NANO (Sep 2019)
Flashback to the Bunker: Reframing Echoes of Captivity in Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt
Abstract
This article explores how the Netflix original television series Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (2015-2019) uses atemporal storytelling techniques within a campy, comedic aesthetic to reframe audience expectations of captivity narratives. Kimmy’s flashbacks to the bunker serve two main narrative functions: 1) help Kimmy use a past lesson to solve her present dilemma; and 2) provide audiences with a comical yet jarring reminder that Kimmy was held captive and abused for fifteen years. I argue that the narrative construction of UKS tightly controls the echoes of Kimmy’s captivity, inviting audiences only into the memories of resilience that Kimmy curates for herself and refusing the potential for viewers to indulge in voyeurism or catharsis, while campy exaggerations work to further dethrone the serious subject material. The series challenges viewers’ entitlement to and relationship with the traumatic details of captivity survival, ultimately inviting viewers into a more complex relationship with captivity survivors.
