On March 18, the second season of Marvel's "Daredevil" was released on Netflix, and there are continued comparisons between it and its counterpart Marvel's "Jessica Jones."
Despite taking place within the same fictional universe, both series have vastly different characters, themes and proposed moralities. As far as the critics are concerned, many have delineated between the two, calling "Daredevil" traditional and "Jessica Jones" innovative, making the latter "the superhero we deserve."
This is a bit of an oversimplification, but it's indicative of a larger problem I've found in finding the balance between good art and good entertainment that professional critics are supposed to look for.
Personally, I enjoyed "Daredevil" much more than "Jessica Jones," while many critics seem to be of an opposite opinion. It struck me that "Jessica Jones" always came across more like the 'Oscar-bait' of Marvel media — a piece of media designed more for the critics to watch once and heap praise on rather than something the ordinary consumer can re-watch over and over.
The element of being 're-watchable' is something most often applied to films, but it applies here because the method of release for Netflix Originals makes their construction closer to 13-hour long films than an episodic story of 45-minute parts over a stretch of several months. There's level of interaction with a traditional series on network television as the stories are being written while the earlier episodes are first being released that's lost when the whole series comes out at once.
"Jessica Jones" doesn't have this element because, at the end of the day, it's not about a superhero's origins and shouldn't be compared to stories that are. "Jessica Jones" is about a rape survivor who comes to terms with her trauma and defeats the power of her abuser. That story demands to be told, but it's not something a consumer can watch casually because of the seriousness of the material.
This is something that "Daredevil" has in common with its female-led counterpart (and superhero stories at large) — stories of extraordinary people overcoming horrifyingly common tragedies. Tragedies such as the death of family, loss of culture, physical disabilities and all manner of abuse.
"Jessica Jones" deserved every accolade it's been given for telling the story of a survivor in a way that's both realistic and uplifting, especially when the subject material is so volatile. But to call "Jessica Jones" more innovative in that regard would not give the genre the full credit it deserves.
