(Untitled)

[angstbunny]

Please tell me I'm not the only one who wants to punch the lead guy of The Glades in the face every time a commercial for it airs? I don't give a shit what the show is about, but he annoys me like he epitomizes everything that's wrong with television with the predominance of smug white men as leads who are just so goddamn brill and different while

Comments

reply pt1

[mswyrr]

EXACTLY. See, I knew you'd get how I feel about that fucking show. The dude doesn't even have the charm of Simon Baker, though, once again, it's an interesting thing within and without the show, how we continually forgive SB's asinine comments and Jane's ugly behaviour all because he's good looking and fwee. Though I gotta admit that I still haven't caught up with the latter half of S2 Mentalist and probably never will and therefore won't be watching S3 because apparently I actually do have a limit. (But I watch Supernatural, so. IDK. *loses feminist cred*)

The way I figure it, if I'm going to endure a jackass white dude lead protag, he'd better earn my time by being charming/pretty. It's certainly not the most feminist trade off there ever was--and there are times when I just get sick of 'em even though they're pretty--but it's a way to sort out which of the abysmal shows I will choose. If they're going to be fawned all over by everybody, there should at least be a meta and in story reason why they draw people to themselves like that. And Jane has that. With Jane there is also at least some cool stuff about him being born and raised lower class which, when connected with his pretty/charm, brings in cool shit about surviving by being something people of higher class want a piece of, and the problems of selling oneself, class aspirations, trying to scrub all the lower class signifiers out by embracing behaviors coded higher--his tea, his books, his three piece suits, his vocabulary--and all that shit.

That said, if they don't give Lisbon at least the strength of story and character she had in season 1, I might have to bail out, too. IDK, either.

Because that's how power structures work. It's fueled by the people, but not dependent upon individuals. These rat bastards will go away to be replaced by new rat bastards.

Yeah, the older rat bastards were intimately involved in selecting and acculturating the younger rat bastards. And the same problems of power (advertising $ and where it's coming from, shitty culture-wide things like racism, sexism, etc.) that shaped the earlier gens of rat bastards are at work on the newer gen. For example, there are a LOT of intertwined, messed up reasons why people of color don't make up a larger number of Hollywood writers, and while Hollywood cleaning up its act could improve that, a lot of it has to do with vast economic, educational, and other justice related disparities arising out of systemic racism. I'm not saying they shouldn't clean up their act--they should! SO MUCH!--but that, considering that they couldn't get where they should be even if they did make a concerted effort, I don't see how they'll get there by some assumed process of natural evolution from one generation of assholes to the next.

Re: reply pt1

[angstbunny]

LOL, everything you said, pretty much, regarding pretty offsetting the skeevy. I just really wish they'd exploit that more on the show, but I feel like you + me + pensive really do have to resign ourselves to the fact that we saw more in the show than the show is ever gonna give us. I love our meta, and I don't think the show's lack of depth negates our meta, but at the same time, I've gotten tired of believing in and dissecting a show that only exists in our heads. But anyway, yeah, I wish they'd cut more into the issue of how Jane is pretty and charming and gets away with shit because of that. I love the class thing, too, but again, I think that's something we came up with way more in depth and in more interesting terms than the show has or will. :(

Lisbon is one of the biggest keys in offsetting Jane's behaviour. And that was one of my biggest issues. I'm okay with Jane being a sexist pig as long as Lisbon is there to thump him good, except she has no backbone.

Re: the new rat bastards. Yep yep yep. The old guard trains the new guard, the old guard determines who will be the ones to rise, so the system perpetuates.

Re: reply pt1

[mswyrr]

but I feel like you + me + pensive really do have to resign ourselves to the fact that we saw more in the show than the show is ever gonna give us. I love our meta, and I don't think the show's lack of depth negates our meta, but at the same time, I've gotten tired of believing in and dissecting a show that only exists in our heads. But anyway, yeah, I wish they'd cut more into the issue of how Jane is pretty and charming and gets away with shit because of that. I love the class thing, too, but again, I think that's something we came up with way more in depth and in more interesting terms than the show has or will. :(

Ow. Yeah. It was fun, though! And I'm pretty sure we could write a REALLY AWESOME tv show, if Hollywood ever came a-courting. *g* Hopefully we'll be able to share other fannish interests in future that aren't so disappointing.

Re: reply pt1

[angstbunny]

I'll never stop being OMGGGGGGGG NGH over your thing about Jane's wife. a;lfdjaklfdj;lakjfdl;ajfdkljafkldj;afdlk. That was good times.

I have to slide in here

[pensive1]

. With Jane there is also at least some cool stuff about him being born and raised lower class which, when connected with his pretty/charm, brings in cool shit about surviving by being something people of higher class want a piece of, and the problems of selling oneself, class aspirations, trying to scrub all the lower class signifiers out by embracing behaviors coded higher--his tea, his books, his three piece suits, his vocabulary--and all that shit.

Dear goodness how I missed your meta. All of it. This whole backdrop of Jane selling himself really drives the show, imo, because he's sold himself as a magician, a psychic, and a detective. Sometimes all at once. But he's got so much self-loathing over it, because yeah, it made him successful, but who is Jane really? Did he ever have time to develop his own identity before he learned to craft the facade he's gotten by on? I really think part of why he plays with bubbles, tractors, and kid's bicycles is because he never got to experience the sort of self-identity phase of childhood. He grew up with the package Alex fashioned for him (PATRICK THE PSYCHIC BOY WONDER) and when he separated from Alex, remade himself into Patrick Jane, psychic-therapist-slash-medium. He went straight from that to Patrick Jane, non-psychic mentalist consultant. I wonder how much of the higher-coded behavior he's adopted and just accepted, and how much of that he honestly would do if it weren't for his shitty upbringing.

Re: I have to slide in here

[mswyrr]

He went straight from that to Patrick Jane, non-psychic mentalist consultant.

Yep. From the time he was a kid, it was about survival above everything else. He was stuck at the two lowest segments of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, just trying to have food and feel some safety/stability, and didn't have the luxury of working out who he was (self-esteem), working out deeper questions of morality, discovering how to relate to people as people first. Other people are cash machines, morality is whatever you have to do to survive.

I wonder how much of the higher-coded behavior he's adopted and just accepted, and how much of that he honestly would do if it weren't for his shitty upbringing.

I don't think the two things are separable, honestly. Jane wouldn't be Jane without his upbringing. He'd be some other, happier dude.

I don't think he's faking now, though. I think he really does love his tea, and his suits, and his books. These are nice things that are very likable. If he were that other, happier dude, I'm sure he'd like some of these things. But I don't think people are a tabula rasa at any point, really, with likes and dislikes that go beyond social programming. IDK.

The thing is, despite there perhaps not being any true Platonic likes and dislikes that exist before knowledge, deliberately choosing how to fashion oneself is going to make one feel like a fake. And having to do it is going to feel shitty. Because people who don't have to pick out their behaviors in mercenary ways get to believe that they come to them naturally somehow, that they are who they are because that's just who they are. It's a fallacy, imo, but it's an important one, like the way that we don't go around consciously thinking of our morality all the time.

In a sense, being the man whose wife and daughter were murdered by Red John is the most authentic thing he's ever done. He didn't select that role carefully, it was thrust upon him. It hurts, but it's inarguably real beyond any scheming. Whether or not he was honest with them, their loss is REAL. And so his desire for revenge is wholly his, too, in a way that he can't be sure many other things are. When he's the crazy guy who wants to cut RJ up into little pieces, he's not playacting one bit.

Re: I have to slide in here

[pensive1]

being the man whose wife and daughter were murdered by Red John is the most authentic thing he's ever done. He didn't select that role carefully, it was thrust upon him. It hurts, but it's inarguably real beyond any scheming.

WHYYYY is this show so PAINFULLLLLL. I love it. I love this aspect as much as I hate it, in that what drives the show is PAIN, TRAUMA, LOSS, OBSESSION, REGRET, ANGER...all those things we want resolved so badly but kind of fear them going away because they're the defining boundaries for the experience.

Re: I have to slide in here

[mswyrr]

*I used "tabula rasa" wrongly there. What I meant to say is that I'm siding with the idea that people are mostly a blank slate that experience fills, rather than with the concept of an a priori "self." Though, of course, there's the extent to which genetics shape behavior/preferences. UM.

It's been a looooooong time since I took a philosophy class. ;)