December Talking Meme, 12/6
for @ceciliaj, Six Feet Under. Brenda's sobriety (for shorthand) S3-5. Really anything about Brenda :).
Oddly, SFU was a show that I ended up not having a while lot of thoughts about. Not like it wasn’t a thoughtful show? I just think it explained what needed explaining and had more or less the same ideas I do about what doesn’t need explaining.
The word I kept wanting to use the most throughout this post is admirable. And I think that’s quite apt. Brenda was rarely the character that I liked the best, and I don’t think she was a character that I disliked. But I admire Brenda immensely.
IDK. I’m having a hard time thinking about her story in terms of sobriety per se, actually? This arc brought to mind my issues with a lot of our cultural rhetoric around addiction. Brenda was obviously struggling with a lot of shit in her life, she realized that the shape of her sex life had become an unsatisfying coping mechanism rather than something she wanted to be part of her life, and so she pulled her shit together and broke that habit. This is quite admirable. I think it’s hard for people to realize when patterns aren’t working for us and turn them around.
But like. I am generally pretty skeptical about pop culture/pop psych constructs of addiction, which is in fact a real illness and therefore not something that can be overcome with Strength of Character ™ and a few group meetings, and I am really skeptical about sexual addiction. Often people spiral; the form of that spiral is less important than whether they figure it out and fix it. How fucking sick are we, as a culture, that we (a) stigmatize addicts, ie, people who are suffering from an illness, and then (b) pathologize people who are stepping up and getting their lives together as being addicts?
But it was a very believable way for her to work her way around that shockingly exploitative thing her parents and health care providers put her through as a child, where that which was supposed to be help for her turned out to be for everyone’s benefit but hers. Brenda claimed a diagnosis on her own - one of disputed scientific value, but one of subjective value to her - and shaped her treatment to be what she needed.
Another way Brenda is kind of socially stigmatized for doing the admirable thing is the way she has her kid when she wants a kid, not a moment before. She clearly had a lot to work through before she could take someone else’s life into her hands, and so that is exactly what she did. Brenda is basically the right wing nightmare caricature of a woman who was too busy with sex and personal drama and career indecision to have a child until she was ~40 and found it to be a little bit tough for her. And this was exactly the right thing for Brenda to do, to get to a place where she could be the kind of parent she wanted to be.
And all of this takes place in the context of Brenda’s rather nihilistic take on her own atheism. For someone who says (IIRC, more than once) that she believes existence is meaningless, Brenda shows herself to be someone who deeply values life on its terms and on hers.
Which contrasts really sharply against NATE FISHER, HUMAN DISASTER, right. Nate denies his very real illness, rather than self-pathologizing. Nate was in no way prepared to be a parent, but WHOOPS. Nate said all the right things about spirituality and ongoing quests for enlightenment, but he curdles into a selfish dick.
This entry was originally posted at http://pocochina.dreamwidth.org/338949.html. Leave a comment here, or there using OpenID.
Oddly, SFU was a show that I ended up not having a while lot of thoughts about. Not like it wasn’t a thoughtful show? I just think it explained what needed explaining and had more or less the same ideas I do about what doesn’t need explaining.
The word I kept wanting to use the most throughout this post is admirable. And I think that’s quite apt. Brenda was rarely the character that I liked the best, and I don’t think she was a character that I disliked. But I admire Brenda immensely.
IDK. I’m having a hard time thinking about her story in terms of sobriety per se, actually? This arc brought to mind my issues with a lot of our cultural rhetoric around addiction. Brenda was obviously struggling with a lot of shit in her life, she realized that the shape of her sex life had become an unsatisfying coping mechanism rather than something she wanted to be part of her life, and so she pulled her shit together and broke that habit. This is quite admirable. I think it’s hard for people to realize when patterns aren’t working for us and turn them around.
But like. I am generally pretty skeptical about pop culture/pop psych constructs of addiction, which is in fact a real illness and therefore not something that can be overcome with Strength of Character ™ and a few group meetings, and I am really skeptical about sexual addiction. Often people spiral; the form of that spiral is less important than whether they figure it out and fix it. How fucking sick are we, as a culture, that we (a) stigmatize addicts, ie, people who are suffering from an illness, and then (b) pathologize people who are stepping up and getting their lives together as being addicts?
But it was a very believable way for her to work her way around that shockingly exploitative thing her parents and health care providers put her through as a child, where that which was supposed to be help for her turned out to be for everyone’s benefit but hers. Brenda claimed a diagnosis on her own - one of disputed scientific value, but one of subjective value to her - and shaped her treatment to be what she needed.
Another way Brenda is kind of socially stigmatized for doing the admirable thing is the way she has her kid when she wants a kid, not a moment before. She clearly had a lot to work through before she could take someone else’s life into her hands, and so that is exactly what she did. Brenda is basically the right wing nightmare caricature of a woman who was too busy with sex and personal drama and career indecision to have a child until she was ~40 and found it to be a little bit tough for her. And this was exactly the right thing for Brenda to do, to get to a place where she could be the kind of parent she wanted to be.
And all of this takes place in the context of Brenda’s rather nihilistic take on her own atheism. For someone who says (IIRC, more than once) that she believes existence is meaningless, Brenda shows herself to be someone who deeply values life on its terms and on hers.
Which contrasts really sharply against NATE FISHER, HUMAN DISASTER, right. Nate denies his very real illness, rather than self-pathologizing. Nate was in no way prepared to be a parent, but WHOOPS. Nate said all the right things about spirituality and ongoing quests for enlightenment, but he curdles into a selfish dick.
This entry was originally posted at http://pocochina.dreamwidth.org/338949.html. Leave a comment here, or there using OpenID.