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In my paper I shall analyse the cult TV series Twin Peaks through a gender perspective. I shall argue that Laura Palmer could actually be seen as BOB’s daughter because she impersonates male predatory sexuality and attitudes. I shall also argue that the behaviour of BOB could be seen as very similar to that of all of his victims through the same masculine attitudes they exhibit. In my reading, the series and the film will be considered as an unfolding narrative resulting from the comprehensive work of both its creators David Lynch and Mark Frost and the team of its writers and directors. THE CONTROVERSIAL and much-debated TV series Twin Peaks by David Lynch and Mark Frost was divided in two seasons which were aired between 1990 and 1991; it was the most video-taped program on network television during the time of its airing, with over 830,000 persons recording it each week (Jenkins 67). It received initially an enthusiastic critical reaction and achieved a massive popularity, which still lasts after twenty years of its original airing. Indeed, the DVD collections of its two series as well as its soundtrack have been recently re-issued on the market (the ”Gold Box Edition” was issued in 2007) and critical readings of its narrative are still being published, especially in volumes which analyse David Lynch’s entire oeuvre. The story narrates of FBI special agent Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) who is sent to the remote provincial town of Twin Peaks in North America, where the seventeen-year-old Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee) has been brutally murdered. Cooper manages to identify the killer as Laura’s father Leland (Ray Wise), who is revealed to be under the diabolic possession of a malevolent spirit called BOB (Frank Silva). Leland was forced by BOB to rape his own daughter since she was twelve and to kill her identical cousin Maddy Ferguson (Sheryl Lee) as well as Laura’s friend and accomplice in prostitution Teresa Banks (Pamela Gidley). After Leland’s capture and suicide, Cooper discovers that the spirit BOB comes from a place called the Black Lodge, a sort of afterlife in which the souls of the living linger after bodily death. The second and final season of the series terminates with agent Cooper’s visit to the Black Lodge and his subsequent death because of the influence and possession by BOB. During the past twenty years, many critics have attempted to explain the various representations and images present in the series without however establishing a unifying or single perspective capable of explaining the ideologies and meaning(s) of it. This is partly due to the fact that the series does not present a finished narrative: it was indeed cancelled by the ABC Network because of the huge drop in ratings after the revelation of the identity of Laura’s killer in the middle of the second season.(1) This decision thus forced the producers to abruptly terminate many of the narrative lines of the story in its ”inconclusive” (Stewart 48) ending. The prequel film Fire Walk with Me by David Lynch (released one year after the cancellation of the series) is focused on the last seven days of Laura and her uncovering the truth (that the audience already knows) about the identity of her rapist and killer. The film, however, does not actually clarify many hints and details of the series’ narrative and even further contributes to the complexity of its meaning. Gender readings constitute a consistent part of the critical material on Twin Peaks: critics such as Lori Phelps (4), John Richardson (81), Diane Stevenson (74) and Diana Hume George (117) have particularly focused on the series’ depiction of the relationship between patriarchy and women as well as on the dualities on which the representation of bourgeois society is based. My argument shall add another perspective to the debate hitherto made by means of the suggestion that the behaviour of BOB is coincident with that of all of his victims (in particular, Teresa Banks, Laura and Maddy Ferguson) because of the same masculine attitudes such victims exhibit. In my argument, BOB shall be interpreted as a representative of the patriarchal order, who murders the characters who do not respect the proper behaviour attributed to the respective sexes by such an order and who enact, instead, a reversal of gender roles on a public and visible level. I shall specifically argue that, since Leland Palmer has been

Reversal of Gender Roles in Twin Peaks and Fire Walk with Me