Jealous, or Crazy? The Wronged Woman and Pop Culture's Catch-22 (Part 3)
V.
And I’m here to remind you
Of the mess you left when you went away
It’s not fair to deny me
Of the cross I bear that you gave to me
– Alanis Morissette, “You Oughta Know”
A Wronged Woman cannot be assumed to be a Scorned Woman, though it can be posited that a Scorned Woman is a Wronged Woman only seen in the wrong moment. This is shown by Beyoncé’s Lemonade, as one could apply the label of Scorned Woman to Beyoncé if the viewer only observed the video for “Hold Up”. The same can be said for the speaker in “Before He Cheats”, the woman in Barbershop vandalizing the wrong vehicle, and the speaker in Alanis Morissette’s “You Oughta Know”.
The song, released in 1995 as the lead single for her album Jagged Little Pill, portrays at first listen a prototypical Scorned Woman. The lyrics portray a woman rejected and replaced by another woman, lashing out with comparisons that she is a superior partner by stating:
An older version of me/ Is she perverted like me?/ Would she go down on you in a theater?/ Does she speak eloquently/ And would she have your baby?/ I’m sure she’ll make a really excellent mother - (Morissette, “You Oughta Know”)
The lyrics can be compared to “Hold Up”, in that both women are in the Denial phase, stating unequivocally that they are better lovers than any other woman on the side. In Beyoncé’s case, she is fighting against being replaced. In the case of Alanis, she already has been. Both women are processing the act of being wronged by their lovers, but without context, both will be seen as nothing more than “jealous” and “crazy”.
Jealousy can be easily applied to Morissette on first listen, as the lyrics are aggressive and angry, and repeatedly refer to the other woman. However, the chorus, which is repeated several times throughout the song, describe the emotional damage visited upon her by her ex-lover, the speaker as “the mess you left when you went away,” and “It’s not fair to deny me of the cross I bear that you gave to me.” This implies that she was denied any chance for closure, to leave the relationship on equal terms. The “cross I bear” line, inspired by Morissette’s Catholic upbringing, refers to the burden of pain that the speaker is forced to carry alone, which can elicit pity, sympathy, or empathy to ease the load. Instead, the ex-lover still holds power over her, as that “cross” is denied, the speaker not permitted to even be viewed as a victim. The ex-lover leaves her seeing herself as “the joke that you laid in the bed: that was me,” and left with the knowledge that she is owed his guilt, but will never receive it. Though it is not described how the speaker is denied her perception of victimhood, it can be posited that, given the treatment of Wronged Women labeled as Scorned Women, her reputation was tarnished, likely labeled as “jealous” or “crazy”, insuring that the male will be kept above suspicion, and relegating her as wrong. Popular culture then simply follows the fallacy of the false dichotomy: if she is wrong, he must be right. (Morissette, “You Oughta Know”)
Much like with “Before He Cheats”, only the moment of Denial and Anger is shown, with no context or aftermath shown, making it easy to relegate both speakers to judged as Scorned Women. No “spiritual sequel” to “You Oughta Know” was recorded, but Morissette’s 1998 follow-up album Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie can be considered a continuation of the journey if the speaker of “You Oughta Know” is assumed to be Morissette herself. This is a justified assumption given the speculation from 1995 to the present about who the subject of the lyrics was, even parodied in the How I Met Your Mother episode “P.S. I Love You,” which included a cameo by Dave Coulier, the actor most often assumed to be the subject, insisting the song isn’t about him.
The title of the follow-up album implies that Morissette is referring to herself, coming out as an “infatuation junkie”, someone addicted to the chemical highs of the first few weeks of a relationship. The album, which didn’t perform as well commercially as Jagged Little Pill, contained more introspective works, soul searching, and calling herself out for not seeing the warning signs in budding relationships, or not getting out when she did see them.
“Sympathetic Character” describes a woman caught in an abusive relationship but unable to leave out of fear: I was afraid of your complete disregard for me/ I was afraid of your temper/ I was afraid of handles being flown off of/ I was afraid of holes being punched into walls/ I was afraid of your testosterone. (Morissette, “Sympathetic Character”) The album gives no implication that this is the lover spoken of in “You Oughta Know”, and that she refers to herself as a “junkie” suggests that she has had many relationships where she was subjected to negative treatment. However, “Sympathetic Character” outlines the limited choices available to women in unequal and/or abusive relationships for fear of violent retribution, a subject explored in hundreds of creative works before. She speaks of fear of violence, of his temper, of her anger, but proclaims in the chorus, “I have as much rage as you have/ I have as much pain as you do/ I've lived as much hell as you have/ And I've kept mine bubbling under for you.” (Morissette, “Sympathetic Character”) The final line of the chorus speaks to women suffering in silence, that they feel the same anger, the same pain, survive the same trauma, but are encouraged by culture and fear to remain quiet to preserve the male’s self-image of power and strength.
The final lines, written in 1998, are topical in light of the #MeToo movement: “You were my keeper/ You were my anchor/ You were my family/ You were my savior/ And therein lay the issue/ And therein lay the problem.” (Morrisette, “Sympathetic Character”) She speaks of an abusive, manipulative male figure who takes many roles, and that his deep, tangled involvement in her life is too difficult to cut loose. While Beyoncé speaks of the difficulties of a cheating husband, Morissette speaks on a survivor’s guilt and fear of confronting and leaving an abuser, especially when the damage would extend beyond the physical. That “Sympathetic Character” was written in 1998 underlines that such concerns and fears are nothing new, and the tonality implies the truth that the issue and the problem has existed for much longer than the two decades since the song was recorded.
Morissette’s journey outlined in Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie is, like Beyoncé’s Lemonade, a journey of forgiveness, though unlike Beyoncé, Morissette focuses on forgiveness of self, and learning to be wary of abusive men in the future. Much like Beyoncé’s “All Night”, Morissette’s Wronged Woman emerges stronger, more self-assured, but warier and placing more of a premium on trust. Both women find strength not in other people, but through affirming their identities.
“That I Would Be Good” accomplishes such a purpose for Morissette, with lyrics that celebrate self-assurance and self-image despite negativity from others. She repeats throughout the work not that she will survive, or continue on, but that she will “be good”, “be grand”, or “be loved”, even if she is judged for behaviors popular culture has deemed as a negative such as going bankrupt, losing her hair, getting older, being clingy or fuming, getting a “thumbs down”, or gaining ten pounds, and concluding that she will be good “either with or without you”. (Morissette, “That I Would Be Good”)
It is important to note that Morissette’s journey does not end at embracing her self-image and strength. “Baba” and “Thank U” outline Morissette’s exploration of spirituality in India and how they brought her progress, whereas “The Couch” describes her decision to pursue therapy. “Unsent” further differs Morissette’s journey from Beyoncé’s as while the lyrics are about forgiveness, they are Morissette’s mea culpa to several men that she had harmed with her “infatuation addiction”. “Are You Still Mad?” is a listing of her flaws, ways she’d harmed relationships before they could come to fruition, assuring the listener that she is aware of her share of the blame, but that it does not mean her pain or treatment is deserved. The album outlines how the journey of the Wronged Woman can be fraught with complications and that work can be required on the self to leave both parties on equal terms, and that none of it possesses easy answers.
It is these complications that encourages popular culture to shy away, as the Scorned Woman is intended for comedies or thrillers or horrors, an easy target and scapegoat. This, however, causes damage not only to the concept of the Wronged Woman, but to women in general. That popular culture leans on the cliché of the jealous and mentally unstable woman normalizes the concept to society, and thus further Others women as a minority, particularly women of color. It permits men to mistreat women, and afterward declare any response as the result of jealousy or mental instability, absolving themselves of any blame.
Both Beyoncé and Morissette show the journeys of two Wronged Women, which take different paths, but do not invalidate each other, as a journey is not a dichotomy, false or otherwise. Both Lemonade and Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie display what is possible when a woman takes reclaims her agency over her emotions and journey to process and heal from being wronged. Both works remove the harmful caricature of the Scorned Woman to reveal the real woman beneath, and demonstrate the complicated, human realities of forgiveness of others and of self. When popular culture embraces women who reclaim their agency, a woman scorned can reveal herself as a woman wronged, and finally, rightfully, share her story.
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