In this weekâs muddled episode of Bones, forensic anthropologist Brennan (Emily Deschanel) and her team investigate the murder of the male founder of menâs rights group Men Now. Although the series centers on a female murder-solving scientific genius, the feminists the victim feuded with are presented in the episode as more frightening and violent than the menâs rights activists themselves, despite one male activist advocating rape in the show, and the threats and murders spawned by the real-life menâs rights movement.
Instead of focusing on the hateful rhetoric of the male activists, Bones introduces a series of contemptible women starting with a vapid narcissist and ending with an iron-wielding murderess. âThe Murder of the Meninist,â as the April 21 installment is titled, seems to argue that menâs rights activists â who say in the episode that a woman who dresses âlike a slutâ deserves to be raped â make some valid points.
Brennan is a character who, viewers have been told for 11 seasons, values reason and âobjective truthâ over what she perceives as dogma. Thus, itâs in her character that the scientist would agree with some of the MRA objectives â if an idea sounds logical to her, she will concur, no matter the source. Itâs one thing that she agrees with the MRAsâ contention that women should be eligible for the draft and fathers should have equal custody of children in a divorce. Whatâs troubling, though, is the parade of nasty female stereotypes who clearly serve to explain the existence of MRAs in the first place. Because Men Nowâs mission isnât just about military service and child care â itâs also about how women are stupid bitches.
The first witness brought to the FBI is a vapid clerk at an auto parts store where the victim was a customer. She peppers her speech with âlikeâ and we are cued to disdain her thanks to Special Agent Aubreyâs (John Boyd) rolling eyes. She giggles and describes the dead manâs disrespectful treatment of her: âThe guy was a major wang. No, seriously, he was, like, our rudest customer ever â he used to always talk down to me cause Iâm a girl, like I couldnât possibly know anything about multi-port fuel injectors just cause I have a hoo-ha.â But then she asks Aubrey, âDo you mind if I take a selfie with you?â She takes two, and Aubrey scoffs. Yes, the victim treated this woman as if she was stupid, but Bones demonstrates that she is. So, can you blame him?
Next enters the victimâs materialistic ex-wife, who complains that her âcheap son of a bitchâ ex-husband tried to reduce his alimony payments. âI really see youâre strapped for cash,â FBI Special Agent Booth (David Boreanaz) says sarcastically, surveying her large home.
When Booth and Brennan visit the victimâs office, a woman who works at Men Now informs them that female activists are a threat to their safety. âI cannot tell you how many times some feminazi shattered their windshields or keyed their cars,â Karen Walters (Lilli Birdsell) says. She said these acts happened so frequently that Paul Walters (David Shatraw) and the victim took to driving jalopies (a doctor later even admits to pummeling the victimâs car with a tire iron). Karen subsequently says that she wrote a speech about seeing the error of their ways that the employees of Men Now could recite to women during these conflicts: âThat was a line that we would use whenever we had run-ins with angry feminists,â she said, describing the lie as âa lot less painful than having your face smashed in.â They were so afraid for their physical safety and they had so many confrontations with âangry feministsâ that they were forced to prepare a contingency lie to protect themselves.
But outside of television, itâs typically women in that violent situation with angry menâs rights activists. For example, the Christian Science Monitor reported this month that video game developer Brianna Wu has to employ a security detail and was once forced to flee her home because of the unending barrage of graphic, specific threats she receives from âthe Manosphereâ due to the âGamergateâ and MRA movement.
Bones, however, would have you believe that men are right to be fearful of feminists.
Clearly revolted, Booth reads aloud the tweets of one feminist activist, in which she calls for the victimâs death; and when the woman who tweeted these vile things is approached by Booth and Brennan at a protest, she jumps to conclusions about why theyâre there and willfully distorts the truth to further her own wage gap agenda. Because in the world of Bones, both MRAs and feminists are full of vitriol and fanatical nonsense. Women really do receive unfair preferential treatment â which we learn when Brennan punches a suspect for suggesting she needs a muzzle, with no fear of punishment. âIf a male FBI consultant broke a suspectâs jaw, I imagine heâd be sitting in a jail cell by now,â says an incredulous intern.
And then thereâs the little matter of the reveal that the victimâs wife killed him, with a hot iron no less, as if to align her with the imaginary feminist struggle to destroy men. Rather than seriously criticize the menâs rights movement, the show legitimizes it by doubly victimizing the menâs rights activist whose death sets the plot into motion: First, we learn he had been the victim of domestic violence at the hands of his then-wife and, second, we learn he was almost certainly murdered by that ex-wife.
Coupled with the conclusion of the mystery is the fact that the female characters in âThe Murder of the Meninistâ are stupid, greedy, conniving, and prone to violence, which gives still more legitimacy to the MRAs: Not only did they make some good points, but their ultimate point was correct too. It turns out lots of women are just as bad as they say, and the victimâs ex-wife really was a murderous harpy!
Throughout the episode, some characters investigating the case do pay lip service to the idea that MRAs are dangerous, misogynistic idealogues, although they repeatedly sway into disturbing calls for violence against them â another suggestion that the MRAs are right and theyâre victims, too.
Brennan has the last word on the case: When Booth suggests that women unfairly receive more lenient treatment when theyâre on trial for murder, she replies, âItâs bias like that which fuels the menâs rights movement.â So, ultimately, the show is saying that until women stop getting unfair preferential treatment in certain spheres, the menâs rights movement will continue.
Of course Brennan would see some of the MRAsâ points â itâs in her nature. And the show clearly wants to complicate the narrative around this movement: There is a stigma around male victims of domestic violence, and some women are, in fact, bad, dangerous people, and these are both potentially fruitful topics to explore. But instead of presenting a nuanced take on what men might be upset about, âThe Murder of the Meninistâ pulls a contrarian stunt by setting the viewer up to hate the victim, and then proving he was right about everything.
And, in an episode where Brennan aligns herself with feminism, itâs deeply disappointing to see her blame âwomenâs privilegesâ for the existence of MRAs when the more elegant explanation for their existence is âmisogyny.â
