Patriarchy: Stalking Edition
Dec. 22nd, 2018 07:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackWelcome to your unscheduled rant. I've been watching a bit of Aaron Sorkin's sportsnight. Mostly it's pretty good, Sorkin's strengths of emotional heart, endearing and slightly klutzy characters, witty banter and optimistic dedication are prominently on display. West Wing was about a more serious topic, but on the other hand, West Wing was sharply constrained by not departing too far from reality. And I hear newsroom was well written but tried to be more serious and was even more pompous.
But there's one vile plotline in the first series, which sadly came on almost exactly the one or two episodes I happened to watch when Liv was in the room to see. Sorry about that.
One main character, Dan, runs into a woman who works elsewhere in the same building, who he met once when they seemed to really like each other, and falls hard for her. He asks her out. She emphatically says no. He asks her out seventeen more times, importunes his friends to approach her on his behalf, spontaneously interrupts her when she's working, etc. She responds with a wide range of "no", "seriously, no", "I'm not playing hard to get, no, never, stop asking me, no."
This is all played as an amused escapade as Dan tilts at a wildmill, not a creepy portrayal of a character going off the rails and learning how badly they fucked up.
And <HEAVY SARCASM>UNSURPRISINGLY <HEAVY SARCASM>, it turns out she had a specific, wrong, reason for not liking Dan, and once that was cleared up she eagerly reciprocated his romantic interest.
Now, obviously this is prevalent on TV and there's no point being surprised by it. But running into it so blatantly in a show I'd otherwise liked tripped me up like running over a speedbump at speed.
The thing is, it's obviously possible that if he asks someone out, and she's not interested, actually she IS interested and if he persists it will turn out so to everyone's benefit. What are the chances? 10%? More? But on TV, that's what happens almost *every* time, which gives the impression that it's what you expect to happen in real life.
For that matter, "leave her the fuck alone" isn't ALWAYS right. Many cultures DO use "a less emphatic no" as a "yes", even if that has all these problems. So some people can judge when a hard no is actually a yes. But I know for a fact that many people think they do, but actually, just always think that's the case when they want it to be, persist, until they provoke an extreme reaction, and then say "oh, wow, narrow escape, who knew she would take it so personally" :( :( :(
But on TV, they never really show this range of responses. They only really ever show the "what he wanted was actually the right thing to do in that situation" outcome, and they didn't give any weight to the fact that that's a horrible message to train everyone into :(
But there's one vile plotline in the first series, which sadly came on almost exactly the one or two episodes I happened to watch when Liv was in the room to see. Sorry about that.
One main character, Dan, runs into a woman who works elsewhere in the same building, who he met once when they seemed to really like each other, and falls hard for her. He asks her out. She emphatically says no. He asks her out seventeen more times, importunes his friends to approach her on his behalf, spontaneously interrupts her when she's working, etc. She responds with a wide range of "no", "seriously, no", "I'm not playing hard to get, no, never, stop asking me, no."
This is all played as an amused escapade as Dan tilts at a wildmill, not a creepy portrayal of a character going off the rails and learning how badly they fucked up.
And <HEAVY SARCASM>UNSURPRISINGLY <HEAVY SARCASM>, it turns out she had a specific, wrong, reason for not liking Dan, and once that was cleared up she eagerly reciprocated his romantic interest.
Now, obviously this is prevalent on TV and there's no point being surprised by it. But running into it so blatantly in a show I'd otherwise liked tripped me up like running over a speedbump at speed.
The thing is, it's obviously possible that if he asks someone out, and she's not interested, actually she IS interested and if he persists it will turn out so to everyone's benefit. What are the chances? 10%? More? But on TV, that's what happens almost *every* time, which gives the impression that it's what you expect to happen in real life.
For that matter, "leave her the fuck alone" isn't ALWAYS right. Many cultures DO use "a less emphatic no" as a "yes", even if that has all these problems. So some people can judge when a hard no is actually a yes. But I know for a fact that many people think they do, but actually, just always think that's the case when they want it to be, persist, until they provoke an extreme reaction, and then say "oh, wow, narrow escape, who knew she would take it so personally" :( :( :(
But on TV, they never really show this range of responses. They only really ever show the "what he wanted was actually the right thing to do in that situation" outcome, and they didn't give any weight to the fact that that's a horrible message to train everyone into :(
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Date: 2018-12-23 02:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-23 04:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-25 12:46 am (UTC)