The castration of women, in addition and relation to MIKE s, is also very important in the symbolism of female characters. The woman s lack of a penis, in other words, her presumed mutilation, externalizes and displaces the man s fear of insufficiency and insures him phallic wholeness (Kuzinar 122). This is another reason why the men of Twin Peaks view their women as objects as well as a means to relieve aggression. The men are allowed to feel that they do not have to respect or fear women, due to their lack of maleness. However, This disavowal and projection of castration explains but does not absolve the show s transgressivity toward women, which begins and ends with Laura Palmer (Kuzniar 122). This tells the audience that a woman is really just an incomplete man, and should be treated as that. This justifies to males the abuse of women, as they are weak and inferior due to their lack of body parts.
Twin Peaks takes a bold stance on the portrayal of women in the media as well as women in society. The images and plots shown almost always portray women in a negative light. The dangers of showing these images on national television are the ideas that are imposed to the audience in real life. Twin Peaks feeds the audience ideas that women are weak, incompetent, evil, insufficient, and often objects of a male dominated society. The audience is sucked into the world of Twin Peaks and therefore will take a similar stance on what is feminine and masculine in society. David Lynch said in 1989, I couldn t care less about changing the conventions of mainstream television. Unfortunatly this is true. Lynch did not change, or want to change, the way that women are portrayed in television, and it is this kind of ignorance in our society that lets the desensitization of violence and scorn toward women continue in our mass media.