I’ve admittedly not been keeping up with Lucifer, Fox’s crime dramedy loosely based on Vertigo’s Lucifer and Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman, but some thematic elements from the newest episode have…caught my attention, to say the least.
In this week’s episode, “Manly Whatnots,” Lucifer and his partner-in-crime-fighting/maybe-love-interest Chloe go undercover at a pick-up artist convention (you can see a clip of the scene over at io9). After listening to the head PUA outline the “Conduct of Kick-Ass Cavemen” that men can follow to ensnare a lady, Lucifer interrupts the presentation to ask what it means when he has all the requisite Caveman qualities but a woman is still immune to his affections. Lucifer then humiliates Chloe by pointing to her and announcing to the crowd “this woman here won’t have sex with me.”
Again, I’m not qualified to speak to the series’ overall representation of women, so I defer to anyone who’s watched more of Lucifer than I have. Based on my limited knowledge of the show, I wish that the interaction between Lucifer and Grand Pooh-Bah PUA had ended with Lucifer actually denouncing their tactics (as is, he seems to have less of a problem with their methods as he does with the “wanker” teaching the course), but I do think there’s still a beautiful symmetry in seeing the actual devil attending a PUA course–considering pick up artist techniques are pretty unconscionable, it’s only inevitable that Satan himself would take interest.
That being said, something tells me real-life PUAs might see Lucifer’s terrible behavior here as an endorsement of their tactics, rather than a possible subtle joke by the show at their expense. I’m honestly not sure what the creator’s intentions for this scene were, either, but I’m hoping it was the latter.
If any of you have been watching the series, I’m curious what you think of its overall tone and the extent to which it condemns or condones toxic behavior like what Lucifer demonstrates here. Thoughts, gang?
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