The Women of Orphan Black: Faces of the Feminist Spectrum

BBC's Orphan Black shattered conventions with one actress-Tatiana Maslany-playing a host of main characters. At the same time, it burst through the expectations of a crowd that anticipated male heroes and female victims. As the mighty heroines save one another and destroy the patriarchy, they're aided by supportive, gentle, even bumbling male love interests and friends. Even as the characters subvert gender expectations, they provide models that celebrate the many types of feminism through history and emerging today: Sarah, the punk feminist and protagonist, clashes with her foster-mother Siobhan, herself a veteran of radical feminism and literal combat. Housewife Alison begins as the quintessential post-feminist, while Krystal sports pink tops and high heels as a girl power icon. Cosima hails from Berkeley in her Birkenstocks and dreadlocks, the herald of second-wave lesbian feminism as she earns herself a science PhD. Beth has it all in the spirit of third-wave feminism, though her drug habits and relationship problems show the weakness of the era. M.K., hidden in her trailer yet ruling the internet as its hacker-queen, offers a new image as a fourth-wave feminist, conquering her disability through the new medium of the internet. At the same time, the science and ethics of cloning emphasizes the women's war against corporate power. Together with metafiction, allusions, symbolism, and deeper imagery, the show breaks all the barriers of gender as well as science fiction television.