During the third episode of Alias Grace, Netflix’s new six-part drama series about 19th century servant girl Grace Marks, there comes a sequence that seems disturbingly contemporary. Grace, the protagonist of the title, lies in bed mutely terrified, as her bedroom doorknob rattles. We hear a man shouting behind the door. “Grace, Grace let me in,” he urges. “Let me in, Grace.” The voice belongs to the son of Grace’s employer—effectively, he is her boss. His tone is threatening yet incredulous, as though he can’t believe that a lowly servant would have the audacity to deny him anything. The camera then cuts to Grace reflecting on the episode several years later. “There are some masters who think you owe them a service 24 hours a day,” she says, “and that you should do the main work flat on your back.”
Like the recent HBO adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale, Netflix’s Alias Grace is based on a novel by Margaret Atwood. According to the show’s creator: “The Handmaid’s Tale showed what could happen to women. Alias Grace shows us what did.” That is one way of looking at it, yes—the story follows the story of real-life servant girl Grace Marks, who either devised or abetted the murder of her employer in the 19th century. But it could also be said to depict what is still happening to women. As Harvey Weinstein’s victims continue to come forward, and sexual harassment claims stretch to Westminster, the show arrives at an eerily appropriate cultural moment. (One recording of Weinstein’s encounters reveals him ordering a woman to: “Just come on in... Please just come in,” in the same tone of outrage and entitlement as Grace’s attacker.) Evidently we still live in a culture in which many powerful men feel that they are entitled to touch women, and think that those who work for, or with, them “owe them a service.”
The story of Alias Grace is told through a series of flashbacks. Grace (Sarah Gadon) is attempting to recount to American mental health expert Doctor Simon Jordan (Edward Holcroft) what she can remember of the events leading up to the murder. The aim is that Jordan will be able to accumulate enough evidence to prove that Grace was insane at the time the murder was committed. Though this investigation forms the premise, however, ultimately the show is less concerned with whether Grace is “innocent” or “guilty,” than what those words mean when they are applied to a woman, especially of Grace’s class. And it is less concerned with the justifications of murder, than what it is like to be subjected to continual abuses of power.
“There are some masters who think you owe them a service 24 hours a day,” Grace says, “and that you should do the main work flat on your back”Like Gilead in The Handmaid’s Tale, the rural Canada of Alias Grace is a world in which powerful men habitually exploit women—where employers molesting their servant girls is considered to be “the usual.” Grace leaves her first job after fearing her boss’s son will impregnate her against her will. She moves to a remote house in the countryside to work for Thomas Kinnear, who has a vaguely sinister reputation but is nevertheless described as a “liberal master.” Like Weinstein, he is powerful and charismatic, with a kindly expression and an air of avuncular geniality. Then, at the first opportunity, he throws off his liberal veneer and forces women into making uncomfortable compromises. He has regular sex with his housekeeper (Anna Paquin) and appears to make advances on Grace, too, though it is unclear whether or not this is a dream-sequence. “Come out at once, or I will have to find you,” he is heard shouting, as he hunts Grace around the house. “You never listen to me, you never do as I say, you dirty girl.”
As a narrator, Grace is quiet, lacks emotion, and gives away little about herself. Indeed, one of the most interesting aspects of the show is the way that she resists being pegged as either a villain or a victim. Since the sexual harassment revelations broke, the women involved have been scrutinised almost as much as the perpetrators, and there is a tendency to depict them as either “helpless” victims or “hypocritical” demons. Grace avoids these labels. In the opening voiceover, she muses about the way she is perceived by the public: “I think of all the things that have been written about me,” she says, “That I am an inhuman female demon, that I am an innocent victim of a blaggard forced against my will… that I was too ignorant to know how to act …” Yet by refusing to either accept or reject any secure interpretation of who she is, Grace allows us to think she could simultaneously be all of these things, and thus becomes impossible to pin down. This sense of confusion is intensified by the impressionistic cinematography. At crucial moments, rather than allowing us to see the murders or the rapes, the camera zooms in on tiny, intimate details: a snail crawling along a leaf, or a finger pushing a needle into fabric. We get the impression that we are looking very closely at a portrait, but that what we really want to see is just out of shot.
Though Alias Grace can be frustratingly elusive, it is always compelling to watch. In this respect, and perhaps disturbingly, the viewer closely resembles Doctor Jordan. Like Jordan, we wait intently for a conclusive explanation, while deriving a certain sadistic pleasure from hearing about Grace’s abusive experiences. If we are disappointed by the fact that we never get to watch those experiences, and so are never fully able to understand Grace as one “type” or another, then this speaks volumes about our public perception—and expectation—of women. Grace confronts Jordan in the final voiceover: “You were eager to hear about my sufferings. Your cheeks would flush, and if you had ears like a dog then they would have been pricked forward, with your eyes shining and your tongue hanging out.” In light of the way that sexual harassment victims—and especially women—have been hounded by the press and social media in recent weeks, this accusation seems particularly poignant. Alias Grace offers not only a voice to victims of sexual abuse, but a way for us to reflect on our own voyeuristic tendencies.
