Reader, after missing a whole bunch of months, I’m devoted to getting more feminist spotlights out into the world over the summer before I’m back in school and have very little time again. Last month, we talked about Glee and Ryan Murphy’s mistreatment of minority characters, so let’s change tacts and this month focus on a show that gives every one of its characters incredible amounts of depth and development. And that show is my favourite, and hopefully yours, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.
And who better to demonstrate that ethos than, in honour of Pride Month, Valencia Perez, probably Crazy Ex-Girlfriend‘s best example of the fact that you can’t judge a book by its cover and no matter how one-dimensional a character may appear in the pilot, they can always grow into a well-developed, fascinating, and integral part of the show (take notes, Ryan Murphy).
But before we get into that, allow me to put a spoiler warning in effect for Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. If you haven’t watched this incredible show, what are you doing with your life? Go watch it right now! But also, you’re going to be spoiled. I’m going in-depth in all four seasons of this show, and the spoilers are coming in 3, 2, 1…
The Good
When we first meet Valencia, she’s dating Josh Chan, the object of our protagonist Rebecca’s affections. She seems like nothing more than a shallow and image-obsessed popular girl, the stereotypical “It” girl who is holding Josh back and needs to be vanquished for true love to triumph. She’s evil Taylor Swift in the “You Belong With Me” music video basically, except not in high school. But, as is always the case with Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, the situation is a lot more nuanced than that.
Well it is true that Valencia seems pretty shallow the first few times we meet her (and we’ll talk about that a bit more in The Bad section), this is mainly because the story is being told from Rebecca’s prospective. Rebecca needs Valencia to be awful because that makes her feel more comfortable about the fact that she’s actively plotting to steal Valencia’s boyfriend. Which I think is a really important thing to remember. Rebecca is very clearly trying to create a relationship with Valencia’s boyfriend. Would you want to be nice to the person doing that? A lot of Valencia’s behaviour towards Rebecca is understandable, when you remember this key fact and the fact that most of the ways that Valencia “undermines” Rebecca come from her revealing some lie or story Rebecca’s told, so Rebecca, as is the case through out the show, is really her own worst enemy. Valencia can only undermine her when Rebecca gives her the weapon, by telling lies in the first place. When you tell this story from Valencia’s perspective, a lot of Rebecca’s behaviour is inexcusable. All Valencia does is point this out.
And what makes the show so clever is the fact that it also points this out to Rebecca, not allowing her to hide behind her main character status when she makes terrible decisions. In the pivotal “Josh Is Going To Hawaii!” and the song, “I’m the Villain In My Own Story”, the perspective suddenly pivots. It becomes abundently clear, if it wasn’t already, that Rebecca is the other woman, not Valencia. Her trying to horn her way into a committed relationship makes her the villain, not Valencia. Suddenly, Rebecca’s the one who’s the evil Taylor Swift, and Valencia’s just the regular Taylor Swift (this is becoming a kind of belabored allusion, I’ll desist). Valencia’s no longer evil, she’s just a woman trying to make her relationship work, and trying to protect it from basically a stalker. She doesn’t need to be vanquished. She just needs to be left alone. And once Rebecca realizes this, it marks a turning point for her, as she shifts her focus away from Josh and towards Greg, and even helps Valencia look better to Josh’s family.
A lesser show might be content to leave it there. But not Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. Because the truth of the matter is, Valencia and Josh do have problems. Their relationships is flawed, but it’s not because of Valencia. Or, at least, it’s not just because of Valencia. The fundamental problem with their relationship is neither one is being honest about what they want. They are together because it’s comfortable and it’s what is “supposed” to happen, not because it’s what they wanted. They have been together for fifteen years, they dated all through high school, so the next step is moving in together and getting married. That’s what is “supposed” to happen. That’s the “normal” life path. But it isn’t really what either of them want, at least, not with each other. Josh is not ready to commit; he hasn’t grown up or matured since high school and he doesn’t have a clue what he wants out of life or out of a relationship so he sort of stumbles towards the markers of maturity that Valencia sets for him, but that’s not what he wants either, so he’s never living up to her expectations or being an equal partner in the relationship. And Valencia, for her part, is never really being herself either. She’s conforming to a societal idea of what she should be and trying to get Josh to conform to it too, and until she understands who she is and what she wants, she’s not going to be happy. And so, the fundamental issue of their relationship is not that Rebecca is chasing Josh. It’s that neither one of them knows what they want and neither one really cares what the other wants. They’re pretty much doomed to failure.
But, like so many other characters on the show, Valencia is ahead of Josh when it comes to figuring herself out. She is able to realize that the relationship isn’t working out, that even with everything prepared for him Josh isn’t willing to commit, and she breaks up with him, showing herself to be capable of making hard decisions for her own happiness, unlike Josh, who basically just goes where he’s led. And, post break-up, she again shows herself to be more mature than Josh by taking the time to work on herself, figure out what went wrong with Josh, and what she needs to make her happy, unlike Josh, who just stumbles into relationship after relationship, relying on someone else to make him happy.
But not Valencia. Valencia, in true feminist fashion, realizes she has to understand herself and what she wants to make a relationship work and to make her life happy. And she discovers this with the aid of her former enemy, Rebecca Bunch, as well as with Heather and Paula. She learns she’s been missing fulfilling female friendship, and the Girl Group is formed. And it’s also through Rebecca that she discovers her true passion is party-planning, and that she is incredibly good at it. She stops presenting herself the way she thinks other people want her to be, and just starts being herself, doing a career she loves with friends who genuinely care about her and who she cares about in return, rather than simply inserting herself in Josh’s circle like she was before.
And, of course, it’s on this path of self-discovery that she also learns she’s bisexual and enters into a relationship with Beth, a relationship that is based on respect and affection, rather than the shallow image obsessed relationship she shared with Josh. Although she does still have her demons which cause the occassional backslide into her old image-obsessed and manipulative ways (such as when she tries to issue an ultimatum to get Beth to propose to her), this just proves the show’s central thesis that happiness and self-care is a lifelong journey.
For the most part, as a result of her female friendships, her discovery of her sexuality and the resulting relationship, of her moving away from shallow things and opening herself up to deeper connections, and of her discovery of her passions, Valencia becomes a much happier and kinder person who does a job she’s proud of and is in a relationship she loves. She’s stable, healthy, and happy, while still remaining fundamentally the same Valencia the audience met back in “Josh’s Girlfriend Is Really Cool!” She’s grows as a person, but doesn’t become a different person, which tends to be what trips people up when writing character arcs. And all of this is extremely feminist. Female friendships, self-acceptance, personal growth, stable relationships, well-rounded character…that’s feminism 101, right there, and I love to see it.
The Bad
Unfortunately, unlike the spotlight I did on Rebecca, I do have a little bit to say here in the bad section. Even though Valencia grows and develops a lot over the course of the show, there’s no getting around the fact that in her first few appearances she is fairly one-dimensional and falls into some negative stereotypes. She’s nasty, she’s manipulative, she uses her looks to control the men around her, and that’s kind of all she is. I realize, as I said before, that this is setup for the perspective pivot that happens in “Josh Is Going to Hawaii!” but I needed something to say in The Bad section, and because Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is pretty perfect, that’s all I could come up with.
And that’s all I’ve got to say on Valencia Perez. Despite her one-dimensional first appearance, she grows into a strong, well-developed and well-rounded character, who is living her best life and is a total feminist inspiration for Pride Month.
And that’s all I’ve got for you today, you guys should let me know in the comments what you think of Valencia or Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, stay safe, wear a mask, get vaccinated, and I’ll see you on Wednesday.
Until the next time.
The Phantom of the Bookshelf 