White Collar 2x12: What Happens in Burma

[tzikeh]

I gave up on writing an eloquent rant, so the rant under the cut is a bit of a mess. If you don't want my GRAR all over you, then please, don't click.



Here Come The Daddy Issues.

I really, really wanted to write an essay about why this trope angers me--first, why it's such a crappy, sloppy short-cut to real character writing, and second, how women react to it, because we've been exposed to it in tv and movies so often that we've sort of been indoctrinated--but here's the thing. Nothing I write is going to change how fandom thinks, and I know it's my Magical Fantasy that it would, and I'd only be disappointed if I wrote up a thoughtful piece about it, so I just gave up because I'd just get all riled up for nothing, and with no outlet.

Here's an off-the-cuff, not-particularly-well-thought-out version of what the essay might have been.

Approximately 90% of television and movies is written by men (that's low-ball, but it's close enough for government work). Apparently ALL of these writers have Daddy Issues, and it seems that the only way they can come to some kind of terms with them is by writing them into their television shows. Over, and over, and over, and over, and please just get a fucking therapist and stop taking this crappy short-cut instead of doing real work on your male characters.

Think about the male characters on some popular shows.

A short list of characters who have Daddy Issues liek woah:

Burn Notice: Michael Westin.

Leverage: Nate Ford.

The West Wing: Sam, Josh, Toby, Leo, Jed. (Astoundingly, each of them had a DIFFERENT Daddy Issue. Now there's some creativity right there!)

Stargate Atlantis: John Sheppard.

Due South: Benny, Ray.

Hawaii Five-0: Steve McGarrett.

House: House, Chase.

Bones: Booth.

Smallville: Lex Luthor.

Homicide: Tim.

Supernatural: Sam and Dean. Seriously. Do I even need to say it?

Chuck. NCIS. Criminal Minds. Invisible Man. Sports Night (oh, Aaron Sorkin, GET THERAPY).

And on and on and on.

It's like I can already see how much less I'm about to love my show, because once we hear about Daddy Issues, every-fucking-thing else about the character goes out the window, and it's All Daddy-Issue Recovery, All The Time. It's a cheap hook, it's Insta-Sympathy, and it's fucking everywhere. It flattens formerly-three-dimensional characters.

I kind of hate it, if you couldn't tell.

Oh, and? When Mozzie asked Neal if he was going to tell Peter, and then said "Neal, he could be useful--" ...yeah. Operation Find Neal's Daddy, here we come!

Meantime, Neal's ever-shifting morals and ethics have been drained of all of their complexity - his father was a bad man; therefore he is a bad man. He *says* this. All the interesting work Bomer did with Neal's motivations over the past two years is kind of wiped away by this broad, broad brush.

Just. What.

You know what would have been the best thing ever? If Neal had come from a perfectly normal family and become an art forger and con-man ANYWAY. How fucking awesome, creative, and interesting would that have been? I had held out hope (stupid, I know), and it was only the teeeeeeniest hope, but still, that this would be the backstory, because that would have been so original and fun to play with and...

But no.


The second problem I have with it, and this is entirely personal, is how women in fandom respond, like Pavlov's dogs, to this trope. "Ooooh poor widdle $CHARACTER, his daddy was so alcoholic/cruel/violent/absent/judgmental/adulterous; let's write ENDLESS FANFICTION ABOUT HOW IT FUCKED HIM UP AND IGNORE EVERYTHING ELSE INTERESTING ABOUT THE CHARACTER."

To be fair, while the Daddy Issue fanfiction brigade will make me unhappy, it's much more about how this is going to play out on the show.

My third complaint is tangential. Since the writers are all men with daddy issues, they assume all women must have mommy issues--and here's how they write them:

Daughter: OMG YOU'RE SUCH A BITCH!
Mother: OMG YOU'RE SUCH A DISAPPOINTMENT!
Daughter: OMG I HATE YOOOOUUUU!
Mother: OMG WHY DIDN'T YOU TURN OUT LIKE YOUR SISTER WHO IS NOT A CHARACTER ON THIS SHOW BUT IS OBVIOUSLY SO MUCH MORE IMPRESSIVE!
Daughter: I'M A GROWN-UP I DON'T HAVE TO LISTEN TO ANYMORE!
Mother: YOU ARE SO IMMATURE AND I AM YOUR MOTHER SO I WIN.
Daugher: *fume*
Mother: *haughty expression of haughtiness*

Well, thanks, guys, because yes, that's just how shallow women are.

Note that they never think to ask women about how women relate to their mothers or daughters; they just turn us into cartoons. Because it's FUNNY! Oh, women, why didn't you date me in high school? you're so hormonal!

My head just about exploded when Russell T. Davies (previous showrunner of Doctor Who) was talking in one of the Confidentials about the character Rose Tyler and her mother Jackie Tyler, and how he wrote them, and said something almost exactly like: "Oh, you ladies just keep having cat-fights with your mums, and I'll never run out of material."

Though, I guess, at least he was honest about it.

And I didn't even ADDRESS the racefail.

neifile7 has a much more thoughtful rant than mine here, that includes the racefail as well.

copperbadge has far more gentle grar here, plus some yay to balance it.

Which reminds me:

Peter & Neal banter is always good for a laugh or two, even though some of it felt rather forced this time around. But "jazz hands" is a classic, as is "Mister Satchmo"--plus Peter's rejoinder after he burns Neal's alias: "You named me after my dog." Nice callback to their earlier Indiana Jones references in All In (oh, right, the *other* racefail episode. Sorry; it just occurred to me; didn't mean to bring grar into the yay parts).

Mozzie. There is never anything bad about Mozzie. Now *that* reveal, that he was in the foster system, or adopted, was simple, well done, and interesting. I'm sure they took a cue from Garson having adopted a kid and being a big proponent of adoption (That was his kid he sent as a runner in the flashback episode). "It's a smoking jacket."

Peter coming to help Neal, in the end, after Diana lays it out for him. (More... no, I won't bring any more grar. Let us, as Peter says, savor the moment.) The endless parking ticket bit was classic Peter.

Neal's "Wow," in the conference room as he sinks down in his chair after revealing that he had planned out how to get to the ruby (even if he'd never put the plan into action). That whole bit was very well done by Bomer.

El's preternatural ability to know that no, they're not going to have lunch today.

Peter the Viking! That whole exchange at the beginning, actually, where Peter says he should travel more, and Neal says that he tried to get Peter to go to France, and Peter says, no, you *fled* to France. And the bit about Interpol sending him postcards - "Neal's robbing a castle! Wish you were here!"

And one fun moment for the "yay slash is so easy" part of me: when Neal and Peter are standing outside the Embassy, and Neal gets a text and says that he knows it's a bad time, but he has to go, and Peter says it's all right, he really isn't in the mood anyway... :D

So, that.

Comments

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

Yeah, man-pain is a drag. If it weren't omnipresent and so messily executed, I could probably take it from time to time, but it's just sloppy and cheap and exists as a one-stop-shop for "character development" that we lose so much of what might have been, let alone sympathy for the man. If every single male character gets a CALL THE WAAAAHMBULANCE arc, then none of them has any hope of being intriguing, and so just serve to make us roll our eyes.

[magdalene1.livejournal.com]

In art as in life I am on Team Grow The Fuck Up and Handle Your Shit.