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Man, I really appreciate this article. I don't really care if the show portrays things "correctly" by some abstract metric, I don't care if it was capital-R rape and I don't feel obligated to define it. What I do care about is the interactions and the story being told and I don't know why politics has to always enter into it.
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Jun 19, 2014 01:02
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I've disagreed with an article or three from Greenwald before, but this legit truthbomb reminds that he's one of the most insightful TV-centric writers going right now. This 24/7 superficial, dishonest omni-partisan dialogue the internet is mired in is riddled with sad human voids that crave instant entitled satisfaction. "Too much reflex, not enough reflection" is a drat astute way to sum it up.
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Jun 19, 2014 01:26
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regulargonzalez posted:Incidentally, I forgot to mention that she is the one who proposed to him. She hasn't had an abusive childhood, she wasn't mentally warped or neurotic or damaged. Why did a staunch feminist propose to him if she had been raped, instead of immediately calling the police or at least never talking to him again? Who the hell knows why people do what they do? If she didn't give some kind of consent, the guy raped her. You didn't give any information about how she initially reacted to all this. Maybe the second he pulled her hair, she decided she liked it and played along or maybe she felt differently after the fact. Who knows? But if she didn't consent in some way, he raped her. Period. Why would a lady marry a guy who raped her? People are complicated and messy and do bizarre, nonsensical poo poo all the time.
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Jun 19, 2014 01:37
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The most uncomfortable thing about this thread is how much of Pamela's agency is ignored.
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Jun 19, 2014 01:51
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BOAT SHOWBOAT posted:The most uncomfortable thing about this thread is how much of Pamela's agency is ignored. Because Pamela is a god drat saint! RAPE!
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Jun 19, 2014 03:45
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regulargonzalez posted:Incidentally, I forgot to mention that she is the one who proposed to him. She hasn't had an abusive childhood, she wasn't mentally warped or neurotic or damaged. Why did a staunch feminist propose to him if she had been raped, instead of immediately calling the police or at least never talking to him again? There's nothing I'd rather do less than play around in your bullshit about the fuzzy gray areas involved in consent. You're plainly wrong (who gives a poo poo what she did after she got dragged up the stairs by her hair for sex she didn't consent to?), but more importantly, it's a dumb thing to poo poo up this thread with.
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Jun 19, 2014 07:36
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Do not post rape hypotheticals or experiences from your own life which could be considered as such, please.
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Jun 19, 2014 07:49
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So I just do not think that the attempted rape scene is meant to be taken literally. There's a lot of hyperbole in the show, and I don't just mean the obvious surrealism. Louie is a character so flexible that he can seem like two completely different people from scene to scene, and I think a lot of the more outlandish character moments are meant to be Louie as he sees himself through the lens of his own shame. There's a normal guy who can raise his children well and shoot the poo poo with his friends at a poker game, but that normal guy looks at his own failings very harshly. For example, the problem he faces dumping his girlfriend turns into an exaggerated scene where she has to pick up on insanely subtle clues and go to ridiculous lengths to drag the truth out of him. He has a bad date with Chelsea Peretti's character, but he looks at it with such anxiety that he sees himself as an absolute train wreck who can't string two sentences together.
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Jun 19, 2014 08:02
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verybad posted:I think "right message" is a pretty lovely standard for storytelling. regulargonzalez posted:A lot of really fascinating, well-thought out, true-to-life stuff that's too long to actually quote. In your two stories, the realities are gray. Louie didn't play this out to make a point about how gray these things are. The show wasn't constructed that way. He played a hapless idiot at the end of his rope (his creative wheelhouse) who was attracted to a really mean, equally screwed up woman who inspires feelings in him that cause abhorrent behavior. For a moment, it looked like this was a story about sexual assault. In the end, it wasn't. That was just a quick interlude that had little payoff. That's what bothers me. It's a really adult story, and those stories need to be handled a certain way to not come across as if they're advocating lovely behavior. Now on an adult level and as an artist (the three most pretentious words in the English language), I applaud him for trying, and think no story should be taboo. But since, as I mentioned, I believe that television is responsible for socializing America (boo, Livid! Boo! I know.), I think artists have a responsibility to portray things in a way that don't contribute to the litany of media that damages social interaction in many capacities. The difference between one and the other can be as simple as shot choice, or even cutting a shot three frames earlier or later. It's not the events. It's how we're shown them. I'm kind of a killjoy in TVIV (and hilariously enough, SA's Pro Wrestling forum) because I see things this way. A lot of this is probably because I worked in bars throughout my twenties and heard, night after night, the "I'm not racist, but-" or "I'm not homophobic, but-" rhetoric of people who knew that how they viewed the world was frowned upon, but were constantly looking for any validation about their terrible worldviews. I don't like when television serves it to them. It's a shared experience that has far more power than we like to admit. If it weren't so easy to tell the same stories without being damaging, I'd just consider it collateral damage, but one single shot can change the meaning of something so completely that I don't feel like it's too much to ask that we don't tell potential rapists that "hey, it worked for Louie. It wasn't rape, because she really did want him." I applauded Louie for taking on fat acceptance earlier this season, and I know the guy's heart is in the right place. It's been great fun, as somebody in this thread described it, watching him on his journey from a 40-year-old MRA to a 50-year-old feminist. I can not like the message an episode of a show I like sends, and still love the show. I love South Park, for gently caress's sake, and they once argued that killing somebody because they're black is no different than killing somebody for any other reason, and shouldn't be treated differently. The show is great, and I loved this season. I just don't like that Louie (the character) sexually assaulted Pamela (the character), and it was part of how he — and I'm being deliberate here — obtained her. He won the object by being aggressive. I really wanted her to take him to task when he called her, and continuously remind him that he tried to rape her, and for him come to grips with what he'd done, while realizing that even her lovely, mean behavior didn't justify it. It really seemed like that's what was coming, too, because Louie the writer even wrote himself as the antagonist from the start. "This would be rape if you weren't such an idiot," etc. The message I got instead, in the end, is that if you keep trying, and attempt sexual assault, you'll finally get the girl you've been pining for forever. But you have to accept her flaws first. It was pretty muddy. Again, I have no doubt that that is absolutely not something Louis CK thinks. That's not what I'm going for here. xbilkis posted:Just because there isn't a big flashing bar that says RAPE IS BAD AND WOMEN SHOULD BE TREATED WITH RESPECT doesn't mean you should try to extract the worst possible reading from the show, because What If Dumber People Misunderstand?? bubblelubble posted:Goddamn it why are we still on this? Anyway, thank you for letting me vomit up a wall of text on the matter. I hope some of it makes sense.
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Jun 19, 2014 08:30
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LividLiquid posted:Posts like these are why I keep doing this, just FYI. We're still on this because I refuse to live in a world that won't talk about issues that effect more than half of the population because they make people like you examine things you don't want to. It's not that I don't want to examine this because, you're right, at least half of the world's population has experienced some kind of sexual assault, and if anything's to be done about that, there needs to be serious, critical discussion. I only meant, by my comment, that I feel the same points are being regurgitated over and over, and that this debate isn't really quite going anywhere.
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Jun 19, 2014 08:45
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That's fair, and it's understandable to be annoyed by it when you just want to talk about television, so I hope that I can at least keep the discussion grounded in analysis of the show and its messages, and not just a blanket discussion of other issues.
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Jun 19, 2014 08:53
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LividLiquid posted:I think "advocates attempted rape, kinda" is a pretty lovely standard for storytelling too. What can I say, I like stories about terrible people and their viewpoints. (I don't actually agree with your rather cynical reading though)
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Jun 19, 2014 09:03
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Not for nothin', but I wrote a lot of words trying to make a point. Too many, really. You called me cynical and called it good. If you want to tear me apart, can you actually do it, please? I invite the discourse.
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Jun 19, 2014 09:52
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what about Obama?
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Jun 19, 2014 10:08
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White Rabbit posted:what about Obama? Eidt: (Read this in Calamity Jane voice.) (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Jun 19, 2014 10:09
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Well, you're interpretation of the events depicted boils down to this:LividLiquid posted:He won the object by being aggressive. and that's just not something I saw happening. There's plenty that other posters have said about the scenes & the storyline, I'm not sure I see the value in mostly reiterating what someone else already said.
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Jun 19, 2014 10:09
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I really wanted to stop reading after thisLividLiquid posted:millions of people who, like it or not, use media to determine what's normal. because this is a ridiculous argument to make without coming across as being against virtually everything in our pop culture, but then I also read this LividLiquid posted:and hilariously enough, SA's Pro Wrestling forum and I'm really interested in hearing your thoughts on why Pro Wrestling normalizes vicious violence in society in the same way that Louie normalizes rape in society, and why you are one of the few adult viewers intelligent enough to not mindlessly repeat what you see in pop culture. You must have a really exceptional moral compass and intellect far surpassing your peers, and I am thankful for your everpresent sentry upon the zeitgeist.  e: If you interpreted the message as being something that could encourage viewers to commit rape, but you didn't go ahead and commit rape after viewing it, did you really get the message at all? Randandal fucked around with this message at 10:38 on Jun 19, 2014 |
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Jun 19, 2014 10:35
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Arguing that the media our world view isn't really that controversial, is it? It's a given, really. But it's also very complicated and can't be reduced to "I saw rape, therefore rape is a-OK."
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Jun 19, 2014 11:25
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I was really blown away by the 2 episodes prior to these last two, the young Louie story. For me it is probably the best stuff the show has done.
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Jun 19, 2014 14:31
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Pron on VHS posted:I was really blown away by the 2 episodes prior to these last two, the young Louie story. For me it is probably the best stuff the show has done. It absolutely is*, and the show has been superb this year. If the same posters who repeatedly post the same whiny poo poo decide they're going to keep watching the show next season, then I'm just going to skip reading the thread because not even the ignore button is enough to clean up the loving mess here. *although I still think the Late Night triple episode arc from s3 is the best thing he's done. Man, if this season started with those episodes and ended where it did... that would've been just one of the best all round comedy/drama seasons ever in my eyes.
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Jun 19, 2014 15:32
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EL BROMANCE posted:It absolutely is*, and the show has been superb this year. If the same posters who repeatedly post the same whiny poo poo decide they're going to keep watching the show next season, then I'm just going to skip reading the thread because not even the ignore button is enough to clean up the loving mess here. Young Louie is a blast. I especially loved the scene with he and Janis in the hotel room, where they decide to get a divorce. That actor nailed some of his mannerisms, and it really sold it for me.
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Jun 19, 2014 15:50
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LividLiquid posted:I think artists have a responsibility to portray things in a way that don't contribute to the litany of media that damages social interaction in many capacities. The difference between one and the other can be as simple as shot choice, or even cutting a shot three frames earlier or later. It's not the events. It's how we're shown them. I appreciate that you feel strongly about this, but in all honestly, the specific examples I quoted just scream to me that you're bringing your own preconceptions and laying them on top of the show. This is the same kind of argument we heard about Wolf of Wall Street from people who thought it was glorifying Belfort and co. Just because you wanted Pamela to chew Louie out and it didn't happen doesn't mean the show is advocating what he did, holy gently caress! I'm sorry that a lot of people are stupid. I really am, because it's a consistent pain in the rear end. But it doesn't mean CK should have to dumb down his show or lay out these really obvious "rape is bad" points. There is nothing actually in the scene or any of the following episodes that glorifies what he did or suggests it was in any way okay.
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Jun 19, 2014 17:56
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Bown posted:I appreciate that you feel strongly about this, but in all honestly, the specific examples I quoted just scream to me that you're bringing your own preconceptions and laying them on top of the show. This is the same kind of argument we heard about Wolf of Wall Street from people who thought it was glorifying Belfort and co. Just because you wanted Pamela to chew Louie out and it didn't happen doesn't mean the show is advocating what he did, holy gently caress! Except that he got exactly what he wanted by doing it???
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Jun 19, 2014 18:19
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Please explain where the evidence is, in the storyline, that the forced kiss led to him getting her, other than the sequence of events happening in that order. If anything, their conversation at the beginning of pt 2 makes it clear they haven't spoken for at least a short while (mirroring the break between parts) and that it made things really loving awkward between them? The outcome you're presenting just doesn't exist in the text, anywhere.
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Jun 19, 2014 18:30
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Breadallelogram posted:Except that he got exactly what he wanted by doing it??? And that is how life works sometimes. Bad things can come without consequences. Pamela could easily have not thought much about the situation other than "man, Louie is pathetic". I guarantee her character has experienced much worse, and would have shrugged it off just the same. That is deeply ingrained into her character. She has issues and those didn't just come out of no where. Really it is just asinine you dweebs are getting so upset. Louie, the writer is saying exactly what you want him to say, yet anything short of his character going to jail is him advocating rape??? The reason he drags his character through mud is to convey a message. Not one second of that scene says "good work Louie, you did it!". I applaud his bravery to portray his character(an extension of how the public views he himself) in such a negative light in order to discuss a subject most everyone would be afraid to mention.
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Jun 19, 2014 18:51
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Bown posted:Please explain where the evidence is, in the storyline, that the forced kiss led to him getting her, other than the sequence of events happening in that order. I feel like a fundamental flaw in people's criticism of media is "if thing A happens before thing B, thing B is a result of thing A!" It's stupid.
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Jun 19, 2014 19:20
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Lock the thread until next season please????
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Jun 19, 2014 19:26
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BrownThunder posted:Lock the thread until next season please????
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Jun 19, 2014 19:41
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LividLiquid posted:If you don't want to read discussion about the show, why are you here? Because I want to read discussion about the show and not rape stories?
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Jun 19, 2014 20:39
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Only one guy is really posting those, you can put him on ignore.
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Jun 19, 2014 21:20
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Pron on VHS posted:I was really blown away by the 2 episodes prior to these last two, the young Louie story. For me it is probably the best stuff the show has done.
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Jun 20, 2014 00:30
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I think a large part of why this season is so jarring (though not necessarily worse or better) is that it's the first time that Louie has been very unsympathetic or unlikeable in parts. In all of the earlier seasons he was schlubby, average joe who we were meant to side with and just go "Oh, Louie!" when he fucks up. I may be forgetting something but I can't remember any moments in the earlier seasons where I was outright not on his side. A lot of this season I think is trying to complicate this mentality and show why uncritically sympathising that average schlubby joe, not just in Louie but in broader pop culture, can be a bad thing.
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Jun 20, 2014 01:00
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BOAT SHOWBOAT posted:I think a large part of why this season is so jarring (though not necessarily worse or better) is that it's the first time that Louie has been very unsympathetic or unlikeable in parts. In all of the earlier seasons he was schlubby, average joe who we were meant to side with and just go "Oh, Louie!" when he fucks up. I may be forgetting something but I can't remember any moments in the earlier seasons where I was outright not on his side. Playing out a cliched TV romance(s) that involve uncomfortable coercion/forced kissing is terribly hard to watch, but I can't say that I've seen too many shows that have involved that. passionate dongs fucked around with this message at 01:25 on Jun 20, 2014 |
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Jun 20, 2014 01:21
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Four's an odd season because it had the truly excellent In The Woods and Pamela Part 2, the very good Pamela Part 3 and Model, and the ok ep 1, fat lady, and elevator part 1, but then the stinky doo doo elevator 2-6 and Pamela part 1. 2 > 1 > 4 > 3, though the 4 lows were the lowest of all Highlight of the season was the crotch... sexting? Didn't really understand the weird gender reversal that Louie has in Pamela part 3, when he acts like a huge loser again instead of coolguy. I like watching the cool guy better, it gives me good feels.
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Jun 20, 2014 05:50
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What do you have against season 3? I liked it more than 1 or 2, personally.
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Jun 20, 2014 06:13
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precision posted:What do you have against season 3? I liked it more than 1 or 2, personally. In S3 he becomes this disgusting simpering loser and constantly does things that I'm sure CK himself finds disgusting. The weird way he smiles at Liz at the end of the episode, his total passivity with which he tries to receive attention, his complete lack of internal direction (the Maron scene was funny, because he appeared to actually have a thing he wanted to do). He's this lovely fat ball of anxiety constantly looking for external validation, which is clearly NOT what Louis CK himself is. He's quite often written to be reviled and disgusted by, which I think does the audience a disfavor compared to something like In The Woods where the exact lesson is unclear. You get that guy again in most of Elevator when he acts in a way that's sympathetic to no one, but then in some of the other episodes his actions are pretty sympathetic, like, I could see why a human would make those decisions while not sucking at life. Just watching someone suck at life is a waste of time.
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Jun 20, 2014 17:07
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No Wave posted:You get that guy again in most of Elevator when he acts in a way that's sympathetic to no one... Yes, because nobody in the history of the world has ever been kind, or put themselves in vulnerable positions and set themselves up for hurt because they wanted to give their love to someone. But I'll agree that Season 3 was incredibly weak. I don't even really remember what happened that season, at all, I just remember barely paying attention to it.
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Jun 20, 2014 17:35
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King Vidiot posted:Yes, because nobody in the history of the world has ever been kind, or put themselves in vulnerable positions and set themselves up for hurt because they wanted to give their love to someone. Also not sure what vulnerable positions or hurt you're talking about. What is "vulnerable"? An expectation that people like it when you act like a pathetic sadsack wuss? When he tries to shame Pamela into acting the way he wants her to by trying to (poorly) convince her she's a bad person for not being more affectionate - who's being the bully? (the more pressing question: why would she put up with that poo poo?) No Wave fucked around with this message at 17:52 on Jun 20, 2014 |
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Jun 20, 2014 17:49
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No Wave posted:but I think portraying something fundamentally ugly instead of something fundamentally noble is a waste of film. What the gently caress that's the dumbest thing i've ever read in my whole life I feel like if this show was exactly the same except Louie CK was the showrunner and the main character was played by someone else with a different name people wouldn't have any of these stupid-rear end problems with it.
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Jun 20, 2014 17:56
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No Wave posted:I think portraying something fundamentally ugly instead of something fundamentally noble is a waste of film. ..... e. ChairMaster posted:What the gently caress glad I'm not the only one. If this is really your opinion NoWave you might be the first person to make my ignore list.
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Jun 20, 2014 18:13
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