#joyce cameron

As much as I’d love to claim credit for the idea, itactually came from THIS incredible and life changing fic which I would highly recommendreading and then adopting as a canon-alternative ending to S2 because it iswell better than what we got.

I can say with the upmost honesty that reading that ficchanged my life. At no prior point had I considered the prospect that Joyce wasa closeted lesbian like Teresa but now everything began to make sense. Onrewatch of S1 and S2 I would strongly argue that we have more evidence supportingthe theory than disproving it. Much of aforementioned evidence iscircumstantial but applying it to her motivations throughout the series itutterly enriches her character and makes things way more interesting.

Firstly, we have zero evidence that she was ever in lovewith either of her husbands. Husband no. 1 is barely mentioned; he’s Malcolm’sfather, he was killed in the war, but we know nothing of how they met, how longthey were together or the nature of their marriage. It’s plausible she could’vebeen unaware of her sexuality or in denial of it when she married him, or shecould’ve purposefully married him to cover herself. I think the fact she rarelymentions him is a solid indicator she may not have loved him: Alison losingGeorge in the war left a massive impact on her and he gets spoken about all thetime yet I don’t recall if Joyce’s first husband has a name.

As for Douglas, it’s explicitly stated they did not have ahappy marriage. In 2x05 it is mentioned that Joyce faced “difficulties” afterthe death of Husband 1 and it is far from unreasonable to assume that she onlymarried Douglas for the money and stability he’d provide for herself andMalcolm. The way Malcolm speaks about their family life it certainly soundslike Joyce and Douglas were never in love and the marriage only succeeded inmaking the three of them miserable. When she returns without him in S2, sheseems a lot happier and is able to begin building proper friendships in thevillage.

While the books may be questionable, they do offer yet moreevidence backing this up. They tell us that Joyce and Douglas lived largelyseparate lives. Most interestingly, they gave us this quote:

”Indeed, the monthaway had been the most difficult of Joyce’s life. During that period, she’dfinally admitted that her marriage had been sterile for many years. Moving toHeysham had been Douglas’s decision, and Joyce’s loathing of life on the coastcame upon her almost immediately intensifying Joyce’s sense that her life hadbecome becalmed, and deepening her conviction that she no longer wanted to beDouglas’s consort, wheeled out at social events. If she didn’t act decisivelyshe felt this existence would claim her sanity.”

It says a lot that the hardest experience of Joyce’s lifewas not losing Husband 1 in the war, it was not being left widowed with a sonto bring up on her own, it was being forced to spend four weeks alone with herhusband. With the implication that Joyce has very little say in the marriage,it makes you wonder why an outspoken woman like herself would stay with him forso long, now she no longer has a son to look after and has established herselfin the village. Why would she put up with all that unless there was someextenuating factor we were unaware of?

Furthermore, could Joyce’s lack of control over her own lifeand circumstances result in her domineering approach to the WI and localcommunity? The book also mentions that “likea lot of unhappily lonely people, Joyce filled the hole at her core bythrusting herself that it was they who had insisted on her involvement.” AndI think that’s true. I do get the sense that Joyce, deep down, is actually quite insecure. She surrounds herself with people she knows will back her up. She likesto be in control of the discussion. She thrives on power. Sure, she could justhave a domineering personality, but she could also be using this sort ofbehaviour as a shield. She wants to be at the top of the social order with allthe power because she knows that people like herself tend to be excluded fromsociety. She feels she needs to be at the top because she thinks she’s going toget pushed to the bottom.  

Go back and watch the scene between Frances and Joyce at thechurch in 1x06. Joyce says that she doesn’t want to be like everyone else andnever has. You can read that as Joyce simply wanting superiority over theothers but like most things in life, it is way more interesting in a gaycontext.

I’m going to resist turning this into a Joyce/Francesshipping manifesto but seriously, some of their interactions are not veryheterosexual. The lengths they go to throughout S1 purely to annoy each otheris glorious. The whole air raid shelter drama. Joyce getting Frances’s gatesmelted for vengeance after the WI vote. Frances retaliating by getting Joyce’sland requisitioned. It’s like when you were at school and two kids who likedeach other couldn’t handle their feelings so ended up purposefully irritatingeach other for attention. Then ofc we have S2 and Joyce immediately going tovisit Frances when she returns to the village and I’m not going to go into itbut it is all very gay.