You are the trailer park, as Beth Dutton likes to say. The tornado is me.
She is the main badass in Taylor Sheridan’s “Yellowstone,” a film. She has a restrained, measured rage, and the same goes for her analytical mind. She has the power to ruin someone’s life or financially wreck a corporation as she bids her father farewell. She looks fierce in fancy shoes. However, I’m going to say it anyway: “Yellowstone” might have a Beth Dutton issue.
Beth has experienced a lot. She has endured beatings, sexual assault threats, explosions, and forced sterilisation as a teenager courtesy to her half-brother Jamie (Wes Bentley). In a television world where women are frequently characterised as “likeable” or “unlikable,” Beth’s IDGAF attitude is refreshing; she lives and breathes for herself, her father John (Kevin Costner), and her husband Rip (Cole Hauser). The rest of you can all go to hell.
Beth the antihero, on the other hand, also appears to be the pinnacle of a female character created entirely from a male perspective, a violent twist on what Gillian Flynn’s “Gone Girl” mockingly referred to as the “Cool Girl.
Yellowstone
” The episode from this week was the sixth one that Christina Alexandra Voros has directed for the show; to yet, no female writers have been credited. Men have only ever written the characters.
Sheridan describes her more as his idea of what a badass woman should be than actually a tough lady. As an illustration, the most of her “heart-to-heart” conversations with her father centre around either his or her sexuality; while this could be an intriguing exploration of how males converse with their boys versus their daughters, it instead comes across as awkward. Or perhaps jokingly (?) warning a female store clerk who mistreated Monica that Beth would make her perform a live sex act on a mannequin if the clerk didn’t apologise.
Some admirers appear to share my perspective. Others may not view Beth Dutton’s unrelenting rage as a synonym for “strong woman,” despite the existence of Beth Dutton fan clubs, hashtags, and exhortations to embrace your own “inner Beth Dutton.” The role now appears “weak,” “far over the top,” and “toxic af”—not actress Kelly Reilly, who is still loved.