A few months ago I made a post saying that most physically disabled characters in mainstream media have acquired disabilities and that I thought this was because audiences couldn't identify with characters who identified as disabled, and weren't miserable about being disabled. Disability has to be a relatively new thing that you can do montages about, like on House. Or it has to come out of a tragedy like on Glee (Artie was of course in a car accident that killed his mom when he was a kid).
I wandered in while my mom was watching Covert Affairs and I was like, "That guy is bad at pretending to be blind," and my mom was like, "Oh, he just became blind in an accident." Surprise surprise. Doesn't that make things easy for Christopher Gorham?
Anyway, in my previous post I didn't address non-physical disabilities at all. But I was thinking maybe the reason ASD tends to suck in fiction is sort of another version of the same thing. Writers cannot imagine what it's like to have lived your whole life with a disability, so they write about ASD as though it's something that just happened to the character last week. That's why characters with ASD suck at everything. (To be specific, I'm referring to characters who are verbal and whose problems are portrayed as being mainly social.)
This is something that always makes me really mad. My mom was trying to get me to watch the movie Snow Cake, which I've heard is very good and everything, but just the idea of watching an Autism Movie makes me feel ashamed and sick. I know that like most people I can be selfish and stupid, but in Autism Movies these are portrayed as defining traits for someone like me and it just sucks to know that people are watching movies and thinking that's what ASD people are like.
Lots of people with ASD have anxiety and anger problems as a result of social failure, but this is often not portrayed in fiction because to acknowledge that someone can have anxiety and anger problems, you have to acknowledge that they can have awareness of their social failure, which in turn means acknowledging that they have lived with a disability their whole life. The really oversimplified "oh I just got autism yesterday" ASD characters in the mainstream media are insulting because their portrayal implies that ASD people don't have common sense or the ability to learn from mistakes and cope with impairment.
Seriously even coping badly is okay with me. I am so in love with Mad Men 3x01 when Pete thinks he's about to be fired so he starts making an awkward speech about how he should have socialized with Lane Pryce more. Because it shows that Pete knows people don't like him. A lot of Pete's behavior in early seasons comes out of his (sometimes buried) knowledge that people don't like him, and that's one reason I enjoy him as much as I do. He is someone who has lived with whatever-he-has for 26 years when the show starts, and this hasn't been a good thing, but it has made him complicated. What really frustrates me about intentional portrayals of ASD is that the characters are incredibly uncomplicated. They have not responded or reacted to anything in their lives.
There's also the fact, of course, that these characters don't just suck on TV, but they make non-disabled people suck in real life because they think that ASD is uncomplicated, and think they're qualified to diagnose or misdiagnose people based on brief interactions. Good times for everyone.
Showing posts with label mad men. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mad men. Show all posts
22 August, 2010
18 August, 2010
The fictional diagnostics explosion
(this post kind of went off the rails, sorry)
There is a space between visible disability and being normal. Before you start going off about how no one is normal, blah blah blah, I'd like to remind you that some people have to constantly worry about whether they're going to fuck up, some people have to go through periods of their lives (or their whole lives) without friends, some people feel that they can't express who they really are to anyone--and despite the fact that they're faking really hard, people still think they're weird. It's cool that you have a tattoo or whatever alternative thing you have, but if you don't have to worry about this stuff, then you are normal. Sorry.
Where was I? Yeah. There's a space where you are not normal and you either actually succeed in hiding it (at great personal cost) or you do a shitty job hiding it, and other people don't treat you very well.
The best part is sometimes you actually tell someone you have ASD, and even if it's a person who has always hated you for being so weird, the response is:
"You couldn't possibly have that. You're SO NORMAL. You're just using that as an excuse because I can tell you're really really normal. Everyone's a little bit different from each other but that doesn't mean they have ~AUTISM~. You're just saying that because you want to be unique or you don't want to be held accountable for your actions."
(This last part is really funny because disabled people have a ton of stuff stacked against us, so being openly disabled is probably the last way you'd try to get out of anything.)
Anyway, like lots of people with invisible disabilities I am used to hearing this shit about myself, so I don't enjoy hearing it about characters for whom I have been an f.d. (remember an f.d. is a fictional diagnostician, i.e. a fan who theorizes that a character may have a particular disability). I'm not trying to say that other fans can't disagree and say, "No, I don't think so-and-so has ASD," but I do have a problem with the contemptuous response, "What are you talking about? You must have put a lot of effort into that theory--so-and-so is totally normal and definitely doesn't have ASD! ASD isn't the same as just being a little awkward!"
This is something I wrote in an email to my friend almost a year ago, when I had ventured to link Stop barging in here and infecting me with your anxiety: Pete, Peggy, and Passing on the Mad Men livejournal community, and had received some withering stock responses:
People are always posting about Pete and calling him a sociopath and a robot; it’s a perfectly accepted part of the show that he is bad with people and very odd, so it’s not just a little bit of shyness or awkwardness; he is impaired, whatever you call it. Early on in the run of the show people used to criticize the actor and say he was “trying to talk like he lived in the 60s” because he has a really strange way of talking. I just feel like people are perfectly aware that this character is really weird to a notable degree, and even insult him for that, but then when someone says “oh, kind of like Asperger’s” it’s like “where did you get THAT from?”
Mrs. Blankenship on Basket of Kisses said, "If [Pete and Peggy] represent an accurate portrayal of Asperger’s then everyone I have ever known fits the diagnosis." This makes me wonder how many people Mrs. Blankenship has met in her life. No matter what you think caused their impairments, Peggy and Pete certainly are more socially impaired than other characters (and more impaired than most people I for one know in real life). Hasn't Mrs. Blankenship ever met anyone more like Ken Cosgrove, Harry Crane (nerdy but still social), Don Draper, Joan, Sal, Rachel...anyone? Every single person she knows in real life is as socially impaired as Pete and Peggy?
I find that really hard to believe. But why would she say that? Why would she imply that Meowser and I, who are people with ASD, don't know what ASD is?
Sometimes I feel like this attitude is just more of what I discussed in part one--the idea that ASD is such an obscure, bizarre disability that no one could really have it. This might explain both why non-disabled people refuse to believe us when we disclose in real life, and why they think it is ridiculous to suggest that a TV character could have it (unless, sometimes, if the TV character is an incredibly overdramatic and unrealistic compilation of textbook ASD traits).
However, sometimes--and I admit this comes out of bitterness--I wonder if the motivation is something more sinister. Maybe people just get really attached to the idea that a certain person is lazy, creepy, "sociopathic," annoying, immature, attention-seeking, spoiled, stoned, or whatever. They like feeling superior. Maybe they even like making fun of aspects of the person that don't quite fit into any of those stereotypes--like the fact that the person moves differently. The movement may poke at something inside people's heads, a concept they've been making fun of since they were kids--like when they would call their enemies "retarded" or "special," thinking of "retarded" and "special" people as almost imaginary, since they didn't know any people who had those labels for real. They're just words. And the way people feel about this lazy, creepy, immature person who flaps their hands has nothing to do with disability at all.
So I sometimes think that people feel cheated out of the fun of judgment, when they find out someone like that is disabled. They feel like it's not fair. Disabled people should look disabled! They shouldn't look like people that I'm allowed to be mean to! In fact, I never would be mean to a disabled person, so I'm pretty sure you're not disabled at all!
I think the impression that ASD is very obscure is probably the main cause of the hugely energetic and contemptuous responses to Fictional Diagnostics. But I think the other one is sometimes there too. People really don't like Pete Campbell--he's a creep. His sins are not really worse than those of other characters, but he is a "weasel," he speaks too formally, he speaks too soon. People call him a creep because he pushes certain buttons. They don't want to think about what that means.
There is a space between visible disability and being normal. Before you start going off about how no one is normal, blah blah blah, I'd like to remind you that some people have to constantly worry about whether they're going to fuck up, some people have to go through periods of their lives (or their whole lives) without friends, some people feel that they can't express who they really are to anyone--and despite the fact that they're faking really hard, people still think they're weird. It's cool that you have a tattoo or whatever alternative thing you have, but if you don't have to worry about this stuff, then you are normal. Sorry.
Where was I? Yeah. There's a space where you are not normal and you either actually succeed in hiding it (at great personal cost) or you do a shitty job hiding it, and other people don't treat you very well.
The best part is sometimes you actually tell someone you have ASD, and even if it's a person who has always hated you for being so weird, the response is:
"You couldn't possibly have that. You're SO NORMAL. You're just using that as an excuse because I can tell you're really really normal. Everyone's a little bit different from each other but that doesn't mean they have ~AUTISM~. You're just saying that because you want to be unique or you don't want to be held accountable for your actions."
(This last part is really funny because disabled people have a ton of stuff stacked against us, so being openly disabled is probably the last way you'd try to get out of anything.)
Anyway, like lots of people with invisible disabilities I am used to hearing this shit about myself, so I don't enjoy hearing it about characters for whom I have been an f.d. (remember an f.d. is a fictional diagnostician, i.e. a fan who theorizes that a character may have a particular disability). I'm not trying to say that other fans can't disagree and say, "No, I don't think so-and-so has ASD," but I do have a problem with the contemptuous response, "What are you talking about? You must have put a lot of effort into that theory--so-and-so is totally normal and definitely doesn't have ASD! ASD isn't the same as just being a little awkward!"
This is something I wrote in an email to my friend almost a year ago, when I had ventured to link Stop barging in here and infecting me with your anxiety: Pete, Peggy, and Passing on the Mad Men livejournal community, and had received some withering stock responses:
People are always posting about Pete and calling him a sociopath and a robot; it’s a perfectly accepted part of the show that he is bad with people and very odd, so it’s not just a little bit of shyness or awkwardness; he is impaired, whatever you call it. Early on in the run of the show people used to criticize the actor and say he was “trying to talk like he lived in the 60s” because he has a really strange way of talking. I just feel like people are perfectly aware that this character is really weird to a notable degree, and even insult him for that, but then when someone says “oh, kind of like Asperger’s” it’s like “where did you get THAT from?”
Mrs. Blankenship on Basket of Kisses said, "If [Pete and Peggy] represent an accurate portrayal of Asperger’s then everyone I have ever known fits the diagnosis." This makes me wonder how many people Mrs. Blankenship has met in her life. No matter what you think caused their impairments, Peggy and Pete certainly are more socially impaired than other characters (and more impaired than most people I for one know in real life). Hasn't Mrs. Blankenship ever met anyone more like Ken Cosgrove, Harry Crane (nerdy but still social), Don Draper, Joan, Sal, Rachel...anyone? Every single person she knows in real life is as socially impaired as Pete and Peggy?
I find that really hard to believe. But why would she say that? Why would she imply that Meowser and I, who are people with ASD, don't know what ASD is?
Sometimes I feel like this attitude is just more of what I discussed in part one--the idea that ASD is such an obscure, bizarre disability that no one could really have it. This might explain both why non-disabled people refuse to believe us when we disclose in real life, and why they think it is ridiculous to suggest that a TV character could have it (unless, sometimes, if the TV character is an incredibly overdramatic and unrealistic compilation of textbook ASD traits).
However, sometimes--and I admit this comes out of bitterness--I wonder if the motivation is something more sinister. Maybe people just get really attached to the idea that a certain person is lazy, creepy, "sociopathic," annoying, immature, attention-seeking, spoiled, stoned, or whatever. They like feeling superior. Maybe they even like making fun of aspects of the person that don't quite fit into any of those stereotypes--like the fact that the person moves differently. The movement may poke at something inside people's heads, a concept they've been making fun of since they were kids--like when they would call their enemies "retarded" or "special," thinking of "retarded" and "special" people as almost imaginary, since they didn't know any people who had those labels for real. They're just words. And the way people feel about this lazy, creepy, immature person who flaps their hands has nothing to do with disability at all.
So I sometimes think that people feel cheated out of the fun of judgment, when they find out someone like that is disabled. They feel like it's not fair. Disabled people should look disabled! They shouldn't look like people that I'm allowed to be mean to! In fact, I never would be mean to a disabled person, so I'm pretty sure you're not disabled at all!
I think the impression that ASD is very obscure is probably the main cause of the hugely energetic and contemptuous responses to Fictional Diagnostics. But I think the other one is sometimes there too. People really don't like Pete Campbell--he's a creep. His sins are not really worse than those of other characters, but he is a "weasel," he speaks too formally, he speaks too soon. People call him a creep because he pushes certain buttons. They don't want to think about what that means.
17 August, 2010
Fictional diagnostics stock responses--part one
I've only commented at Basket of Kisses a few times, but it's one of my favorite blogs, and a place I spend a ridiculous amount of time now that Mad Men season four is off and running. Today I got the shock/delight of a lifetime because I saw that Meowser, a poster with ASD, is writing a series called Pete, Peggy, and PDD-NOS, and linked some of my posts about ASD and Mad Men! It sort of fries my brain to go to sitemeter and see that people are coming here from the Most Amazing Place in the World!
However, people have already made some of a certain kind of comments on Meowser's post. These certain kind of comments really bug me, but because I rarely post on Basket of Kisses I don't want to just go on there and act really confrontational. I really do love it there. Besides, it's not really on topic, so I'm bringing it back here.
The kind of comments I'm referring to go like this:
"I think sometimes people read too heavy into things."--Edward A.
"If [Pete and Peggy] represent an accurate portrayal of Asperger’s then everyone I have ever known fits the diagnosis."--Mrs. Blankenship
"Perhaps we can say that it is a testament to the quality of writing of the show that people seem to work very hard to find a way to say certain characters are exactly like themselves."--MM fan
I want to be clear; I don't have a problem with anyone disagreeing and saying, "No, Peggy just seems different because she has a different background, and Pete has trouble with people because of the way he was raised." What I do have a problem with is a certain kind of automatic response that non-disabled people seem to have when fans with ASD suggest that a certain character might have ASD. This response comes in two types, which can exist on their own or be combined.
1. You're reading too much into it./It's just a TV show./You're working really hard to try to make this fit.
Response #1 tries to cast the fictional-diagnostician (henceforth called f.d.) as a ridiculously obsessive fan, which is usually undercut by the fact that the Responder is on a forum or blog or LiveJournal community for the fandom. Most people who consume Mad Men (or anything else) are not involved in Internet fandom. If you are discussing this on the Internet, you've already forgotten that "it's just a TV show" just as much as the f.d. has.
The Responder also seems to imply that having a disability is like being a mastodon from outer space. It's so bizarre and out of the blue that the f.d. must have worked really, really, really hard on this theory, just so he or she could have the most original idea ever. The f.d. probably opened some crusty old encyclopedia and was thumbing through it for days on end, until finally the weirdest possible condition emerged--autism! Whoever heard of that? What could be more off-the-wall than saying that Character X has autism?
Of course, most f.d.s aren't diagnosing Character X with some random disability. They're diagnosing Character X with a disability they have a lot of experience with, or even have themselves. If you are actually living with ASD, then of course you're going to notice that Character X seems familiar in a certain way, and that ASD could explain some of his personality traits.
For example, Pete Campbell often behaves like someone who feels powerless. But in the obvious areas--race, class, and gender--he has a ton of power. Does he feel powerless because he lacks abilities that other people have? I came up with that all by myself, you guys, and it took me about a minute because I have ASD so it's easy for me to come up with theories that relate to ASD. I'm not "working hard" or "reading really heavy into things." I just tend to respond to my fandom from my own experience, like everyone else.
The implication that ASD-related theories are elaborate or ridiculous, and must take up a lot of time to think up, is insulting to people with ASD, especially when the f.d. is a person with ASD. That reaction implies that people with ASD are so other that it's not logical or intuitive to expect them to be part of a story. It also erases the fact that of course disabled people are the center of our own experience like non-disabled people are the center of theirs. I'm not other to myself, so of course I don't think of ASD as being some rare condition that no one could possibly have. Am I really expected to feel that way about it, just because that's how you feel?
Interesting new twist: MM fan's suggestion that Meowser and I desperately want Mad Men characters to be "exactly like us." Are all people with ASD exactly the same? Most of the people who think Peggy and Pete are non-disabled are non-disabled themselves--does that mean they want Peggy and Pete to be just like them?
I'm really sleepy but I will be back tomorrow with part two ("You can't just diagnose anyone with ASD! It's a serious disability! You're making it sound like just anyone could have it!"--come to think of it, that kind of overlaps). Again, not trying to be a bitch, incredibly excited to be linked at a website I love--it's just that as an ASD person in fandom I get sick of these kind of responses, and I wanted to address them.
However, people have already made some of a certain kind of comments on Meowser's post. These certain kind of comments really bug me, but because I rarely post on Basket of Kisses I don't want to just go on there and act really confrontational. I really do love it there. Besides, it's not really on topic, so I'm bringing it back here.
The kind of comments I'm referring to go like this:
"I think sometimes people read too heavy into things."--Edward A.
"If [Pete and Peggy] represent an accurate portrayal of Asperger’s then everyone I have ever known fits the diagnosis."--Mrs. Blankenship
"Perhaps we can say that it is a testament to the quality of writing of the show that people seem to work very hard to find a way to say certain characters are exactly like themselves."--MM fan
I want to be clear; I don't have a problem with anyone disagreeing and saying, "No, Peggy just seems different because she has a different background, and Pete has trouble with people because of the way he was raised." What I do have a problem with is a certain kind of automatic response that non-disabled people seem to have when fans with ASD suggest that a certain character might have ASD. This response comes in two types, which can exist on their own or be combined.
1. You're reading too much into it./It's just a TV show./You're working really hard to try to make this fit.
Response #1 tries to cast the fictional-diagnostician (henceforth called f.d.) as a ridiculously obsessive fan, which is usually undercut by the fact that the Responder is on a forum or blog or LiveJournal community for the fandom. Most people who consume Mad Men (or anything else) are not involved in Internet fandom. If you are discussing this on the Internet, you've already forgotten that "it's just a TV show" just as much as the f.d. has.
The Responder also seems to imply that having a disability is like being a mastodon from outer space. It's so bizarre and out of the blue that the f.d. must have worked really, really, really hard on this theory, just so he or she could have the most original idea ever. The f.d. probably opened some crusty old encyclopedia and was thumbing through it for days on end, until finally the weirdest possible condition emerged--autism! Whoever heard of that? What could be more off-the-wall than saying that Character X has autism?
Of course, most f.d.s aren't diagnosing Character X with some random disability. They're diagnosing Character X with a disability they have a lot of experience with, or even have themselves. If you are actually living with ASD, then of course you're going to notice that Character X seems familiar in a certain way, and that ASD could explain some of his personality traits.
For example, Pete Campbell often behaves like someone who feels powerless. But in the obvious areas--race, class, and gender--he has a ton of power. Does he feel powerless because he lacks abilities that other people have? I came up with that all by myself, you guys, and it took me about a minute because I have ASD so it's easy for me to come up with theories that relate to ASD. I'm not "working hard" or "reading really heavy into things." I just tend to respond to my fandom from my own experience, like everyone else.
The implication that ASD-related theories are elaborate or ridiculous, and must take up a lot of time to think up, is insulting to people with ASD, especially when the f.d. is a person with ASD. That reaction implies that people with ASD are so other that it's not logical or intuitive to expect them to be part of a story. It also erases the fact that of course disabled people are the center of our own experience like non-disabled people are the center of theirs. I'm not other to myself, so of course I don't think of ASD as being some rare condition that no one could possibly have. Am I really expected to feel that way about it, just because that's how you feel?
Interesting new twist: MM fan's suggestion that Meowser and I desperately want Mad Men characters to be "exactly like us." Are all people with ASD exactly the same? Most of the people who think Peggy and Pete are non-disabled are non-disabled themselves--does that mean they want Peggy and Pete to be just like them?
I'm really sleepy but I will be back tomorrow with part two ("You can't just diagnose anyone with ASD! It's a serious disability! You're making it sound like just anyone could have it!"--come to think of it, that kind of overlaps). Again, not trying to be a bitch, incredibly excited to be linked at a website I love--it's just that as an ASD person in fandom I get sick of these kind of responses, and I wanted to address them.
08 April, 2010
This is the only thing I want in the world
(except that I'd have to cross out the word "not," but that's a sacrifice I am willing to make.)
24 February, 2010
the blog schism
so I always feel bad when I post about my dumb attempts to give myself a haircut or something, and/or evidence of Vincent Kartheiser possibly being a baby llama pretending to be a person--however, I never want to post anything on my 5-year-old livejournal, because there's way too much boring/annoying stuff on it, and even though the haircut stuff is not exactly important, I think it's too entertaining to be on the Awful Livejournal, so it has a new home:
[deleted 8/9/10, not doing that tumblr anymore]
in other news, my weird shutdown that started Monday is sort of coming and going. Is that even possible? My head just always seems to be hurting and sometimes I take such a long time to understand anything and can't think anything through. There have been some moments of not-shutdown, though.
I'm going to go to Student Counseling. I just feel stupid because I'm presumably traumatized from going to another country where I didn't talk to anyone? I just feel embarrassed because some people have real problems. But when I really think about it, as long as all the appropriate sensory factors are in place, I haven't really had sleep problems for several years. And now I wake up in the middle of the night on a regular basis, often feeling really freaked out.
Sorry this is navel-gazing. I actually am going to try to be pious/academic and not post on here. And when I do, thanks to the tumblr sublimation, it's always going to be these really serious and in-depth disability-related posts! It's going to be amazing!
[deleted 8/9/10, not doing that tumblr anymore]
in other news, my weird shutdown that started Monday is sort of coming and going. Is that even possible? My head just always seems to be hurting and sometimes I take such a long time to understand anything and can't think anything through. There have been some moments of not-shutdown, though.
I'm going to go to Student Counseling. I just feel stupid because I'm presumably traumatized from going to another country where I didn't talk to anyone? I just feel embarrassed because some people have real problems. But when I really think about it, as long as all the appropriate sensory factors are in place, I haven't really had sleep problems for several years. And now I wake up in the middle of the night on a regular basis, often feeling really freaked out.
Sorry this is navel-gazing. I actually am going to try to be pious/academic and not post on here. And when I do, thanks to the tumblr sublimation, it's always going to be these really serious and in-depth disability-related posts! It's going to be amazing!
02 February, 2010
I am gay
My roommate is watching Bones and this British guy's voice sounded familiar but I can't see the screen. First I thought it was Anthony Stewart Head but I realized it wasn't and then I felt bad about myself but then I figured out it was Moneypenny from Mad Men!
Also apparently the Giles miniseries is actually happening THIS YEAR! Probably not. But. If it did that would be awesome.
Also apparently the Giles miniseries is actually happening THIS YEAR! Probably not. But. If it did that would be awesome.
12 January, 2010
I'm somewhere else
If you were wondering what the title of this blog means, I've been watching Battlestar Galactica, and Gaius gives good Somewhere Else, but I don't have a screencap of him.
Vincent Kartheiser, the blog's patron saint, goes Somewhere Else in Mad Men 2x02:
His character has a normal reason, so it maybe it doesn't count, but he could definitely play a Somewhere Else person in a movie if they needed him to.
If I have to, I am massively good at dropping out behind my eyes. Sometimes I don't mean to. I'm prone to losing time. I used to think I was possibly epileptic. I think I'm just your standard-issue dreamy person, though. I don't really like the idea that ASD people aren't Somewhere Else because I know that I am (sometimes). I think the thing is that people make such a huge deal out of it and think it's the most important thing, when it's probably just a reaction to stress and advanced focusing skills. Going Somewhere Else isn't actually autism. At the same time, it's certainly there.
It's hard for me to explain why I worry about my weight, or why I dye my hair. But it's also hard to explain why I script--but things do go worse when I don't. I need to have qualities. Something needs to be ongoing.
Keep me here.
Vincent Kartheiser, the blog's patron saint, goes Somewhere Else in Mad Men 2x02:
His character has a normal reason, so it maybe it doesn't count, but he could definitely play a Somewhere Else person in a movie if they needed him to.
If I have to, I am massively good at dropping out behind my eyes. Sometimes I don't mean to. I'm prone to losing time. I used to think I was possibly epileptic. I think I'm just your standard-issue dreamy person, though. I don't really like the idea that ASD people aren't Somewhere Else because I know that I am (sometimes). I think the thing is that people make such a huge deal out of it and think it's the most important thing, when it's probably just a reaction to stress and advanced focusing skills. Going Somewhere Else isn't actually autism. At the same time, it's certainly there.
It's hard for me to explain why I worry about my weight, or why I dye my hair. But it's also hard to explain why I script--but things do go worse when I don't. I need to have qualities. Something needs to be ongoing.
Keep me here.
22 December, 2009
I love this picture
This is what I usually look like when girls are trying to kiss me. At this point they've more or less stopped trying, which is too bad because that's not what I want.
12 December, 2009
Quid Pro Quo
"OMG CONNOR LOOKS LIKE HE'S GOING TO SHIT HIMSELF LIKE HE JUST SAW A PYLEAN OR SOME SHIT OMG"
--ontdmadmen "Shut the Door, Have a Seat" thread
This quote is actually not related to my post which is about another boy I have a crush on, Nick Stahl!
I am just being lazy and using a picture I already uploaded to Photobucket in July when I was obsessed with Carnivale. Nick Stahl has this facial expression in almost every minute of every episode of that show. But in the movie Quid Pro Quo, which I watched last night, it turns out that he can make other expressions, too.
Quid Pro Quo is a movie about a guy who works for a euphemism for NPR. He wants to do a story about able-bodied people who would prefer to be paralyzed or amputees. (In real life this is called Body Integrity Identity Disorder.) He meets with a woman who claims to know someone who has BIID, but she's really talking about herself, duh. He has paraplegia from a car accident when he was a kid, so the woman kind of has a crush on him and asks him for advice about how to use a wheelchair and stuff. Also he has a crush on her too? And they have sex? And he finds this pair of shoes that un-paralyze him when he puts them on, and he starts walking with braces and then a cane. And the woman is more and more mysterious and depressed and tells him that she wants him to help her become a paraplegic.
Yeah. The very end of this movie has a twist that really annoyed me because I thought it was cheap and just not necessary and unbelievable. I think the thing about the movie is that because it's kind of a genre film--magic realism/noir/ish--the disabilities become thematic elements, if that makes sense.
It's hard to explain what I mean by this but basically, if you have read Fingersmith or Affinity by Sarah Waters, or seen the movies, they're both gothic thrillers centered on lesbian relationships. Because of the genre, and the way that lesbianism has historically been used in that genre, I think the lesbianism comes off as kind of creepy and gothic itself in both stories; it comes off as something that adds to the theme. And I can see how some people would think this is offensive, because you could say that lesbianism is being used as a trope or a symbol. But personally, I really like it, because when lesbianism is being used a genre thing, it means that you get more interesting lesbian stories, and you get lesbian stories that aren't issue stories about coming out or something. Another example of what I'm talking about is Mullholland Drive.
Anyway, in Quid Pro Quo I feel like Isaac fits better as a noir hero because he looks different from other people when he's going down the street, and because he's experienced discrimination. And then later, disability moves around in a dreamlike way--as Isaac becomes physically better, Fiona becomes mentally worse--general art movie stuff, not trying to do a realistic portrayal of bodies and brains, but kind of messing around with bodies and brains to say something about the human condition, or just create a strange story that's aesthetically pleasing. Quid pro quo, this in exchange for that; the idea that there's some kind of cosmic bargain, or some symmetry, where people like Isaac wish they could walk and people like Fiona wish they couldn't, and it's possible to tap into that pattern, somehow. This is how I would like to think of the movie, and although I know some people just 100% wouldn't like the fact that disability is used as an aesthetic thing or a metaphor, and I understand why--well, I think it's a more interesting story about disability than the straight issue movies that usually get made. And also Isaac is just a cool character because he's basically nice and competent without being boring or "inspirational," and he's allowed to complain about ableism without being an "angry" character.
But okay, would you like to hear the end? SPOILER:
Isaac figures out that Fiona is the person who paralyzed him and killed his parents, because she tried to run away from home and was driving her mom's car when she was like ten years old and she crashed into Isaac's family's car. Also, he always remembered seeing her, but he blocked out the memory? Whatever. I'm not sure that this is a realistic reason for someone to develop BIID, but okay, the ridiculous part is: Isaac confronts Fiona and she tells him that he's not actually a paraplegic and he just has a hysterical condition because he felt guilty that his parents died. Isaac gets really mad and tries to jump out of his chair and attack her, and falls down because he's not used to walking, but as he's lying on the ground Fiona sees his legs moving, and the movie ends with Isaac (presumably now ambulatory) on fake-NPR telling the story and saying how he never saw Fiona again.
This bothers me, because I think I can only accept the disability-as-metaphor thing (instead of finding it weird and offensive when Isaac is "cured" by the shoes) if the movie is not supposed to be realistic. If the shoes are actually magic, then I think the story can be a fairy tale or a parable or something. I think it would be cool if the movie ended with Isaac paralyzing Fiona and then being able to walk without a cane. That kind of thing.
But instead, the surprise ending is that it's actually not magic. First of all this just bothers me because it means that in a movie that uses paraplegia as a symbol and a theme, there are no paraplegic main characters. I don't like this because I think that if you're going to use a minority group like lesbians or paraplegics to enhance your genre movie, you should acknowledge that we/they actually exist outside of genre. Does that make sense? I feel like the movie is offensive if Isaac isn't actually paraplegic because it's acting like paraplegia is just a distant theoretical thing.
And also, I just thought it cheapened the story and was a Big Surprise Ending that wasn't really supported by any previous events or by anything we knew about Isaac.
So, in conclusion, there are some reasons to think that this movie is offensive and/or dumb, but I am glad that Nick Stahl is so good-looking because I probably wouldn't have watched it otherwise and I mostly enjoyed it, and thought it was more interesting than most movies about people with disabilities.
--ontdmadmen "Shut the Door, Have a Seat" thread
This quote is actually not related to my post which is about another boy I have a crush on, Nick Stahl!
I am just being lazy and using a picture I already uploaded to Photobucket in July when I was obsessed with Carnivale. Nick Stahl has this facial expression in almost every minute of every episode of that show. But in the movie Quid Pro Quo, which I watched last night, it turns out that he can make other expressions, too.
Quid Pro Quo is a movie about a guy who works for a euphemism for NPR. He wants to do a story about able-bodied people who would prefer to be paralyzed or amputees. (In real life this is called Body Integrity Identity Disorder.) He meets with a woman who claims to know someone who has BIID, but she's really talking about herself, duh. He has paraplegia from a car accident when he was a kid, so the woman kind of has a crush on him and asks him for advice about how to use a wheelchair and stuff. Also he has a crush on her too? And they have sex? And he finds this pair of shoes that un-paralyze him when he puts them on, and he starts walking with braces and then a cane. And the woman is more and more mysterious and depressed and tells him that she wants him to help her become a paraplegic.
Yeah. The very end of this movie has a twist that really annoyed me because I thought it was cheap and just not necessary and unbelievable. I think the thing about the movie is that because it's kind of a genre film--magic realism/noir/ish--the disabilities become thematic elements, if that makes sense.
It's hard to explain what I mean by this but basically, if you have read Fingersmith or Affinity by Sarah Waters, or seen the movies, they're both gothic thrillers centered on lesbian relationships. Because of the genre, and the way that lesbianism has historically been used in that genre, I think the lesbianism comes off as kind of creepy and gothic itself in both stories; it comes off as something that adds to the theme. And I can see how some people would think this is offensive, because you could say that lesbianism is being used as a trope or a symbol. But personally, I really like it, because when lesbianism is being used a genre thing, it means that you get more interesting lesbian stories, and you get lesbian stories that aren't issue stories about coming out or something. Another example of what I'm talking about is Mullholland Drive.
Anyway, in Quid Pro Quo I feel like Isaac fits better as a noir hero because he looks different from other people when he's going down the street, and because he's experienced discrimination. And then later, disability moves around in a dreamlike way--as Isaac becomes physically better, Fiona becomes mentally worse--general art movie stuff, not trying to do a realistic portrayal of bodies and brains, but kind of messing around with bodies and brains to say something about the human condition, or just create a strange story that's aesthetically pleasing. Quid pro quo, this in exchange for that; the idea that there's some kind of cosmic bargain, or some symmetry, where people like Isaac wish they could walk and people like Fiona wish they couldn't, and it's possible to tap into that pattern, somehow. This is how I would like to think of the movie, and although I know some people just 100% wouldn't like the fact that disability is used as an aesthetic thing or a metaphor, and I understand why--well, I think it's a more interesting story about disability than the straight issue movies that usually get made. And also Isaac is just a cool character because he's basically nice and competent without being boring or "inspirational," and he's allowed to complain about ableism without being an "angry" character.
But okay, would you like to hear the end? SPOILER:
Isaac figures out that Fiona is the person who paralyzed him and killed his parents, because she tried to run away from home and was driving her mom's car when she was like ten years old and she crashed into Isaac's family's car. Also, he always remembered seeing her, but he blocked out the memory? Whatever. I'm not sure that this is a realistic reason for someone to develop BIID, but okay, the ridiculous part is: Isaac confronts Fiona and she tells him that he's not actually a paraplegic and he just has a hysterical condition because he felt guilty that his parents died. Isaac gets really mad and tries to jump out of his chair and attack her, and falls down because he's not used to walking, but as he's lying on the ground Fiona sees his legs moving, and the movie ends with Isaac (presumably now ambulatory) on fake-NPR telling the story and saying how he never saw Fiona again.
This bothers me, because I think I can only accept the disability-as-metaphor thing (instead of finding it weird and offensive when Isaac is "cured" by the shoes) if the movie is not supposed to be realistic. If the shoes are actually magic, then I think the story can be a fairy tale or a parable or something. I think it would be cool if the movie ended with Isaac paralyzing Fiona and then being able to walk without a cane. That kind of thing.
But instead, the surprise ending is that it's actually not magic. First of all this just bothers me because it means that in a movie that uses paraplegia as a symbol and a theme, there are no paraplegic main characters. I don't like this because I think that if you're going to use a minority group like lesbians or paraplegics to enhance your genre movie, you should acknowledge that we/they actually exist outside of genre. Does that make sense? I feel like the movie is offensive if Isaac isn't actually paraplegic because it's acting like paraplegia is just a distant theoretical thing.
And also, I just thought it cheapened the story and was a Big Surprise Ending that wasn't really supported by any previous events or by anything we knew about Isaac.
So, in conclusion, there are some reasons to think that this movie is offensive and/or dumb, but I am glad that Nick Stahl is so good-looking because I probably wouldn't have watched it otherwise and I mostly enjoyed it, and thought it was more interesting than most movies about people with disabilities.
10 December, 2009
Manners
I just finished my Latin exam. Having done the math, I think it's pretty likely that I just scraped by. Literally, like I got one point above failing. Does this matter? Not at all.
It's time for another edition of Kartheiser is Magic, but in this case, it's a segue into an actual disability-related topic! Hooray!
[In response to the statement that he seems younger in real life than he does on the show] "I actually have been through a lot more in my life than Pete has. I think Pete is less of a man than me. The difference in the visual is that Pete had a finishing-school upbringing. I'm an actor, so part of my job is looking like a bum. So I think manners and age are being confused here."
YES VINCENT KARTHEISER! THANKS FOR BEING SO FUCKING COOL ALL THE TIME! Manners are not age. And the fact that people think they are smacks me in the face about a million times a day.
I sometimes have very Pollyanna-ish reactions to things. This is both because of ordinary ASD sensitivity to details, and because of the nature of my scripting. As I think I've previously said, it used to be very hard for me to do things like buy candy bars, ask for directions, or, well, anything. I felt overwhelmed by the task because I knew that as well as the stated task there were lots of other secret implied tasks about my tone of voice and the way my face should be looking. (If you think this isn't true, you're just stupid. Go to a sandwich shop and use nonstandard tone and body language and have trouble processing and making decisions while you are ordering your sandwich. The people at the sandwich stop will be super happy to point out, verbally or with body language, everything that's wrong with what you're doing. Or, if you have a very serious, tense expression on your face because you're trying to make decisions fast to not inconvenience them, they'll ask if you're okay.)
Anyway, everything was such a big challenge that it was hard to do anything, so I figured out the solution of acting really excited and optimistic and young and innocent. This is a very simple persona that lends itself to easy scripting. When you are buying a candy bar you just think to yourself how excited you are about the candy bar and focus on expressing that. When you are asking for directions you try to be cute and make a joke out of how young you are. Suddenly, in the space of like a year, the amount of things I was able to do increased a huge amount.
Previously, I had found it very hard to talk in class or ask teachers for help because I didn't know how to talk or look. Now, I approached teachers with a persona of being young and adorably baffled--a persona that was partly sincere, but could also be used to humorous effect if the teacher was the joking kind. I had an easier time talking in class because if I had trouble understanding something, or if I was expressing a lot of ideas and my script broke or wasn't properly set up, I could giggle and make a joke out of it. Once I started scripting, my grades, and my comfort with my teachers and classmates, improved enormously.
I am a bit more academically impaired at Oberlin than I was in high school. Even though Oberlin is a very small and laid-back school, it is not comparable to my high school which had 50 kids in a grade and had a high population of students with learning disabilities. Besides, there's just the fact that for most of the time I was in high school, I was legally a child, and even after my eighteenth birthday I might as well have been. It seemed more natural for my teachers to have a motherly or fatherly relationship to me. In college, I am expected to some extent to behave like an adult, and if I come to a professor's office hours acting ditzy and young, they might think I am annoying, unmotivated, or manipulative. So at Oberlin, I have to be doing pretty badly to go see a professor, unless they have a very casual, accepting attitude (like most of the classics professors). The only professor I am actually close to in an admissions brochure sort of way, like I've been to her house, used to forget to come to class sometimes--so she's someone I can feel completely safe with. All in all, I still do a lot better than was expected of me.
Sometimes people say that I am immature or use words like "crazy," "insane," "annoying," and "obnoxious" to describe the way I am. Also, when they notice that I am apologizing a lot or putting a lot of concentration into figuring out how to do something right, they tell me not to be so nervous, to have more confidence, or not to be so insecure. All these words imply that I am an unfinished person. Either I am unpleasant or annoying, and I should improve myself so I won't bother people, or I am incomplete on a deeper level--inappropriately anxious and self-hating. If I stop being a person who can be described with all these words, then I will be an adult.
While I have been in the UK, I have not made very much use of the Pollyanna persona. I feel that I don't know the culture well enough to know if it will be appropriate or if it will be annoying. When I am buying things, I mostly make use of something I taught myself to do at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, where people are always staring at my hair:
If there is any downtime while I'm waiting for my sandwich to be made or my groceries to be rung up, I simply mentally remove myself from the situation and try to stim out on some band posters or ceiling lights. That way no one thinks about me at all. The only problem is when the other person tries to be friendly. Niyatee was trying to explain to me that when the lady at the burrito store guesses what kind of burrito I'm going to order, she isn't trying to a)mess up my script and b)make me feel guilty about my repetitive eating habits. I still feel scared about going to the burrito store, though.
I don't ask my professors for help because it might be annoying and as a result I got very behind in two of my classes and will be very close to failing them if I don't fail completely.
I haven't struck anyone as crazy, obnoxious, immature, adorable, otherworldly, or any of the other things I am called, because I barely talk to people at all and when I do I am nervous and blank. I say what I'm required to say and then feel it wasn't good enough.
It is hard for me to go anywhere or do anything because I don't feel I have a system for how.
When I go home, when I pick up a lot of jangly exclamations and interrupt myself in the middle of my sentences, when I raise my hand and preface my question with, "I know this is really stupid, and maybe I shouldn't even be in this class if I don't know this, but," when I stick out my hand towards people to say hello to them, when I skid around and call everyone "kids" and act incredibly delighted about yogurt-covered pretzels at the student cafe, when I eat snow and lie down on the floor because I have kyphosis and accidentally start stimmily running across campus because I feel hopeful and happy coming out of my ExCo on a cold starry night, I will be a person who is accomplished and capable in a lot of ways. I will be more of an adult when I am a quirkfest than I am now that I am paralyzed by a desire to be unseen. To be inoffensive. I feel calcified here, but with worse manners I can really make something of myself.
It's time for another edition of Kartheiser is Magic, but in this case, it's a segue into an actual disability-related topic! Hooray!
[In response to the statement that he seems younger in real life than he does on the show] "I actually have been through a lot more in my life than Pete has. I think Pete is less of a man than me. The difference in the visual is that Pete had a finishing-school upbringing. I'm an actor, so part of my job is looking like a bum. So I think manners and age are being confused here."
YES VINCENT KARTHEISER! THANKS FOR BEING SO FUCKING COOL ALL THE TIME! Manners are not age. And the fact that people think they are smacks me in the face about a million times a day.
I sometimes have very Pollyanna-ish reactions to things. This is both because of ordinary ASD sensitivity to details, and because of the nature of my scripting. As I think I've previously said, it used to be very hard for me to do things like buy candy bars, ask for directions, or, well, anything. I felt overwhelmed by the task because I knew that as well as the stated task there were lots of other secret implied tasks about my tone of voice and the way my face should be looking. (If you think this isn't true, you're just stupid. Go to a sandwich shop and use nonstandard tone and body language and have trouble processing and making decisions while you are ordering your sandwich. The people at the sandwich stop will be super happy to point out, verbally or with body language, everything that's wrong with what you're doing. Or, if you have a very serious, tense expression on your face because you're trying to make decisions fast to not inconvenience them, they'll ask if you're okay.)
Anyway, everything was such a big challenge that it was hard to do anything, so I figured out the solution of acting really excited and optimistic and young and innocent. This is a very simple persona that lends itself to easy scripting. When you are buying a candy bar you just think to yourself how excited you are about the candy bar and focus on expressing that. When you are asking for directions you try to be cute and make a joke out of how young you are. Suddenly, in the space of like a year, the amount of things I was able to do increased a huge amount.
Previously, I had found it very hard to talk in class or ask teachers for help because I didn't know how to talk or look. Now, I approached teachers with a persona of being young and adorably baffled--a persona that was partly sincere, but could also be used to humorous effect if the teacher was the joking kind. I had an easier time talking in class because if I had trouble understanding something, or if I was expressing a lot of ideas and my script broke or wasn't properly set up, I could giggle and make a joke out of it. Once I started scripting, my grades, and my comfort with my teachers and classmates, improved enormously.
I am a bit more academically impaired at Oberlin than I was in high school. Even though Oberlin is a very small and laid-back school, it is not comparable to my high school which had 50 kids in a grade and had a high population of students with learning disabilities. Besides, there's just the fact that for most of the time I was in high school, I was legally a child, and even after my eighteenth birthday I might as well have been. It seemed more natural for my teachers to have a motherly or fatherly relationship to me. In college, I am expected to some extent to behave like an adult, and if I come to a professor's office hours acting ditzy and young, they might think I am annoying, unmotivated, or manipulative. So at Oberlin, I have to be doing pretty badly to go see a professor, unless they have a very casual, accepting attitude (like most of the classics professors). The only professor I am actually close to in an admissions brochure sort of way, like I've been to her house, used to forget to come to class sometimes--so she's someone I can feel completely safe with. All in all, I still do a lot better than was expected of me.
Sometimes people say that I am immature or use words like "crazy," "insane," "annoying," and "obnoxious" to describe the way I am. Also, when they notice that I am apologizing a lot or putting a lot of concentration into figuring out how to do something right, they tell me not to be so nervous, to have more confidence, or not to be so insecure. All these words imply that I am an unfinished person. Either I am unpleasant or annoying, and I should improve myself so I won't bother people, or I am incomplete on a deeper level--inappropriately anxious and self-hating. If I stop being a person who can be described with all these words, then I will be an adult.
While I have been in the UK, I have not made very much use of the Pollyanna persona. I feel that I don't know the culture well enough to know if it will be appropriate or if it will be annoying. When I am buying things, I mostly make use of something I taught myself to do at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, where people are always staring at my hair:
If there is any downtime while I'm waiting for my sandwich to be made or my groceries to be rung up, I simply mentally remove myself from the situation and try to stim out on some band posters or ceiling lights. That way no one thinks about me at all. The only problem is when the other person tries to be friendly. Niyatee was trying to explain to me that when the lady at the burrito store guesses what kind of burrito I'm going to order, she isn't trying to a)mess up my script and b)make me feel guilty about my repetitive eating habits. I still feel scared about going to the burrito store, though.
I don't ask my professors for help because it might be annoying and as a result I got very behind in two of my classes and will be very close to failing them if I don't fail completely.
I haven't struck anyone as crazy, obnoxious, immature, adorable, otherworldly, or any of the other things I am called, because I barely talk to people at all and when I do I am nervous and blank. I say what I'm required to say and then feel it wasn't good enough.
It is hard for me to go anywhere or do anything because I don't feel I have a system for how.
When I go home, when I pick up a lot of jangly exclamations and interrupt myself in the middle of my sentences, when I raise my hand and preface my question with, "I know this is really stupid, and maybe I shouldn't even be in this class if I don't know this, but," when I stick out my hand towards people to say hello to them, when I skid around and call everyone "kids" and act incredibly delighted about yogurt-covered pretzels at the student cafe, when I eat snow and lie down on the floor because I have kyphosis and accidentally start stimmily running across campus because I feel hopeful and happy coming out of my ExCo on a cold starry night, I will be a person who is accomplished and capable in a lot of ways. I will be more of an adult when I am a quirkfest than I am now that I am paralyzed by a desire to be unseen. To be inoffensive. I feel calcified here, but with worse manners I can really make something of myself.
08 December, 2009
07 December, 2009
Some reasons I love Mad Men
by AWV, age 8
(Also, I just want to apologize for this blog. What a mess. First I was just writing it because I thought I should write a blog, and then it started being about Disability Things and I was so excited and felt like I was writing something that was actually worthwhile unlike most of the things I write to distract myself, and I just feel bad because I've been posting about such dumb things lately. I think the approximately four people who read/were reading the blog were probably reading it because of my previous posts that were actually interesting and about things that matter. So I am sorry. On the plus side, I'm going home on December 15, and once I'm home I won't need to distract myself, so I will probably only post here when I actually have something to say.)
Anyway, here are some reasons I love Mad Men, by AWV, age 8.
1. PETE. Except, my reason isn't actually Pete. I think that Pete is just the best example of my favorite thing about the show, which is the fact that no one is used as a device and every character is developed as a real person. People (including me) are always complaining about how offensive Glee is, but in addition to being offensive, it's offensively lazy. There are a few characters the writers actually care about and treat in a realistic way, but a lot of them are just devices. The way Terri acts doesn't make sense. The way Mercedes acts doesn't make sense. But worse, they're boring because you can see that they aren't being written with love.
Every major character on Mad Men is written with love. Pete is not a nice person and in the first season he is the antagonist to the "heroes," Don and Peggy. But he is written with so much love that he could never be just a villain. He's funny, sad, mean, tender, devious, and inappropriately genuine. People love this character.
Because I can't stop at just one example, I give you Sal. A fun fact about offensively lazy writing is that it is often the regular kind of offensive, too. Using gay men as devices is a trope with a long history, and at first Sal seems like yet another example of a gay character who exists to provide comic relief--in this case, he is funny both because of his campy snarkiness and because he doesn't know he's gay, but we can totally tell, and we can see him trying to pretend he's not gay, but it doesn't work on us, because we're so smart!
"Except," says Mad Men, "if you were gay, and you didn't know you were gay, or you did know but you were afraid to act on it because everyone you knew hated gay people, and you knew you could be fired or even arrested--well, that actually wouldn't be funny, would it?"
Well, no.
2. PETE AGAIN. And Paul. And some other people. This reason is about how the show is super funny without being a comedy. Because it's funny in a diegetic way. Pete and Paul are characters you can laugh at in a mean way. And you can laugh with almost all the characters, because they're witty people. Diegetic humor is super rad because it means you can enjoy the humor on a deeper level than you can in a comedy. My relationship with the characters is serious at the base, so when they are funny, I feel so warm towards them, like I do when my friends are funny. It makes everything funnier.
3. Peggy. Peggy is the actual reason and not the microcosm. She is a girl who doesn't do girl stuff! She seriously didn't understand that she wasn't supposed to be genuinely interested in being a copywriter. I guess this also ties into #1 about all the characters being real people. Even the woman characters are real people! I know!
4. The period stuff is (as far as a baby like myself can tell) really good, and it's used as a setting rather than a plot. For some reason it seems more like science fiction than historical fiction, maybe because it doesn't feel educational. It's a world where things are really different, in an interesting way. Pete and Trudy get married for no apparent reason, and never seriously consider getting divorced even though they make each other miserable for the first few years. Joan thinks she wants to be a housewife even though she obviously doesn't. The way the characters think takes the plot in directions that would never happen on a show set in the modern day, because it just wouldn't make sense.
Are those all the reasons? I guess. I feel a little bad that because the show has such an obvious hook ("it takes place in the 60s!") it is kind of reduced to that, when the realism and love are really more important, and are the main reasons I like it so much.
ETA: I'm not 100% sure, but I think that this article borrowed a phrase from one of my Wikipedia edits. Which is SO COOL. Another cool thing is when you're really obsessed with a band, and they play a song live, and you listen to a video of that song 400 times and try to type out the lyrics as accurately as possible and put them on songmeanings.net, and then when you search for the lyrics a few years later, all the lyrics sites are using a version that is obviously yours, because you were the first to post lyrics for that song on the Internet.
(Also, I just want to apologize for this blog. What a mess. First I was just writing it because I thought I should write a blog, and then it started being about Disability Things and I was so excited and felt like I was writing something that was actually worthwhile unlike most of the things I write to distract myself, and I just feel bad because I've been posting about such dumb things lately. I think the approximately four people who read/were reading the blog were probably reading it because of my previous posts that were actually interesting and about things that matter. So I am sorry. On the plus side, I'm going home on December 15, and once I'm home I won't need to distract myself, so I will probably only post here when I actually have something to say.)
Anyway, here are some reasons I love Mad Men, by AWV, age 8.
1. PETE. Except, my reason isn't actually Pete. I think that Pete is just the best example of my favorite thing about the show, which is the fact that no one is used as a device and every character is developed as a real person. People (including me) are always complaining about how offensive Glee is, but in addition to being offensive, it's offensively lazy. There are a few characters the writers actually care about and treat in a realistic way, but a lot of them are just devices. The way Terri acts doesn't make sense. The way Mercedes acts doesn't make sense. But worse, they're boring because you can see that they aren't being written with love.
Every major character on Mad Men is written with love. Pete is not a nice person and in the first season he is the antagonist to the "heroes," Don and Peggy. But he is written with so much love that he could never be just a villain. He's funny, sad, mean, tender, devious, and inappropriately genuine. People love this character.
Because I can't stop at just one example, I give you Sal. A fun fact about offensively lazy writing is that it is often the regular kind of offensive, too. Using gay men as devices is a trope with a long history, and at first Sal seems like yet another example of a gay character who exists to provide comic relief--in this case, he is funny both because of his campy snarkiness and because he doesn't know he's gay, but we can totally tell, and we can see him trying to pretend he's not gay, but it doesn't work on us, because we're so smart!
"Except," says Mad Men, "if you were gay, and you didn't know you were gay, or you did know but you were afraid to act on it because everyone you knew hated gay people, and you knew you could be fired or even arrested--well, that actually wouldn't be funny, would it?"
Well, no.
2. PETE AGAIN. And Paul. And some other people. This reason is about how the show is super funny without being a comedy. Because it's funny in a diegetic way. Pete and Paul are characters you can laugh at in a mean way. And you can laugh with almost all the characters, because they're witty people. Diegetic humor is super rad because it means you can enjoy the humor on a deeper level than you can in a comedy. My relationship with the characters is serious at the base, so when they are funny, I feel so warm towards them, like I do when my friends are funny. It makes everything funnier.
3. Peggy. Peggy is the actual reason and not the microcosm. She is a girl who doesn't do girl stuff! She seriously didn't understand that she wasn't supposed to be genuinely interested in being a copywriter. I guess this also ties into #1 about all the characters being real people. Even the woman characters are real people! I know!
4. The period stuff is (as far as a baby like myself can tell) really good, and it's used as a setting rather than a plot. For some reason it seems more like science fiction than historical fiction, maybe because it doesn't feel educational. It's a world where things are really different, in an interesting way. Pete and Trudy get married for no apparent reason, and never seriously consider getting divorced even though they make each other miserable for the first few years. Joan thinks she wants to be a housewife even though she obviously doesn't. The way the characters think takes the plot in directions that would never happen on a show set in the modern day, because it just wouldn't make sense.
Are those all the reasons? I guess. I feel a little bad that because the show has such an obvious hook ("it takes place in the 60s!") it is kind of reduced to that, when the realism and love are really more important, and are the main reasons I like it so much.
ETA: I'm not 100% sure, but I think that this article borrowed a phrase from one of my Wikipedia edits. Which is SO COOL. Another cool thing is when you're really obsessed with a band, and they play a song live, and you listen to a video of that song 400 times and try to type out the lyrics as accurately as possible and put them on songmeanings.net, and then when you search for the lyrics a few years later, all the lyrics sites are using a version that is obviously yours, because you were the first to post lyrics for that song on the Internet.
06 December, 2009
30 November, 2009
19 November, 2009
More Mad Men (do I ever stop?)
I'm having a boring argument on Television Without Pity about how Trudy is "enabling" Pete or whatever. I didn't even know how to properly argue about this because enabling is this word with a bunch of connotations that don't actually have to do with the definition so you can't just look it up in the dictionary and argue against that. Because enabling technically means making someone more capable and prepared for things, which is what Trudy is doing. But the way this person means it, I think, is that Trudy is shielding Pete from the consequences of his actions, and (in the poster's words) treating Pete like he's her child.
Okay, number one, who cares if she's treating him like her child? They both seem to like it. They both seem to be doing a lot better than they were in seasons one and two. What's the problem? It's weird? You wouldn't like it? Well, awesome, nobody's forcing you to have that kind of relationship.
Number two, this person seems to have this attitude that help is something you should get because you're a good person and you deserve it, not because you need help. I said, "Pete clearly has some kind of social impairment and has a lot of trouble controlling his emotions, I'm glad Trudy is helping him because he seems to be doing a lot better." The person said, oh, so Pete needs Trudy to keep him from committing rape and adultery?
Well...apparently. I guess I would argue that a combination of ASD and growing up with lots of privilege but no love (actually someone said it really well the other day--Pete was raised to believe that he's entitled to everything, but doesn't deserve anything) have created a person who has a very hard time relating to people, caring about them, understanding cause and effect/delayed gratification, and containing the pretty massive amount of rage that arises from his feeling that he has no control over his life. So, yeah, it's not that unbelievable to me that Pete needs Trudy--a person who genuinely cares about him and understands him, and has very good social skills and can explain to him what's going wrong--to keep from doing things that are fucked up.
Hopefully this won't always be the case. He seems to me to be growing up. He didn't yell at Pryce in 3x12 for example. He is displaying actual affection and loyalty and stuff to Trudy, which makes me flail my hands around with excitement. PETE IS BEING A PERSON!! YAY!!
But, according to this TWoP individual, Pete doesn't deserve to get the help he obviously needs in becoming a person, because he isn't a person now. Okay, cool, he doesn't deserve it, but can't we just be happy for him and the people around him? Trudy wouldn't be wrong to tell Pete he's a shit and she wants nothing to do with him, but everyone else already tried that and it didn't work. Not helping people who need help may be fair in an Ayn Rand sort of way, but I can't bring myself to criticize Trudy for being willing to help Pete grow up.
Okay, number one, who cares if she's treating him like her child? They both seem to like it. They both seem to be doing a lot better than they were in seasons one and two. What's the problem? It's weird? You wouldn't like it? Well, awesome, nobody's forcing you to have that kind of relationship.
Number two, this person seems to have this attitude that help is something you should get because you're a good person and you deserve it, not because you need help. I said, "Pete clearly has some kind of social impairment and has a lot of trouble controlling his emotions, I'm glad Trudy is helping him because he seems to be doing a lot better." The person said, oh, so Pete needs Trudy to keep him from committing rape and adultery?
Well...apparently. I guess I would argue that a combination of ASD and growing up with lots of privilege but no love (actually someone said it really well the other day--Pete was raised to believe that he's entitled to everything, but doesn't deserve anything) have created a person who has a very hard time relating to people, caring about them, understanding cause and effect/delayed gratification, and containing the pretty massive amount of rage that arises from his feeling that he has no control over his life. So, yeah, it's not that unbelievable to me that Pete needs Trudy--a person who genuinely cares about him and understands him, and has very good social skills and can explain to him what's going wrong--to keep from doing things that are fucked up.
Hopefully this won't always be the case. He seems to me to be growing up. He didn't yell at Pryce in 3x12 for example. He is displaying actual affection and loyalty and stuff to Trudy, which makes me flail my hands around with excitement. PETE IS BEING A PERSON!! YAY!!
But, according to this TWoP individual, Pete doesn't deserve to get the help he obviously needs in becoming a person, because he isn't a person now. Okay, cool, he doesn't deserve it, but can't we just be happy for him and the people around him? Trudy wouldn't be wrong to tell Pete he's a shit and she wants nothing to do with him, but everyone else already tried that and it didn't work. Not helping people who need help may be fair in an Ayn Rand sort of way, but I can't bring myself to criticize Trudy for being willing to help Pete grow up.
18 November, 2009
Rewatching the Regular Pete Campbell Show
"She kept looking at the maps and talking about all the places we were going to go...but we never did."--Pete's story about sex
AMAZING.
(Pete calls Don "buddy" and tries to shake hands with him.)
Don: Slow down, I don't want to wake up pregnant.
Pete: fuck you.
AND THE FINEST SCENE EVER:
(Peggy looks around awkwardly as Pete comes over to her in his giant neon suit and then smiles at him for a really long period of time.)
Pete: I'm back.
Peggy: I see that.
Pete: So...I should be on the list for the meeting.
Peggy: Oh! I just...didn't know when you were coming back.
Pete: Right... (in a weird jolly voice) Yeah, well, it's today, here I am! (creepy fake laugh)
Peggy: They're all in there already. You can go in.
(Pete shuffles around awkwardly and Peggy looks up at him with a repressed amused/happy expression on her face. I think. That's how I would feel, at least.)
Pete: Peggy--when I came over, that night, you know, before...
Peggy: I was there. (Awesome! I love that Peggy is only funny with Pete. This has actually more or less continued to be true, except she's funny with her mom and sister sometimes. The rest of the time she's an AWKWARD TURTLE.)
Pete: You know...I'm married now.
Peggy: I know.
Pete: So...
(AAAAWKWARD. Pete stands there looking like an 8-year-old. Peggy looks at him for a while.)
Peggy: (very slowly) Pete. I understand. It never happened.
People act like when Peggy had a crush on Pete she didn't understand what a loser he is but I absolutely don't think that's true, I think she has always found him unintentionally hilarious and she used to be in a position where she could afford to appreciate that, but she isn't anymore because she had to grow up and he didn't.
(Then Pete goes into the meeting and makes a joke and when everyone laughs, he looks like super awkwardly pleased with himself and rolls his little shoulders around. I love this show.)
AMAZING.
(Pete calls Don "buddy" and tries to shake hands with him.)
Don: Slow down, I don't want to wake up pregnant.
Pete: fuck you.
AND THE FINEST SCENE EVER:
(Peggy looks around awkwardly as Pete comes over to her in his giant neon suit and then smiles at him for a really long period of time.)
Pete: I'm back.
Peggy: I see that.
Pete: So...I should be on the list for the meeting.
Peggy: Oh! I just...didn't know when you were coming back.
Pete: Right... (in a weird jolly voice) Yeah, well, it's today, here I am! (creepy fake laugh)
Peggy: They're all in there already. You can go in.
(Pete shuffles around awkwardly and Peggy looks up at him with a repressed amused/happy expression on her face. I think. That's how I would feel, at least.)
Pete: Peggy--when I came over, that night, you know, before...
Peggy: I was there. (Awesome! I love that Peggy is only funny with Pete. This has actually more or less continued to be true, except she's funny with her mom and sister sometimes. The rest of the time she's an AWKWARD TURTLE.)
Pete: You know...I'm married now.
Peggy: I know.
Pete: So...
(AAAAWKWARD. Pete stands there looking like an 8-year-old. Peggy looks at him for a while.)
Peggy: (very slowly) Pete. I understand. It never happened.
People act like when Peggy had a crush on Pete she didn't understand what a loser he is but I absolutely don't think that's true, I think she has always found him unintentionally hilarious and she used to be in a position where she could afford to appreciate that, but she isn't anymore because she had to grow up and he didn't.
(Then Pete goes into the meeting and makes a joke and when everyone laughs, he looks like super awkwardly pleased with himself and rolls his little shoulders around. I love this show.)
Final Thoughts on Video Game Pete Campbell
So, I finished the Video Game Pete Campbell Show the other morning. Because I watched it all out of order, the last episode I watched was the season three finale which led me to ponder the question, didn't Connor smell like Holtz after hugging him and decapitating him and stuff, and if Angel is always able to snarkily announce that people are having sex with each other, shouldn't he have been able to realize that Connor was lying when he said he hadn't seen Holtz. WHATEVER ANGEL YOU ARE TIRESOME.
All-in-all, I enjoyed VGPCS. Angel was obviously beginning to fall into the slump that Joss Whedon lets everything fall into when he gets distracted by something else, but it's not like later seasons of Buffy or anything like that. It's certainly enjoyable to watch.
On Basket of Kisses, the very best Mad Men website, they once had a post that was like "how can Vincent Kartheiser have been so incredibly terrible as Connor/Video Game Pete Campbell, and yet be so delightful as Regular Pete Campbell?" Okay. I take issue with this. I enjoy VGPC but he has to be the most repetitive, underdeveloped character in the history of the world. I think VK at least makes him interesting to watch. On Basket of Kisses, someone was like "I didn't think Connor acted like he was in pain." Well, what would that even mean? I'm sure he wasn't raised to go around crying all the time. The way VK moves and talks on Angel is so odd and that alone gets across the pain for me; like, the way he reacts when people touch him, and just his general quality of not really being there in the same way as everyone else.
I sort of think VGPC should have surprised everyone with his goodness at the end of season four, which has nothing to do with me being attached to him. In fact, when I watched the Jasmine episodes (remember I was watching the show out of order), I was like "oh, this is so cool, everyone thought that Angel's crazy son was okay now, but he's actually still pretty unbalanced in a way that no one suspected, and now he's all of the sudden their enemy because he thinks that Gina Torres eating people is a good time. Oh wow, Angel's going to have to kill him because he's crazy, this is so sad."
But then when I went back and watched more season four episodes, I was like wait, this is what his character was like for the whole season. He was just like "I'M CRAZY AND I'LL DO ANYTHING FOR ATTENTION." It got to the point that when Cordelia would be like "Of course I love you and think you're special, now go kill a baby" I would just start laughing because it was like "Oh Connor, there you go again." Like, when Connor totally goes along with all her evil plans, are you supposed to be surprised, because I can't imagine being surprised the way he's characterized the whole season. I just think it's unfortunate. I was so excited to watch the Video Game Pete Campbell show, but it turned out to be one episode repeated 26 times.
All-in-all, I enjoyed VGPCS. Angel was obviously beginning to fall into the slump that Joss Whedon lets everything fall into when he gets distracted by something else, but it's not like later seasons of Buffy or anything like that. It's certainly enjoyable to watch.
On Basket of Kisses, the very best Mad Men website, they once had a post that was like "how can Vincent Kartheiser have been so incredibly terrible as Connor/Video Game Pete Campbell, and yet be so delightful as Regular Pete Campbell?" Okay. I take issue with this. I enjoy VGPC but he has to be the most repetitive, underdeveloped character in the history of the world. I think VK at least makes him interesting to watch. On Basket of Kisses, someone was like "I didn't think Connor acted like he was in pain." Well, what would that even mean? I'm sure he wasn't raised to go around crying all the time. The way VK moves and talks on Angel is so odd and that alone gets across the pain for me; like, the way he reacts when people touch him, and just his general quality of not really being there in the same way as everyone else.
I sort of think VGPC should have surprised everyone with his goodness at the end of season four, which has nothing to do with me being attached to him. In fact, when I watched the Jasmine episodes (remember I was watching the show out of order), I was like "oh, this is so cool, everyone thought that Angel's crazy son was okay now, but he's actually still pretty unbalanced in a way that no one suspected, and now he's all of the sudden their enemy because he thinks that Gina Torres eating people is a good time. Oh wow, Angel's going to have to kill him because he's crazy, this is so sad."
But then when I went back and watched more season four episodes, I was like wait, this is what his character was like for the whole season. He was just like "I'M CRAZY AND I'LL DO ANYTHING FOR ATTENTION." It got to the point that when Cordelia would be like "Of course I love you and think you're special, now go kill a baby" I would just start laughing because it was like "Oh Connor, there you go again." Like, when Connor totally goes along with all her evil plans, are you supposed to be surprised, because I can't imagine being surprised the way he's characterized the whole season. I just think it's unfortunate. I was so excited to watch the Video Game Pete Campbell show, but it turned out to be one episode repeated 26 times.
14 November, 2009
fictional characters
who strike me as having ASD and/or who I identify with as an ASD person without actually thinking that they have an ASD.
1. MAD MEN of course has Pete and Peggy, who pass in different ways, who compensate in different ways, who "improve" in different ways and are attracted and repulsed by each other for precisely that reason.
2. HARRY POTTER--Luna in a conventional way (i.e. she strikes me as actually having ASD). She was the first person I was exposed to that dumb conversation about, because Luna said something nice to Harry one time and real ASD people don't ever say anything nice or helpful, according to the people in that conversation. Also, Luna dresses weirdly because she likes to, while real ASD people dress weirdly because they don't know any better. Tiresome, because she's actually perfect as a realistic example of an ASD person, and I wish more intentionally ASD characters were like her.
I don't really think Neville has ASD, but he is my favorite character and it's easy to identify with the way life is a battle for him while he's in school. There's a really good fic, Night-blooming Heartsease, which really powerfully articulates the kind of determination I had to develop as a teenager--and yeah okay, it's slash, and has a pairing that squicks a lot of people out, but seriously, just read it anyway, you won't even care it's that good.
3. ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT--Buster of course! His impairments are probably caused by his upbringing and not something neurological, but I've always found him easy to relate to. For a while it was easiest to just explain myself by saying, "I'm young for my age." Although I don't have all the trouble with things like taking buses that I used to have (not as much, anyway), I used to just tell people, "Yeah, so I'm basically the real-life Buster Bluth." It made things a lot easier. I think that Tony Hale makes some acting choices, in terms of mannerisms, that make Buster read as someone with a developmental disability, but I don't know if this was a conscious decision.
4. FIREFLY--River Tam, especially in "Objects in Space." Again I don't think she is really ASD, but I love the message of that episode, which to me is about how the crew try to judge River's sanity and morality based on the things she does that they read as "crazy" or "odd," like picking up the gun, or having (in Kaylee's eyes) the wrong kind of affect after shooting people. She doesn't see context, she just sees objects in space. Then we have Jubal Early who also doesn't see context but is completely different--River sees guns as pretty objects, and Early sees "ordinary" objects as weapons, he sees the cheerfully, guilelessly sexual Kaylee as someone he can cow with the threat of rape. So I think the story is supposed to be, context-blindness and being evil or unstable are not the same thing. River is odd and good.
5. SPACED--Brian! I really love him because usually when you are diagnosing fictional characters, you have to go on social interaction alone, but Brian actually has the mannerisms and postures of an ASD person. Well, this ASD person, anyway. And like Luna and River and Buster, he is a good person, just different, which is nice to see.
I'm sure I'm forgetting someone. A lot of people, actually. But whatever.
1. MAD MEN of course has Pete and Peggy, who pass in different ways, who compensate in different ways, who "improve" in different ways and are attracted and repulsed by each other for precisely that reason.
2. HARRY POTTER--Luna in a conventional way (i.e. she strikes me as actually having ASD). She was the first person I was exposed to that dumb conversation about, because Luna said something nice to Harry one time and real ASD people don't ever say anything nice or helpful, according to the people in that conversation. Also, Luna dresses weirdly because she likes to, while real ASD people dress weirdly because they don't know any better. Tiresome, because she's actually perfect as a realistic example of an ASD person, and I wish more intentionally ASD characters were like her.
I don't really think Neville has ASD, but he is my favorite character and it's easy to identify with the way life is a battle for him while he's in school. There's a really good fic, Night-blooming Heartsease, which really powerfully articulates the kind of determination I had to develop as a teenager--and yeah okay, it's slash, and has a pairing that squicks a lot of people out, but seriously, just read it anyway, you won't even care it's that good.
3. ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT--Buster of course! His impairments are probably caused by his upbringing and not something neurological, but I've always found him easy to relate to. For a while it was easiest to just explain myself by saying, "I'm young for my age." Although I don't have all the trouble with things like taking buses that I used to have (not as much, anyway), I used to just tell people, "Yeah, so I'm basically the real-life Buster Bluth." It made things a lot easier. I think that Tony Hale makes some acting choices, in terms of mannerisms, that make Buster read as someone with a developmental disability, but I don't know if this was a conscious decision.
4. FIREFLY--River Tam, especially in "Objects in Space." Again I don't think she is really ASD, but I love the message of that episode, which to me is about how the crew try to judge River's sanity and morality based on the things she does that they read as "crazy" or "odd," like picking up the gun, or having (in Kaylee's eyes) the wrong kind of affect after shooting people. She doesn't see context, she just sees objects in space. Then we have Jubal Early who also doesn't see context but is completely different--River sees guns as pretty objects, and Early sees "ordinary" objects as weapons, he sees the cheerfully, guilelessly sexual Kaylee as someone he can cow with the threat of rape. So I think the story is supposed to be, context-blindness and being evil or unstable are not the same thing. River is odd and good.
5. SPACED--Brian! I really love him because usually when you are diagnosing fictional characters, you have to go on social interaction alone, but Brian actually has the mannerisms and postures of an ASD person. Well, this ASD person, anyway. And like Luna and River and Buster, he is a good person, just different, which is nice to see.
I'm sure I'm forgetting someone. A lot of people, actually. But whatever.
Privilege + ASD
This is something I said to someone in the comments of my Mad Men Asperger's post on livejournal, about Fuck Pete Campbell and its ilk:
I don't know, I mean I'm white so I feel like it's not really my place to say how people who aren't white should feel; I don't know if I would enjoy watching the show if I wasn't white. And I think that having a lot of privilege and being really unhappy about it is sometimes hard to sympathize with if you don't have privilege. For example, as a gay person I tend to get pretty bored when straight people complain about how hard it is being straight.
Also (I think I wrote about this a bit in the original post, or intended to) it's interesting to think about how different Asperger's looks in different people. For example with women you can't really tell. It seems pretty likely to me that this is because society comes down harder on women who have bad social skills. And it's probably the same with people of color. I mean, Pete's life is crappy now, but if he was a black guy in the 60s with the kind of social skills and temper he has, his family would probably be scared that something would happen to him; like, something violent. (I also think that they'd have more of a sense of him having a disability, even if they didn't call it that. I wonder if he would be sort of a family responsibility, like "shit, who's going to take care of Pete now that so-and-so died.") The way I'm writing this essay comes off as a little anti-Peggy, but of course it's totally not her fault. Peggy would have been fired if she acted like Pete. Peggy sure doesn't have the option of muddling around until she meets a nice guy who will devote all his energy to managing her social impairments.
When Pete feels powerless he kicks around women. When Peggy feels powerless--well, she better find another outlet, because she doesn't have anyone to kick around.
I hope it doesn't come off like I'm saying this all in response to what you said, and trying to correct your reaction or something--I just started thinking about it while I was typing. To be honest I do feel personally hurt when I see all this "fuck Pete Campbell" stuff, or just sort of this attitude that guys who pretty clearly have some kind of social impairment are just The Oppressors, and there can't be any more to them than that. I remember seeing this a few years ago in a post about RealDolls. The guy the article was about clearly suffered from a lot of social anxiety that made it hard for him to handle relationships (or even find them), but everyone on this blog was just like "oh, he hates women, he thinks women are untrustworthy." I love Pete, very much, probably more than someone should love a fictional character. I don't want to ignore his privilege but I don't think it's fair to ignore the fact that he has lower status as a disabled person, whether or not other characters consciously perceive him that way.
I don't know, I mean I'm white so I feel like it's not really my place to say how people who aren't white should feel; I don't know if I would enjoy watching the show if I wasn't white. And I think that having a lot of privilege and being really unhappy about it is sometimes hard to sympathize with if you don't have privilege. For example, as a gay person I tend to get pretty bored when straight people complain about how hard it is being straight.
Also (I think I wrote about this a bit in the original post, or intended to) it's interesting to think about how different Asperger's looks in different people. For example with women you can't really tell. It seems pretty likely to me that this is because society comes down harder on women who have bad social skills. And it's probably the same with people of color. I mean, Pete's life is crappy now, but if he was a black guy in the 60s with the kind of social skills and temper he has, his family would probably be scared that something would happen to him; like, something violent. (I also think that they'd have more of a sense of him having a disability, even if they didn't call it that. I wonder if he would be sort of a family responsibility, like "shit, who's going to take care of Pete now that so-and-so died.") The way I'm writing this essay comes off as a little anti-Peggy, but of course it's totally not her fault. Peggy would have been fired if she acted like Pete. Peggy sure doesn't have the option of muddling around until she meets a nice guy who will devote all his energy to managing her social impairments.
When Pete feels powerless he kicks around women. When Peggy feels powerless--well, she better find another outlet, because she doesn't have anyone to kick around.
I hope it doesn't come off like I'm saying this all in response to what you said, and trying to correct your reaction or something--I just started thinking about it while I was typing. To be honest I do feel personally hurt when I see all this "fuck Pete Campbell" stuff, or just sort of this attitude that guys who pretty clearly have some kind of social impairment are just The Oppressors, and there can't be any more to them than that. I remember seeing this a few years ago in a post about RealDolls. The guy the article was about clearly suffered from a lot of social anxiety that made it hard for him to handle relationships (or even find them), but everyone on this blog was just like "oh, he hates women, he thinks women are untrustworthy." I love Pete, very much, probably more than someone should love a fictional character. I don't want to ignore his privilege but I don't think it's fair to ignore the fact that he has lower status as a disabled person, whether or not other characters consciously perceive him that way.
12 November, 2009
Okay Glee, you have redeemed yourself a little
This morning's episode of Glee was some parts good, one part terrible, and one part better than I would ever have expected.
First off, I want to explain what my problem with the show was in the first place. It definitely wasn't any one line or event. It was just that certain characters were not written morally. And when I talk about writing morally, I don't mean the characters need to be nice; I mean the writer needs to think about the characters the way people should think about other people in real life. Realizing that everyone is complicated, everyone has reasons for what they do, no one thinks of themselves as a villain or comic relief. The thing about writing morally is that it's the same thing as writing well. So for me, when Glee is offensive and when it's a low-quality show, it's both of those things at the same time.
The opposite goes for Mad Men. It's a really high-quality show and it also never offends me. Characters do offensive things, but I never get the impression that this reflects the writers' ignorance. And more importantly, characters who in lesser shows might be reduced to villains or comic relief, or something else less than human, are treated with respect. While we might sometimes see them as funny or villainous, we also see that they take themselves seriously and are doing what they think they have to do.
Anyway. Aspects of Glee from worst to best:
1. Sue Sylvester lets a girl with Down's Syndrome on the Cheerios and is mean to her. Will thinks Sue is being mean, but Sue says she's treating the girl like everyone else. Will wonders why Sue would do something so un-Sue-ish. Then we find out that Sue has a sister with Down's Syndrome who she's very close with.
This was a pretty good example of how the people who write Glee decide to take on issues that they have absolutely no knowledge of and aren't interested in learning about. The characters with Down's Syndrome behave like four-year-olds; Becky, the teenager, walks around holding hands with her friend and is manipulated into buying a cupcake. (Why couldn't Becky just decide to buy a cupcake because it's a nice thing to do?) Sue's sister, a middle-aged woman, enjoys having Sue read Little Red Riding Hood to her. Also, she apparently spends all her time in bed at a place that I think is a hospital, and this is portrayed as normal. If Sue's sister has a significant disability, which I guess she does, I would expect her to live in a group home with other disabled people--not just lie in bed waiting for her sister.
Becky is a perfect example of a character being used as a device instead of being human. Becky has almost no lines and we know nothing about her except that she wants to be a cheerleader. Also, the actress who plays her is terrible (at least I'm pretty sure she is; she has so little to do that it's hard to figure out what she should be doing). There's also the fact that she is in no way qualified to be a cheerleader. Why couldn't Becky have been a good, or even decent, cheerleader? Why did she have to be so clumsy that Sue's letting her on the squad must be interpreted as an act of pity?
I was actually excited when I found out that someone with Down's Syndrome was going to be on the show, but this ended up being by far the worst aspect of the episode.
2. Rachel is told she will get to sing "Defying Gravity," but Kurt wants to sing it instead. He complains to his dad, who is very macho and doesn't understand Kurt's interests, but is supportive of him nonetheless. His dad threatens the school, saying it's homophobic and sexist to not give Kurt a chance to sing the song. So Kurt and Rachel each get to perform the song, and the glee club will vote on who sings it better. Kurt can sing just as high as Rachel, but at the last minute he intentionally screws up, because someone called his dad and said "your son's a fag." Kurt explains to his dad that he is used to homophobia, but his dad isn't, and he doesn't want to be so visibly gay that his dad will have to experience harassment.
This was really good; I like Kurt. He's very stereotypical, but it doesn't bother me because he is human. I feel the same way about Tara from True Blood (maybe I'll post about her another time). I liked that we saw how being gay affects Kurt, and how even though he's really feminine, he can actually be stronger than a masculine guy like his dad.
3. ARTIE!!! This was fantastic. Will says they should have a bake sale to afford an accessible bus, but all the other people in glee club say that Artie doesn't mind being driven to things by his dad. In fact, Artie does mind, but doesn't want to make a fuss. Will sees how hurt Artie feels, and inexplicably has enough money to buy wheelchairs for the whole glee club which he makes them use for three hours every day. He also makes them dance in the wheelchairs. When the other kids have to deal with how inaccessible the school is, how people don't look at them, and how hard it is to dance in a wheelchair, they respect Artie more and work hard on the bake sale. When they end up raising the money, Artie says they should use it to make the school accessible instead, because that will help future disabled students, instead of just helping him.
Also, Artie and Tina obviously have a crush on each other, and two or three times during the episode, Tina tells Artie how much she admires him. Each time, Artie replies, "Oh, well, you have a stutter, so you understand having to overcome something." The last time this happens (after they've just kissed for the first time), Tina tells Artie that she doesn't really have a stutter, and has just been faking it for years because she's shy and it makes people leave her alone. She says that now she's become more confident and wants to stop pretending to stutter. Artie gets really mad at her for faking, and says something like, "You get to be normal now but I'm stuck in this chair for the rest of my life."
I loved, loved, loved this. Artie has never been developed at all, but now that they've finally developed him, they did a really good job. He's very kind and mature for his age, but also justifiably angry about the way people treat him. I think it's common sometimes for people who are minorities to go with the flow and appear unruffled by things, but actually be really angry on another level that they don't show to most people because it's not practical. This is probably especially the case for people who have disabilities that require support; we don't want to offend anyone in case we end up having to ask that person for help. Artie saw Tina as being on another level from other people, someone who could understand, and I think it's because of that that he feels so betrayed and expresses really negative emotions about being in a wheelchair, which I'm not sure he would express to most other people.
Maybe some people would find Artie's negativity offensive, but I didn't. I was actually pleasantly surprised by how social-model the show was about the whole thing. When I heard that the episode would involve the kids using wheelchairs to "see what it's like for Artie," I thought it would be all about how soul-crushingly miserable it is not to be able to walk, but really, we were shown a montage of the kids getting hit in the face by people who didn't see them, having to deal with things that were too high up to reach, etc. And when Artie expressed bitterness at the end, it seemed to be more about looking weird and being cut off from other people.
I just really love Kevin McHale. Even though I think a disabled actor should have been cast, he is really adorable, talented, and great. The best scene in the episode was when Tina kissed him and he put his face in his hands like he was too happy to look her in the eye. He was on True Blood by the way! He was the coroner's assistant who gets blown up.
First off, I want to explain what my problem with the show was in the first place. It definitely wasn't any one line or event. It was just that certain characters were not written morally. And when I talk about writing morally, I don't mean the characters need to be nice; I mean the writer needs to think about the characters the way people should think about other people in real life. Realizing that everyone is complicated, everyone has reasons for what they do, no one thinks of themselves as a villain or comic relief. The thing about writing morally is that it's the same thing as writing well. So for me, when Glee is offensive and when it's a low-quality show, it's both of those things at the same time.
The opposite goes for Mad Men. It's a really high-quality show and it also never offends me. Characters do offensive things, but I never get the impression that this reflects the writers' ignorance. And more importantly, characters who in lesser shows might be reduced to villains or comic relief, or something else less than human, are treated with respect. While we might sometimes see them as funny or villainous, we also see that they take themselves seriously and are doing what they think they have to do.
Anyway. Aspects of Glee from worst to best:
1. Sue Sylvester lets a girl with Down's Syndrome on the Cheerios and is mean to her. Will thinks Sue is being mean, but Sue says she's treating the girl like everyone else. Will wonders why Sue would do something so un-Sue-ish. Then we find out that Sue has a sister with Down's Syndrome who she's very close with.
This was a pretty good example of how the people who write Glee decide to take on issues that they have absolutely no knowledge of and aren't interested in learning about. The characters with Down's Syndrome behave like four-year-olds; Becky, the teenager, walks around holding hands with her friend and is manipulated into buying a cupcake. (Why couldn't Becky just decide to buy a cupcake because it's a nice thing to do?) Sue's sister, a middle-aged woman, enjoys having Sue read Little Red Riding Hood to her. Also, she apparently spends all her time in bed at a place that I think is a hospital, and this is portrayed as normal. If Sue's sister has a significant disability, which I guess she does, I would expect her to live in a group home with other disabled people--not just lie in bed waiting for her sister.
Becky is a perfect example of a character being used as a device instead of being human. Becky has almost no lines and we know nothing about her except that she wants to be a cheerleader. Also, the actress who plays her is terrible (at least I'm pretty sure she is; she has so little to do that it's hard to figure out what she should be doing). There's also the fact that she is in no way qualified to be a cheerleader. Why couldn't Becky have been a good, or even decent, cheerleader? Why did she have to be so clumsy that Sue's letting her on the squad must be interpreted as an act of pity?
I was actually excited when I found out that someone with Down's Syndrome was going to be on the show, but this ended up being by far the worst aspect of the episode.
2. Rachel is told she will get to sing "Defying Gravity," but Kurt wants to sing it instead. He complains to his dad, who is very macho and doesn't understand Kurt's interests, but is supportive of him nonetheless. His dad threatens the school, saying it's homophobic and sexist to not give Kurt a chance to sing the song. So Kurt and Rachel each get to perform the song, and the glee club will vote on who sings it better. Kurt can sing just as high as Rachel, but at the last minute he intentionally screws up, because someone called his dad and said "your son's a fag." Kurt explains to his dad that he is used to homophobia, but his dad isn't, and he doesn't want to be so visibly gay that his dad will have to experience harassment.
This was really good; I like Kurt. He's very stereotypical, but it doesn't bother me because he is human. I feel the same way about Tara from True Blood (maybe I'll post about her another time). I liked that we saw how being gay affects Kurt, and how even though he's really feminine, he can actually be stronger than a masculine guy like his dad.
3. ARTIE!!! This was fantastic. Will says they should have a bake sale to afford an accessible bus, but all the other people in glee club say that Artie doesn't mind being driven to things by his dad. In fact, Artie does mind, but doesn't want to make a fuss. Will sees how hurt Artie feels, and inexplicably has enough money to buy wheelchairs for the whole glee club which he makes them use for three hours every day. He also makes them dance in the wheelchairs. When the other kids have to deal with how inaccessible the school is, how people don't look at them, and how hard it is to dance in a wheelchair, they respect Artie more and work hard on the bake sale. When they end up raising the money, Artie says they should use it to make the school accessible instead, because that will help future disabled students, instead of just helping him.
Also, Artie and Tina obviously have a crush on each other, and two or three times during the episode, Tina tells Artie how much she admires him. Each time, Artie replies, "Oh, well, you have a stutter, so you understand having to overcome something." The last time this happens (after they've just kissed for the first time), Tina tells Artie that she doesn't really have a stutter, and has just been faking it for years because she's shy and it makes people leave her alone. She says that now she's become more confident and wants to stop pretending to stutter. Artie gets really mad at her for faking, and says something like, "You get to be normal now but I'm stuck in this chair for the rest of my life."
I loved, loved, loved this. Artie has never been developed at all, but now that they've finally developed him, they did a really good job. He's very kind and mature for his age, but also justifiably angry about the way people treat him. I think it's common sometimes for people who are minorities to go with the flow and appear unruffled by things, but actually be really angry on another level that they don't show to most people because it's not practical. This is probably especially the case for people who have disabilities that require support; we don't want to offend anyone in case we end up having to ask that person for help. Artie saw Tina as being on another level from other people, someone who could understand, and I think it's because of that that he feels so betrayed and expresses really negative emotions about being in a wheelchair, which I'm not sure he would express to most other people.
Maybe some people would find Artie's negativity offensive, but I didn't. I was actually pleasantly surprised by how social-model the show was about the whole thing. When I heard that the episode would involve the kids using wheelchairs to "see what it's like for Artie," I thought it would be all about how soul-crushingly miserable it is not to be able to walk, but really, we were shown a montage of the kids getting hit in the face by people who didn't see them, having to deal with things that were too high up to reach, etc. And when Artie expressed bitterness at the end, it seemed to be more about looking weird and being cut off from other people.
I just really love Kevin McHale. Even though I think a disabled actor should have been cast, he is really adorable, talented, and great. The best scene in the episode was when Tina kissed him and he put his face in his hands like he was too happy to look her in the eye. He was on True Blood by the way! He was the coroner's assistant who gets blown up.
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