women are pushed too far and it’s bloody.
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