So glad to get your thoughts about this show. Pretty much everyone I've read about it (and there has been so much good writing) has focused on the reality TV satire angle, which while interesting strikes me as probably the least fruitful approach to take with the show - we don't need ten hours of television to figure out that reality TV is exploitative and fake. Your take on the intersection of women's experiences and mental health issues strikes me as much more productive, especially with the end of the season teasing a greater role for Rachel's mother and her need to pathologize her daughter in S2
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I think that to begin with the show definitely wants us to see him as "a safety school boyfriednd," while Rachel sees him as an epitome of goodness that her complicity in the show puts beyond her reach. But I don't think he's either of these things. He isn't good - look at the way he mistreats Lizzy, or that fantastically cruel, entitled display he puts on in the season finale - but he also isn't boring.
Oh, totally, and I think the nastiness of the character was set up pretty well in retrospect. But Rachel has cast him in the role of "nice dependable guy who will take me away from all this."
You didn't mention his abandonment of Rachel, but of course that comes from the same place - he romanticizes her, and when he finds out from Quinn that she might not be his savior, he drops her immediately. Oooh, yes. And specifically, the way Quinn uses mental illness stigma to get between Rachel and Adam works very well: once she's been institutionalized, then she's no fun as his Manic Pixie Dream Girl any more: it's too crazy, too real. And
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I hated Jeremy the most too! Word on your thoughts. The kicker was the "I'm going to make sure that you can't hurt anyone else again!" declaration, as he shamed Rachel in public. Like, he's the police of cheating and if he is, he omitted some details about him and Lizzy in his Big Speech in front of the crew to ensure that *he* can't hurt anyone else again. Jeremy didn't think Rachel was too crazy to stop him from embarking on a relationship. However once he found out that she cheated on him, suddenly, Rachel was so crazy that he had to go running to Rachel's momma/Rachel's controlling shrink in one package because Rachel suddenly became a "danger to society" in just one cliched move of two-timing as opposed to what Jeremy actually sees Rachel do day-in-and-day-out
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Yes, Jeremy's failure to mention Lizzy in his big "I won't let you hurt anyone else" speech was particularly glaring. I go back and forth about whether I want Lizzy to be on the show next season, because on the one hand she does have that perspective on Jeremy and might even ally herself with Rachel because of it, but on the other hand this show doesn't have much faith in female solidarity, and given her behavior in S1 I don't think it's impossible that Lizzy will pin the blame for Jeremy's behavior on Rachel.
how much moral blame should you lay at a person if you also feel they're mentally unwell and need a shrink
I agree that that's an interesting question (and relevant to several shows I'm watching and thinking about). As you say, it's not as if Rachel is mentally ill in the sense that she can be diagnosed as having X, but she's certainly not emotionally healthy and you're right that that's much more a matter of circumstance than of her own personality. As the original post notes, at the heart of UnREAL is the question of how
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I agree that that's an interesting question (and relevant to several shows I'm watching and thinking about). As you say, it's not as if Rachel is mentally ill in the sense that she can be diagnosed as having X, but she's certainly not emotionally healthy and you're right that that's much more a matter of circumstance than of her own personality.
It's generally a hard question, but IMO, the Jeremy-case actually makes judging him more black and white than I'd judge most people who were genuinely hurt by an emotionally unhealthy person and responded with an furious, hard-to-watch embarrassing tirade of hurt and anger
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Oh, totally, and I think the nastiness of the character was set up pretty well in retrospect. But Rachel has cast him in the role of "nice dependable guy who will take me away from all this."
You didn't mention his abandonment of Rachel, but of course that comes from the same place - he romanticizes her, and when he finds out from Quinn that she might not be his savior, he drops her immediately. Oooh, yes. And specifically, the way Quinn uses mental illness stigma to get between Rachel and Adam works very well: once she's been institutionalized, then she's no fun as his Manic Pixie Dream Girl any more: it's too crazy, too real. And ( ... )
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how much moral blame should you lay at a person if you also feel they're mentally unwell and need a shrink
I agree that that's an interesting question (and relevant to several shows I'm watching and thinking about). As you say, it's not as if Rachel is mentally ill in the sense that she can be diagnosed as having X, but she's certainly not emotionally healthy and you're right that that's much more a matter of circumstance than of her own personality. As the original post notes, at the heart of UnREAL is the question of how ( ... )
Reply
It's generally a hard question, but IMO, the Jeremy-case actually makes judging him more black and white than I'd judge most people who were genuinely hurt by an emotionally unhealthy person and responded with an furious, hard-to-watch embarrassing tirade of hurt and anger ( ... )
Reply
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