Maid on Netflix

Maid has become the most viewed limited series on Netflix, ever so I’m a bit surprised there is not a thread on it.

I thought it was terrific probably my favorite new show I watched on Netflix this year.
Margaret Qualley, as Alex, was fantastic and both she and her daughter were adorable which helped make watching a very dark show, less depressing.

There were lots of other top performances
Andie MacDowell, who is Margaret’s mother in real life played her mom, on the show. She is bipolar, and also a victim of abuse . Alex’s husband, the shelter manager, and Regina the bitch lawyer turned savior were all very good.

But what really was striking is how the show demonstrated, how absurdly hard it is to get government aid. As I’ve talked about in P&R, the US actually has a fairly robust social safety net. The biggest problem is it requires high intelligence, a huge amount of patience, or a rare bureaucrat who gives a damn to obtain the aid. A single mom needs daycare to get a job, you need a job to get subsidized daycare, or subsidize rent, and you need an address to get daycare. You need a computer to apply for most forms of aid, a computer needs electricity, electricity hooks up require a job. And then there is the court system, which plays a prominent role in the series

Thanks for the positive buzz. I’ll put it on my watch list based on your recommendation.

Hmm, arguably huge spoilers in your post, but I’m probably not the best metric for spoilers, as I wouldn’t be in here if I hadn’t seen the show.

I love Margaret Qualley, so this was a no-brainer for me. And the show plays so closely to her strengths as an actor. It’s basically a love letter to her. So while I didn’t care for it overall, I had a great time watching it. It’s like how I didn’t care for Last Night in Soho, but if that’s what it takes for me to spend time with an actor of that caliber (now I’m imagining a movie pairing Thomasin McKenzine and Margaret Qualley!), so be it.

That said, I’m really not fond of the script for Maid. It’s super contrived for how it skips blithely around the main character’s constant bad choices, and then twists them into the Worst Possible Situation because reasons, and now we spend an hour watching this lovely, vibrant, bright-eyed, young woman slog through the ordeal. And then next episode, it happens all over again. It started to feel really manipulative.

I really like the script’s overall point about inheriting cycles of abuse and how abuse doesn’t have to be physical. I would say those are both the “core values” of the story, and I love seeing them as a sort of foundation and framework for what they’ve created. I just wasn’t that impressed with the architecture once it was all done.

Anyway, glad you made a thread for this, @strollen! It deserves it!

-Tom

I really engaged with it and enjoyed it. Had mixed feelings about certain aspects of it that I’m still processing (namely: her being white, her situation ultimately being temporary, the idea that she needed to be abused in order to be considered poor), but putting those aside I loved it.

Good point, I add spoiler tags. I suppose the bureaucratic problems are technically spoilers, but I’ll almost posted this in the P&R section/income equality section cause I think that’s the real important part about the show. I’m proud to say there was only government program I wasn’t aware of, and I conceptually knew how difficult it was to get the things. But to see the reams of pages of real forms was an eye-opener. I get the need for an appealing, aka good-looking protagonist and cute kid, but realistically they should have subtracted 40 points off her IQ to be a more realistic portrayal of poverty from a poor person POV. But the JK Rawlings, and Stephanie Lands of the world are unicorns, plain and simple.

Like you, I did find the script manipulative, but couldn’t you say that about Shakespear also?

Perfect spoiler tags, Strollen. I was thinking specifically about the reveal about her father abusing her mother and her repressing the memory. That’s a huge plot point that doesn’t come up until about half way through the series, as the themes emerge. I did like that those “cycle of abuse” themes weren’t front-loaded, by the way. That it took time to develop that stuff, and it was all very “show, don’t tell” about it. Instead of, say, getting exposition from social workers or other characters, it’s the plot of the series.

Yes. So much this. It’s one thing to watch an incredibly luminescent and graceful and fantastically expressive young woman who is the very picture of good health navigate this world. But if you want to give this sort of story the oomph of actual realism, if you want some verite in your social realism, imagine this story with a normal person and a normal body and a normal face, who’s starting to prematurely show the signs of inadequate health care and stress. For all its feints at social realism, Maid is ultimately another entry in Beautiful People TV. You can tell this is produced by John Wells, who pretty much defined Beautiful People TV with ER back in the 90s. Which I can enjoy as much as the next guy, but I felt it undercut the bleak reality the script was attempting.

Of course! You can say that about any story! If you weren’t manipulated into feeling something, it must not have been a very good story. But the trick is to do it well, without overplaying your hand. And I feel like Maid leans too heavily on too many tropes in its attempt to manipulate the audience into feeling something.

-Tom

I think the NY Times had an article about the Cinderella aspect of her character. Brains and looks (especially for women) are right up there with parents’ social-economic status as predictors of future income.
The author of the book, Maid, Stephanie Lands is also an attractive white woman, just not Margarets, fashion model looks. I personally, would have watched the show, if she was good looking Black or Latina woman, but if she was obese and ugly probably not.

The article takes a few thousand words to say what I did and has even more spoilers.

And to our point, look where she ended up. :)

-Tom

Are we deliberately skirting around Precious here?

I was one of the only people at Qt3 at the time who loved Precious.

I don’t think most people here have seen the movie.

First I read this is awesome and then there were spoilers, so I started skimming after that. Does anyone in this thread actually describe what this show is about?

I think it’s about a maid.

I guess that’s probably enough for some folks, so fair enough!

Young single mom, flees boyfriend with $18. Needs money, gets a job as a maid. Struggles to escape poverty. Overcomes obstacles, fights family, finds friends.

Perfect - thanks!

Yeah, it was the main thing that really bugged me about it too.