Dirty John and His Women

Connie Britton and Eric Bana in Dirty John

From a Feminist Viewpoint:

John Meehan was a charmer. You could tell by looking there was something a little off about him, but if you were a vulnerable woman that "something" was easy to overlook--he was an accomplished spellbinder with a sordid past that he papered over quite deftly. He regarded the women he conned as projects, and he had the skills to pull off his myriad games until his ultimate comeuppance, which, in the Dirty John true-crime anthology now available on Netflix, feels inevitable but the series keeps the viewer on the edge.

For all the fascination of the creature at the center of this, the series is really about women. It's mother-daughter relationships, man-woman relationships, and the navigating of women's roles in the contemporary world. Eric Bana as John sashays into the life of the sophisticated interior designer Debra Newell, played by Connie Britton. The actors could not have been better in their roles--Bana, playing Meehan as manipulative and subtle, and Britton, playing his prey as calm, thoughtful, and just a bit dim. This Debra has the quality so many women have in the area of relationships: she trusts too much and needs too much--exactly what makes her a target for a manipulative and sly person. Basically competent and strong, she thinks she has it right, but she does not. She has been married four times and is actively dating men she meets at online sites. Her two daughters see through Meehan at once, and despise him, just as he, knowing they are onto him, casts them as his enemy as he worms his way into the affections of their mother. Debra confides in her mother, played to perfection by Jean Smart as kindly and forgiving--a Christian ideal of a mother--giving bad advice all around as she mistakenly falls for any man who gives her daughters the time of day. The interaction of this brood, revolving around a toxic man, tells volumes about the psychology of women raised in the 20th century living out their lives in the 21st. Debra and her mother are putty in the hands of a sociopath.

I recommend watching all the series, so I won't give away any spoilers. Much of it is fairly easy to see coming, but there are ups and downs and sideways twists. As in most narratives these days, the story is told through flashbacks and flashes forward so there are scenes that give backstory long after we'd given up on learning it. It's well written and believable and it's easy to see that there are a number of women at the helm. I would think a man watching it might say, "I hope they don't think all men are like that," but I'm pretty sure we've all, male and female, known this behavior in lesser degrees in real people. Dirty John is the beginning of a long-overdue conversation, and will prompt (I hope) more evaluation of personality types and more cautious behavior all around.

The second entry in the series is The Betty Broderick Story, which came to an end in July.  The next season will begin with more episodes about Broderick, whose tale is ongoing. She too had the wrong idea about a man being her salvation, but she is the toxic one in the relationship--and her thinking is baffling and sociopathic. Trying to redeem herself in the public's eye she is probably not a bad subject for contemplation of just how twisted a mind can be--and how cleverly such a mind can manipulate others.