#It's so grossly easy to play it voyeuristically but this is a young woman who's been let down by everyone she thought she could trust

[theimpossiblescheme]

Staging concept: Ophelia carries around a book that she uses to press different flowers and plants. At one point we see her actually pressing one of the flowers Hamlet's given her before, and we get the impression that she wouldn't part with this book for the world. During the "Get thee to a nunnery" scene, Hamlet rips the book out of her hands, and she goes diving after it to make sure he didn't damage it. And during her final "mad scene", she starts tearing out the relevant pages (rosemary, pansies, fennel, columbines, etc.) to give to everyone present. Laertes is the only one to get the significance of his sister giving away parts of her prized possession, and it adds an extra layer to his grief.

[puttingherinhistory]

Note: contains spoilers for Love, Death + Robots.

In an age where TV is making great strides in female representation, David Fincher and Tim Miller are seemingly resisting those changes.

A concerted effort by actors, directors, producers and various other movers and shakers is under way, with one clear objective in mind: women have been grossly misused on screen. We will do better.  

But while the archaic, toxic tropes are slowly being ripped up and thrown out, Fincher and Miller’s Love, Death + Robots (LDR) remains firmly rooted in the past.

Speaking about the Netflix animated anthology series in a press release, Miller made it clear that viewers should expect mature content.

"I’m so f**king excited that the creative landscape has finally changed enough for adult-themed animation to become part of a larger cultural conversation," he said.

While some of that excitement is justified – the vast majority of LDR looks great and many of its 18 short episodes are amusing, clever and shocking in the best possible way – gratuitous female nudity once again sticks the male and female characters on an entirely unbalanced playing field. Nudity on screen is fine – we're all for it, in fact. But this is something different. Netflix is clearly aware of it – each episode comes with a "sexualised violence" warning.

The Witness is one of the most disturbing examples.

A young woman looks out of her window to see a man commit a murder in an apartment across the street. His victim looks exactly like her. She then flees her building and he follows her.

What then ensues is a frantic chase through the city streets in which we are led to a BDSM club tucked away inside another building. It's here where the series really commits to its adult, NSFW promise  – there are people dressed in black PVC gimp suits dotted around the room, and the woman, who we quickly realise is an adult performer, reemerges and performs a routine on a couch in which she is entirely naked, the camera voyeuristically honing in on every inch of her.

The murderer, meanwhile, remains fully clothed, and he does so throughout the episode (as the majority of the men in the series do).  

After spotting her pursuer, she makes a dash for it once again, only managing to grab a kimono which continually flaps open, exposing her naked body as she attempts to reach safety.

It is yet another display of female suffering and degradation for the sole purpose of entertainment. That the chaser and chased appear to swap roles at the end is beside the point.

Women in varying states of undress are littered throughout the series, serving no purpose other than to be ogled at – and when you consider that this is a series which has been overseen by two men, with all of the writing and directing credits (that we can see) also male bar one, there is no way to frame this as anything other than problematic.

Fincher, Miller and co have been given free rein to explore a wealth of ideas, some high-concept, some daft, the press release promising episodes that are "easy to watch and hard to forget".

But while The Witness certainly adheres to the latter, it was anything but easy to watch.

Sonnie's Edge is another episode that stands out for all of the wrong reasons. Gang rape is exploited as a plot device which outright refuses to engage with the topic in a responsible or intelligent way. The writers are simply not interested, and that is both dangerous and offensive.

Bodies are not a sin and we need more responsible, realistic depictions of the male and female form, in both sexual and non-sexual scenarios.

But you won't find that in LD&R. We see women's bodies in disturbing, threatening scenarios, where very real trauma is used as a prop. The series flagrantly flaunts its unwillingness to get with the times, and the people involved really should know better.