Creamerie on Hulu would be best described as a dystopian microscope. Under this microscope, the creators examine a range of relevant issues, including wellness culture, sexuality, grief, reproductive warfare, and rape, to name a few. On the petri dish is a small New Zealand community in which a deadly plague has taken the lives of all men, and the leaders of this new all-women society have determined to keep it that way, preventing the regrowth of the male population using reproductive control and gatekeeping the supply of sperm donations of past men for only a select few child bearers who must meet rigorous, but non-transparent, requirements.
Creamerie is not the first new show that’s premise revolves around a future post-plague dystopia. Apparently, viewers are trading escapism for dramatized realism after the global Covid pandemic. Nonetheless, Creamerie takes the opportunity to examine some of the phenomena that came to light during Covid-19, and also the potential of some of the more concerning aspects of modern society if left unchecked.
The three main characters are Jamie, Alex, and Pip, with the addition of Bobby, the lone male survivor who landed himself prisoner status on their farm by way of Pip’s reckless driving. Jamie had a husband and a baby, a son, before the plague, and is deeply traumatized by the grief of her loss. Her main focus is on being selected for the reproductive pool — a process which carries the same exclusionary enthusiasm and flinging of faux-sisterhood rhetoric as a sorority. For Jamie, in this new world run by would-be Goop devotees, this is the only available path that comes anywhere near healing.
You see, in this women-run world, we are not nurtured, we are not led with refreshing emotional depth, nor are we even freed from grotesque power imbalances. Rather, in this world, the women who claimed power are those who were not shy to steal and manipulate it. Blonde, white, and pandering to those vulnerable to the allure of girl power feminism, these leaders side step true healing and dismiss any critiques hurled at them in the name of “women supporting women” — you know, that watered down feminist rhetoric increasingly employed in todays real world as a means of eschewing responsibility for offensive behavior.
It’s refreshing to see this very real, timely phenomenon represented in media and deservingly mocked. It’s hard to glance sideways without your eyeballs tripping over another influencer giving unqualified wellness advice, often advocating for people to simply “think and be more positive” if they have anxiety, or to just “change your perspective” when a mood other than hazy-eyed contentment takes over. What’s so problematic about these viewpoints are that oftentimes those preaching are unqualified to be handing out mental health advice to their large followings, and they all too commonly ignore or remain silent on sociopolitical issues that do not affect them. Perhaps they might consider that the reason “changing perspective” works so well for them is because their problems don’t require serious solutions.
Pip may as well be the lap dog chowing down on the scraps hand fed to her under the table by Lane, the leader of this society. Pip has completely internalized the well-women’s messaging, which is likely just Pip’s own way of dealing with the trauma of the plague. It’s not uncommon for people to dismiss their own pain and victimhood, and to lose themselves in a group which promises to care for you with your best interests prioritized. That’s exactly what makes the well-women so terrifying (in both Creamerie and in the real world) — they prey on those in vulnerable states. A plague decimates half the population and a group surfaces to power with promises of wellness? That’s a taut line from hook to rod.
In the US, our medical institutions have repeatedly failed women with harmful practices, and disengaged and unempathetic doctors. Naturally, only once women were able to study medicine and climb their way into the field did women’s health issues become valid enough for more research and care, but we still have a long way to go. This is part of the reason wellness culture has risen in popularity; similar to the women in Creamerie, we are also vulnerable, scared to trust that our health is a priority in medicine, and needing to take so much responsibility into our own hands for diagnosing and healing our ailments. When someone profits (in wealth or power) off of that vulnerability with misinformation, that’s evil hidden in capitalism’s plain sight. As Dr. Jen Gunter writes in one of her many scathing take downs of Goop, “my number one rule of online health information is ignore advice from sites that sell product.”
It was difficult for me to forgive Pip’s selfishness and shortsightedness (and her kool-aid stained lips) throughout the season, but I understand that she was blinded by her own denial. Trauma manifests in different ways for everyone. Alex’s coping mechanism stands in opposition to Pip. Alex is angry, volatile, a walking open wound begging to be infected just so that she has a reason to spit back. She and Pip butt heads constantly, her mother is permanently lobotomized after fighting back against the well-women, and Jamie’s husband, Jackson, was Alex’s brother. Suffice to say, Alex’s relationships are tangled, especially when it comes to her romantic love affair with Constance, a security officer for the well-women against whom Alex’s martyrdom stands. In one scene, they’ve just finished their secret copulation when Constance is then forced to carry out orders to subdue Alex with an injection of some sort of submission-inducing drug.
Alex thrashes against authority, so when Bobby gets hit by their truck and they discover the only man they’ve encountered since the plague, Alex fights not to report him. Bobby is the link to Alex’s mother’s theory that male survivors exist, and his own mission is to find more survivors. Of course, Pip is far too indoctrinated by the promises of the well-women to keep this a secret, and she throws the three of them under the bus in hopes that her loyalty will supersede the well-women’s punitive measures. When Pip and Bobby are brought before Lane and the other well-women, perhaps the most disturbing scene of the show occurs (and the opening sequence shows visuals of men vomiting blood and dying, so that’s saying something): Lane attempts to manipulate Pip and her other followers to rape Bobby. And when they don’t conform, Lane herself sexually assaults him in front of the group.
This scene made me deeply uncomfortable, as it should. But I question whether it was a productive addition to the seemingly endless vault of sexual assault depictions in media. I wonder if the intention was to flip the script by making the victim male and the aggressor female; but that still ignores the fact that male sexual assault victims do exist. It begs the question: does watching a man be sexually assaulted by a woman carve a pathway to healing for survivors? I don’t think so — I don’t think that any survivor of sexual assault would feel anything but triggered watching this scene. As producers of media, we have a responsibility to these larger discussions. Rape and sexual assault are not akin to being murdered or robbed — one in three women will experience it in their lifetime and one in thirty-three men. For such a significant number of people, sexual assault is not entertainment, it is deeply real. I think show creators need to remember that when they tackle the topic. If there’s any work left to do in the realm of depicting sexual assault in media, it should be focused around modeling, around providing a new script and code of action that centers survivors and validates the experience. Like in Mindy Kaling’s new show The Sex Lives of College Girls; Bela’s assault was shown, but the bulk of the focus on that storyline was on her coming forward and being heard, believed, validated and given the justice she asked for. Without those elements, I would still ask, why are we throwing something that victimizes so many so cautiously to the wind?
Bobby’s assault was utilized as the catalyst which propelled Pip back down to reality, leading her to finally stand up to the well-women and help her friends escape. I still don’t trust Pip, but I’m open to seeing how she develops in the next season.
I was shocked by the twist at the ending, and slightly disappointed. Jackson, Jamie’s husband, has been helping the well-women with their mission for control all along when we thought he had died from the plague. This twist was gut wrenching, because Jamie’s grief was so well acted I feel as though it almost undermines it. Is she really grieving so deeply for someone who was secretly evil? There are so many unanswered questions to that cliffhanger, and I will definitely be back for season two to find out.
