Iāve been having some Thoughtsā¢ļø about the weird meta paradox of gerri kellmanās sexuality. as basically The Older Woman on the executive floor sheās trying as much as is possible to blend in with her male colleagues while also not being perceived to be doing so. muted colours and understated makeup. a competent filing cabinet. her husband is dead and her daughters are nameless. she was sexual once but thatās out of sight out of mind and now itās just the work. it must be a relief in some ways to become finally unfuckable because youāre over 40. she can finally be taken seriously, but only if she toes the line between being too female and not female enough. trying but not too hard. desirable in the past tense only. an honorary man but still in a skirt. and while the men around her can fuck their much younger assistants and get sports massages and run a sex trafficking ring on a cruise ship, she is the job and only the job and that keeps her safe. for a bit anyway.
the irony of gerri saving the company from the full legal extent of a sex scandal by dating someone from the DOJ??? like iāll never be over it. even filing cabinets have to flatter and please and fuck when called upon. i genuinely donāt believe any of the other execs could have swung it because theyāre not women. she dated laurie (generally unseen unless framed from another manās possessive perspective) to save the men from going to jail for covering up rape allegations. the irony is delicious. and even though she did that, sheās discarded once sheās framed sexually. Dick Pic Gate was out of her control and yet when confronted with any element of gerriās sexuality (even her PASSIVE sexuality, even after using it to save his company), logan dismisses her as weak or impractical or failing or whatever other excuse he uses to justify his disgust.
i would argue that romanās interest in gerri is not in spite of but BECAUSE of her asexual framing. itās a challenge that heās never going to win which is ideal for his impotency issues; he can push and push and get the thrill out of it, out of the fucked up power dynamic, but he knows heāll never have to actually fuck her. itās all hypothetical: down a phone, through a door, half-joking, covered in sensible skirt suits. gerriās deliberate lack of sexualizing is counterintuitively a turn-on for roman. and i bet the game of chicken they play is freeing for her too because the fact that she has to be professional and cannot be sensual is part of the fun of it. āroman is weird about gerriā. āitās fucking disgustingā. not because of their family history, or their professional positions, but because sheās old. because the absence of her sexuality is enough of a presence to be off-putting. shiv patronising her about it as a power play is so weird because sheās talking to her simultaneously like a child and like an old woman, and gerri, agency-less, just has to keep reassuring her āi can copeā.
BUT itās worse than that because itās so meta. Because gerri is hot. her actor is attractive and like roman, many people watching find her sexless, no-nonsense framing to be titillating. me included. what if roman likes gerri not because of oedipal issues but just because sheās hot and god forbid we find a woman over 50 hot? but whether or not gerri is hot in the context of the show shouldnāt be a big deal, she should have been able to escape this by now!!! sheās in her 60s sheās a widow sheās tired stop sexualizing her!!! but donāt NOT sexualize her either because thatās problematic too and old women can be hot and old women shouldnāt have to be hot and suddenly iām making gerri do what waystar does and exist as something sexual and non-sexual at the same time. she has a huge plotline in which sheās essentially a sex object. whether or not gerri is fuckable is talked about as much in the show with mildly-disgusted fascination as it is in the real world!!! she canāt win sheās hot sheās old sheās sexually framed sheās deliberately trying not to be she wants sex she doesnāt want sex sheās covering sex with sex and sheās telling roman to leave her alone so she can just do her damn job because she knows that this is what will bring her down!!! sex scandals historically donāt get men fired but an unsolicited dick pic knocks gerri off her podium in loganās head forever. even now iām talking about it at such length because iāve given it so much thought!!! sheās the only woman in the old guard and sheās one of the most sexualized characters in succession. but only as a joke. in the abstract. never actually. because that would be weird. right?
gummygunk
yousharknotpass
izzy806
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