Help a fangirl out?

[rivkat]

I'm looking for pop culture examples (TV, movies) of professionals doing their jobs because they're professionals, even though they know -- or strongly believe -- that there's no point to it. An example would be the final episode of Angel. (That might be an example of "the point is that this is all there is," but I hope you get the idea -- you treat the patient because that's your job, not because you think it will help or because you think it makes you especially noble. You investigate the crime not because you're doing justice or because you have a personal stake but because that's what it means to be a cop. Greg House and L&OL's Jack McCoy are, therefore, counterexamples.)

Specific episodes/arcs, please! The point is to have some examples to show students, so the more specific, the better.

Comments

[harriet-spy.livejournal.com]

You mean like Frank Pembleton on Homicide?

"You're suspicious of your suspicions? I'm jealous, Kay; I'm so jealous. You still have the heart to have doubts. Me? I'm going to lock up a 14-year-old kid for what could be the rest of his natural life. I got to do this. This is my job. This is the deal. This is the law. This is my day. I have no doubts or suspicions about it. Heart has nothing to do with it any more. It's all in the caffeine."

[barkley.livejournal.com]

Yeah, "Every Mother's Son" is the first thing that sprung to mind.

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

Excellent! It's so good to be able to store knowledge in other people's brains.

[humming-along.livejournal.com]

I would look at episode summaries for ER, especially episodes involving Kerry Weaver. I can't think of any specific episodes that I'm certain fit your criteria, but she's very much a "do the job because it's your job, no matter how it fits in with your morals, ethics, or personal beliefs." One episode that comes to mind is where she refused to allow a doctor under her to force a patient to have a c-section to save the baby she (the patient)had attempted to abort by injuring herself, because the woman was their patient, not the baby, and their job is to treat their patient and respect their wishes. I'm not sure it that's exactly what you're looking for, but it came to mind so I'm throwing it out there :-)

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

Hmm ... have to think about that example. It's a provocative one -- thanks!

[audrey-cooper.livejournal.com]

I don't know if this fits your criteria exactly, but Eve Dallas in JD Robb's In Death series of novels is a person who does the job because it's the job. She's a cop who finds justice because it's justice and that's what she does, what she is. I'm listening to Memory In Death and there is a plotline on this exact thing. Sorry I can't give page numbers, cause I'm listening, but I think it's on disc 5. HTH!!!

[audrey-cooper.livejournal.com]

I think I'd better clarify - Dallas usually does justice because it's justice, but in this latest instance, she's doing the job because it's the job, and she's a professional, despite her lack of wanting justice for a particular victim.

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[moonpupy.livejournal.com]

This is bad because I ::flail:: at episode titles.

due South - the episode where all Fraser wants the bad guy to do is apologize to the waiter. And he keeps getting beaten up for his efforts. But he persists.

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

Look for Scrubs's Doctor Cox - he says things like "It turns out, you can't save people from themselves, newbie. We just treat 'em. You treat that kid with a respiratory problem, and when he comes back with cancer, go ahead and treat that, too... " And "We're just delaying the inevitable." I'll do some research to see if I can't find specific episodes for you.

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

That sounds perfect! If you do find episodes, that would be wonderful, because that's exactly what I'm looking for. Thanks!

[vass]

The first Scrubs quotation there is from season 1, one of the earliest episodes - possibly 'My Mentor'.

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

Thanks! That's very helpful.

[marici.livejournal.com]

The episode where House cures a prisoner on death row was actually the first "doing my job because it's my job" example that jumped to mind. I suppose you felt differently about it? I mean, I also thought he was pretty deeply opposed to the death penalty in general, but he didn't go so far as to say so.

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

The reason I excluded him was actually that he sees illness as a puzzle and a personal affront to him. He wants to solve puzzles so, though he doesn't care about people as people, he also has no particular regard for the strictures of his professional role. And the role is what I'm trying to zero in on. I did think about him; maybe I should consider Cuddy instead -- but she not only respects the rules, she thinks they're good, and that may be too much.

[wearemany.livejournal.com]

The Wire's McNulty finds redemption at the end of s3 by going back to being a beat cop, but before that, he stays on as a detective way after he's got any idea why. I need to rewatch and haven't got the specific MOMENT in mind for you, but I remember the HBO summaries were pretty comprehensive. I'll dig through if that sounds like something that'd work for you. That show's kind of full of those what's-the-point fatalist devotion, to be fair.

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

That sounds perfect! If you do figure out specific episodes, please let me know, because it's just what I'm looking for. Thanks!

[chase820.livejournal.com]

McNulty is a good example of the House dynamic--doing a dirty job because he has a passion for it and has nothing else in his life. I'd say his former partner Bunk, a longtime homicide detective, is a better demonstration of the "doing a job because we have to do a job" mentality. At one point in the first couple of episodes of Season 1, he chides McNulty for taking on a case when he's not up for a case. (Apparently, the homicide detectives on the show take turns on the cases, rather like a batting line-up on a baseball team.) When the case goes sour, he tells McNulty "That what you get for giving a fuck when it's not your turn to give a fuck."

There's also the case of Nicky Sobotka in Season 2. His Uncle wastes his life desperately trying to save the Baltimore docks, and in the end it's all in vain. Nicky goes back to work at the end of the season, knowing it's a dying way of life but not knowing any other.

I'd highly recommend the first couple of seasons of The Wire, which are out on DVD. In terms of richness of character and plotting, it's the closest thing to a visual novel I've ever seen.

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

Thanks, that helps a lot.

[chase820.livejournal.com]

I just thought of this--more than the ending of "Not Fade Away," there's the great moment when Gunn goes to see Anne at the homeless shelter, and asks her what she'd do if the world were ending tonight. And she shrugs and says "I'd finish unloading this truck [of donated furniture]."

I always thought they could have done more with her. She was a great character.

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

Ooh, good one!

[very-improbable.livejournal.com]

Here's the exchange in case you don't have it:

Gunn: What if I told you it doesn't help? What would you do if you found out none of it matters? That it's all controlled by forces more powerful and uncaring than we can conceive, and they will never let it get better down here. What would you do?
Annie: I'd get this truck packed before this new stuff gets here. Wanna give me a hand?
Gunn: I do.

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

Yep, that's perfect. Thanks.

[agarttha.livejournal.com]

Buffy in Once More With Feeling, the opening 'going thriugh the motions'? It could be, if you wanted it to.

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

Buffy is definitely a candidate. And Season 6 offers plenty of opportunities -- "Going Through the Motions" might be best because it's not that bitter, and I'm not looking for rage but rather resignation.

[par-avion.livejournal.com]

I think those themes come up on China Beach and even in MASH -- although the pointlessness comes from the fact that they are fixing up soldiers to send them back out to get killed/injured again.

There's an episode of China Beach where McMurphy gets investigated because a dying soldier wills her all his possessions. They ask her to describe that day (the day he died) and she does, but at the end of it she says "they're all the same." All her days are the same, she doesn't remember that day, or the kid who died.

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

Very interesting! It may fit. Thanks!

[nestra.livejournal.com]

I'm sure there are episodes of La Femme Nikita that fit, but damned if I can give you specific citations. If you want, I can pass this around to people in the fandom.

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

That's a good suggestion -- I'd thought of Alias, but Syd rarely gets down in that way. I think I have enough examples to go on, though, so don't do any extra work on my behalf. Thanks!

[smallbeer.livejournal.com]

a possible example from film--

High Noon (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0044706/plotsummary)--the link is to the plot summary. That particular kind of pragmatic fatalism is in a lot of westerns.

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[wearemany.livejournal.com]

while reading a profile of kiefer sutherland in the april 20, 2006 rolling stone just now, i found this, which might be an even better fit. it's about the end of s3:

[Bad guy Saunders] learns that CTU's regional director, Ryan Chappelle, has been making headway in uncovering private information that the terrorist doesn't want uncovered. He demands that the president shut Chappelle down by having him killed. [President] Palmer decides he has no choice but to accede to Saunders' grim demand and orders Jack Bauer to carry out the killing.

When Bauer takes Chappelle to an unoccupied train yard in the dawn hour, forces him to his knees and places a gun to the back of the trembling man's head, it is an almost unimaginable, wrenching moment. It verges on breaking every rule of a dramatic television series, but more important, within the story's framework, the occasion represents a defeat of everything Bauer believes in. "God forgive me," he says, then squeezes the trigger. In that awful instant, both Bauer and President Palmer have violated all that they had hoped to stand for. They have summarily executed a man who shared teir cause, and they have let their fear of terrorism force them to betray the core values in American democracy. Palmer and Bauer did it, however, because in the story's world, the greater moral good wasn't the acceptable choice; they carried out a murder in order to prevent a vast number of deaths.

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

Interesting! I gave up on 24 mid-S2, but people keep telling me I should try again.

[latxcvi.livejournal.com]

I think the detectives who work with McCoy are examples of this. Of all the ones we've seen on the show, I think Reynaldo Curtis is the only one who's ever come close to making any sort of pronouncement about the nobility of what they do and even his comments to that effect were really vague. But Mike Logan, Lenny Briscoe, Anita Van Buren, Ed Green, Frank Fontana and the characters played by George Dzunda and Paul Sorvino (whose names escape me at the moment) all did their job because it was their job. In this regard, they do differ from their brothers and sisters on L&O: SVU and L&O: CI. Stabler & Benson (on SVU) talk a lot about the justice of what they do and I think Gorem (CI), at least, finds a certain nobility in it. But the detectives of classic L&O do what they do because their job calls for it.

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

That's a good point. The trouble is that we get so little of the detectives as people -- precisely because they are disappearing into the job -- that it's hard to figure out what to show students to make the point. Then again, most of them are probably already familiar with the characters, so maybe that's not an obstacle. Thanks!