Um, I have actually been to people's weddings where the joke was the groom couldn't get married (or that the wedding wasn't valid) because he was already married to his best man/best friend/guy pal.
These are straight guys. No slash - ever. But the emotional commitment is ALL toward other men. It's a kind of sexism. NO woman could EVER compare with the cleverness and coolness of their male friends. Women are for fucking, eyecandy and producing more male offspring.
That is the vibe I got off this show. The shiny clever boys with the symbiotic relationship that sets up women only as peripheral sex objects and not so much as real people, or possibly as people whose feelings don't matter because what they think is stupid.
There was very much a Christian girl is stupid and misguided vibe there - so we had to break up. And CLEAR disrespect for the female executive and not just implication but TEXT that she'd gotten there by her looks (and I assume fucking people) NOT because she was good at her job.
While I think Sorkin is actually reflecting the industry as it is - it's like that in every workplace I've ever been in, too - if an attractive woman gets in a position of power, it's NEVER because she's good at her job - its not slash. Or if it IS slash it's slash because women aren't good enough to have in your life as a full participant.
Despite that, I really enjoyed the show.
But I know those creative guys. I've worked with them at ad agencies, magazines, and been friends with them all my life. (You're just like a man! I can't believe you're so smart!) It's not slash. It's contempt for the female.
Slash goggles sometimes make you miss the sexism. Or we jump right into YAY slash and forget to look at that part of it. There's a HUGE ugly undercurrent of that here. And I think it's reflective of the industry - NOT Sorkin being a dick, but I don't know Sorkin's work that well, so you'd all probably be able to judge better. BOTH major women characters with power here are adversarial to the heroes in the very first episode. I think that's telling.
Interesting points. As I said to Vonnie above, my biggest issue with Jordan as a character was that she was able to wangle Matt and Danny because she had inside information -- information that she got because some guy working at the treatment center wants to fuck her. Not because she's smart and competent, but because she's fuckable. ::sigh::
That said, I didn't get the sense you did that Harriet was a twit, and I quite liked the women in minor roles and am looking forward to seeing how they develop.
I don't think Harriet IS a twit or that Sorkin is setting her up to be one. I think her ex-boyfriend treats her like she's a twit because he doesn't respect women. That's an important difference.
The shiny clever boys with the symbiotic relationship that sets up women only as peripheral sex objects and not so much as real people, or possibly as people whose feelings don't matter because what they think is stupid.
Yeah, that's part of what I meant by this set-up being so obvious that it's not any fun. If this were a historical drama it would be totally different, but given that the two guys in question are fairly liberal contemporary people working in the entertainment industry, we have to assume that they are, in the abstract, cool with the idea of homosexuality, and if they felt any inclination that way, they'd act on it. So when they're so close they're practically married, *already*, in the pilot, the two most plausible options are (a) they're already involved with each other and it's covert canon (i.e. the later seasons of Xena, where there can be no other possible explanation, but it's just never quite confirmed), or (b) they are really, really not gay, and they both know it.
They'd never dare do option A, and option B most likely means a relationship like the one you described -- in other words, not very emotionally compelling for this female viewer.
Yeah, but do we HAVE to be all about the boys' relationship to enjoy the show?
I know I don't have to be. There's a LOT of very clever stuff going on there that I'm more than willing to give a chance.
But I know a lot of people watch shows for different reasons than I do, and have higher standards in certain MUST HAVE areas. I'm pretty ok with almost anything, if it's well done. If what is happening is compelling in some way, I can absolutely loathe the main characters.
But not of they're total self-absorbed, shallow assholes, like Seinfeld or Sex In the City. I really never ever found those shows worth watching, even in their heyday, and even though many of the situations were hilarious and true.
While a lot of the Studio 60 people trend to that same shallow demographic, they seem to have depth of personality and richer interior lives than we ever saw on the shows I just mentioned, so I'm willing to give them a chance.
I'm pretty open about my bias: for me to *truly* love a show and get all fannish about it, there has to be a love story (canon or imaginary) that grabs me.
That being said, I could care less whether it's slash or het or what. Personally, I'm voting for a torrid love affair for Suzanne the P.A. *g*.
This is something about Sorkin that frustrates me a little. I get the impression that every character he writes is by default a white middle to upperclass male. And that it is very very difficult for him to write anything outside of it. The best of his female characters he gets away with by writing them as essentially male; I loved CJ and liked Natalie and Dana, but when written to be 'female' their romantic entanglements ended up offkey and bizarre. I don't think this is bad for individual characters -- I'd probably read more male than female myself if you wrote up my life and dialogue -- but his range is not very broad. And he's even more awkward when trying to write outside his race and class. Dule' Hill and Martin Sheen made Charlie work, but I cringed at times when they were trying to do Charlie-background work.
He gets away with this to some degree by writing within entities that really are nearly entirely white, male, and middle/upper class, such as sports show production, politics, and tv comedy writing. But it still grates at times, despite my love for his dialogue.
Well, he is clearly "writing what he knows". And he's certainly good at it.
But it is a problem with so MANY male TV writers. The women don't act like women. They act like a) faux men or b) a sexist's view of women as manipulative and shallow bitches - see Desperate Housewives, here. We are always terribly lucky when we get anyone outside of a specific range that male writers are comfortable with.
These are straight guys. No slash - ever. But the emotional commitment is ALL toward other men. It's a kind of sexism. NO woman could EVER compare with the cleverness and coolness of their male friends. Women are for fucking, eyecandy and producing more male offspring.
That is the vibe I got off this show. The shiny clever boys with the symbiotic relationship that sets up women only as peripheral sex objects and not so much as real people, or possibly as people whose feelings don't matter because what they think is stupid.
There was very much a Christian girl is stupid and misguided vibe there - so we had to break up. And CLEAR disrespect for the female executive and not just implication but TEXT that she'd gotten there by her looks (and I assume fucking people) NOT because she was good at her job.
While I think Sorkin is actually reflecting the industry as it is - it's like that in every workplace I've ever been in, too - if an attractive woman gets in a position of power, it's NEVER because she's good at her job - its not slash. Or if it IS slash it's slash because women aren't good enough to have in your life as a full participant.
Despite that, I really enjoyed the show.
But I know those creative guys. I've worked with them at ad agencies, magazines, and been friends with them all my life. (You're just like a man! I can't believe you're so smart!) It's not slash. It's contempt for the female.
Slash goggles sometimes make you miss the sexism. Or we jump right into YAY slash and forget to look at that part of it. There's a HUGE ugly undercurrent of that here. And I think it's reflective of the industry - NOT Sorkin being a dick, but I don't know Sorkin's work that well, so you'd all probably be able to judge better. BOTH major women characters with power here are adversarial to the heroes in the very first episode. I think that's telling.
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That said, I didn't get the sense you did that Harriet was a twit, and I quite liked the women in minor roles and am looking forward to seeing how they develop.
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I hope you're wrong, but we just don't have enough information yet.
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Yeah, that's part of what I meant by this set-up being so obvious that it's not any fun. If this were a historical drama it would be totally different, but given that the two guys in question are fairly liberal contemporary people working in the entertainment industry, we have to assume that they are, in the abstract, cool with the idea of homosexuality, and if they felt any inclination that way, they'd act on it. So when they're so close they're practically married, *already*, in the pilot, the two most plausible options are (a) they're already involved with each other and it's covert canon (i.e. the later seasons of Xena, where there can be no other possible explanation, but it's just never quite confirmed), or (b) they are really, really not gay, and they both know it.
They'd never dare do option A, and option B most likely means a relationship like the one you described -- in other words, not very emotionally compelling for this female viewer.
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I know I don't have to be. There's a LOT of very clever stuff going on there that I'm more than willing to give a chance.
But I know a lot of people watch shows for different reasons than I do, and have higher standards in certain MUST HAVE areas. I'm pretty ok with almost anything, if it's well done. If what is happening is compelling in some way, I can absolutely loathe the main characters.
But not of they're total self-absorbed, shallow assholes, like Seinfeld or Sex In the City. I really never ever found those shows worth watching, even in their heyday, and even though many of the situations were hilarious and true.
While a lot of the Studio 60 people trend to that same shallow demographic, they seem to have depth of personality and richer interior lives than we ever saw on the shows I just mentioned, so I'm willing to give them a chance.
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That being said, I could care less whether it's slash or het or what. Personally, I'm voting for a torrid love affair for Suzanne the P.A. *g*.
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He gets away with this to some degree by writing within entities that really are nearly entirely white, male, and middle/upper class, such as sports show production, politics, and tv comedy writing. But it still grates at times, despite my love for his dialogue.
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But it is a problem with so MANY male TV writers. The women don't act like women. They act like a) faux men or b) a sexist's view of women as manipulative and shallow bitches - see Desperate Housewives, here. We are always terribly lucky when we get anyone outside of a specific range that male writers are comfortable with.
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