I dunno. I....I'm developmentally disabled myself? Autistic, which Britt isn't, but a lot of things she says, things that might read as "we need someone to say something stupid here," are things that I say and do on a daily basis.
The stork thing? I never got any sex ed--most of us don't, turns out. I found a book when I was ten. Brittany apparently didn't know her alphabet until sophomore year.
What I'm trying to say is...I don't think any of the kids, on the show, are written as plot devices. That would not be a show I would want to watch.
I think it's more like...
Each character is an archetype, right? A stereotype. The writers say so themselves. And as the episodes progress, we get to delve down into what being that archetype means. We see it most obviously with Kurt, and it turns out that being a battered gay boy means that you are a hero, but it's there with the rest--Finn, the dumb joke who can't quite keep up, Rachel, who needs applause to live, and Britt, who's stupid.
Except being stupid means things. It means you get a lot of lines that don't quite work, and it also means that your home ec teacher yells at you until you are about to cry and Kurt puts on his best queen face and distracts her. It means that even though you run a web show, Mr. Schue thinks you don't know how to turn off your video camera. It means that you can get away with all kinds of shit, just by saying "Coach didn't tell me to do this." It means that no one believes that you are on the brainiacs, or that you might notice anything.
It means that everyone gets used to you being three beats off center, and so you can do things with that power...but sometimes your boyfriend calls you stupid, and literally everyone else in the school already has, and your teachers tell you to not bother showing up.
So you make a misspelled stooopid as your BTW shirt. The thing about yourself you'd most like to change, but have to accept.
It...do you see what I am saying?
I very, very firmly believe that Britt is written as having an intellectual disability. And I get upset, I guess, when a story that means so much to me doesn't mean anything to anyone else, because she's just stupid, just a plot device. Which I understand, is not what you're saying. But...but the thing is, there are high schoolers, who look mostly typical, who hang out with other typical kids, who believe in Santa and who are mostly benevolently tolerated jokes. And it sucks, and it unsettles people, and it's important.
That a person who believes in Santa and takes pills for "feeling like Eloise" (a six year old girl, I can't even) gets to be fully included in a group and have all the sex she wants and basically be awesome matters, you know?
Does that make sense?
I...feel that way about Artie a lot, too. It's amazing, the way stereotypes and popular expectations have this power over people that literally changes how they see a scene. Like, did you know Artie has multiple lines about not caring at all about his legs? It's right there, but it's not supposed to be, it's not expected, and so it's not even absorbed.
Which is a much bigger phenomenon then one show, and something I'm still searching for words for. I think it applies to Brittany, too.
Aaaaand, speaking of words, I've no idea what you mean by Watsonian or Doylist? And I think I've produced enough enthusiastic verbiage of my own, so.
(And then it complicates and enriches other elements, too. Britt is the one who pushes for Santana to come out, for the club to be a family...but she's not that angelic eternal child. It's every stereotype, but fleshed out and real and meaning something. It's fascinating.)
Watsonian and Doylist are explained here - in short they refer to different ways of commenting on a creative work. The Watsonian approach views matters within the reality of the created work. The Doylist approachs views matters from the outside, looking at the work as a created object, referring to the motivations of the creators.
I get what you're saying; I just don't have quite as much faith in RIB as you do, I guess. Not that I think they're writing Brittany just as one colossal joke, either, because I don't. But I think there are times when they have her say certain lines just for the humor factor, or that she does things just for the sake of plot, without giving any thought as to how it fits into the rest of her characterization. But then, I think they do that with all the characters, not just her. And, to be honest, I don't know if that can ever be totally avoided with TV writing -- they're writing to strict deadlines, and with network intervention and constant critical feedback from all sides. So it's not that I think they're terrible writers; I just don't think that every step is planned. And I feel like sometimes that winds up implying things that I'd rather were not implied at all.
(To be fair, it's worth noting that I cut my teeth on both Lost, which really suffered from the creators' inability to plan, and Torchwood, where RTD would occasionally blithely admit that characters took certain steps and did certain things because the plot just wouldn't work otherwise. So I'm probably kind of jaded.)
Here's a brief overview of Doylist vs. Watsonian perspectives; basically, it's two different ways of looking at a text. A Watsonian interpretation of events is "in universe" -- it's looking at the events of a Sherlock Holmes novel from Watson's perspective. Doylist interpretations are looking at events from an outside perspective -- trying to figure out what Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's perspective is and why he might have chosen to write the story in a certain way. To take a non-Brittany example, the Doylist interpretation of Puck's trip to juvie is that the character needed to be written out of two episodes, so they had him steal an ATM and get arrested for it. A Watsonian perspective (there are several possible ones) might be that he's still not over Quinn's decision to give up Beth and stay single, and that led him into a drastic attempt to get a lot of money and get out of Lima in a hurry.
To put it another way, the Doylist perspective is the one I use when RIB write an episode that I don't like all that much, and I'm ranting bitterly about it in my journal. When I go back to that episode again to write fic and try to make the episode make sense to me, I'll approach it from the Watsonian perspective, trying to make it make sense within context of the show.
Is that clear at all? It's one of those terms that made such immediate sense to me that it makes it paradoxically difficult for me to explain it to someone else.
Mmm. It does make sense. I just...personally don't have any use for a Doylist perspective? It seems to ruin one's enjoyment of a world. I like liking things.
/anguished English
(I promise, though, that I'm not entirely naive--I know, as well as anyone outside the industry can, how TV writing works, and how writing in general works. I just...like you say, I think the Doylist perspective gets used when people don't like something? And that's fine and all, but...I think it can impair a person's ability to take a Watsonian perspective, which I always thought was the point of fandom. But then, fandom and I are generally at odds.)
And I don't have faith in a writer. Faith is belief in things unseen. Everything I said I saw happen on my screen. It seems very simple.
The stork thing? I never got any sex ed--most of us don't, turns out. I found a book when I was ten. Brittany apparently didn't know her alphabet until sophomore year.
What I'm trying to say is...I don't think any of the kids, on the show, are written as plot devices. That would not be a show I would want to watch.
I think it's more like...
Each character is an archetype, right? A stereotype. The writers say so themselves. And as the episodes progress, we get to delve down into what being that archetype means. We see it most obviously with Kurt, and it turns out that being a battered gay boy means that you are a hero, but it's there with the rest--Finn, the dumb joke who can't quite keep up, Rachel, who needs applause to live, and Britt, who's stupid.
Except being stupid means things. It means you get a lot of lines that don't quite work, and it also means that your home ec teacher yells at you until you are about to cry and Kurt puts on his best queen face and distracts her. It means that even though you run a web show, Mr. Schue thinks you don't know how to turn off your video camera. It means that you can get away with all kinds of shit, just by saying "Coach didn't tell me to do this." It means that no one believes that you are on the brainiacs, or that you might notice anything.
It means that everyone gets used to you being three beats off center, and so you can do things with that power...but sometimes your boyfriend calls you stupid, and literally everyone else in the school already has, and your teachers tell you to not bother showing up.
So you make a misspelled stooopid as your BTW shirt. The thing about yourself you'd most like to change, but have to accept.
It...do you see what I am saying?
I very, very firmly believe that Britt is written as having an intellectual disability. And I get upset, I guess, when a story that means so much to me doesn't mean anything to anyone else, because she's just stupid, just a plot device. Which I understand, is not what you're saying. But...but the thing is, there are high schoolers, who look mostly typical, who hang out with other typical kids, who believe in Santa and who are mostly benevolently tolerated jokes. And it sucks, and it unsettles people, and it's important.
That a person who believes in Santa and takes pills for "feeling like Eloise" (a six year old girl, I can't even) gets to be fully included in a group and have all the sex she wants and basically be awesome matters, you know?
Does that make sense?
I...feel that way about Artie a lot, too. It's amazing, the way stereotypes and popular expectations have this power over people that literally changes how they see a scene. Like, did you know Artie has multiple lines about not caring at all about his legs? It's right there, but it's not supposed to be, it's not expected, and so it's not even absorbed.
Which is a much bigger phenomenon then one show, and something I'm still searching for words for. I think it applies to Brittany, too.
Aaaaand, speaking of words, I've no idea what you mean by Watsonian or Doylist? And I think I've produced enough enthusiastic verbiage of my own, so.
(And then it complicates and enriches other elements, too. Britt is the one who pushes for Santana to come out, for the club to be a family...but she's not that angelic eternal child. It's every stereotype, but fleshed out and real and meaning something. It's fascinating.)
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Thank you, that was a lovely article. Learn something new every day.
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(To be fair, it's worth noting that I cut my teeth on both Lost, which really suffered from the creators' inability to plan, and Torchwood, where RTD would occasionally blithely admit that characters took certain steps and did certain things because the plot just wouldn't work otherwise. So I'm probably kind of jaded.)
Here's a brief overview of Doylist vs. Watsonian perspectives; basically, it's two different ways of looking at a text. A Watsonian interpretation of events is "in universe" -- it's looking at the events of a Sherlock Holmes novel from Watson's perspective. Doylist interpretations are looking at events from an outside perspective -- trying to figure out what Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's perspective is and why he might have chosen to write the story in a certain way. To take a non-Brittany example, the Doylist interpretation of Puck's trip to juvie is that the character needed to be written out of two episodes, so they had him steal an ATM and get arrested for it. A Watsonian perspective (there are several possible ones) might be that he's still not over Quinn's decision to give up Beth and stay single, and that led him into a drastic attempt to get a lot of money and get out of Lima in a hurry.
To put it another way, the Doylist perspective is the one I use when RIB write an episode that I don't like all that much, and I'm ranting bitterly about it in my journal. When I go back to that episode again to write fic and try to make the episode make sense to me, I'll approach it from the Watsonian perspective, trying to make it make sense within context of the show.
Is that clear at all? It's one of those terms that made such immediate sense to me that it makes it paradoxically difficult for me to explain it to someone else.
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/anguished English
(I promise, though, that I'm not entirely naive--I know, as well as anyone outside the industry can, how TV writing works, and how writing in general works. I just...like you say, I think the Doylist perspective gets used when people don't like something? And that's fine and all, but...I think it can impair a person's ability to take a Watsonian perspective, which I always thought was the point of fandom. But then, fandom and I are generally at odds.)
And I don't have faith in a writer. Faith is belief in things unseen. Everything I said I saw happen on my screen. It seems very simple.
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