DD I'll give you as niche. Not many lawyers out there looking to bust heads.
But JJ? The Center for Disease Control did a study in 2011, which suggests that about 20% of women are raped at some point in their lives, and some 44% suffer that, or some other form of sexual violence. That's not niche any more - that's mainstream. It is something many women can personally relate to, and something that pretty much all women fear. In terms of ability of a population to relate to her issue (or the metaphor the show presents) this is not some obscure case.
Great point. Definitely far from a niche character in that regard.
Thinking on it, the only thing niche about the rest of her character is that it's packaged in a female character. The hard drinking, cynical, badass investigator is...not exactly a rare character. Nor is the reluctantly heroic a-hole with a soft spot for kicked puppies they try to deny, or the loner whose only friends stay friends because they believe she can be better.
I mean, I can't really think of anything about her that isn't relatable to some sizable portion of the populace, and plenty that's very familiar to pretty much any audience.
And obviously she resonates, because she's always been a hugely popular character.
Very true. I don't think you [need] to watch JJ to get Luke Cage, but it does make the timeline slightly more concrete, explains why he is in Harlem, etc.
It's definitely great TV. It touches on some current issues, which may be off-putting to some, but I found it quite good.[/QUOTE]
Exactly. It was rreally, really refreshing (for lack of a stronger word ATM), to watch a show that treated that topic with genuine seriousness and understanding of what survivors deal with, and how perpetrators refuse to even understand what they've done, much less take responsibility for it.
And, more satisfying than it maybe should have been to watch the...resolution of that conflict.
But it was also frustrating to watch the internet start shipping them (I have a friend who had a major anxiety attack after getting death threats in her ask box on tumblr from MRAs who ship JJ/Kilgrave, after she made a fairly tame post about it being a toxic ship/it being not ok to ship a rapist and their victim), and I didn't really dig how the
entire season was so much about Kilgrave. I think a solid two episodes before he showed up at all would have greatly improved the show, as would 1 or 2 fewer episodes overall.
But I also think DD S1 could have been a good 2 episodes shorter with nothing really lost.