by Zara » Mon Jun 03, 2013 10:22 am
Responding to Pat's thoughts on "The Watcher", posted in
The Balancing Act That Is Vincent...
Pat wrote:Okay, I'll bite. Yes, I agree that Catherine refusing to go Below was a bit contrived. Yet, how was The Watcher to be caught if she literally was not the bait? Yes, it could have been accomplished, hopefully in the daytime, with her nights protected Below. By her absence at night, he would become more irritated, and less careful, and eventually make a play at work, perhaps.
First and foremost, no woman who is being stalked should ever, ever be expected, or expect herself, to be successfully used as "bait" for trapping and catching her stalker. Yes, that is ONE strategy that can and has been used to attempt to solve this problem. But while it may be convenient for some law enforcers, it is also the most dangerous option for the woman involved. It also increases her victimization and vulnerability, and empowers the stalker. Playing by a stalker's one-sided manipulative rules requires a woman to behave like prey. Behavior quickly informs and shapes identity.
Within this episode's nutty plot, another way out is simply to LET CATHERINE BE CATHERINE. For pity's sake, she's supposed to be the best investigator in the DA's office, right? An out-of-the-box thinker with a city-wide underworld network of eyes and ears at her disposal (anyone remember "A Children's Story", "An Impossible Silence"?), not to mention the fact that she has a fiercely intelligent soulmate on her side. Instead of having her curl up in stereotypical female fear, trying (and failing) to tough it out alone in her apartment, obessively listening to recordings of her stalker's voice, jumping at beeping watch alarms...let her be an active heroine.
She could accept the discreet Topsider help Joe is obviously willing to arrange for her, compile the clues her stalker has already left behind (a location with a view of her balcony, access to surveilance equipment, a flower delivery, etc.), relocate to the secure and supportive environment of the Tunnels, and be a woman of both worlds who rallies elements of both worlds to eliminate a dangerous criminal and personal threat. And that's just a set of first-pass revisions. A modern-woman-who-creatively-triumphs-over-evil-male-stalker story is far from impossible!
Second, in media and literature, the Stalker/Kidnapper of Beautiful Damsels is the oldest, easiest, most overdone plot device in the book. It's like the B&B writers were thinking, "What new Damsel plot can we drop into our series, now that we've already done, like, 21 episodes containing rescues of some character or other?"
Finally, bracketing the hunter-prey violence with anniversary romance is quite possibly the ugliest juxtaposition of the themes of love and fear in the entire series. It is shallow, cheap soap opera stuff that reinforces a position of women's purportedly intrinsic helplessness against violence *as well as her purported complicity with violence against herself* and it offends me to my soul.
Pat wrote:What I liked about this episode is the premise that they were alone in having to deal with this for fear of exposing Vincent. Take him out of the equation, and it was like any other stalker show and the police would be after him, and the question would be, would they catch him in time? But with Vincent, and the possibility of photos, Catherine had to be circumspect.
While I respect your excellent sum-up of the episode's central premise--no. Catherine did not *have* to do what she did in "The Watcher". Logically, IF such photos of Vincent existed (beyond Catherine's supposition that they *could* exist, we never hear of any detrimental stalker-photography again), they were (a) already in the stalker's control, (b) not Catherine's responsibility, and (c) not by any means more valuable than Catherine's life. As a lawyer, Catherine must know that all documents are subject to interpretation and explanation. She has, by implication, explained her way into and out of all manner of situations involving Vincent, including public interactions with him in "Siege" and "Masques". The assumption that the stalker is also a blackmailer without any evidence thereto does nothing but elevate fear above rationality, and degrade both Vincent and Catherine. Their capitulation with the fear of being blackmailed is a senseless reversal of the compassion and creativity they demonstrate in many other episodes. Our heroes end up catering to fear rather than hearkening to wisdom, running from the problem rather than solving the problem. This is disturbing, because the writers explicitly confuse courage with cowardice in order to force our Beauty to act against both her own best interests and Vincent's! Which makes victims of everyone: Catherine, Vincent, the now-impotent system Above, the now-rejected community Below, and the viewers of the story themselves. Now the audience is stuck with one more "stalker show" in which, actually, THE HERO DOES NOT CATCH THE VILLAIN IN TIME. In "The Watcher," *Catherine died.* So where does that leave all the real-world women who do not have a mythological Beast to extract them from their murderers' killing jars and recussitate them by mysterious means?
It leaves them dead. And it leaves the not-yet-dead with no other message than, "Woman, you can only stick it out as best you can in isolation from all the help that could possibly prevent your death beforehand, in order to protect that which you most love from harm, be they lovers, children, friends, or your own self." Not okay. Not at all.
Vincent himself (the "real" Vincent, remember) would never have participated in this deadly cocktail of faulty ethics. He may not comprehend the evil motivating the man who is hunting Catherine, but he knows how hunting *works*. If you're going to write a story taking on the societal problem of stalker-violence against women, at least tell a *new* story that explores how your unique characters would handle things, you know, in-character.
Though Lovers Be Lost.
Most basic explanation of my aversion: this episode exploits every last instinctive terror of the female psyche, and every stereotype of feminine disempowerment, in order to murder its heroine.
Don't get me wrong. Season Three is my favorite season of the series. But under emergency storytelling conditions, the storymakers chose to pull out all the stops and churn out the dominant portion of an opening episode that could not possibly nourish its target audience. From the external side of the storytelling process, I am disgusted with Martin's and other storytellers' insistence in the historical documentation that what happened to Catherine was not torture, because we can tell you *all* about what torture really is, Martin has studied Medieval history, and we gave Catherine the gentlest death possible, and isn't her courage under fire so very inspirational, after all? Etcetera, and so forth.
I can only reply to such arguments: You have obviously never been a pregnant woman.
The brutal victimization of Mother, Father, and Child (Catherine, Vincent, and their baby) kicked off a new (and powerful) storyline in the B&B universe...but it did so by (once again) degrading and tormenting our Beauty, which required the pregnant actress performing Beauty's role to vicariously go through that dehumanization too. Linda Hamilton deserved some kind of a dramatic arts Medal of Valor for her work in that episode. I can understand the process of ending a character's life. I can understand the up-close-and-personal exploration of great evil. But in a series that has been so brave about so many other issues, they chose NOT to be brave enough to avoid using the iconic imagery of an expectant mother in peril as the most intense Damsel-in-Distress plot possible. Thus, they finally objectified Beauty completely. Her character became a symbol, not a hero. Her womanhood became a means to an end, not an intrinsic quality of human identity.
I am not speaking of the villains' attitudes toward Catherine. That is a related, yet separate expression of the story. No, I am objecting to the effect of how the storytellers parsed the scenario, scripted Catherine's lines and actions, and jury-rigged sudden unexplained changes in the relationship between Beast and Beauty. It was hasty and clumsy. And haste often reveals deep seated biases.The episodes following TLBL quickly found a new equilibrium, and proceeded to offer a story that I love dearly, a story that changed my life and my outlook forever. But as any classic fan could tell me, that does not exonerate or justify the anti-woman treatment of Beauty in the Season Three premiere.
Out of my shell enough for you, dear friend?
~ Zara
Responding to Pat's thoughts on "The Watcher", posted in [url=http://www.batbland.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=140&start=30#p1312]The Balancing Act That Is Vincent[/url]...
[quote="Pat"]Okay, I'll bite. Yes, I agree that Catherine refusing to go Below was a bit contrived. Yet, how was The Watcher to be caught if she literally was not the bait? Yes, it could have been accomplished, hopefully in the daytime, with her nights protected Below. By her absence at night, he would become more irritated, and less careful, and eventually make a play at work, perhaps.[/quote]
First and foremost, no woman who is being stalked should ever, ever be expected, or expect herself, to be successfully used as "bait" for trapping and catching her stalker. Yes, that is ONE strategy that can and has been used to attempt to solve this problem. But while it may be convenient for some law enforcers, it is also the most dangerous option for the woman involved. It also increases her victimization and vulnerability, and empowers the stalker. Playing by a stalker's one-sided manipulative rules requires a woman to behave like prey. Behavior quickly informs and shapes identity.
Within this episode's nutty plot, another way out is simply to LET CATHERINE BE CATHERINE. For pity's sake, she's supposed to be the best investigator in the DA's office, right? An out-of-the-box thinker with a city-wide underworld network of eyes and ears at her disposal (anyone remember "A Children's Story", "An Impossible Silence"?), not to mention the fact that she has a fiercely intelligent soulmate on her side. Instead of having her curl up in stereotypical female fear, trying (and failing) to tough it out alone in her apartment, obessively listening to recordings of her stalker's voice, jumping at beeping watch alarms...let her be an active heroine.
She could accept the discreet Topsider help Joe is obviously willing to arrange for her, compile the clues her stalker has already left behind (a location with a view of her balcony, access to surveilance equipment, a flower delivery, etc.), relocate to the secure and supportive environment of the Tunnels, and be a woman of both worlds who rallies elements of both worlds to eliminate a dangerous criminal and personal threat. And that's just a set of first-pass revisions. A modern-woman-who-creatively-triumphs-over-evil-male-stalker story is far from impossible!
Second, in media and literature, the Stalker/Kidnapper of Beautiful Damsels is the oldest, easiest, most overdone plot device in the book. It's like the B&B writers were thinking, "What new Damsel plot can we drop into our series, now that we've already done, like, 21 episodes containing rescues of some character or other?"
Finally, bracketing the hunter-prey violence with anniversary romance is quite possibly the ugliest juxtaposition of the themes of love and fear in the entire series. It is shallow, cheap soap opera stuff that reinforces a position of women's purportedly intrinsic helplessness against violence *as well as her purported complicity with violence against herself* and it offends me to my soul.
[quote="Pat"]What I liked about this episode is the premise that they were alone in having to deal with this for fear of exposing Vincent. Take him out of the equation, and it was like any other stalker show and the police would be after him, and the question would be, would they catch him in time? But with Vincent, and the possibility of photos, Catherine had to be circumspect.[/quote]
While I respect your excellent sum-up of the episode's central premise--no. Catherine did not *have* to do what she did in "The Watcher". Logically, IF such photos of Vincent existed (beyond Catherine's supposition that they *could* exist, we never hear of any detrimental stalker-photography again), they were (a) already in the stalker's control, (b) not Catherine's responsibility, and (c) not by any means more valuable than Catherine's life. As a lawyer, Catherine must know that all documents are subject to interpretation and explanation. She has, by implication, explained her way into and out of all manner of situations involving Vincent, including public interactions with him in "Siege" and "Masques". The assumption that the stalker is also a blackmailer without any evidence thereto does nothing but elevate fear above rationality, and degrade both Vincent and Catherine. Their capitulation with the fear of being blackmailed is a senseless reversal of the compassion and creativity they demonstrate in many other episodes. Our heroes end up catering to fear rather than hearkening to wisdom, running from the problem rather than solving the problem. This is disturbing, because the writers explicitly confuse courage with cowardice in order to force our Beauty to act against both her own best interests and Vincent's! Which makes victims of everyone: Catherine, Vincent, the now-impotent system Above, the now-rejected community Below, and the viewers of the story themselves. Now the audience is stuck with one more "stalker show" in which, actually, THE HERO DOES NOT CATCH THE VILLAIN IN TIME. In "The Watcher," *Catherine died.* So where does that leave all the real-world women who do not have a mythological Beast to extract them from their murderers' killing jars and recussitate them by mysterious means?
It leaves them dead. And it leaves the not-yet-dead with no other message than, "Woman, you can only stick it out as best you can in isolation from all the help that could possibly prevent your death beforehand, in order to protect that which you most love from harm, be they lovers, children, friends, or your own self." Not okay. Not at all.
Vincent himself (the "real" Vincent, remember) would never have participated in this deadly cocktail of faulty ethics. He may not comprehend the evil motivating the man who is hunting Catherine, but he knows how hunting *works*. If you're going to write a story taking on the societal problem of stalker-violence against women, at least tell a *new* story that explores how your unique characters would handle things, you know, in-character.
Though Lovers Be Lost.
Most basic explanation of my aversion: this episode exploits every last instinctive terror of the female psyche, and every stereotype of feminine disempowerment, in order to murder its heroine.
Don't get me wrong. Season Three is my favorite season of the series. But under emergency storytelling conditions, the storymakers chose to pull out all the stops and churn out the dominant portion of an opening episode that could not possibly nourish its target audience. From the external side of the storytelling process, I am disgusted with Martin's and other storytellers' insistence in the historical documentation that what happened to Catherine was not torture, because we can tell you *all* about what torture really is, Martin has studied Medieval history, and we gave Catherine the gentlest death possible, and isn't her courage under fire so very inspirational, after all? Etcetera, and so forth.
I can only reply to such arguments: You have obviously never been a pregnant woman.
The brutal victimization of Mother, Father, and Child (Catherine, Vincent, and their baby) kicked off a new (and powerful) storyline in the B&B universe...but it did so by (once again) degrading and tormenting our Beauty, which required the pregnant actress performing Beauty's role to vicariously go through that dehumanization too. Linda Hamilton deserved some kind of a dramatic arts Medal of Valor for her work in that episode. I can understand the process of ending a character's life. I can understand the up-close-and-personal exploration of great evil. But in a series that has been so brave about so many other issues, they chose NOT to be brave enough to avoid using the iconic imagery of an expectant mother in peril as the most intense Damsel-in-Distress plot possible. Thus, they finally objectified Beauty completely. Her character became a symbol, not a hero. Her womanhood became a means to an end, not an intrinsic quality of human identity.
I am not speaking of the villains' attitudes toward Catherine. That is a related, yet separate expression of the story. No, I am objecting to the effect of how the storytellers parsed the scenario, scripted Catherine's lines and actions, and jury-rigged sudden unexplained changes in the relationship between Beast and Beauty. It was hasty and clumsy. And haste often reveals deep seated biases.The episodes following TLBL quickly found a new equilibrium, and proceeded to offer a story that I love dearly, a story that changed my life and my outlook forever. But as any classic fan could tell me, that does not exonerate or justify the anti-woman treatment of Beauty in the Season Three premiere.
Out of my shell enough for you, dear friend? ;)
~ Zara