Rant: So, need I worry ...
Feb. 22nd, 2012 10:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
readingrat... about Dominika?
Oh, no, no - I'm not worried about House screwing her, thus violating the vows of chastity and purity that bind him to Cuddy forever and ever. Cuddy haters would say that with his little detour into house renovation (no pun intended; I'm not a green card aspirant) he and Cuddy are quits and there's been closure. I'd put it a bit differently, but it amounts to the same thing: House can screw whom he likes, for all I care.
As long as it isn't a character that I'm invested in. Because even though the Amazing House With His Magical Swivelling Eye can see through walls when driving a car up the curb at 40 mph, he may discover the next time that he repeats that stunt that he can't brake in time if someone is actually inside a room that he's demolishing, and I'm not in the mood for DS and Co smirking triumphantly and saying, "People don't change and isn't this a wonderful series finale? This is what real guys do."
I've learnt more about 'real guys' this season than in all my years with my partner.
1. Wilson and House:
Real guys solve disputes and the like with their fists. Why speak about things like endangering the other's life or nearly killing a mutual friend when a gentle healing touch on the chin says more than a thousand words?
2. Adams and House:
Demolishing real estate is a probate remedy for problems with one's xy ex-partner (substitute 'selfish', 'cheating', 'bitchy', or what you please for 'xy').
3. House to Park: "Maybe it's time to recognize [violence is] not a character flaw. Maybe it's your character."
So, six years after 'Acceptance', when House didn't accept a tumour as an exculpating factor for violence, having a 'violent' character - whatever that may be - is considered reason and excuse enough for physical violence.
4. POTW of 'Man of the House': Only men unfortunate enough to have been kneed in the groin can control their baser urges. 'Normal', healthy men can't be blamed for their aggressive behaviour - it's all testosterone, without which they'd be perfectly peaceful and caring individuals - who can't fulfill their partners' sexual needs. And we wouldn't want that, would we?
If House gets involved with Dominika - I thought I sensed a hint of wistfulness in House's eyes at the idea of Dominika loving him - is she in danger? And if so, would that bother me? The answer to the second question is, not yet, but Dominika is a character whom I think I could like. She's a lot less irritating than Adams, she's clever, manipulative and funny.
As for the first question: of course she isn't in danger! She'd never order House around, belittle his pain issues, worry about his addiction, be 'all nag and no shag', or set him off by cheating on him like she did on two of her previous three spouses ... oops, got mixed up over there.
What with all the hoyay subtext this season, I'm a bit worried about Wilson. There are, after all, still a lot of episodes to go this season, more than after Bombshells last season, which means that there's plenty of time to set up something nasty. And I'd really hate to see this thing that House and Wilson have go up in the flames of a Shore-written finale.
If House puts anyone in the morgue, let it be Thirteen. That way, I can con myself into believing that it wasn't an act of pure undiluted hatred, but his way of fulfilling his euthanasia pledge. As for me, I'll risk a few more episodes and then I'll put myself into hiatus again until I'm sure that Wilson doesn't leave the show in a body bag.
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no subject
Date: 2012-02-22 10:31 pm (UTC)I've expressed concern several times this season that nearly every episode has someone punching someone or something else, threatening to punch someone else, or going to a disciplinary hearing because they punched someone else. A lot of attention was paid to that stupid gun in "Perils of Paranoia," and now there's been a near-fatal stabbing.
The PotW who has to compromise his sex drive in order to be able to act like a non-agressive, decent human being might be an invocation of the general theme of love/sexual relationships that must always be traded off against gifts like career success or medical genius, (ETA: It's just been pointed out to me that the last 2 PotWs have chosen a sort of celibacy; could this be where they're going with House? He's too devoted to some Greater Cause to lower himself to another try at a relationship?) but I'm not ruling out a series finale that includes serious violence. Not as a justification for House's behavior in Moving On -- they addressed that at the end of "Transplant," by showing that even mild-mannered sweet-eyed oncologists have violent impulses sometimes, and then hammered home in "Risky Business" the idea that wanton destruction of property is a fun and cathartic thing -- but as one of their grandly overwritten statements.
Glad to have you watching again, though. I always appreciate your thoughts.
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Date: 2012-02-23 01:43 pm (UTC)Actually, I'm sort of enjoying the season; IMO the quality of the medical cases has improved. I loved House's obsession with the dead boy; the POTW with Early Onset Alzheimer and his wife touched on a medical issue that is relevant to me (care of loved ones with dementia); 'Nobody's Fault', despite being a partly recycled episode regarding its central issues (and not exactly believable), was well written and acted. I also liked that last week's POTW chose to be nice, and that House ultimately chose Taub, who was not showing any alpha male qualities, to be team leader (although I doubt that means anything - I never felt that Foreman made any difference as team leader). I'm also appreciating the Return of the Clinic and Wilson's increased presence. I definitely missed the House/Wilson interaction last season; they and the differentials were a continuity factor that gave the show its special note. Unlike most other Huddy shippers I never considered it a good idea to give the relationship (or Cuddy) much screen time - not even before it became clear that the show would use it as a major angst factor. It just didn't fit in the show's dynamcis.
But I'd be enjoying it a lot more if I weren't being subjected to constant brainwashing regarding violence. Time was when the show was a moral lighthouse in the sea of conventional hypocrisy. 'Acceptance' with the Death Row candidate Clarence was one such milestone for me. But at the moment I feel that it's all about justifying the path the show took with 'Moving On' and which the writers appear to want to continue till the finale so as to exit with a big bang.
Glad to have you watching again, though. I always appreciate your thoughts.
Thanks. I haven't been writing much about the show and that probably won't change, because although I think the season isn't half bad, I don't respect House as a character any more, so it doesn't seem worth the bother. Before 'Moving On', when it was announced that LE would leave I was not exactly happy. (After 'Moving On' aired, I changed my mind and decided that it was a good thing she was leaving.) This time around, when the series finale was announced, it hardly bothered me either way.
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Date: 2012-02-23 12:48 am (UTC)I'm plumping for Thirteen over Wilson, but I still think that House himself makes the most sense.
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Date: 2012-02-23 01:48 am (UTC)I don't want Cuddy to come back, either, and it looks from the Dominika storyline like that's not gonna happen.
That tropical island from "Moving On" looks like a nice place for them to settle down. House could bartend and play piano and Wilson could treat the melanomas.
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Date: 2012-02-23 10:59 am (UTC)That would be perfect.
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Date: 2012-02-23 03:00 pm (UTC)Bwaah!
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Date: 2012-02-23 02:56 pm (UTC)Actually, not really. I'm being a bit of a hypocrite here.
My main issue is the stuff in the middle of the rant, namely that the show is trying to brainwash its viewers into assenting to some sort of Stone Age codex of socially acceptable violence. I'm an expert on brainwashing - as a teacher, mother and fundamentalist Christian it's basically my daily bread - but I most strongly disapprove of any brainwashing that I don't carry out myself.
The other issue was triggered by something that I read in the Hilson forum. I lurk there quite a bit because on average the posts there used to be, ummmm, more challenging than in my main shipper forum, the Huddy one. There was a thread there about ten days ago about five things one wouldn't want to see in the season finale. The most frequently stated one was 'No return of Cuddy', while a lot of posters expressed a wish to see House and Wilson in a relationship.
You won't find me disagreeing with the 'No return of Cuddy' sentiment - I doubt there's any way that could be handled in an appropriate manner. I don't even have an idea what an 'appropriate manner' is, in cases like these. I can also understand that many Hilson shippers would choose to ignore the implications of 'Moving On' and continue to indulge in their romantic fantasies. Many Huddy shippers are also trying to do the same, although since it was Cuddy's house that was demolished, those efforts are a bit of a challenge to stomach unless they go AU and erase the last minutes of 'Moving On' (which is my personal strategy).
What I have little patience with is the attempt to negate what House did in 'Moving On' by blaming it on Cuddy, which is what quite a few posters did directly or indirectly. When posters write that 'a car through the wall' is closure enough for the Huddy relationship even as they advocate Hilson, then they are basically saying that House's violence was Cuddy's issue, not House's, and certainly not one that need bother Wilson; in short, what we saw was Cuddy (that bitch!) getting her dues.
And no, I'm not imaging this. When Cuddyclothes posted that if Cuddy were to appear in the finale, then please only so House could apologize to her, another poster 'corrected' her post to say that Cuddy should apologize to House. Cuddyclothes reacted by explaining that she meant the car incident; the other poster responded by saying she meant the 'dumping because of one vicodin' incident. It wasn't an entirely serious discussion, but I got out of it that the other poster was of the opinion that Cuddy dumping House rated higher on the asshoodedness scale than outright and dangerous violence.
Now that, IMO, (quite apart from mixing up two completely different issues) is downright naive, and the latter part of my journal entry is my reaction to the sort of Hilson naivety that says, 'Oh, that could never happen to Wilson because he and House are destined for one another, and Wilson would never do any of the horrible things that Cuddy did to House, and House isn't an abuser, he's just a poor misunderstood soul who will be fine with his true soulmate.'
So my point here, disguised somewhat hypocritically in concern for Wilson (whom, however, I most emphatically do not want to see die, and certainly not at House's hand), is that painting House's character in rosy hues for the sake of rescuing one's Hilson ship is basically retconning of the worst kind. If House could to that to Cuddy, for whom he never cared as much as for Wilson, then, yes, he can do the same to Wilson. If I accept the canon version of 'Moving On', then House is not a partner whom I would wish on my worst foe, let alone Wilson.
Feel free to disagree.
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Date: 2012-02-23 06:51 pm (UTC)Please don't confuse some hilsons with all hilsons, though. Some people put all the blame on Cuddy, some pretend it never happened. I pretend the entire seventh season never happened because House was unrecognizable to me throughout it. Well, I saw him in 7.01, and I saw him again in 8.01. That was it. The rest was his evil twin, Skippy.
I think the other part of this is that some hilsons (or at least me) don't like Cuddy and thought the year long huddy focus ruined the show. So I wonder if the blame you notice doesn't stem in part from anger. This one event occurred in a context, and viewers had pre-existing feelings about the characters. That probably colors perceptions. Which isn't to say that I think she deserved it or it was her fault or anything like that. I'm just trying to explain what you noticed.
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Date: 2012-02-23 09:13 pm (UTC)I don't. Many pretty much share my views despite the difference in ships. I'm okay with, 'let's ignore the S7-finale so that Hilson can happen'. It is, after all, a show and not real life. It's the 'let's blame the victim for the mess, so that Hilson stays intact' that gets me.
the year long huddy focus ruined the show.
It did. I still have no idea what possessed TPTB to do that instead of sticking with the old, well-tested formula.
I wonder if the blame you notice doesn't stem in part from anger. This one event occurred in a context, and viewers had pre-existing feelings about the characters. That probably colors perceptions
Blaming the victim is a traditional technique for dealing with a distressing reality.
I understand how that line of thinking comes about, but that doesn't mean I have to approve of it or condone public utterances of it. People are free to hate certain characters, blame them for whatever happens in the show, etc., but they should think twice before disappointment at the failure of their favourite fantasy (and let's remember that 'House MD' is no more than that) causes them to utter sentiments in a public forum that basically justify crime or discriminate others. We had pretty much the same situation last year in the Huddy forum, with half the forum calling Dominika a whore. Yes, House flips the birdy at Cuddy by marrying her, but first, that isn't her fault, secondly, that doesn't make her a prostitute, just a pretty desperate economic refugee, and thirdly, using words like 'hooker' or 'whore' in order to denigrate a character is an insult to the people who are members of that profession. To this day I don't get why fans who objected to Dominika based on their perception of her as a hooker would still want the guy who married that hooker to renew his relationship with their favourite female character.
It'll be interesting to see how Hilson shippers stomach Dominika, should House end up sleeping with her.
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Date: 2012-02-24 10:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-24 09:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-24 10:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-04 09:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-04 10:39 pm (UTC)I thought about doing something with that, but it was too similar to Bizarro for me. I can't wait to see what you do with it!
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Date: 2012-03-05 02:41 pm (UTC)House was buried under the secondary collapse, which was engineered by Cuddy. Skippy then took his place. What neither Cuddy nor Skippy knew was that House survived buried in the rubble, where he spent the whole of S7, being updated and supplied with food by Wilson, who for his part kept a watchful eye on Skippy, trying to figure out how to neutralise him.
Cuddy and Skippy worried about Wilson finding out who Skippy was, so they did stuff to him like drugging him. Oh, and Skippy blackmailed Sam into spying on Wilson for them after he found out that she euthanised her patients. She gave Wilson the files hoping he'd get the message and send Skippy packing, but when he didn't she left to avoid further blackmail. After Recession Proof Cuddy and Skippy figured that Wilson was onto their game (no man in his senses would give the kind of advice Wilson was giving), so they decided to orchestrate Cuddy's 'death'. Unfortunately Wilson crossed their plans by taking her treatment into his own hands instead of refusing to treat a friend. Their plans got wilder and wilder after their pretend break-up (though I'm not sure they were really together), until Skippy drove his car into Cuddy's house. That gave Cuddy the excuse she needed to leave the state, and after the switch-back Skippy followed her.
As to the why, I really don't know, but maybe Cuddy was tired of having to dress in low-cut tops just to keep her employees under control.
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Date: 2012-02-23 09:25 pm (UTC)Wilson is still enabling House (talking Foreman out of sending him back to prison in "Dead and Buried" and giving him coaching and legal advice in "Man of the House") but he is, I think, drawing slightly better boundaries this season. House is still self-destructive and boundary-pushing, but he has both companionship and privacy (restricted by the Dominika situation), he has satisfying work. They both seem content. Why fix it if it ain't broke.
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Date: 2012-02-23 11:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-24 10:46 am (UTC)No - you've been noticeably quiet about House on the whole recently. Most of the people with whom I communicated regularly before the S7 finale weren't Huddy shippers, but they were, without exception, as pissed off as I was, which goes to show that the outrage at the finale was not the reaction of a bunch of squeeing LE fangirls, but justified outrage at an unprecedented show of bad taste. But I'm glad you've found a viable alternative - I haven't.
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Date: 2012-02-24 10:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-25 04:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-25 03:59 am (UTC)So my point here, disguised somewhat hypocritically in concern for Wilson (whom, however, I most emphatically do not want to see die, and certainly not at House's hand), is that painting House's character in rosy hues for the sake of rescuing one's Hilson ship is basically retconning of the worst kind. If House could to that to Cuddy, for whom he never cared as much as for Wilson, then, yes, he can do the same to Wilson. If I accept the canon version of 'Moving On', then House is not a partner whom I would wish on my worst foe, let alone Wilson.
Completely agree. There was actually quite a bit of argument last season aboard the good ship Hilson. I think it broke down like this:
1. 60% of Hilsons belonged to the horrified "never saw House like that, excuse me while I throw up" group.
2. 20% were of the "House had been spiraling out of control and just snapped and lost it. It was wrong, but he always had this possibility in him." school of thought.
3. With a remaining 20% of "Cuddy brought it on herself."
I was in the group #1 for exactly your reasoning. If this was truely House, than how can I ship H/W? Eventually though I just decided for my own interests to accept #2 and believe that the year in jail taught him consequences that he had never faced before. That way I could actually enjoy the show again and read/write fanfiction. In real life retconning our own or other's 'story' is dangerous, but in a fannish world, it seemed worth doing.
BTW, I can't stand that third group. They make me embarrassed to be a H/W fan alongside them.
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Date: 2012-03-25 12:03 pm (UTC)I thought I'd get there sometime, but it's proving difficult. Or rather, it isn't a line of thought that comforts me. If he hit rock bottom once, he may well do it again.
It's fine from my pov for Wilson to resume his friendship with House; if House were my son or brother I'd also feel obliged to support him. So, I have no issue with Hilson 'Friend'-shippers. It's the third group, the 'Cuddy had it coming her way' lot, that gets my goat. There was a similar movement in the Huddy circles that saw/sees Dominika as a 'slut' or 'whore' who stole House from his true love. That's kinda mistaking cause and effect, or perpetrator and victim. House married Dominika because he chose to do so, and Cuddy chose to end her relationship with him before that. If anyone had any obligation towards anyone else, it was definitely not Dominika. I find it disconcerting that an almost exclusively female fanbase can be so misogynistic as to excuse whatever their male hero does at the expense of victimised female characters.
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Date: 2012-02-23 11:08 am (UTC)Much as I like Dominika, I'm not believing any of this and find myself not really caring for the show as is.
However, if one does manage to accept canon,then your analysis is spot on, and I think we should worry more about Wilson than about Dominika.
Thirteen dying in the finale would make sense, yet I would hate having the finale being all about her.
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Date: 2012-02-23 03:15 pm (UTC)It's annoying on so many levels that I don't even know where to start. But I do know where I could end: it's a totally crappy message to send to impressionable youngsters who watch the show. In its early seasons the show was a moral instance that made us question the codex of morals and assumptions on which our society is based. Now, it's an amalgamation of the worst kind of prejudices. There was an outcry from the asexual community after the clinic case with the asexual couple, and I totally got their point. If House, without even seeing the case file, can predict that there's an underlying medical cause, then the message is that asexuality doesn't exist (otherwise he'd have had to see the file at the very least to be able to make an accurate prediction). Yeah, I'd feel slapped in the face, too, if I were asexual.
Thirteen dying in the finale would make sense, yet I would hate having the finale being all about her.
She's the one person whose death probably wouldn't make me tear up and whom I wouldn't miss in fanfics that dealt with the future, so at the risk of seeing too much of her in that one episode, I'd say, let her go. Oh, or Adams. But House, Wilson, Chase or Taub, or even Foreman would upset me on some level. And I'm rather fond of Park.
House enjoying a traditional coupledom,
I see it more as him yearning for any sort of domesticity, company, etc., rather like he enjoyed Alvie's presence in 'Baggage'. He's a lot less fussy than any of the others about who shares his personal space and what they do in it; there's a reason why his relationship with Stacy survived for five years and would probably have lasted forever if he hadn't had the infarction - although he grumbles and makes sarcastic comments, he doesn't expect much from the people around him.
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Date: 2012-02-23 03:21 pm (UTC)This.
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Date: 2012-02-23 11:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-24 01:43 am (UTC)House isn't a kid show, for sure, but there's a lot I admire about House. Or, admired, anyway.
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Date: 2012-02-24 03:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-24 11:31 am (UTC)They've been watching since they turned twelve (roughly); in the case of the third we had long discussions on whether it was suitable for her or not, because her sisters were watching, but I didn't want her to watch yet. I did have slight qualms when the second one, at age fourteen, expressed the desire to marry House. (Please note, House, not Hugh Laurie.) Since the other two candidates on her list of potential spouses were Kurt Cobain and Johnny Depp, I decided to let House stand as the least dangerous choice of the three. (Johnny Depp actually exists and is still alive, while Kurt Cobain has absolutely no redeeming feature that I can think of that would make him a suitable husband for any child of mine.) But given that a lot of adult fangirls, even ones my age and in steady relationships, express a desire to jump not just House, but even Hugh Laurie (sorry, but I'm old and curmudgeonly enough to consider that in pretty bad taste), I don't think that her problem is one that will magically cease once she reaches adulthood. (I've told her that she's free to jump people like House, but that she should marry someone who is closer to her father and her uncles in behaviour and to herself in age.)
I find the show a good starting point for discussions on morals and absolutes. I'm a bit of a religious nutter, so my kids have been getting brainwashed in my church since they were born. For some reason, despite my own religious convictions, I don't approve of convictions based on ignorance, and I don't share most of the moral and social opinions that my brothers and sisters in Christ propagate. If my children are to follow in my footsteps, I want it to be because they make an educated choice, not because they've never even considered the alternatives. And I certainly don't want them to follow society's rules blindly without realising that those rules are a mirror of a certain age and culture, not absolute rules of conduct based on immutable laws. In that sense, IMO, early season House is an excellent role model. I do, however, make it clear that bullying people who are one's dependents (his team, patients, their loved ones) is not a sign of 'coolness', but rather the opposite. People who possess natural authority don't need to resort to manipulation to exert it. Kids can normally relate to that quite well: if one asks them which of their teachers they respect, they'll point out the ones who manage to tame the kids without yelling, resorting to psychological warfare or turning the kids against each other.
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Date: 2012-02-24 11:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-25 12:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-24 11:11 pm (UTC)