Killing Eve: A Feminist Exploration of a Hypermasculinized Genre

The BBC series Killing Eve, about the obsession between a spy and an assassin, explores the hypermasculinized spy-thriller genre by subverting it, presenting it through the experiences of women. Instead of tropey, “sit still, look pretty” female characters who are afterthoughts, the show’s protagonists are women depicted as complex individuals, who defy nearly every stereotype female characters have been subjected to in TV shows past.

One of the primary ways this complexity is depicted is through casting choices. Acting veteran Sandra Oh, a Korean Canadian woman in her late forties, plays the titular role. Throughout the history of television, showing an older woman as an intellectually bright, sexually active, valuable member of society in her own right is rare; women like Oh are more often cast in roles that present them as a metaphor for fading femininity. According to a study by Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, older female characters are twice as likely to be shown as physically unattractive and are 69.5% more likely to be shown as sickly. Oh’s character, however, is an active woo-er in an interracial, same-sex relationship with an age gap, which is an important step in the fight against ageism and other forms of tokenism in the media.

Actress Fiona Shaw, who is in her early 60s, plays Eve's boss, Carolyn Martens. This character could have easily fallen into the trope of the hard-nosed, arthritic spy boss, but instead Shaw delivers absurd one-liners, has an active sex life, and displays a fervent belief in her employees’ abilities.

The female characters in Killing Eve also importantly defy the type of sexualization that most women on screen, especially queer women, are often subjected to. The antagonist, Villanelle, dresses fashionably for herself, and doesn’t care about what anyone thinks of her appearance or actions. She is irreverent, gimmicky, and unapologetically herself: Her queerness is acknowledged but not exploited, with nuanced sexual encounters that she is in control of and not subjected to.

Villanelle’s queerness is further proven to be essential, rather than to please the viewer’s gaze, in that it's an important factor in the plot, specifically in terms of her fixation with Eve. When Villanelle learns an MI5 agent is on to her, she insists on knowing the agent’s identity. When she eventually reveals it is Eve, Villanelle is mesmerized that there exists an agent smart enough to catch her. Eve, on the other hand, is transfixed by what Villanelle has gotten away with. Their instant, mutual intellectual admiration transcends their eventual sexual chemistry.

The men of Killing Eve, on the other hand, adopt a secondary role compared to the women in their lives; the show argues that women can have fulfilling lives separate from those of their partners. Eve doesn’t involve her husband Niko in any work-related fiascos for his safety, and, strikingly, the fact that she’s not a mother is not even acknowledged. Similarly, Villanelle infantilizes herself to manipulate her handler Konstantin, faking tears when he questions her after she returns from a miscalculated assignment. Both women are preoccupied with their jobs and, almost always, with one another: Eve and Villanelle aren’t who they are to please the men around them.

Killing Eve’s central philosophy is essentially that misogyny is absurd and funny when it backfires against those who perpetuate it. For example, when she crashes an Italian mafia boss’s party, he thinks that she is flirting with him, which amuses Villanelle as she stabs him with a fashionable, poison-filled hairpin. The show doesn’t make excuses for Villanelle’s actions; she is never painted as a victim taking her rage out on the world. Villanelle uses society’s misogyny to get away with murder and she is neither redeemed nor condemned for this.

All in all, what separates Killing Eve from other shows is that it allows women to exist in a grey area, as complex, flawed, and unpredictable human beings. Its female gaze is transparent and confronting; it values the experiences and identities of those who aren’t the cisgender, heterosexual men. This show ultimately initiates a new genre in which women aren’t pigeonholed as male-gazed sex objects or glorified as badass heroines. Rather it hyperfeminizes masculine storytelling into an indestructible, iconic feminist form.