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OK, so I recently watched a movie, The Ides of March, starring Ryan Gosling, Evan Rachel Wood and George Clooney. It was billed as a political drama—hotshot political operative in the hardball world of presidential campaigns. When I was finished, though, it was just another movie The Price exists to critique. Spoilers: The operative’s naivete/belief in the justness of his cause is crushed when it turns out that his candidate/idol got an intern pregnant. He helps her obtain an abortion (at her initiative), but is then immediately fired as part of political maneuverings between the campaigns, which is what really tips him over the edge. He leaves, promising to take everyone down; when the intern hears about this, she assumes he’s going to use her situation for revenge and overdoses on the post-abortion drugs she’s been given. Her death turns him at last into the manipulative bastard who, the film suggests, can finally succeed in politics.
The thing that really got my goat about this wasn’t just how her life was his life journey. As CJ Cregg said, “Outraged? I’m barely surprised.” What I’m still fuming about is the fact that her life was so much about his narrative arc that the writers didn’t consider anything about how abortion actually works. (1) They’re in Ohio—a huge plot point—which has a waiting period, but there is no waiting period. (2) They’re in Ohio—a huge plot point—and the area surrounding the clinic is completely free of protestors. Which should have affected the plot a lot, given the harassment tactic of taking pictures of clinic-goers and their license plates. (3) Post-abortion care in this movie means handing two huge bottles of painkillers to the intern at the clinic, meaning that the clinic must have a license to dispense scheduled narcotics. I’ll spot them that, but not the fact that the prescribing doctor’s name would have had to have been on the bottles, which would have led straight back to the clinic in any investigation of this high-profile death by misadventure of an attractive young intern from a powerful political family on the campaign of the presumptive Democratic nominee. But since her death is merely coal that powers the narrative engine, none of that matters. Aaargh.
I’m also rewatching S6 of SPN, and I was really struck by the barrage of negative messages Dean’s hit with in Exile on Main Street. Sam gets a pass because he’s soulless, though I doubt Dean could completely erase the effects of what he thought for a while was Sam’s deliberate abandonment “for his own good,” but Bobby, WTF? Then the Campbells mock Dean’s desire for a non-hunting life and family (and just to make the construction of masculinity explicit Gwen highlights his “delicate features”). This episode is full of people, and hallucinations, telling Dean that he’s not good enough to hunt but also not capable of protecting Lisa and Ben. Amonitrate talks a lot about the narrative’s continued instructions to Dean that his feelings are worthless and irrelevant, whether they’re a desire for Sam’s presence or to stop hunting. This episode is yet another instance.
Unfortunately, when Dean manages to take decisive action in his emotional life, that often involves treating others as he’s been treated (Lisa and Ben’s mindwipe, Gadreel). The saddest part, aside from Bobby completely ignoring everything he knows about what Dean would want, is seeing Lisa be amazing in just the way Dean needs: she respects his feelings, but distinguishes his feelings from his behavior and sets limits on the latter.
The thing that really got my goat about this wasn’t just how her life was his life journey. As CJ Cregg said, “Outraged? I’m barely surprised.” What I’m still fuming about is the fact that her life was so much about his narrative arc that the writers didn’t consider anything about how abortion actually works. (1) They’re in Ohio—a huge plot point—which has a waiting period, but there is no waiting period. (2) They’re in Ohio—a huge plot point—and the area surrounding the clinic is completely free of protestors. Which should have affected the plot a lot, given the harassment tactic of taking pictures of clinic-goers and their license plates. (3) Post-abortion care in this movie means handing two huge bottles of painkillers to the intern at the clinic, meaning that the clinic must have a license to dispense scheduled narcotics. I’ll spot them that, but not the fact that the prescribing doctor’s name would have had to have been on the bottles, which would have led straight back to the clinic in any investigation of this high-profile death by misadventure of an attractive young intern from a powerful political family on the campaign of the presumptive Democratic nominee. But since her death is merely coal that powers the narrative engine, none of that matters. Aaargh.
I’m also rewatching S6 of SPN, and I was really struck by the barrage of negative messages Dean’s hit with in Exile on Main Street. Sam gets a pass because he’s soulless, though I doubt Dean could completely erase the effects of what he thought for a while was Sam’s deliberate abandonment “for his own good,” but Bobby, WTF? Then the Campbells mock Dean’s desire for a non-hunting life and family (and just to make the construction of masculinity explicit Gwen highlights his “delicate features”). This episode is full of people, and hallucinations, telling Dean that he’s not good enough to hunt but also not capable of protecting Lisa and Ben. Amonitrate talks a lot about the narrative’s continued instructions to Dean that his feelings are worthless and irrelevant, whether they’re a desire for Sam’s presence or to stop hunting. This episode is yet another instance.
Unfortunately, when Dean manages to take decisive action in his emotional life, that often involves treating others as he’s been treated (Lisa and Ben’s mindwipe, Gadreel). The saddest part, aside from Bobby completely ignoring everything he knows about what Dean would want, is seeing Lisa be amazing in just the way Dean needs: she respects his feelings, but distinguishes his feelings from his behavior and sets limits on the latter.