I don't always go in for diatribes, at least on the internet, but I am particularly fired up about a particularly trivial bit of media. Halston, a recent addition to the Netflix family, is a five episode series which depicts the arc of a mid-century American fashion designer's career. The YouTube algorithm graciously handed me a clip from the show this week, in which Krysta Rodriguez, portraying Liza Minnelli, performs Minnelli's iconic "Say Liza (Liza with a 'Z')." Always a sucker for fictional portrayals of history's great artists (Midnight in Paris, anyone?), I figured I could give Halston a shot, at least for Liza.
The opening scene of the first episode of Halston, titled "Becoming Halston," finds baby Halston (born Roy Halston Frowick) rooting around in the chicken coop of his Midwestern, Depression-era childhood home. In the background, two voices that we assume belong to his parents are arguing. The male voice sounds angry about something predictably arbitrary, and the (crying) woman's voice is trying to apologize. And, of course, the argument is punctuated by a trademark Hollywood slap! sound effect.
Now, I understand that we are establishing his background. I understand that this fairly standard-issue argument between a mother and an abusive father is the most expeditious way to communicate to the audience what the vibe of Halston's childhood was like.
What I would have loved, however, is for the show to have imbued Halston's mother- Hallie Frowick- with even a semblance of agency in these opening moments. When Halston enters the home after the argument and its corresponding slap (the father has exeunt-ed by this point), he finds Hallie turned away from the door, on the sofa. This blocking means that both the audience and baby Halston get a dramatic reveal of the evidence of her abuse as she turns to face him. The reveal takes place after another predictable moment, when the burgeoning boy genius with a flair for design informs the weeping Hallie that he has made something for her. She turns. I should emphasize here that she has no lines.
He then presents a (ostensibly pre-made) straw cloche hat into whose brim he has tucked chicken feathers (straw hat but make it fashion). The way the scene unfolds, his mother is both flattered and relieved by the presence of this hat. Again, she has no lines. Hallie allows Halston to place the hat on her head and arrange the feathers, which she then gives a few self-conscious pats in a display of admiration.
You may wonder, now that she has the hat, will she finally get to speak? To that, I give you:
"[woman laughs quietly]."
I get that it was the Depression and there probably aren't mirrors, but does she really not even want to see a reflection of herself in the hat in some household object? I also understand that she has just been through something traumatic, so now is maybe not the time she wants to check herself out. But without expressing some interest of her own in how the hat looks, the value of the gift is dependent exclusively on how it makes Halston feel to give her the hat. After patting the feathers, the way Hallie looks up at her son (after laughing softly, of course) gives the impression that she is surprised to have been made to feel so special and she really really hopes that Halston likes the way it looks on her.
Which, of course, is insane!
Imagine you just had a fight with your shitty abusive husband and your child, who clearly heard everything that happened, walks in with a craft project he made for you? Sure, you are appreciative, but that craft project (1) is definitely not objectively fashionable or cool (2) is not the thing which, in that moment, is going to validate you as a person. Basically, this scene portrays Hallie not as a grown-up maternal figure dealing with a very complicated situation, but rather as a shaky, battered woman who Halston, the wunderkind, can fix with his prodigious hat craft.
The first minute of Halston tragically employs Hallie as an instrument whose sole purpose is to convey to the viewer a very simple message: young Halston had it tough, he saw some tough stuff, and was good at fashion from an early age. So good, in fact, that his earliest works validated and cared for his mother-with-no-lines when she was sad from being a victim of domestic violence. His hats are just that good.
Is this really the message we need to be receiving about some dude?
It's not a diatribe if it doesn't end with a caveat, right? So, here it is- It would be more responsible of me to watch this entire show and then report back to you about how Hallie's character develops as the story unfolds. There are many explanations that could be revealed later, such as, her inability to admit or confront her suffering being a difficult thing that she navigates, or, you know, it turns out she does have agency but they chose not to show us right out of the gate. Personally, I find the second possibility unacceptable.
I reserve my right to slink back here and make corrections as needed, because I probably will end up finishing this show within a week. But I also reserve the right to stay mad, if this Hallie situation doesn't get better soon. At this point in time, culturally, politically, all of it, we simply do not deserve such one-dimensional portrayals of women, abuse, domestic violence, or motherhood! And I will yell about it if it needs yelling about. That's all.
- Helen
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