Hacks, the heroine's journey, & writing it your way

Have you seen Hacks? It’s a wonderful, binge-worthy show on HBO Max that came out in early 2021. Watching it, I felt like I was taking a long drink of water after trekking through the desert of TV-land, where finding woman-centric stories is still so ridiculously hard. And finding a show about the relationships between two or more women? Now you aren’t just looking for water in the desert: You’re looking for potable drinking water, which means you’re getting awfully big for your britches, now, aren’t you?

Hannah Einbinder as Ava and Jean Smart as Deborah in “Hacks”

If you aren’t aware, Hacks stars Jean Smart as Deborah Vance, an aging, Joan Riversesque comedian coasting on old jokes, and Hannah Einbinder as a young comedy writer, Ava Daniels, with a tendency to mistake brutal honesty for funniness. When Deborah’s long-running Vegas show is at risk of losing its spot, her manager brings in Ava to help her write some fresh material. It’s the aging star/ emerging star trope mapped to the world of comedy, with some Odd Couple thrown in for good measure.

I’ve always been drawn to anything about the inner lives of comedians. I appreciated the show right away, but it was only after episode 5 that I was truly hooked, and episode 8 — oh my. Chef’s kiss. I implore you to watch it. Truly, with everything we go through as women, you deserve to see what unfolds in this episode. If you don’t have HBO Max, borrow someone’s login. It’s worth it.

For my taste, Deborah and Ava are far more interesting as allies than enemies. Of course, we’re taught that every good story needs a juicy conflict at its center, but conflict between oppressed people is just depressing. “Oppressed people?!”, you might be thinking. “Isn’t that a bit hyperbolic?” I don’t think it is. In the patriarchal, racist society in which we live, anyone who isn’t a cisgendered, white, male, is on the losing end of the power structure. 

I’m also not so sure that the traditional story formulas we’ve been taught are as universal as we think. Take the hero’s journey, which Joseph Campbell mapped out back in 1949. Later, a student of his, Maureen Murdoch, asked him that timeless question that we ask as females living in a patriarchy, “What about women?” Campbell’s response: “Women don’t need to make the journey. All she has to do is realize that she’s the place people are trying to get to.”

…Cool?

I’m currently making my way through this workbook, and loving it. You can buy it at Indiebound.

In response, Murdoch took it upon herself to map out what she calls the heroine’s journey — a uniquely female story structure, which she summarizes as “the quest to heal the deep wounding of our feminine nature on a personal, cultural and spiritual nature.” Turns out, there’s a little more to women’s life journeys than just waiting for the boys to find us.

I’m still learning about this framework, but the more I read about it, the more vindicated I feel for all the times I struggled to write stories about women that matched Campbell’s formula.  (As TV showrunner, writer and director Joey Solloway wrote in the LA Times, “Turns out that the fabled hero’s journey is hooey when you’re writing about heroines.”)

In Hacks, Ava says to Deborah, “Traditional joke structure is very male. It's so focused on the ending. It's all about the climax.” I’m not sure I agree with her, but I agree that so much about how we communicate, in every area of our lives, has been governed by maleness for far too long. 

I hereby give you permission not to fit your self-expression into male templates. What’s more, I implore you to lean into ways of expressing yourself — your ideas, your feelings, your stories — in ways that feel authentically you. This doesn’t just apply to fiction writing; it applies to how you write your LinkedIn profile, how you lead a meeting or write a proposal, the way you craft a memoir. Look less to external frameworks, which can almost always be traced to male-centric origins, and instead find ways of communicating that originate within.

We don’t need more women aping men. Power comes from authenticity. Don’t look outside; feel your way from the inside out. Expand into the fullest expression of who you are.

…Because, in case you’ve forgotten: You are a mighty force.

Xo
Amanda

P.S. I really appreciated this essay essay, Rewriting the hero’s journey to fit a female narrative, by Madeline Bolin, which investigates female story structure beyond Murdoch’s framework.