It’s a sunny one today, summery, and I’m back in the grind of waiting for other people to move forward with what I need to do.
I think you already know how I feel about that.
I had an amazing time with my friend on Friday, topped off by a tornado watch, so it was an interesting drive home, the sky relatively clear in front of me, heavy and foreboding behind.
Let’s choose to believe I left the heavy and foreboding behind.
It didn’t amount to much, at least here, not while I was on the road. We did get a lot of rain one night but now I can’t remember which that was. Given Texas, though, every warning should be taken seriously, and we should be glad we actually get them here in Illinois and in Chicago as well.
I took advantage of a sale for Apple TV+, and I binged Shrinking at a furious pace. I don’t think my love for Jason Segal is a secret, and if you haven’t seen Dispatches from Elsewhere I highly recommend it.
But it’s not just Jason, it’s the entire cast, including the always hilarious Christa Miller, and Jessica Williams, whose Gaby is someone you wish you could meet an an art gallery you didn’t want to go. Harrison Ford, Wendie Malick who is perhaps the living version of aging gracefully, on and on and on, ever scene is a discovery of yet another amazing actor.
But there’s something with Bill Lawrence’s shows (Scrubs, Cougar Town) that always seems to pop up and always irks me. It’s this idea that young girls, teens, even preteens, are actively seeking out and hitting on adult men.
I always think it’s good to remember that someone is putting lines in characters’ mouths. And who that person is frequently doesn’t reflect who the characters are, but they can make them say anything.
So you end up with a lot of men expressing their sentiment through the mouths of women.
One scene in particular, where Gaby says she slept with a friend of her father’s to anger her father really hit me wrong. So many girls are targeted by men close to them, including the ones in their parents’ circles.
What this does is set the tone to blame the girls for their abuse. “She came on to ME.”
There was a really bad instance of this in Cougar Town where the adult women were being catty about a pre-teen girl they thought was trying to “steal” their adult male partners. I found it repulsive.
It creates a dynamic where everyone accepts the sexual objectification of a child, and she has nowhere to turn for help because the adult women around her blame her for it.
Yes, yes, it’s a “comedy.” But it weaves itself into the fabric of culture, reinforcing the white male patriarchy and the objectification of children.
It’s a small part of the show, though, and overall I loved the show enough to keep the subscription for a new season or at least pick it up again when Season 3 airs.
I just had to vent, because we should be done with all of that by now. And the AI refused to create an image for this post, and asked me to “rephrase” it. So even the AI wants to prevent this discussion. Figures.
Anyway, speaking of being done, that’s it for me today, I hope you have a great Monday and a great start to your week.
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