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.
One comment about Jeremy: 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. In his own way, he's as manipulative as Rachel - again, see his behavior in the finale, or the way he manipulates Rachel into sex after Mary's death, telling her that she needs solace, and then acts hurt and makes her feel bad about herself because she acts as if solace was all their encounter was about. He's definitely cut from the same cloth as Chet or Quinn or even Rachel herself, with an added dash of sanctimoniousness that is rooted directly in his gender - he's entitled to treat Rachel and Lizzy like trash because he's The Good Guy. The only difference is that he doesn't have Chet's power, or Quinn and Rachel's smarts, which is why he ends the season having to ally with another woman in order to destroy Rachel.
I ended the season hating Jeremy a lot more than any other character. Adam I mostly felt sorry for - as you say, he buys into the fantasy as much as anyone else on the show and arguably pays the most for doing so, even if it's entirely his fault. 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.
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 it's also that exact thing which Jeremy uses against her at the end in going to her mother, and she'll be that much more vulnerable to it because she doesn't have the protective cachet that being with Adam would give her.
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.
I also think it brings up a great question that I have no answers to- how much moral blame should you lay at a person if you also feel they're mentally unwell and need a shrink. I don't really have a diagnosis for Rachel- but I'm not convinced that she has a clear-cut debilitating chemical mental illness. However, I do think that she has absolutely terrible coping mechanisms which likely had their genesis in her childhood because she had to become a manipulator in order to stave off her mother who is a trained, educated master manipulator and IMO, a woman with those traits, especially in a certain kind of profession like Hollywood, really has no incentive to change or put down her manipulative weapons. And IMO, people usually only change when they have a clear incentive to do so. Rachel has my sympathy enough and I think she needs help that publicly calling her "poison" rankles. However, she *is* poison to others, no doubt about it, and she makes conscious, well-informed, intelligent choices to be poison.
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 society and its expectations make women crazy, and the pressures that are brought to bear on Rachel are subtly but significantly different than those placed on the contestants. They're encouraged to attack each other but she's praised and rewarded for destroying them. And yes, that's a choice that she's responsible for, but at the same time it's one that she's been pushed towards (literally in the pilot episode, when financial and legal considerations compel her to go back to her old job) - which is probably true of a lot of mental illnesses.
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.
Rachel is the damsel Manic Pixie Dreamgirl unbalanced when Jeremy was looking to rescue her and sweep her off her feet for a romance. Rachel was the evil kind of "She didn't sink, so I know she's a witch" maniacal crazy when it was about condemning her in front of the entire crew. Rachel was the kind of crazy that you should infantalize to protect others when Jeremy ran to her mother to make his own civil commitment to protect straight men who could be into her or whatever. Basically, Jeremy was riding whatever definition of mental illness he felt like applying to Rachel to suit his own purposes.
Generally, I think victims of mentally ill people, especially ones who can't be pinned with diagnosis, have their right to confront the person who victimized them- even if the audience (in show or out of show) should have more sensitivity as the non-victim to what the perp may be going through. However, Jeremy wasn't just confronting Rachel for hurting him. He used her emotional problems, every step of the way.
They're encouraged to attack each other but she's praised and rewarded for destroying them. And yes, that's a choice that she's responsible for, but at the same time it's one that she's been pushed towards (literally in the pilot episode, when financial and legal considerations compel her to go back to her old job) - which is probably true of a lot of mental illnesses. REPLY
Right. Many of the contestants behaved worse and worse, the longer they were on Everlasting. Anna started off as such a sensible woman- but she became more and more brittle, prone to attack other women, less secure, nastier, you name it until the Adam/Rachel thing brought her back to her senses to she could get back in touch with the family-oriented down-to-earth professional woman that she used to be. The toxic femininity on steroids world of Everlasting is really bad for everyone.
Still, though, the contestants' increasingly bad behavior lends some forgiving perspective to the Everlasting crew. However even the mice trapped in the maze figured out how leave gracefully when Adam broke up with them or how to even assertively quit this nasty business because it was the right thing to do (Maya, Anna). Quinn and Rachel kept being drawn back to the show season after season, but they should look at Britney as their contestant-mirror.
One comment about Jeremy: 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. In his own way, he's as manipulative as Rachel - again, see his behavior in the finale, or the way he manipulates Rachel into sex after Mary's death, telling her that she needs solace, and then acts hurt and makes her feel bad about herself because she acts as if solace was all their encounter was about. He's definitely cut from the same cloth as Chet or Quinn or even Rachel herself, with an added dash of sanctimoniousness that is rooted directly in his gender - he's entitled to treat Rachel and Lizzy like trash because he's The Good Guy. The only difference is that he doesn't have Chet's power, or Quinn and Rachel's smarts, which is why he ends the season having to ally with another woman in order to destroy Rachel.
I ended the season hating Jeremy a lot more than any other character. Adam I mostly felt sorry for - as you say, he buys into the fantasy as much as anyone else on the show and arguably pays the most for doing so, even if it's entirely his fault. 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.
Reply
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 it's also that exact thing which Jeremy uses against her at the end in going to her mother, and she'll be that much more vulnerable to it because she doesn't have the protective cachet that being with Adam would give her.
Reply
I also think it brings up a great question that I have no answers to- how much moral blame should you lay at a person if you also feel they're mentally unwell and need a shrink. I don't really have a diagnosis for Rachel- but I'm not convinced that she has a clear-cut debilitating chemical mental illness. However, I do think that she has absolutely terrible coping mechanisms which likely had their genesis in her childhood because she had to become a manipulator in order to stave off her mother who is a trained, educated master manipulator and IMO, a woman with those traits, especially in a certain kind of profession like Hollywood, really has no incentive to change or put down her manipulative weapons. And IMO, people usually only change when they have a clear incentive to do so. Rachel has my sympathy enough and I think she needs help that publicly calling her "poison" rankles. However, she *is* poison to others, no doubt about it, and she makes conscious, well-informed, intelligent choices to be poison.
Reply
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 society and its expectations make women crazy, and the pressures that are brought to bear on Rachel are subtly but significantly different than those placed on the contestants. They're encouraged to attack each other but she's praised and rewarded for destroying them. And yes, that's a choice that she's responsible for, but at the same time it's one that she's been pushed towards (literally in the pilot episode, when financial and legal considerations compel her to go back to her old job) - which is probably true of a lot of mental illnesses.
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.
Rachel is the damsel Manic Pixie Dreamgirl unbalanced when Jeremy was looking to rescue her and sweep her off her feet for a romance. Rachel was the evil kind of "She didn't sink, so I know she's a witch" maniacal crazy when it was about condemning her in front of the entire crew. Rachel was the kind of crazy that you should infantalize to protect others when Jeremy ran to her mother to make his own civil commitment to protect straight men who could be into her or whatever. Basically, Jeremy was riding whatever definition of mental illness he felt like applying to Rachel to suit his own purposes.
Generally, I think victims of mentally ill people, especially ones who can't be pinned with diagnosis, have their right to confront the person who victimized them- even if the audience (in show or out of show) should have more sensitivity as the non-victim to what the perp may be going through. However, Jeremy wasn't just confronting Rachel for hurting him. He used her emotional problems, every step of the way.
They're encouraged to attack each other but she's praised and rewarded for destroying them. And yes, that's a choice that she's responsible for, but at the same time it's one that she's been pushed towards (literally in the pilot episode, when financial and legal considerations compel her to go back to her old job) - which is probably true of a lot of mental illnesses.
REPLY
Right. Many of the contestants behaved worse and worse, the longer they were on Everlasting. Anna started off as such a sensible woman- but she became more and more brittle, prone to attack other women, less secure, nastier, you name it until the Adam/Rachel thing brought her back to her senses to she could get back in touch with the family-oriented down-to-earth professional woman that she used to be. The toxic femininity on steroids world of Everlasting is really bad for everyone.
Still, though, the contestants' increasingly bad behavior lends some forgiving perspective to the Everlasting crew. However even the mice trapped in the maze figured out how leave gracefully when Adam broke up with them or how to even assertively quit this nasty business because it was the right thing to do (Maya, Anna). Quinn and Rachel kept being drawn back to the show season after season, but they should look at Britney as their contestant-mirror.
Reply
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