Neptune Noir: Unauthorized Investigations into Veronica Mars

by Rob Thomas

  She was wrong.

  However, Carmen's thirst for revenge inexplicably waned once the video was released, despite the fact that she had instantaneously become Neptune High's latest cautionary tale. Veronica did not hesitate, and presented her with a laptop, email written and ready to send. With just one click, Carmen had the power to send the inflammatory Web site to each member of the Naval Academy freshman class, all but guaranteeing the end of Tad's military career. Carmen instead chose to erase the message, over Veronica's futile cries.

  Carmen's reasons for deleting the e-mail are similar to Meg's in that they privileged the traditionally feminine traits of forgiveness and understanding over the masculine dominance associated with vengeance. Carmen's tone was masked with an air of superiority as she informed Veronica that "tearing Tad down is not going to make me feel any better." She cut off any further protests with a curt, "I'm sorry, Veronica, I guess revenge just isn't my thing." The audience was clearly left with the impression that Carmen's character was taking the high road.

  It's a theme that's not unproblematic, considering that Veronica Mars is founded on the premise that the title character is a tough-talking, empowered role model for teenage girls. The pervasive nature of the criticism throughout suggests that this ideology is not accidental or even included for diversity; the condemnation Veronica received from her female peers continued even into the end of season one. During those climatic sequences, Veronica's quest for vengeance built to an almost literal crescendo as she systematically approached every man who may have had knowledge of her rape, despite Meg's advice that she "let it go, you'll just make yourself crazy." Of course, Veronica did not let it go, ultimately (appearing to) solve that mystery in addition to uncovering Lilly Kane's murderer. Score one point for vengeance.

  Yet the obvious success of her vigilante methods did not preclude Veronica from continuing to seek her ever-elusive pony. In fact, the title of the season two opener, "Normal Is the Watchword," suggested that she was willing to trade her signature style for a healthy dose of the mundane. And while Veronica Mars's life was never exactly quiet, there appeared to be a marked difference in her attitude towards justice and the law during her senior year of high school-in other words, she seemed to have developed a renewed deference for authority. (Or at the very least she was taking a page out of her father's book and working within the established boundaries.) From there on out Veronica's trials were literal: not only did the specter of Aaron Echolls's court case hang over Neptune during the entire season, but she was called for jury duty during Christmas break.

  In that episode, titled "One Angry Veronica" (2-10), she ostensibly did the work of twelve men, re-imagining a crime scene involving a prostitute, her pimp, and a couple of 09er classmates. As jury foreman, she was the Veronica we love-smart, self-assured, creativewe just weren't used to seeing her be all these things in such a formal environment, working to preserve the integrity of a system that had failed her so blatantly in the past. This inversion of style grew more pronounced in "The Rapes of Graff" (2-16), when Veronica fought to clear the name of a purported rapist-ex-boyfriend and sleazy steroid dealer Troy Vandegraff-accused of drugging and violating a young woman at a college party. Although the case was practically a carbon copy of the situation that fueled her vigilante revenge throughout the previous year, Veronica had surprisingly little empathy for the victim, choosing instead to align herself with Troy. While she succeeded in exonerating him, she never identified or apprehended the rapist. Worse yet, she appeared to never have intended to.'

  Perhaps the first half of the second season of Veronica Mars was crafted to send the message that the judicial process is like AA: it works if you work it. But that theory was (quite literally) blown away in the season finale with Aaron Echolls's acquittal and his vigilante-style execution at the hands of Clarence Wiedman. Clearly, the show's attitudes towards justice, gender, and vigilantism were at a crossroads: Veronica's apparent embrace of normality could largely have been reactionary, a not unrealistic and temporary response to the events of the previous year. Or Aaron Echolls's violent (and completely justifiable) murder could have indicated that this vigilante stuff was best left to the boys.

  The penultimate scenes of season two were as close to a Norman Rockwell painting as we're likely to ever see in Neptune: our heroine was happy and in love, ready for summer adventures, and looking forward to tackling the rigors of college. Things appeared-dare we say it-almost normal. But normal, as a concept, is entirely subjective, culturally specific, and generally (although somewhat ironically in this case) propagated by the mass media. Veronica Mars functions as a kind of meta-text: as the characters search for the mundane in their own lives, their actions-and their peers' reactions to themestablish the context of the same for their audience. To Veronica, "normal" may mean living in a world where young women can live without fear of verbal or physical abuse, where they are free to grow into competent, capable adults. To the residents of Neptune (and to some extent the rest of society) that same designation may represent a world where women are tethered, happily, to the constraints of their gender.

  And while I would love nothing more than to see Veronica riding off happily into the sunset, here's hoping that she never gets her pony.

  KRISTEN KIDDER is a writer, cultural scholar, and recovering academic who lives in Brooklyn, New York. Although her earliest work focused almost exclusively on female music fans-in 2004 she was sent to Germany to lecture on the subject with 1960s super-groupie Cynthia Plaster-Caster-nowadays she spends most of her time mining little nuggets of feminism from the weekly television line-up. A long-time contributor to Bitch magazine, Kristen's work has also appeared on PopMatters, Alternet, and Clamor. She recently bought a TiVo specifically so she could record Veronica Mars.

  For [hrlstmas last year my wife framed the first six Mallard Fillmore cartoons that included the Veronica Mars mentions. She was able to talk Bruce Tinsley out of the originals. Afterwards, I exchanged a few e-mails with Bruce, and we actually discussed why Veronica Mars might be perceived as conservative friendly. As part of the Hollywood Liberal Media Elite myself, I was confused by the phenomenon. Our ratings are undeniably better in red states. Strangely, we have a bigger market share in Lincoln than Seattle. I told Bruce my theory-a theory Chris also mentions in his essay: Veronica metes out a particularly uncomplicated Old West brand of justice. Criminals get what's coming to them. Bruce had a different theory. He suggested that liberals wouldn't be able to fathom a teen show as worthy; they'd write it off as uncool without even sampling it. Conservatives, he suggested, wouldn't be dissuaded by the teen girl detective logline.

  A footnote that I found interesting... .

  Bruce's wife is a lefty human rights lawyer. She sent her own e-mail to me saying that Veronica Mars provided a weekly date night. It was one piece of pop culture they could agree on.

  The Duck

  and the Detective

  CELESTE KANE: Jake, honey, when did we become Republicans?

  -"Leave It to Beaver" (1-22)

  T ALL STARTED with a little black duck in a fedora... . t

  The specific waterfowl in question was Mallard Fillmore, the star of the comic strip of the same name by Bruce Tinsley.

  In case you haven't seen it, Mallard Fillmore is the graphical musings of a duck who works as co-anchor of a network news show, despite holding an avowedly conservative political viewpoint. Mallard's mission in life is to skewer the liberal establishment (in Mallard's world "liberal" and "establishment" are practically redundant) at every available opportunity.

  In the early months of 2006, Mallard started to talk about his great admiration for Veronica Mars-no bones were made about the fact that the duck considered the show to be not only the best-written thing on TV right now, but in fact one of a meager handful of shows even worth watching.

  Take, for example, the cartoon from January 27, 2006. As in many Mallard Fillmore cartoons, Mallard himself doesn't appear-but we still know that
the viewpoint expressed is Mallard's (which, Tinsley is on record as saying, is pretty much the same as saying that the viewpoint expressed is Tinsley's'). The cartoon shows a pudgy, smirking Hollywood mogul type. Under the header, "TV Producers' New Year's Resolution," we are given a little poem:

  Again, this was only one of several cartoons praising Veronica Mars's superiority to pretty much everything else on TV

  Of course, it must be admitted that there's nothing particularly amazing about a newspaper cartoonist geeking out over a favorite TV program or movie. Foxtrot, for example, was practically guaranteed to do a week or so's worth of strips about the excitement of the nerdish youngest son Jason every time a major fantasy blockbuster is released (the Fellowship of the Ring vs. Harry Potter strips a few years ago were particularly memorable).

  So, for example, if Gary Trudeau did a series of Doonesbury strips praising, say, Snakes on a Plane, you probably wouldn't want to assume that it was because Snakes had a particularly liberal political context. But there's a difference. Trudeau is a liberal cartoonist, doing a strip that often speaks to his liberal viewpoints. But Doonesbury is also about personal relationships, the absurdity of modern life, popular culture, and a whole slew of other topics. Bruce Tinsley, however, is a conservative doing a strip about conservatism. It's a subtle but important difference. Pretty much every Mallard strip speaks directly to conservative thought or a conservative slant on current events. Characters, from Mallard himself on down, exist only as mediums for the political message. Popular culture usually enters Mallard Fillmore only as an object of scorn.

  So I got to wondering: what is it about Veronica Mars that would appeal so strongly to a conservative as dedicated to his viewpoints as Tinsley, that he'd take time out from a strip as focused as Mallard Fillmore to single the show out for praise?

  I'm sure there are tons of conservatives out there who love Veronica Mars... but the question the Mallard Fillmore strips made me ask was, "Is there something about Veronica Mars that appeals to political conservatives because they're political conservatives?"

  "Ii Ukmk ny (lass Hew is Something hr Be...."

  KEITH: Wow, that's some cake.

  VERONICA: Isn't it, though?

  KEITH: I love it. Ever notice how everything you make just tends to lean a little to the left?

  VERONICA: [examining the cake] I do that on purpose.

  ("You Think You Know Somebody," 1-5)

  Because, on the face of it, Neptune is hardly the kind of Norman Rockwell, traditional-values place we associate with the Republican Party platform. In fact, with its teenage sex, crime and drug use, its general political corruption, its high proportion of rich and bossy Hollywood media elite types, and the pretty much complete absence of religion from the social fabric ... if anything, Neptune is a conser- vative's vision of hell. (Not that there's anything wrong with setting a TV show in a vision of hell; it worked for Buffy the Vampire Slayer for seven seasons.) The Mars family itself, with its absentee, substanceabusing mom, messy end, and questions of paternity, is hardly an exemplar of traditional family values.

  Perhaps more importantly, Veronica herself seems to have few obvious conservative viewpoints. She's gay positive, sex positive (always assuming the sex is consensual), and possessed of a highly mutable respect for both rules and the law.

  KYLIE: Sorry to blow your mind, but I'm a lesbian, Veronica.

  VERONICA: Oh. Well ... that's cool.

  KYLIE: Only when you're in college.

  ("Versatile Toppings," 2-14)

  Obviously, then, if there's something in Veronica Mars that calls out to conservatives, it's not directed at the "traditional values" religious right wing of the movement, who have the habit of sitting through prime-time TV with clickers in their hands, ticking off every violent act, sexy scene, and dirty word to determine numerically which programs are the most decadent.

  MR. DANIELS: You know, the glow of your father's wealth and celebrity may be enough to sustain you through high school, Mr. Echolls, but do you know what it will get you in the real world?

  LOGAN: [sarcastically] Please say "high school English teacher." Please say "high school English teacher."

  [Weevil snickers]

  MR. DANIELS: Mr. Navarro, I wonder if you'll find Mr. Echolls so amusing ten years from now-when you're pumping his gas.

  ("The Girl Next Door," 1-7)

  Then there's the most fundamental political level, the economic. The predominant conservative view-the viewpoint of those who like to label themselves as "Reagan Conservatives"-is that it's okay to be rich. Under the theories of so-called "trickle down" economics, the very prosperous spread their wealth around to the community at large, creating increased prosperity for all. And if you want to be one of the rich, thanks to our capitalist system all you have to do is work hard and invest wisely, and in due course you'll move up. The poor are that way because they're too lazy to prosper.

  Veronica Mars, in contrast, seems to present a world that sometimes seems almost Marxist in its perspective, where the rich are corrupt, entrenched, and oppressive. They use their wealth to control and humiliate the poor, and to evade the law and their civic responsibilities. This is true both of the adolescent 09ers and of their parents. Veronica herself is often cast in the role of Robin Hood, metaphorically hijacking the ill-gotten gains of those who should already consider themselves rich enough, and channeling it to the more morally deserving underclass. This is hardly a conservative model of capital redistribution.

  VERONICA: I'd be the best rich person, seriously. I'd be the perfect combination of frivolous and sensible. Money is so wasted on the wealthy.

  ("An Echolls Family Christmas," 1-10)

  Tu the Right [t What?

  Obviously, contemporary American conservatism is not a monolithic, easily defined movement. Even when you identify the different threads and themes in modern American conservatism, it's impossible to apply them exclusively to individual conservatives-it's more like a buffet, where people take a little bit from one theory and a little bit from another. We've already mentioned the traditional values conservatives and their close cousins, the religious right. We've also touched on economic conservatism. Neither one of these movements seems particularly appealing to the Veronica Mars fan.

  There's the national security conservative, whose main concerns are strong national defense abroad and strong law enforcement at home. This seems a bit closer to the mark-Veronica Mars is definitely pro justice. On the other hand, the show is less-than-friendly to public institutions (namely the Neptune police), and pretty much unconcerned with foreign affairs.

  Political pundits have recently identified a bloc of potential voters that they've dubbed "South Park Republicans," or "South Park conservatives." The name is, of course, drawn from the notoriously transgressive Comedy Central cartoon show, which often focuses its satirical sights on liberal ideas-particularly the Hollywood liberal elite. The term was coined by commentator Andrew Sullivan, and has been popularized by author Brian C. Anderson through his book, South Park Conservatives: The Revolt Against American Media Bias. Of course, the right wing is not immune to South Park's satirical broadsides either, but that's sort of the point. The South Park conservative viewpoint is most neatly summed up by the show's co-creator Matt Stone, who's on record as saying, "I hate conservatives, but I really fucking hate liberals" (Stone). This kind of "pox on both your houses" cynicism seems to go well with the hard-boiled detective side of Veronica Mars, and I bet that lots of South Park conservatives-jaded and pop-culturally aware-are big Veronica Mars fans, so we're close.... But this South Park conservatism is definitely not the kind of true-believer conservatism espoused by Mallard Fillmore.

  Mostly, I think the show's appeal speaks to the libertarian wing of the movement-the kind of conservative who wants to keep government small, taxes low, citizens armed, and the common man in charge of his own destiny.

  Libertarian conservatism is embodied in the libertarian political party, but it also
pervades (albeit usually in more moderated or diluted forms) the Republican Party. It must be said, for the record, that Mallard Fillmore has never identified himself as a Republican (and Republican national figures are often the target of the strip's satireusually for not being conservative enough). He has claimed-onceto be a libertarian, but it wasn't clear whether he was talking about the political party or just the school of thought.

  So now that we've identified the kind of conservative who might be drawn to Veronica Mars by something a bit deeper than the beauty and charm of Kristen Bell, what are the specific elements of the show that would appeal to a Mallard Fillmore conservative?

  It seems pretty obvious to me that the creators of Veronica Mars never set out to create a political metaphor. Rather, the deep fissures in the social fabric of Neptune arise from the contradictory influences the show so brilliantly combines. Veronica Mars blends hardboiled detective fiction and film noir, where everything is corrupt and fundamentally hopeless, with the family drama/coming-of-age story, which is wholesome and intrinsically hopeful. Both Mickey Spillane and Louisa May Alcott feature prominently in Veronica Mars's family tree.

  Allow me to suggest that it's this synthesis of two seemingly contradictory genres that holds the key to Veronica Mars's appeal. The conservative loves the potential of the free human spirit, the essential nobility of the properly channeled human will. This is the coming-of-age story, where the young hero (of whatever gender) breaks away from the nurturing family and is tested by the outside worldnot always passing each test perfectly, but growing stronger and wiser along the way. This is Veronica's story.