Look, It's Me! Watching TV!
May. 7th, 2008 12:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
itsallovernowOkay, so after plowing through the two seasons of Criminal Minds, what I'm left with (aside from the way that the violence/torture porn took a turn towards the excessive in the second season), is a question of safety and identity.
CM does a couple of things VERY well, and other things VERY poorly. Mostly? The A-plot makes only marginal sense, and there's an ambivalent… acceptance of victimhood that I HATE. Victims happen. While these people are potentially mourned, the status of them as victims is rarely addressed (the trail of bodies, I mean. There's always a final body/person in peril that instigates the team, but the others are… incidental. I dislike this strongly).
I dislike that it's designed to make me feel afraid, not in a "be better at being aware, be better about safety, beware of the monster under the bed" kind of way, but in a "anyone could be a threat, anyone could be a monster. Welcome to the military/government/industrial complex. We're your salvation. Let us protect you." kind of way.
What I like is this immediate question of identity, of what it takes to be on the right side of the social code. (And they do some nice things, frequently, with the idea that being off the grid doesn't justify society's dismissal. Being poor, being homeless, being without resources, without family does not relegate you to death. Off the grid is off the grid, it should not be off our social conscious or our radar). I like the idea that all of us are capable of falling the wrong way, that our vices and virtues are mirrors. (It's a concept I've always loved, in Buffy, in Farscape, in everything… we are only a heartbeat away from becoming our nightmares because the nightmare is the other side of our ideal.)
The profilers are good at their jobs because with a tweak, they could have been the person they're hunting. Biology, opportunity, environment. Triggers. What's the trigger that makes you a killer? What's the trigger that puts you on the right side of the law. What's the trigger that makes the world fall apart and what do you do with it?
I like the idea that every person on that team could be the person they're profiling. I like their fallout and I like their damage, and I like the fact that they all struggle with ways to have lives outside of their jobs, but do so poorly for the most part because when you've chosen to continually walk that line, you cannot leave the job at home. You're Hotch, struggling with the need to be a leader, to be at the center, protecting his team at the expense of his family. You're Gideon with your compassion and your PTSD, your intelligence and your failures.
You're JJ, afraid that saying it outloud will make it real and real means that someone can take it away from you (and may I say that of all the characters I'm most impressed with, blond, competent JJ may be my favorite). Her job is to say the words, her job is to liaise with the public, to use language to convey horror, and her personal failing is that saying it outloud makes it real. There's a reason I love JJ best, after Gideon.
You're Elle, realizing that all the wanting in the world isn't going to make vengeance less appealing, make you feel safe in your home and in your skin. You're Reed, realizing that everyone copes in their own way, and that you're closer to the edge than most – a literal step away from madness, with the precursor of it only a plane ride away. You're Morgan, scarred by your own beauty, and you're Garcia, falsely believing that if you don't look it can't touch you. If you hide behind the virtual, the real can be contained.
So, while the plots often make me angry, or make cringe, I'm entranced by this building of identity, this carving out of what it takes to define yourself, to always be a hunter, to know that it wouldn't take much to be the prey, to do what it takes to keep yourself on the side of the line that you know is right.
I also like that it isn't gender that victimizes you. It's flesh and blood, it's humanity. Anyone can be a victim, just like anyone can be a killer, and while I don't necessarily believe that, the randomness of death is startling. The way victims both succumb and fight back is startling, almost an antidote to the violence porn. Almost.
I'm also watching S3 of Buffy as an antidote and find that I'm so much more... charmed by Buffy herself in the rewatch. When it first aired, I wasn't far enough away from being a teenager to have any empathy or sympathy for her youth, for the way that enormous responsibility mixed with the overwhelmingness of being a teenager, and on rewatch, I'm so pleased by how that's working. How poignant it is to see her grow up. To see her shoulder the ways in which she'll never be allowed to be a child again. That her decisions, even the one's that feel inevitable, feel personal, feel necessary, will always have consequences that she will eventually have to anticipate.
CM does a couple of things VERY well, and other things VERY poorly. Mostly? The A-plot makes only marginal sense, and there's an ambivalent… acceptance of victimhood that I HATE. Victims happen. While these people are potentially mourned, the status of them as victims is rarely addressed (the trail of bodies, I mean. There's always a final body/person in peril that instigates the team, but the others are… incidental. I dislike this strongly).
I dislike that it's designed to make me feel afraid, not in a "be better at being aware, be better about safety, beware of the monster under the bed" kind of way, but in a "anyone could be a threat, anyone could be a monster. Welcome to the military/government/industrial complex. We're your salvation. Let us protect you." kind of way.
What I like is this immediate question of identity, of what it takes to be on the right side of the social code. (And they do some nice things, frequently, with the idea that being off the grid doesn't justify society's dismissal. Being poor, being homeless, being without resources, without family does not relegate you to death. Off the grid is off the grid, it should not be off our social conscious or our radar). I like the idea that all of us are capable of falling the wrong way, that our vices and virtues are mirrors. (It's a concept I've always loved, in Buffy, in Farscape, in everything… we are only a heartbeat away from becoming our nightmares because the nightmare is the other side of our ideal.)
The profilers are good at their jobs because with a tweak, they could have been the person they're hunting. Biology, opportunity, environment. Triggers. What's the trigger that makes you a killer? What's the trigger that puts you on the right side of the law. What's the trigger that makes the world fall apart and what do you do with it?
I like the idea that every person on that team could be the person they're profiling. I like their fallout and I like their damage, and I like the fact that they all struggle with ways to have lives outside of their jobs, but do so poorly for the most part because when you've chosen to continually walk that line, you cannot leave the job at home. You're Hotch, struggling with the need to be a leader, to be at the center, protecting his team at the expense of his family. You're Gideon with your compassion and your PTSD, your intelligence and your failures.
You're JJ, afraid that saying it outloud will make it real and real means that someone can take it away from you (and may I say that of all the characters I'm most impressed with, blond, competent JJ may be my favorite). Her job is to say the words, her job is to liaise with the public, to use language to convey horror, and her personal failing is that saying it outloud makes it real. There's a reason I love JJ best, after Gideon.
You're Elle, realizing that all the wanting in the world isn't going to make vengeance less appealing, make you feel safe in your home and in your skin. You're Reed, realizing that everyone copes in their own way, and that you're closer to the edge than most – a literal step away from madness, with the precursor of it only a plane ride away. You're Morgan, scarred by your own beauty, and you're Garcia, falsely believing that if you don't look it can't touch you. If you hide behind the virtual, the real can be contained.
So, while the plots often make me angry, or make cringe, I'm entranced by this building of identity, this carving out of what it takes to define yourself, to always be a hunter, to know that it wouldn't take much to be the prey, to do what it takes to keep yourself on the side of the line that you know is right.
I also like that it isn't gender that victimizes you. It's flesh and blood, it's humanity. Anyone can be a victim, just like anyone can be a killer, and while I don't necessarily believe that, the randomness of death is startling. The way victims both succumb and fight back is startling, almost an antidote to the violence porn. Almost.
I'm also watching S3 of Buffy as an antidote and find that I'm so much more... charmed by Buffy herself in the rewatch. When it first aired, I wasn't far enough away from being a teenager to have any empathy or sympathy for her youth, for the way that enormous responsibility mixed with the overwhelmingness of being a teenager, and on rewatch, I'm so pleased by how that's working. How poignant it is to see her grow up. To see her shoulder the ways in which she'll never be allowed to be a child again. That her decisions, even the one's that feel inevitable, feel personal, feel necessary, will always have consequences that she will eventually have to anticipate.
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Date: 2008-05-07 10:14 pm (UTC)I've also noticed recently that I seem to have a much more... *motherly* attitude toward teen characters and heroes than I used to. I was recently reading a young adult book I enjoyed a lot (Lirael, by Garth Nix, in case you are curious. :) ), and one of the main characters was a young girl who felt like none of the adults understood her, and who kept doing all these dangerous things, and instead of feeling for her and admiring her, I found I wanted to shake her, and take her to the nearest adult, so they could protect her, and keep her from doing such dangerous things in the future. Alas, I guess I am no longer the target audience for such books. ;)
Also, I recently watched Criminal Minds, and I completely agree with you about the things I like about it. I also like that feeling that the main characters are always very aware of how close they are to becoming the things they hunt, and how afraid they are of crossing the line.
I guess I wish... that it gave more agency to the victims, that the FBI wasn't presented as the *only* way to protect people, as you said. There was this one episode that I really liked -- I don't know if you've gotten to it yet -- where a young woman was hunted in the forest, and she actually protected *herself*, and turned the tables on her two assailants. I really liked that -- the feeling that people might need help sometimes, but they are also capable of thinking for *themselves*, and protecting *themselves*.
But a lot of the time, it feels like the non-FBI characters can't really do anything to protect themselves unless the profilers get involved, and that seems to me a large part of why the series makes you feel so unsafe. It's not just that anybody can be attacked at any time -- it's the feeling that the only way to *survive* such an attack is to have someone like the FBI to protect you, and if you don't have that, then you will probably die.
*hugs you randomly, just because* :)
hee :D
Date: 2008-05-08 05:40 am (UTC)Oh yes. this. Last week at aikido, I was practicing with one of the teenagers, and I suddenly asked him how old he was. 16, he replied. And it hit me (and being me, it then fell out my mouth): I could VERY realistically be his mother. (I'd have been 19 when I got preggers).
Of course, I remain childless (hmmm, I typed childish first :D) and single, but still.... And tonight, I was all adult with another of the teenagers who needs to learn some respect for senior students.... Since when am *I* the mature one!
I think I need to go read a good pony book with a good teenaged heroine now. _Keeping Barney_, maybe. Or one of the_Gypsy_ books :D.