Pride Month 2020: Killing Eve's Villanelle revolutionized TV assassins with her love for couture and women
Back in 2018, the spy thriller genre was fully experimenting with women who love danger. Gone were the days of James Bond frolicking with his femme fatales disguised as damsels, it was time for women to take the reins and while due nod goes to Phoebe Waller-Bridge for crafting a story of crime, passion and thrill so intricately, no celebration of pride month is complete without the queer force of nature that is Villanelle (Jodie Comer.) The bratty, childish, professional Russian assassin doesn't only get creative and wild with her murder scenes, she even has a soft spot for the relatively coy MI5 operative Eve Polastri (Sandra Oh) hunting her down. In that, she isn't shy of admitting she 'masturbates to her a lot'. And while this could have easily fallen prey to male lesbian fantasy pandering, there's a lot else about Villanelle that makes her the queer icon she is and rightfully so.
Villanelle isn't your flannel-clad, cargo pants wearing, cropped hair sporting lesbian assassin, though she wouldn't mind putting on the disguise if a particular job called for it. Comer plays her with a delicate ferocity too. Meticulous with her kills and creative with her threats, Villanelle likes a normal life, wants a cool flat, someone to watch movies with and just a closet full of couture does the trick for her bare necessities. But what makes Villanelle stand apart in a sea of fictional characters crafted for queerbaiting is this subtle element of restraint, that in no way hinders with her exploration of her sexuality. Explosive proclamations like pleasuring herself to thoughts of the person tasked with killing her would usually lead to a raunchy confusing hate-sex session between TV's regular hetero couples, but when Villanelle tells Eve that in the Season 1 finale, it ends with a knife in her stomach.
Villanelle's brand of lesbianism - if you will - doesn't stem from male hatred either, as so many other fictional queer icons have mistakenly explored in the past. Was she wronged by men? Probably. Does she still continue to be unfairly treated by them? Sometimes. But is Villanelle gay because she hates men? Far from it. Villanelle's murderous darkness comes from her mother, as has been established by the end of Season 3. In fact, her closest comfort as a child was her father. She was wronged by her mother and is still being manipulated like a pawn by women in her profession in higher ranks. Her sexuality hardly has anything to do with a man; she just likes killing them too much.
At the same time, Villanelle's sexuality doesn't come with bias either. She openly tells her boss at The 12 - the murderous organization she works for - how 'sexy' she is when the boss talks about killing her. She isn't shy of giving her male juniors advise on how horrible love is, because three years after her cat and mouse chase with the woman of her dreams, they are nowhere close to consummating their relationship. Even when she gets married at the beginning of Season 3, her wedding speech is all about how glad she is that her ex (Eve) is dead. She skips the part where she shot Eve amidst the ruins of the Colosseum in Rome and left her to die, but Villanelle clearly has a hard time letting go. She is exactly like us and still so far from us at the same time. She dresses like a Disney fairy princess and has a body count that applies to both murder and romance. She's kinky when it comes to playing with her victims - both life, and the heart - and she is, above all, the biggest contradiction there could ever be. In that, she kills in a heartbeat, but her heart also beats for a normal life.
Villanelle is your cardboard cutout intense lesbian who would make you question your sexuality and at the same time, also make you fear for your own life. She is unapologetic and never for once openly uses her sexuality as a means to get a job done. She is seasoned, she is skilled, and most importantly, she is fearless about how she scores her wins. It's remarkable how she also gets her outfits to match the same queer energy, so effortlessly, be it a grand pink tulle dress or just a wide slate of bringing-sexy-back pantsuits that she adorned in Season 2. From crisp buttoned-up white dress shirts with suspenders to graphic printed blazers teamed with ruffled blouses and golden pants - Villanelle's attire is more of an exploration of her undaunted queer spirit than any raunchy make out session could ever be.
And that brings us to the most important layer of her being an absolute queer icon: Villanelle's all-natural instincts, the way her mind works the way she expresses herself, are in no way catering to the lesbian fantasy many fall prey to. After years of being banned on television, when the LGBTQIA++ community is finally getting their well-deserved representation, it becomes the sole responsibility of a creator, writer, and even the actor to make the character as far from pandering to hetero-normative fantasies about queer people as possible. So even in her most vulnerable intense, romantic moments, Villanelle can deliver effortlessly without a kiss.
Take all of the season finales of 'Killing Eve' for example. From lying in bed with Eve, gently stroking her hair in Season 1 to frantically confronting her about why she doesn't want to run off with her in Season 2, it only made sense that Season 3 would end with Villanelle and Eve choosing each other. But they chose each other on the London bridge with a full moon beaming in the background and no kisses rushed in. It's all so subtle, 'Oh so quiet' - as the tagline of Season 2 crooned. And in this blissful, layered but sublime raging confirmation of the two central characters' feelings for each other, both Villanelle and Eve emerge as queer icons. Villanelle, just a little more.